What is the best alternative to&#x20;Haiku?

Debian offers stable and testing CD images specifically built for GNOME (the default), KDE Plasma Workspaces, Xfce and LXDE. Less common window managers such as Enlightenment, Openbox, Fluxbox, GNUstep, IceWM, Window Maker and others can also be installed. See More

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score 2607 · Answer 2

Debian GNU/Linux

Top Pro

Wide choice in desktop environments

Top Con

Stable release contains extremely outdated packages

If you want the newest packages, you'll have to do a minimal installation of Debian stable then upgrade to testing or you need to install testing directly. See More

Top Pro

Standard vanilla Linux desktop

Debian runs standard Gnome, XFCE, KDE - it doesn't use its own special desktop environment or debian specific modifications or customisations, which means that users benefit from the work of the whole Linux community, Debian developers can focus on the distribution itself, and any support for your desktop environment on other distributions should work on Debian as well. See More

Top Con

Internal quarrels harm the project

Instead of working all together to provide the best Operating System, some maintainers are just ignorant and aggressive to new ideas or new maintainers. That led to many crises and controversy in Debian's history. See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Debian has a Stable branch, where packages are thoroughly tested before release. Furthermore Debian is know to be the definition of stable when it comes to production systems. See More

Top Con

No default support for unfree drivers

Debian does not official support unfree software so if you have a wifi card or anything elese that requires an unfree driver you will need to download the unofficial/non-advertised non-free iso image which contains all unfree driver packages. See More

Top Pro

Install and forget

Once installed you can almost forget about it and start to use your desktop for your daily tasks. See More

Top Con

Ridiculous package splitting

Even though it makes sense to split devel and the actual binary of an application, the splitting has become as mess in debian and its derivates: for example the nvidia driver is splitted into over 40 different packages. See More

Top Pro

Wide choice of hardware platforms

Debian has the widest choice of hardware platforms, including: amd64, armel, armhf, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-i386, kfreebsd-amd64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, sparc, s390, s390x, source, multi-arch. See More

Top Con

No choices

Debian basically doesn't give you any choices, even dpkg supports this feature with virtual packages: for example, it is very hard to use a different sound system than ALSA, like OSS4 or to use ALSA with pulse audio emulation, and the same goes for different init systems. See More

Top Pro

Comes with over 55.500 packages

Because of its popularity, Debian has a lot of applications available which range from productivity programs to business software, games and development tools. It comes with over 55.500 packages (software that is precompiled and ready to be installed on a local machine) -- all of them for free. See More

Top Con

Systemd is everywhere

Systemd is very hard to debug by itself, and can break in very strange ways (such as not being able to mount a single partition on bootup), but the increasing number of desktops that are relying on specific functionality provided only by systemd (policy kit, dbus, etc) makes the entire system more fragile and harder to debug. See More

Top Pro

Big open-source project

The Debian project is one of the biggest open source projects with over 5000 active contributors. See More

Top Con

Inconsistent init systems

While Linux uses systemd, non-Linux ports use the traditional sysvinit. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find help with any problem

Debian is one of the oldest and most popular distros out there. Debian's popularity means that you will always be able to find a solution for your problem just by searching on Google, or if by chance nobody has had the problem you are having it's very easy to ask the community and quickly get a solution. See More

Top Con

Outdated kernel of the live system

Since the LiveCD is based on Debian stable the kernel is old, outdated but stable. See More

Top Pro

Highly secure system

Known for being consistent in maintaining a highly secure system. Several other popular distros use Debian as a base or core for their own Linux OS, the security being one of the main factors why it's so commonly used. See More

Top Con

Hard to learn

Top Pro

The Debian Social Contract

Guaranteed commitment to adherence to values, principles, priorities, requirements and guidelines by the Debian project. See More

Top Con

Not designed for general desktop usage

By default, Debian Stable is not that great of a distro for general desktop usage, since the packages are very outdated. You'll have to spend a while configuring the system in order to make it work. See More

Top Pro

Well-working team

The developer works very well so the the code is one of the best written out there. See More

Top Con

Breaks if you suspend/resume

Breaks when you resume the activity on the system if you use nvidia cards. See More

Top Pro

Rolling or Release based

Every Debian Release can either use a Rolling or Release based model. See More

Top Con

Buggy and non-user friendly

You need to know almost as much as Arch and deal with documentation not as good as the Arch wiki in order for Debian to work. See More

Top Pro

A lot of ways to install software

You can either use aptitude, apt or apt-build to install software from the Debian package archives. See More

Top Con

No good choices of fresh desktop environments

GNOME is quite outdated and buggy; KDE is too old, even in Sid it is at 5.14 branch (at Jun 13 2019 Plasma 5.16 is available in many rolling/fresh distros); XFCE behaves like crooked, visual artifacts at the taskbar and so on; Cinnamon as far as I know works better in Linux Mint compared to (almost) any other distro; For other desktop environments (e.g. MATE) can't say - these are too new (as projects) and possibly incomplete, thus might have many bugs. See More

Top Pro

Great for gaming

As Debian is the base for SteamOS and because Ubuntu is based on it, it's almost certain that all Linux games will run properly and require no hacks like creating symbolic links because of some hardcoded paths. See More

Top Con

Old software is not useful, but is stable

Certainly for the stable and old stable versions. But the testing version has quite up to date software. See More

Top Pro

Live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives

Debian releases live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives, for the i386 and amd64 architectures, and with a choice of desktop environments. These Debian Live images allow the user to boot from a removable media and run Debian without affecting the contents of their computer. See More

Top Pro

A real installer

Unlike other distributions that just extract their Live image, Debian offers a real traditional and modular installer to customize the installation. See More

Top Pro

Strict separation of non-free software

Debian is one of the few distros that let the user choose if he wants a free system or not. See More

Top Pro

Many ports

Debian supports almost any Kernel maintained CPU instructions set. It has also a few non Linux Ports. See More

Top Pro

Widely supported

Almost any software that is available for Linux provides a Debian package. See More

Top Pro

Apt-build

It is possible to rebuild the entire system and optimize it for your hardware (of course, it is not as detailed as Gentoo's USE flags). See More

Top Pro

Great choice for returning Linux users

If you haven't used Linux for a long time, say 5-10 years, it's a great distro in which you can quickly get in the boat again. You don't have to worry about falling back. Everything is in its place. See More

Top Pro

Supports SecureBoot

You don't have to disable SecureBoot if you use it, which is useful for LiveUSB or dualboot setups. See More

Top Pro

Wise release model

Debian stable does not update a lot and instead provides stability and well tested softwares. You don't get distracted by every shiny new stuff that comes out, and focus on what matters: productivity and reliability of your system. See More

