What are the most stable Linux distros?

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

Top Pro

Strong adherence to UNIX Principals

Top Con

Niche/small community

VigilantMamitu's Experience

stable See More

Top Pro

Ideal to learn more of Linux

Top Con

Dependency issues

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

CapableAten's Experience

best linux distro (most stable. reliable, consistent, and quite fast too) See More

Top Pro

Super fast

Top Con

Not user-friendly

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

ShrewdYuqiang's Experience

Rock solid, simply it's dependable See More

Top Pro

Package management

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

Top Con

Very slow release cycle

Hasn't updated in 3+ years. See More

AdventurousHubal's Experience

I've been using Slackware since 1995. While the release cycle is slow and packages need to generally be built, it is by far the most stable version for a server and doesn't make any assumptions about how you want to use the system. 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

Narrow repos

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

TirelessFlins's Experience

23 Years with more then 200 servers ... nameserver,mail,dbase,radius,web,BRAS,automatic process,media and real time streamers, real time encoding and CAS for ott and iptv, ipsec and tunnel servers ... 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

Very slow release cycle

Hasn't updated in 3+ years. See More

SuccessfulTengri's Experience

the best! See More

Top Pro

Oldest surviving linux distro

Top Con

Dependency issues

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

Top Pro

No systemd

Top Con

Narrow repos

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

Top Con

Niche/small community

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

Top Con

Large size live ISO

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

Top Con

Not user-friendly

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

Tailor the system to your needs. See More

Arch Linux

Top Pro

Highly customizable

Top Con

Uses Systemd

IntuitiveBragi's Experience

I began with Arch because my kids needed the most recent software available in order to access their classes. And Arch gives me that easy and fast See More

Specs

Based On:Independent

Default Desktop Environment:N/A

Package Manager:Pacman

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 Pro

A package for almost everything

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

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

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

Excellent documentation

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

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

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 Con

Manual install process

The installation requires a lot of manual intervention/decisions. 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 Con

Not for the faint of heart

You need to be very carefully with updates. 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

Incredible educational value

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

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 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 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 Pro

It is Linux at the core

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

Low maintenance

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

Top Pro

Great hardware support

Out of the box Arch comes with great hardware support. 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

Vanilla

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

Great for low performance hardware

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

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

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

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

Helpful 3rd-party installers

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

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

Good for ricing for r/unixporn

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

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

This is a server distro. See More

CentOS

Top Pro

Good long term support

Top Con

Not for desktop users

Specs

Based On:Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL Source)

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME

Package Manager:RPM Package Manager

CentOS favours stability over being up-to date. For this reason it ships with packages that may be up to two years behind in order to ensure stability over everything else. Using older versions for packages means that they have been thoroughly tested and used in production for quite some time, and are ensured to play well with each-other. This strategy has paid off quite a lot in the past. One example is the Heartbleed bug which left CentOS unaffected since it was using a two-year old OpenSSL library which did not have the bug. See More

Top Pro

Greatly favours stability over anything else

Top Pro

You don't scare to update packages

Repositories of this OS have the most stable versions of software that have been tested for years. See More

Top Pro

Applications don't have to take into account potentially breaking changes in libraries

Since CentOS backports all updates and bug fixes to older versions in order to maintain package compatibility across releases, applications hosted on Red Hat Linux don't have to worry about potential breaking changes in libraries they use, especially language libraries. See More

Stable, reliable, rock solid. See More

OpenSUSE

Top Pro

Very stable

Top Con

Short lived distro

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

KnowledgeableEunomia's Experience

Many system errors See More

Specs

Based On:Jurix>SUSE

Default Desktop Environment:Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, LXQT

Package Manager:RPM Package Manager, zypper

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 Pro

Amazing choice for both newbies and power users

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

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

Old kernel by the Leap version

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

Updates

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

Top Pro

YaST

Best administration and setup tool. See More

Top Con

Packman repository has to be added to have good software support

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

Startup takes a long time

Top Pro

Extremely reliable

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

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

"Tumbleweed" rolling release

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

Top Con

YAST not intuitive at all

On the surface YAST looks simple enough, but inside can be as complicated as a WindowsOS registry. Using YAST is not user-friendly for beginners. 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