Top Pro

Debconf

Depending how it is configured debconf does the most of the hard work for you and only asks you with configuration /file conflicts. See More

Top Pro

Standard archives

Debs are normal ar and tar archives with shell scripting and additional gz, bz, lzma or xz compression. See More

Top Pro

Unique release cycle

The most Linux distros have one or two stages before a release, but Debian has five before a new stable version is released (experimental > unstable > testing > code-freeze/bug hunting > stable). See More

Top Pro

TUI installer

The Debian installer can still be launched as text/curses-like installer which is more compatible and keyboard-friendly than the graphical version. See More

Top Pro

Has small amount of today's bugs (e.g. no duplicate web cameras in Skype - likely not Skype's fault)

But has quite a few bugs from 2016-2017, apparently for long term. See More

Specs

Package Manager:dpkg (Debian Package Manager)

OS Family:GNU/Linux

Release Schedule:approximately every 24 months

Main Usage:Universal

Developers are working migrating all packages into their own repositories while ensuring there's no systemd malware. See More

2607 405

score 1126 · Answer 3

Artix Linux

Top Pro

No systemd

Top Con

Few Arch packages might not be available yet

Top Pro

Runit

Artix actively supports the runit init system known from Void Linux. (Equally besides the OpenRC init system known from Gentoo). See More

Top Con

No systemd

Some packages flat out won't work because systemd is non existent, sadly pipewire needs systemd to run. Hopefully Pipewire becomes usable soon. Edit: Pipewire does work but you will have to make a startup script. See More

Top Pro

Close to bare Arch Linux

No learning curve if you're coming from Arch or any of its derivatives. See More

Top Con

No tiling WM (i3/sway) out of the box

Top Pro

Rolling distro

Top Pro

Flexibility

You can have a functional system in less than 10 mins using GUI installer OR you can do it "the Arch way". See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Only the software you would need like Terminal emulator, file manager, media player and a browser. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with Arch Repositories

It is fully compatible with almost all packages from community, extra, multilib and AUR. See More

Specs

Based On:Arch Linux

Default Desktop Environment:Bash (Unix shell), Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, LXDE, LXQt, MATE and XFCE

Package Manager:Pacman

OS Family: GNU/Linux

With some proprietary hardware (eg:NVIDIA) you may have a hard time setting up your drivers. But most of the time, some distributions handle hardware better than other operating systems, especially when it comes to older hardware. See More

1126 205

score 734 · Answer 4

GNU/Linux

Top Pro

Lots of development tools available

Top Con

Issues with drivers if your hardware is not officially supported

Top Pro

Most likely also your deployment target

Makes testing while developing easier. According to a September 2014 study by W3 Techs, *nix based servers are used on over 2/3 of websites. See More

Top Con

Maintenance can be time-consuming

You are gonna have to go through a lot of documentation to fix if something breaks. But that time is totally worth it if you are willing to pay it. Because it is likely that you'll find a fix 95% of the time. See More

Top Pro

Access to really powerful terminals

Top Con

Too much customization

To get features on par with OS X, you need to research packages, install them and configure them. Even then, it may not be as good as OS X. See More

Top Pro

Large percentage of Linux users are developers

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Top Pro

Package managers

You can install any library or package that you need (gcc, php, node) with just a couple of commands in the terminal. See More

Top Con

HiDPI support sucks

Many developers work on apps that should work on HiDPI monitors. In most distros, HiDPI simply suck on Linux, and making that work is a nightmare. See More

Top Pro

Most software is open source

Top Con

Hard to get used to working in the terminal

It might be a challenge when trying to get used to using the terminal a lot to get around certain things See More

Top Pro

Most Linux distributions are free

Top Con

Less and worse professional software is developed, due to the low user base

Depending on what type of work you are doing, you may find Linux software lacking compared to their Win/Mac counterparts. For example in game development, tools, like Unreal Engine or Unity, usually lack in quality or novelty compared with Windows. Having crashes or bugs that aren't fixed for a while. See More

Top Pro

Flexibility

GNU/Linux handles desktop sessions differently than Windows. Users may customize their own sessions; in fact, a single user may use different desktop environments for different login sessions. See More

Top Con

Low user base to develop to

Linux can develop to any system with the right tools. Mono allows development to Windows. Python and Ruby too. C and C++ can be developed to Windows. See More

Top Pro

Familiarity with Linux is often required from a developer

Many university computer science programs are based on Linux and in any case, you will inevitably be dealing with a Linux box of one flavor or another someday, be it a server (most likely) or a workstation. The languages and methods used in the Linux/Unix environment (e.g., bash, C, C++, Make, etc.) are very commonplace among developers and are to the computer side of the discipline what the English language is to the human side of it: the common language. See More

Top Con

A wide variety of distributions available

With a lot of variety, one cannot deploy to a single system and has to prepare for a bundle of distributions, instead of just one. See More

Top Pro

A wide variety of distributions available

With a lot of variety, one can use the distribution that fits the type of work best because of the many choices that are given, instead of just one. See More

Top Pro

Works great on older hardware

7-10-year-old Dell laptops can run Unix or Unix-like OSes very well, where Windows would grind/drag/vomit. See More

Top Pro

Follows the UNIX philosophy

The UNIX philosophy: 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well'. Since Linux itself follows this philosophy then it's very easy to start creating scripts and programs. See More

Top Pro

UNIX-like

Nice, developer-friendly environment. See More

Top Pro

Choose any type of desktop environment (or none)

Most Linux distributions support a range of desktop environments, be it plain old X, a tiling window manager or a fully fledged mammoth desktop like GNOME or KDE. See More

Top Pro

Extremely fast

Can be made even faster by going GUI-free or using a lightweight window manager. See More

Top Pro

No telemetry, unlike Windows

Top Pro

Lower chance of data loss

Linux has very few viruses. So there's almost no chance of getting infected by a virus and thus losing your data including your important programming files. See More

Top Pro

Hardly ever crashes

And if it does you can often drop into console and fix the error before returning to desktop. See More

Top Pro

Sometimes it "just works"

Sometimes Linux tends to just work with little to no effort or troubleshooting required. Most of the times it doesn't, though. See More

Top Pro

Isn't "locked down"

Windows and MacOS tend to restrict what the user/developer can do with their PC while Linux empowers the user/developer so they can do whatever they need/want with their PC without unnecessary restrictions. See More

Top Pro

Get works done

Get near each and every work done within the command line or terminal, it makes everything so simple as compared to any other os See More

Top Pro

Easy to setup development environment

It's very easy to setup the development environment. In fact most of the time you don't even need to do much. For an example you don't even have to install GCC if you are coding in C/C++. Some distribution comes with JDK or JRE pre installed. Even if it doesn't, it's very easy to install a JDK than on Windows. There are plenty of free and open source / proprietary IDE's available. See More

Top Pro

Easy and quick installation

Just grab a ISO file, a 20GB partition on your HDD and boom. You are ready to go. See More

Specs

License:GNU GPL

OS Family:GNU/LInux

Widget Toolkit:GTK, Qt, wxWidgets

It is made to be KISS (keep it simple, stupid), so you have to do everything by hand. See More

734 49

score 353 · Answer 5

Slackware

Top Pro

Strong adherence to UNIX Principals

Top Con

Not user-friendly

Top Pro

Stable

Uses stable, plain-vanilla packages from upstream. See More

Top Con

Large size live ISO

One needs to vain 3GB+ data for downloading one slackware ISO. See More

Top Pro

Ideal to learn more of Linux

Follows the original Linux roots. It still sees Linux as a free clone of UNIX so the distribution tries to be UNIX-like. See More

Top Con

Narrow repos

Doesn't offer the same amount of options as other distros do. See More

Top Pro

One more distro which is init based

Some users don't like to install systemd based distros because they increase booting and processing speed. See More

Top Con

Niche/small community

Slackware is its own niche and has a small community. See More

Top Pro

Oldest surviving Linux distro

Besides Debian (which was first released in August 1993), it is the oldest still maintained Linux Distribution and was first released in July 1993. See More

Top Con

Very slow release cycle

Hasn't updated in 3+ years. See More

Top Pro

Package management

Uses standard tar archives with shell scripting as packages. See More

Top Con

Dependency issues

When it comes to dependencies, Slackware shows more issues than many other distros. See More

Top Pro

Super fast

Top Pro

No systemd

Specs

Based On:Softlanding Linux System

Default Desktop Environment:KDE SC

Init-System:SysVinit

Package Manager:Pkgtool

Tumbleweed is stable enough to use every day. Updates are OpenQA tested to ensure stability before being released for Tumbleweed. Bleeding edge untested software can be tried using OpenSUSE factory. See More

353 57

score 332 · Answer 6

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Top Pro

Stable

Top Con

Little / no third-party support

Like it or not, most third parties don't want to deal with less-popular distros. So most of them only support Ubuntu LTS and those versions of RHEL/CentOS that are still supported. See More

Top Pro

Easy installation and cutting edge apps

Top Con

Complex multimedia codecs and plugins installation

Top Pro

A large amount of software

Top Con

"Online Update" update in YaST control center only works in openSUSE Leap

Top Pro

Tumbleweed + OpenSUSE Build Service

Top Con

Packman repository has to be added to have good software support

Top Pro

Good selection of preinstalled applications

Top Con

Slow and painful unfortunately, especially compared to other modern distros

Top Pro

User friendly + Good support

Active and friendly user community, updates come fast See More

Specs

Based On:Jurix>SUSE

Price:Free

Release Schedule:Rolling

Can create your own ISO (snapshot) and use it either as live-session and install back when needed. With the (pre-installed) Snapshot tool you can easily create an ISO of your running system and then save it to a USB (or other media) and use "your own" distro as a live session or install back whenever you like (even on a different PC with different specs with no issues). You can even give that customized ISO to friends (selecting "non-personal" ISO when creating the snapshot; thus resetting the accounts & passwords and Home folder etc.). Also you can save that ISO directly encrypted via MX Live USB Maker tool. Again, you can install MX encrypted during installation with just ticking a box, no matter if it's the official ISO or your snapshot. See More

332 65

score 563 · Answer 7

MX Linux

Top Pro

Easy to use

Top Con

Only one Desktop Environment

Top Pro

MX Snapshot: lets you make your own distro

Top Con

Its XFCE version is too laggy

XFCE is meant to be lightweight, and it's almost true for other XFCE distros but not for MX Linux. See More

Top Pro

Supports non-free drivers

Top Con

Old software

Many software applications are older. See More

Top Pro

Good MX Tools and Package Installer

MX Linux comes with its own set of tools called MX Tools, designed to make life easier for users. See More

Top Con

Remixed Debian testing

It's mainly a Debian stable with some recompiled/backported Debian testing packages. See More

Top Pro

Easy install

Top Con

Includes non-free drivers

Top Pro

Based on Debian

It is based on Debian and not based on Ubuntu. See More

Top Con

More than 50 tweaking softwares pre-installed

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Longer boot time

Top Pro

Very stable

Top Con

10s of media players preinstalled

Top Pro

No systemd

Top Con

Too much preinstalled applications

Top Pro

Can also be used as an emergency tool

It has almost all tools to repair non booting systems or recover files & folders and save them on a safe place. And when thought together with it starts quick on live-session. In addition, you can do these with "your own", customized distro (snapshot). See More

Top Con

Causes overheating on some hardwares

Other debian based XFCE distros- Xubuntu, Debian XFCE, Devuan leave small footprint on system whereas MXLinux uses too much CPU resources on same system. See More

Top Pro

Live-Session boots fastest after Puppy

After Puppy Linux (which's aimed to run from RAM and which is smaller in size) the second fastest (head & shoulders) booting one (together with the sister project antiX) and also has the option "toram" to run from RAM. Yes, not only when compared to full distros, even far faster than small sized or tiny distros, especially when booted to "live-session", about 2 - 2.5 times faster on an old single core laptop. See More

Top Con

Installer and configuration tools are different

Installer and configuration tools are different and can take some time getting used to. See More

Top Con

Too much customization

Specs

Based On:Debian Stable>antiX

Default Desktop Environment:XFCE

Init-System:SysV-init (default) & systemD

Package Manager:Debian Package Manager

Arch's goal of simplicity means there's usually one preferred way to get things done - through organized and well documented configuration files. This focus, combined with the community's recognition that configuration files can be intimidating, has resulted in excellent documentation that's accessible to newcomers, and very instructive about how Linux actually works. The documentation is often so thorough that, when searching for solutions to problems while using other distributions, such as with video card drivers, oftentimes you'll find the most effective solution in the Arch Linux wiki or on the forums. See More

563 121

score 3292 · Answer 8

Arch Linux

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Top Con

Manual install process

The installation requires a lot of manual intervention/decisions. See More

Top Pro

A package for almost everything

If you need to install something, chances are someone in the Arch community has already made a package for it. This makes it incredibly easy for you to install and maintain all of the non-media content on your computer. See More