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

Supports RPM packages

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

Top Con

Bloated and slow

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 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

All free editions only offer Windows XP, 2000, and 7 and Gnome 2. You have to pay $9-10 in order to get Unity (Ubuntu) and Mac OS X themes. See More

Zorin OS

Top Pro

Stable

Top Con

Limited desktop styles in Free Version

SplendidRuaumoko's Experience

very stable See More

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:Gnome / Xfce

New users may be unaware of what software is available for Linux, but Zorin includes a good selection for everyday tasks out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Good selection of pre-installed software

Top Con

Dark mode shell

The full dark shell mode is affected by the coloring of the folders. When you choose a color for your system folders, you'll see a black shell dominated by that color... not a clearly dark. See More

Top Pro

Ubuntu-based

Zorin is compatible with Ubuntu's sizable repositories of Free Software. See More

Top Pro

Accessibility features

Top Pro

Windows desktop style

The desktop UI was made to resemble Windows 7, but alternative settings are available. See More

Top Pro

Zorin Connect

Allows syncing notifications with your phone. See More

Top Pro

Installer can set up dual boot

Top Pro

Fast boot and shut down

Really fast booting. See More

Top Pro

Partial Windows compatibility

Zorin includes WINE and PlayOnLinux to run many Windows applications and games. See More

Top Pro

Ubuntu got too big

Using too much resources. See More

Top Pro

Bundles tools for changing the look and feel of the distribution

Zorin includes look changer and theme changer. See More

Linux Mint uses the same installer as Ubuntu. It is very easy to use for beginners, and also allows more advanced users to choose their own partitions. Linux Mint's Cinnamon desktop is highly customizable and can be made to look however preferred. See More

Linux Mint

Top Pro

Easy installation and configuration

Top Con

Looks ugly

The default theme and wallpaper looks outdated and bland. Luckily that is easy to change in the settings. See More

CaffeinatedNemesis's Experience

Stable and easy to install and use, good and friendly community See More

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce

The GUI looks outdated, and the setup is ugly - it needs to be refreshed. See More

Top Pro

Complete and stable

Top Con

Hideous

Top Pro

Compatibility with Debian and Ubuntu software builds and repositories

Mint gains a very strong package ecosystem and software manager of Debian, including more than 30,000 packages available from the Debian repositories. See More

Top Con

Outdated software centers

Many of the offered options are older versions. See More

Top Pro

Familiar user interface

Mint is highly recommended for both users coming from Windows, as well as users coming from Ubuntu, but unhappy with Ubuntu's recent, rather dramatic interface changes. Mint provides an updated interface with a look and feel similar to Gnome 2, with an application menu reminiscent of the Windows 7 Start Menu, with categorization and search. See More

Top Con

Limits to the support of propriatary hardware drivers

Mint has limited support for older graphics cards beyond the generic nouveau driver, and some software (like Stremio) only works with official Nvidia drivers (for example). See More

Top Pro

There is a "system restore" tool to restore the OS if something breaks

This tool backs up the core OS files to an external drive with an option for full encryption. See More

Top Con

Nothing new

Just another fork of Ubuntu. Produces nothing that can't be found in another Debian-based distros See More

Top Pro

Good community support

There are several different ways to get support for this distribution, including the forums, their IRC channel, or their github repositories if you think their software isn't behaving as it should. See More

Top Con

Cheap Windows substitute

Mint tries to be like Windows when it could be different and provide options. See More

Top Pro

Provides LTS (long term support) versions

Long Term Support versions are versions of software that are continuously updated for an extended period of time, even after newer versions are launched. LTS versions will typically get feature additions and enhancements for an extended period of time, then security updates up until its End of Life. An LTS release should typically be considered good for at least 5 years. See More

Top Con

Upgrade process between version can be painful

The Linux Mint team offers a method to upgrade the OS between versions but they tend to recommend clean installs, which isn't always suitable for everyone. However, following the upgrade process currently is less than straightforward and is easily capable of leaving your system in a confused state. See More

Top Pro

Already functional out-of-the-box

Mint comes bundled with software for browsing the web, editing pictures, browsing files, watching videos and even a full office suite (LibreOffice). An average user can use Mint right away after a fresh install, using all the software that comes with the distribution to complete most of their daily tasks. See More