Top Con

Works only on AMD64

It is the only official supported instruction set of CPUs. See More

Top Pro

Arch Linux Wiki

The Arch Linux Wiki is very useful not just for Arch Linux users, but for anyone who uses Linux. See More

Top Con

Requires some background with Linux and the command-line to setup

Going in with zero Linux knowledge is not really recommended when wanting to install Arch, though it can be a good learning experience for those that are dedicated to trial and error as well as reading many faqs. See More

Top Pro

As slim or copious as you want it

Arch keeps its core repositories slim and free of unnecessary dependencies. At first installation only a bare system is set up. You can easily get the other applications through the package manager. The repositories are nearly as full as those of Ubuntu, while they are often more up to date. That way you don't have to waste time with software you don't need or want. See More

Top Con

No graphical installer

Although some derivatives such as Manjaro and ArcoLinux exist. See More

Top Pro

Fast and simple package management

Pacman has performance advantages over apt-get and yum in both database operations (thanks to being written for speed) and download times (by virtue of using better mirrors than other distributions tend to select by default). There are also fewer default repositories to download from, and all package management is combined into one tool instead of being split into dpkg, apt-get, and apt-cache like on Debian distros. See More

Top Con

Not for the faint of heart

You need to be very carefully with updates. See More

Top Pro

Excellent package management with the AUR

The AUR is a repository with a very extensive catalogue of build/install scripts that are contributed by users. While these scripts are inherently less secure than conventional packages maintained by a distro's authors, it's still way easier to verify the security of install scripts than it would be to write them yourself. It's very usefull. See More

Top Con

Fragile packages

Updating an Arch system is always a gamble. The problem could be as simple as a package having a bug causing a program to crash on start or it may be something bigger like the WiFi or Bluetooth no longer working. There is also the slight chance the system may not even boot at all after a large update. If the user does not plan to read the forums weekly/daily or update fairly often, things can go wrong very fast. See More

Top Pro

No restrictive handholding, pure control over everything

Arch is mainly aimed at experienced Linux users, there is no hand-holding and not much in a way of UI elements when trying to install or tweak settings. See More

Top Con

Instability can be an issue

Sometimes you can have a surprise, but in most cases it can be fixed quickly. See More

Top Pro

Good overall system quality

QoL of Arch is generally good. You get something more consistent and doable in Arch then you would get with most other OSes. See More

Top Con

Highly egotistical community

Top Pro

Cutting edge rolling release

Arch Linux follows a rolling release model, which allows users to stay on the most up-to-date versions of the software they are using. See More

Top Con

Occasional upstream package bugs

Most package maintainers look for issues that the packages might have ispecifically for arch. Which means if a package has a bug that applies to all Linux distros regardless of the flavor, the maintainer may not be able to: A) catch it before pushing a update or B) have to wait for the packages developers to fix it. This is a minor issue because most issues are often patched before the end of the day if many users rely on it, or if its a less used package there will be specific troubleshooting instructions on the arch site. See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

You can tailor the system to your needs. See More

Top Con

Rolling release requires bandwidth

Arch uses a rolling release model for updates. Unlike, for example Ubuntu where a new version is released every six months, packages are updated when they are ready. The advantage is a very up to date system and that the work of upgrading can be spread over a longer span of time to a point where it is hardly noticeably effort. However it can be difficult for people without a high bandwidth connection, or with limits on how many GB can be downloaded imposed by their internet service providers. A GB a month of downloads is quite possible. This can be somewhat offset by Arch being lightweight, besides the relatively small core, the user selects what is installed (and has to be updated). See More

Top Pro

Support for a large variety of hardware

From latest wacom pads to obscure wireless cards in laptops Arch's hw support has been and continues to be good. It has worked on laptops where other leading distro's like debian/ mint/ ubuntu failed to detect and work with all hardware. See More

Top Con

Too many package upgrades that require manual intervention

Every year or so there is a update to ArchLinux that will break your system unless you first read the front page of archlinux.org. This happened with SystemD and with a few other updates that require you to do prior steps befor pacman -Syu. See More

Top Pro

Simplicity is absolutely the principal objective behind Arch development

The design approach of the development team focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism, and simplicity, and expects the user to be willing to make some effort to understand the system's operation. See More

Top Con

Lost its way

It aimed to be KISS but it has lost its way and is getting more and more complex, for example, it uses systemd which is anything but KISS. It also has now some kind of package post configuration included. See More

Top Pro

An opportunity to improve

The process of learning to setup and use Arch will improve your skills with Linux and computers in general. See More

Top Con

Documentation only makes sense if you know how to adjust it

While the documentation is a very valuable reference for experts, the recipes often don't actually work on your own computer. Some articles are outdated, incomplete, contradictory or duplicated. Only if you are expert enough to know which steps to skip, to adjust or which other documentation parts to plug in, you can make it work. See More

Top Pro

Huge Repositories

Although Arch Linux only comes with around 10,000 packages, you can use the Arch User Repositories (AUR) which will add over 50,000 more packages. See More

Top Con

Not really for desktop

More like for posting screenshots on Reddit. See More

Top Pro

Helpful community

If searching through the wiki or the forums for any problems turns nothing, any question on the official forums, Arch subreddit or the IRC channel will be answered within minutes. There will probably be no hand-holding however, Arch users prefer to point anyone to a resource that may help them instead of trying to outright solve their problem in a forum thread. This is quite helpful for people who want to really learn how their system works but also for other people who may stumble in that thread considering how most problems don’t have a universal solution. See More

Top Con

Some updates might need extra attention

for example, new grub packages, and new postgresql packages, etc. See More

Top Pro

It is Linux at the core

This distro is barebones enough to make a new distro from. See More

Top Con

Not so great overall

Apart from the ArchBuildSystem/AUR, which brings you very quickly newer package versions, there is not really much where Arch Linux shines. You get better package managers with other systems. The most Linux distributions are far more stable than Arch. You learn more about Linux by using LFS or a source based distribution. You can customize the system much more in LFS or Gentoo. See More

Top Pro

Vanilla

Learn about Arch, learn about Linux. What works for Arch, works for many other distros too. See More

Top Con

Uses systemd

Top Pro

Simple by design

Arch Linux is actually incredibly simple. It's really just a partition scheme, package manager, Linux kernel, file system, systemd and the bare minimum of utilities needed to easily set up your hardware. This makes it super simple to build your desired system using binary packages because there no bloat getting in your way when installing or configuring packages. See More

Top Con

You have to install everything by hand on a command line

This may be a CON for a lot of people that are new to Linux but a PRO to those who actually want to learn something new. See More

Top Pro

Incredible educational value

Arch gives great insight in the inner workings of operating systems, computers and data manipulation. See More

Top Con

Problems with driver/kernel/gpu consistency

Arch has no proper desktop support, you must craft your system together. Things may work for the first but generally it takes days to configure a stable and working system. This is NOT ideal for a desktop user. See More

Top Pro

Helpful for understanding how Linux is installed

Arch does not come with an automatic installation process. The user is expected to walk through the installation steps published on the Arch wiki. This is very useful if, later, something happens to the installation as the user will be more familiar with the foundational steps required to get a full blown Arch installation working. See More

Top Con

Package manager is so naive

For example, it doesn't allow you to purge (remove package and its configuration files). See More

Top Pro

Great for low performance hardware

Arch Linux works quite well with low performance hardware like netbooks. See More

Top Pro

Rolling updates

Updating will keep the whole OS up to date (unlike Ubuntu/Debian/etc. where occasionally you will need to perform major version updates). See More

Top Pro

No need for external repos

The default and community repo of Arch Linux are so vast, that there is barely any need for additional software sources. And if there is, the additional software can be added to AUR, which results in the need actually growing the Arch repos. See More

Top Pro

Stripped down to the bone

Since its stripped down, it is fast and you don't have to deal with bloatware. See More

Top Pro

Flexible upgrades

Upgrade once a day, once a week, once a month,... three times a day... automate it, upgrade manually, add packages to the ignore list. See More

Top Pro

Supports various desktop environments and window managers

Doesn't limit you in terms of desktop environments or graphical servers (X, Wayland). See More

Top Pro

Low maintenance

To basically keep your Arch setup up and running, it takes very little to barely any maintenance. See More

Top Pro

Incredibly easy to manage

Arch is very simple to maintain, backup and in rare cases repair and recover. For example, the manual to recover your boot manager is already in the install guide! See More

Top Pro

Great hardware support

Out of the box Arch comes with great hardware support. See More

Top Pro

Highly reliable and stable build

See experts working on the packages and upgrades. Given Arch splits the load among people who care and have the experience, the overall setup is very stable and reliable, even though very broad too. See More

Top Pro

Good for ricing for r/unixporn

Arch Linux provides a minimal user experience and tons of packages, which means that ‘ricing’ (customising your desktop to it’s limits) will be unrestrictive and you won’t have to worry about bloating your system. See More

Top Pro

Minimal

If you need something, you should install it. It has nothing as default and you can build your system from zero. See More

Top Pro

Multilib support is just around the corner

Just uncomment the according entries in the pacman.conf. See More

Top Pro

Vast variety of use and purpose

With its vast repos, Arch offers tons of applications for all kinds of use. See More

Top Pro

Ultimate mid-range OS for Tinkering

If you like to tinker with things and see how they work you don't get much better than arch linux unless you commit to building your own kernel and using flags manually when installing your packages. See More

Top Pro

Helpful 3rd-party installers

There are extremely helpful 3rd-party installers such as Anarchy Linux (Formerly Arch Anywhere). See More

Top Pro

On average only 1 manual intervention needed a year now

The comments about issues with upgrades are over-exaggerated. Those comments assume that : A) They happen often, B) you are using a specific package with an issue, C) that package maintainers can't release a patch to the package that will work around the issue for you, and that D) Manual intervention or system recovery from such issues is hard to fix. On average once or twice a year a user may have to cut and paste some commands in the terminal to fix an issue, but that's about it. Additionally any system recovery required from such missed interventions is easy, just follow the wiki and make a live USB if your using a desktop or laptop. See More

Top Pro

Great security out of the box

Even a default Arch setup offers great security with the minimum number of open ports and very little information on the system for outsiders. See More

Top Pro

Experts working on the packages

Providers only provide the basic system and do a great job doing so. While with AUR people who actually use the packages, provide and maintain them. They CARE about making them work. See More

Top Pro

Highly reliable upgrades

Always works. No matter if you upgrade 7 or 700 packages. See More

Top Pro

Easier to review the distributions packages

Unlike other some distributions, it's super simple to review the packages you download on the official arch repos or arch user repository. See More

Top Pro

You actually learn a LOT of the inner workings of your OS.

Since you do everything by hand and a LOT of it, you actually learn very useful things even for other distros. See More

Top Pro

Completely signed repos by default

Arch-based distros, or even Arch installers, often use unsigned repositories. See More

Top Pro

Arch Linux Archive lets you choose your own update schedule

Despite being rolling release Arch Linux lets you be flexible about your update policy. If distro repos moved forward, but you don't want to update, you can temporarily switch to Arch Linux Archive, which stores repo snapshots across time. Later, when you're ready to update, you switch back to bleeding edge. See More

Specs

Based On:Independent

Default Desktop Environment:N/A

Package Manager:Pacman

Manjaro allows the user to access of the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives. See More

3292 538

score 3796 · Answer 9

Manjaro Linux

Top Pro

Arch User Repository access

Top Con

Can still be unstable

Here are the details of it. See More

Top Pro

Based on Arch and user friendly

Manjaro is an Arch-based distribution with all the benefits of the Arch ecosystem and community but with the added benefit of being much more user-friendly than Arch.The overall features it provides is hard to beat. Arguably be the best desktop distro with lts kernel. Consumes very less ram. See More

Top Con

Installation is extremely buggy

There's no easy way to switch from local keyboard layout if non-Latin installer language is selected. See More

Top Pro

Installation is a breeze

Calamares installer and MHWD is the reason why this distribution is good for desktop user- friendliness! Audio codecs, latest packages,latest kernel and easy upgrade to the latest build makes it the best choice for new users. See More

Top Con

Very slow development for 32-bit hardwares

ArchLinux-32 community maintain their forums every day. They upload new ISO's every month. But Manjaro-32 community upload new ISO's in every 6 month. And provide only a DE-mate. See More

Top Pro

Stable and consistently up to date

Manjaro receives regular updates, but more importantly these updates are stable. The updates are rolled out, which means you can easily update the software without needing to re-install. See More

Top Con

Slightly bloated

Top Pro

Support for multiple kernels

Manjaro has built-in support for multiple kernels as well as a way to easily install them. Using LTS kernel makes this distro stable and less buggy. See More

Top Con

Weekly manual updates

Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every week, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users. See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; Snap support, Flatpak support and AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

Top Con

The Manjaro unstable repository is slow to sync with the Arch stable repository

The Manjaro unstable repository syncs with the Arch stable repository and if any package has moved, it gets moved to stable. Manjaro gets package updates a bit than Arch. See More

Top Pro

Improved stability due to a longer testing period for new packages

Packages from Arch's repositories are tested (about two weeks) longer for stability and compatibility issues. Patches are applied, when necessary, before being made available in the stable repositories. See More

Top Con

Imcompatible with Arch User Repository and archlinuxcn

Because Manjaro packages are not synced with Arch, using AUR or archlinuxcn could break dependencies. See More

Top Pro

Very good looking desktops

All desktops look good by default. See More

Top Con

Bad dependencies

This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank. See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

If you ask questions of users in their forums or on other platforms, they are willing to help you. Also according to the developers, they are open to new ideas in order to make the distro better. See More

Top Con

You can't change the default theme in certain applications

Although it is possible to change the default dark theme, this has no effect on Firefox, which appears to have the dark theme "hard coded". Hardened Linux pros may find a way to change this, but for the rest, it renders an otherwise nice distro a no-go. See More

Top Pro

A rolling-release distribution

Manjaro uses a rolling release method for all updates, so once a system is installed, as long as the user regularly updates there is no need to re-install. See More

Top Con

Nothing new

There is nothing new in Manjaro compared to any other Arch based distribution. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and forum

The Manjaro community is very helpful, and there are lots of tutorials. See More

Top Con

Deepin desktop environment is not a worthy attraction, there is a problem with changing Multi language layout

Top Pro

Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm)

Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include: The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary) Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus) Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own) See More

Top Con

Redundant

It's just Arch Linux with an easier installer so there is no reason to use it. See More

Top Pro

Uses low memory

By using Xfce or Plasma (or LXDE, Fluxbox, supported by community) as default desktop environments, Manjaro is able to have a low memory footprint. See More

Top Con

Same cons that apply to Arch Linux

Since it is based on Arch Linux. See More

Top Pro

All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, Lumina, LXQT, Deepin, Enlightenment, etc. can be directly installed from official repositories

Also available as independent variants. See More

Top Con

It's Archbuntu

Top Pro

Different editions to select from + Manjaro community

You can choose between different Manjaro editions which have their own change in features, and there is also Manjaro community editions where the community can make their own changes. See More

Top Con

Black screen after boot, no login possibility

Top Pro

Deepin desktop environment is worthy attraction

Top Con

No gfvs pre-installed

So no Trash (and possibly smartphone file system access via USB) support. See More

Top Pro

Steam installed by default

Top Con

Bad way of handling dependencies

Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Arch Linux and its derivatives have a bad way of handling dependencies. To handle dependencies, it installs a whole another program which contains the required dependencies. See More

Top Pro

Full access to AUR

Specs

Based On:Arch Linux

RAM:64

Default Desktop Environment:XFCE, KDE Plasma, GNOME

The packaging team is dependable resulting in system updates that come in a timely fashion and systems which rarely, if ever, break due to packaging. The versions of software that are selected and the configuration of them is typically extremely high quality. See More

3796 731

score 804 · Answer 10

OpenSUSE

Top Pro

Extremely reliable

Top Con

Some clear differences from other Linux distros

This might be a systemd issue or OpenSUSE specific, but changing certain text files does not update things. They must be edited in YaST, or in /etc/sysconfig/ See More

Top Pro

Easy installation and administration

openSUSE makes use of a GUI tool called YaST to install and setup an openSUSE system. YaST is very easy to use and makes the process of installing and maintaining an openSUSE installation a breeze. See More

Top Con

Old kernel by the Leap version

Kernel in Leap 42.3 is in version 4.4, that's pretty old. See More

Top Pro

"Tumbleweed" Rolling Release

Regular and easy upgrades to stable and well tested software. See More

Top Con

Poor support for nVidia drivers in Tumbleweed

No native driver support and nouveau may be broken, especially for KDE, and not suitable for some GPUs. See More

Top Pro

One-Click install

Much better system then other distros for installing any package. It is as simple as clicking on one button and typing in your password. Adds a repo to your system keeping everything updated at the same time. See More

Top Con

Bloated and slow

Top Pro

Very stable

Stable, reliable, rock solid. See More

Top Con

Short lived distro

Every release lasts 18 months only before needing a major upgrade. See More

Top Pro

Amazing choice for both newbies and power users

OpenSUSE is very easy in terms of installing packages, administration and customization, yet very powerful in the same. Every user should find his own piece of cake in this OS. See More

Top Con

Updates

Not a huge problem, but Tumbleweed is better updated via the command line. See More

Top Pro

Easily get packages from other sources

SUSE Build Service offers packages from the same sources as Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise and other distributions. This is the most underused package tool in Linux today. See More

Top Con

Massive ISO download

The base ISOs are over 4 gigs, so be prepared for a very long DL if you have slow internet. There's a network installer version, but that just delays the long DL. See More

Top Pro

Probably the best KDE desktop experience

Both Gnome and KDE desktop options are well polished to fit with the opensuse theme and environement, so either desktop is a great choice. See More

Top Con

Bad support to NTFS fotmat.

Top Pro

Convenient package management with Zypper

Fast, reliable, powerful and almost impossible to leave a broken system. The Yast interface will also give you access to a Zypper GUI if you are uncomfortable with the command line. See More

Top Con

Limited community support

The community is fairly small, and there is no indication on the forums regarding when a issues will be solved. See More

Top Pro

Feature rich

It comes standard with a large number of pre-added applications that sort out your day-to-day use. See More

Top Con

Packman repository has to be added to have good software support

Top Pro

Supports RPM packages

Popular format shared with distros like Fedora, RHEL, Scientific Linux, Mageia etc. See More

Top Con

Startup takes a long time

Top Pro

Built-in drivers

Does the job needed and has the hardware drivers for the application built-in by the H/W supplier. See More

Top Con

Updates

Not a huge problem, but Tubleweed is better updated via the command line. See More

Top Pro

Dedicated professional community

Directions on other desktop Linux's often force you to use GUI packages or have steps that introduce security issues. OpenSUSE has a professional community and directions are usually geared toward GUI and CLI with similar steps. See More

Top Con

Complex permissions policy

Top Pro

Outstanding community support

OpenSUSE has a VERY active user community. Questions on forums are generally answered in minutes. See More

Top Pro

YaST

Best administration and setup tool. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Applications feel fast. See More

Specs

Based On:Jurix>SUSE

Default Desktop Environment:Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, LXQT

Package Manager:RPM Package Manager

Contains too many tools for hacking. Those tools are not already included in BackBox or ParrotOS. See More

804 216

score 232 · Answer 11

Kali Linux

Top Pro

Better than ParrotOS, BackBox for hacking purpose

Top Con

Not intended to be a daily driver

This distro was written for pen testing and security work. It is not meant to be a day-to-day OS (unless that's your job). See More

Top Pro

Standard pentest tool set

Top Con

Very old packages

E.G. Firefox's current version is 61 but Kali linux consists of its 52th version. Though kernel is not that old. See More

Top Pro

Live session distro used for forensics

232 86

score 12 · Answer 12

Plan 9

Top Con

Difficult to use software made for other systems

Plan 9 is very different from most other operating systems, and as such it's extremely difficult to bring in software designed for other operating systems ('porting'). See More

Top Pro

Well designed

Plan 9's design is very orthogonal and well done. See More

Top Con

No fully featured web browser

As indicated on the official Bell Labs webpage, there is no full featured web browser currently working on Plan 9, except abaco. See More

Top Pro

Designed to allow for multiple computers to work as if they were one

With Plan 9, computers are turned into terminals where you can access files and processing units which can be located elsewhere. Data storage is handled by another external server. This means that instead of each person having their own individual computer with all the required parts, all of the computing and storage is done in a central area and everything is networked in together. See More

Top Con

Not supported by most tools

Not supported by most dev tools beyond text editors. See More

Specs

License:MIT

OS Family:Plan 9

12 7

score 41 · Answer 13

ChromeOS

Top Con

“Just a web browser”

There aren’t really any applications you can get on ChromeOS. If you can do it via Chrome you can do it on a Chromebook, but not much else. See More

Top Pro

“Just a web browser”

On the other hand it’s pretty difficult to mess up “just a web browser”. You might get a few less phone calls from your elderly relatives about how they broke their fancy new email and internet machine. See More

Top Con

No icons on desktop

Chrome OS does not allow to place icons or shortcuts on the desktop, only the background picture can be changed. See More

Top Pro

Android apps

Android apps add basic offline functionality. See More

Top Con

You might need a cloud printer

If you don’t live in the paperless world yet and you haven’t bought a new printer in the last three years you may need money up for a new cloud enabled printer. See More

Top Pro

Booting & updating

Chrome OS boots from power off in about 7 seconds. So you don't need to leave it on and consuming power when it's not in use. You NEVER download and update any apps, although the OS does update itself. Web apps live on servers, so they're always up to date and virus free. See More

Top Pro

Full laptop form-factor

Unlike tablets, the home of most hyper user friendly operating systems, Chromebooks come on an array of devices that don’t require you to buy any flimsy keyboard attachments. See More

Top Pro

Pushes oneself to use (and learn how to use) cloud based solutions

With this ChromeOS also eliminates the time needed to configure the local environment. See More

Specs

License:BSD, MIT, GPL, LGPL, MPL

Programming Language:C, C++, JavaScript

Widget Toolkit:Aura

Available on:ChomiumOS/ChromeOS

If looking for a lightweight OS, and thinking of FreeDOS as a possible option, consider that it will only useful when having to deal with legacy software, or other dos-based programs still commonly used at workplaces. Nonetheless it's a fantastic solution for Retro-Gamers who still own a a supported sound card. However the lack of modern software makes it hard to accomplish common everyday tasks, such us opening a document written in UTF-8, not mentioning, obviously docx and pdf files. The best choice is to install it on a USB drive, in order to have a portable OS, with basic hardware and all your files (and if you want games) ready to be launched with every machine. Useful to edit partitions, as well as restore MBR, check errors, install a light bootmanager on any kind of FAT partiton of every IDE-mode compatible hard-disk. See More

41 28

score 13 · Answer 14

FreeDOS

Top Con

Unlikely going to be your PC main OS

Top Pro

Open Source

GNU GPL See More

Top Con

Obvious lack of sound card drivers

If you own a sound card produced after than 2000, you won't find a driver to make it work. See More

Top Pro

Large and friendly community

You won't be let alone, any question submitted on FreeDOS forums will be detailedly answered in a few hours time. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with MS-DOS apps

Top Pro

Supports FAT32 partition

As opposite to every MS-DOS version equal or older than 6.22, or any DR-DOS version, you won't be restricted by a 2 Gb large FAT16 partition. See More

Top Pro

Highly portable OS

It takes ten minutes to make a portable, USB FreeDOS drive, All you need is a USB device FAT or FAT32 formatted (128 Mb should be enough, but a 2 GB device would be better). First make a FreeDOS bootable USB drive with a program like Rufus (on Windows) or UnetBootin (on linux or Mac). Select it at boot and run fdisk to make a Primary DOS partition and install FreeDOS on it. Final step: reboot and run fdisk again to make the new partition active (optional: delete the installer partition). After that, the system is ready to boot with any computer. See More

Top Pro

Extremely lightweight

Takes less than 10 seconds to boot. See More

Top Pro

Easy to dual-boot, either with any Linux distro or Windows

If you install a Linux distro after Freedos, GRUB2 will automatically detect it. As for Windows, newer EasyBCD releases implemented FreeDOS and automatically recognize it. See More

Specs

License:mostly GPL

OS Family:DOS

PsychOS is designed for older/lighter, 32-bit, i686 hardware with plans to go even further back with i486 (PsychOS486), i386 and older (PsychDOS), and so on and so forth as opposed to always trying to run on the latest hardware, not that it could in most cases anyway since 32-bit i686 operating systems will run on most x86_64 ones. See More

13 11

score 277 · Answer 15

PsychOS

Top Pro

Runs well on older, 32-bit hardware (i686)

Top Con

Bloated

Over 3000 packages by default including several package managers. See More

Top Pro

RetroGrab is really cool

It lets you install old software for use with emulators like DOSBox but run them as if they were normal programs from the normal applications menu. See More

Top Con

7 package managers included

There should only be one. See More

Top Pro

No fuss. Just works.

A lot of the programs are already set up for you. Just boot it and go. This is definitely one of the better SHTF distro's. See More

Top Pro

QuickEdit

There's a yad-based tool you do not see on any other GNU/Linux distro in which you can simply right-click pretty much any file and then use the "QuickEdit" option to quickly edit small things about a file such as size if it's an image or video, convert the file, or even render the file if it's a Blender project. It's nice not having to open an image with GIMP every time I want to resize or convert something. See More

Top Pro

The IceWM option looks and functions nice

Most GNU/Linux distributions that include IceWM as a desktop environment option don't do too much to it, if a t all. PsychOS seems to have a customized or themed version that actually doesn't feel you with dread and still uses many of the keyboard shortcuts from XFCE. See More

Top Pro

Lots of command-line tools

Lots of command-line tools and I really like the CLIMax thing. It's a good tool to have if you want to spend time in the command-line but aren't that experienced. Also, it plays a quick, one-time ascii animation when you go into the tty for the first time. See More

Top Pro

TONS of Thunar Custom Actions

PsychOS comes with a lot of Thunar Custom Actions, many of which as disabled, but they are there none the less; most probably just in case. Right-click on a DOOM WAD shows there's a menu item to play it directly using LZDoom. See More

Specs

License:GPL v3

Based On:Devuan

File Size:3.8GB ISO

Default Desktop Environment:XFCE

It is a Unix clone. See More

277 18

score 31 · Answer 16

GNU+Linux

Top Pro

Unix-like

Top Con

GNU Copyleft

The coplyleft in the GNU licenses make it unattractive to many developers. It s also impossible to port GPLed Linux improvements to other more open operating systems like BSD or Haiku. See More

Top Pro

Many different desktops to choose

Just use whatever you want. Some are lightweight, others are full of extravagant features. There is a flavor for each taste. See More

Top Con

Many distributions

There are just too many of them to know. See More

Top Pro

GNU-userland

Uses the same userland as other GNU variants. See More

Top Con

Often limited by decisions of the Kernel developers

Support for the latest features in Linux is often limited by their kernel developers, for example, Nvidia once had added patches to support Optimus on Linux, however, the kernel developers rejected those patches resulting in still no official Optimus support for Linux. See More

Top Pro

Free

You don't have to pay anything. See More

Top Con

Frankenstein OS

The whole OS is mixed together with software from different sources. See More

Top Con

No interface Guidelines

Since there are plenty of X11-Desktop environments and two big Widget Toolkits, every app works and feels differently. See More

Top Con

Most Distributions are not LSB-conform

The most Distributions don't follow the Linux Standard Base which results in different package formates, package management tools, bootloaders, init-systems or even filesystem hierarchy standards. See More

Top Con

Most 3D drivers are not as fast as their Windows counterparts

The only display driver that comes close to their Windows counterpart is the nvidia driver. Both AMD and Intel drivers miss a Control Panel on Linux to adjust more settings than just your resolution they also usually much slower than their Windows counterparts. See More

Top Con

A big mess

10-15 years ago I had everything working on my linux system bluetooth, graphic driver desktop etc. Nowadays it is just a big mess: Distributions force me to use systemd a system I don't like since it is terrible to debug, KDE and GNOME(and its siblings) have moved even further away from each other no unlike years ago when they used freedesktop to unify things. There are now dozens of different GUI toolkits o choose every one with they own themes and usability(not to mention all the different minor versions like gtk2, 3,4 whatever that look and work all differently). in 2005 i could use bluetooth audio with alsa and no issues on every DE or WM nowadays you need pulseaudio to get it working some applications even need it to play audio. All distributions use different packaging formates (but they do and work all the same). You have now traditional apps and flatpaks, snaps and appimages. There are desktops/distributions that come with wayland preinstalled and the majority still uses X.org. See More

Top Con

Unix-like

It's only a clone and some things work differently. See More

Top Con

Not secure

Linux is actually the least secure OS and it is a security nightmare. Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS are all far more secure. See More

Top Con

No graphical user-interface

As the most unix systems this also comes without a graphical user interface by default. See More

Specs

License:mostly GPL2

OS Family:UNIX-like (GNU/Linux)

Unlike Debian, Devuan offers no unfree netinstall media, so if your system needs unfree drivers (e.g a laptop or a tablet), you'll have to download the Debian firmware on a separate USB. See More

31 7

score 563 · Answer 17

Devuan GNU+Linux

Top Con

Difficult to install on non-free hardware

Top Pro

It's Debian

Devuan is Debian just without systemd, it just mirrors the the Debian archive and repacks packages that have hard dependencies on systemd. See More

Top Con

Fragmentation

Forked distributions like Devuan and Artix fragment the Linux community and hurt the original project. Debian users who do not want systemd should use Slackware or BSD instead. See More

Top Pro

Stability

It is stable like Debian. See More

Top Con

No systemd

Top Pro

Excellent for normal people

It is easy to use and is a good choice for beginners. See More

Top Pro

No Systemd

Top Pro

Most decent look amongst other XFCE distros

Default XFCE theme is unique of all the XFCE distos including MXLinux, Xubuntu etc. See More

Specs

Based On:Debian

Default Desktop Environment:Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE and XFCE

OS Family:GNU/Linux

Release Schedule:Long-term support (stable edition) and rolling release (testing and unstable editions)

Lean, fast and surprisingly stable. See More

563 90

score 608 · Answer 18

Endeavour OS

Top Pro

Good overall system quality and performance

Top Con

Same Cons that apply for Arch Linux

Since it is based on Arch, it is harder to install and can easily break. See More

Top Pro

Great hardware support

Top Con

Kalu needs a little refinement

I applaud the developers to carry on the legacy of Antergos, the only niggling thing that I would appreciate is, while it's nice to see news about updates; my opinion is that once you dismiss the notifications they STAY dismissed. And just clicking on the icon brings kalu brings it to the foreground. Or have the functionality of turning off the news altogether would be well received. Good distro. See More

Top Pro

Arch Linux Wiki

Being an "easy to install version of Arch" means it is exactly easy to use the famous Arch Wiki! See More

Top Con

Not for everyone

Top Pro

As slim as you want it

Based on Arch, Endevour OS keeps its core repositories slim and free of unnecessary dependencies. The distro comes with no bloatware, only the necessary packages. The repositories are nearly as full as those of Ubuntu, while they are often more up to date. See More

Top Con

NET installer on the way

Top Pro

AUR support

One of the best reasons to use an Arch based distro. You can find almost every package there is in the Linux world! See More

Top Con

Uses systemd

Top Pro

Fast and simple package management

There can only be one Package Manager (pacman) ;) See More

Top Pro

Easy installer

Top Pro

No restrictive handholding, pure control over everything

The user can do whatever he wishes because the distro IS Arch - with and easy installer and great themes. See More

Top Pro

Stripped down to the bone

Since its stripped down, it is fast and you don't have to deal with bloatware. See More

Top Pro

Great for low performance hardware

Easy on the specs and still blazingly fast. See More

Top Pro

Great XFCE implementation

Their use of themes and configuration look great! See More

Top Pro

Not based on Ubuntu

Top Pro

Cutting edge rolling release

Exactly as Arch - allows users to stay on the most up-to-date versions of the software they are using. See More

Top Pro

Support for a large variety of new hardware

Rolling release means newer, up to date, mesa and kernel versions able to handle newer hardware with better performance! See More

Top Pro

Helpful community

Great team of developers and excellent forum support on their official website. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Pro

Great community

Specs

Based On:Arch Linux

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, GNOME, i3, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE, Xfce

Package Manager:pacman