Top Con

Does not handle multiple languages well

Top Pro

Dedicated upgrade process

The Linux Mint team is very dedicated to upgrading and improving Mint, to the point where the releases are fairly predictable. They are also dedicated to their users, meaning that they are responsive to critiques, suggestions, etc. See More

Top Con

System updates can lead the system to being unstable

While a new installed system is stable, after an update, there is a slight chance of something not working. See More

Top Pro

Has more desktop options

You can choose between Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE. See More

Top Con

Political

Clement Lefebvre, the lead developer of Linux Mint said “I don’t want any money or help coming from people who support the actions of the Israeli government.” See More

Top Pro

2016 hack listed here as a Con, was very quickly dealt with and is a non-issue over 4 years later.

Top Pro

Mint 20 will actively avoid the Snap landmine planted by Canonical in Ubuntu 20.04.

Top Pro

Pretty desktop

Linux Mint has a quite pretty default desktop. Cinnamon is adopted by other distros also. See More

Top Pro

The easiest option ever

The distro is the easiest operating system to run ever. See More

Top Pro

Not from a big company

Linux Mint is not Canonical, while based upon Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

The OS is great for both beginners and advanced users

The OS has different update settings for different users and has easy manual within the OS. See More

Top Pro

Supports proprietary software

Linux Mint does maintain a free software environment, however, it does offer full support to proprietary software (Chrome, Skype, Teamviewer). See More

Top Pro

Android

Top Pro

Not bound to Google

It is fully working without the play store or the Google play services. See More

Specs

Based On:Android Open Source Project (AOSP)

Package Manager:APK, Various app stores

OS Family:Linux (AOSP-based)

Platforms:since NDK r17: armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, ix86, amd64

Android 5.0.+ supports screen recording via a new api. Android 4.4 KitKat supports screen recording accessible via an ADB command on unrooted devices. See More

Top Pro

Built-in screen recording

Top Pro

Great user experience right out of the box

Top Pro

Sideloading of apps

You can sideload apps. See More

Top Pro

Modular

There are major versions of android however the most important components are modular and get frequently updated. See More

Top Pro

Customizable multiple "desktops"

Can customize the home screens with widgets (not just a grid of apps like iOS). See More

Top Pro

Consistent back button makes navigation easy

Top Pro

No Backdoors

Since Android is written by a worldwide community of developers it is very unlikly that backdoorss exist for any local governments. See More

Top Pro

ROOT

You can root your phone to get full access. See More

Top Pro

Highly secure core system

Since Android is open source and developed worldwide, anyone can read the code and there are no government forced backdoors. See More

Top Pro

It's all yours

You can do anything you want with YOUR phone... See More

Top Pro

Gesture based interface

Since Android 10 you can use gestures to control the OS. See More

Top Pro

Supports plenty of peripherals

You can use external displays with MHL, HDMI, DP or miracast. It supports external storage devices like microSD cards or USB OTG devices. You can also use almost any kind of USB or Bluetooth input devices like keyboards, mice or game controllers. See More

Top Pro

Security updates

Android does frequent updates to keep users secure. See More

Top Pro

Personal assistant with Google Now

Google Now is an intelligent personal assistant available within the Google Search mobile application for the Android and iOS operating systems. It's software that makes your life more convenient by giving you all the information you need at any moment. See More

Top Pro

Cheap phones

Android phones can cost little as $100. See More

Top Pro

Accessibility

Built in text to speech is provided by TalkBack for people with low or no vision. Enhancements for people with hearing disabilities are available as are other aids. See More

Top Pro

The most widely used mobile OS

Top Pro

Highly customizable

One of the massive benefits of Android being open-sourced are all the modifications you can make to the phone to customise pretty much anything. Some of the cooler things you can do are: Replace the entire operating system with a custom ROM. Replace the keyboard. Change the home screen launcher. Change the lock screen. See More

Top Pro

Desktop and lockscreen widgets

Desktop widgets provide quick access to the information you need quickly and access the most. These are available out of the box, and can be developed by anyone. Widgets on the lockscreen have been removed since the Lollipop update, but is available on 3rd party lockscreens such as AC Display and KK Locker. See More

Top Pro

Integration with Google Services

For those that already use Google's services, like Google Maps and GMail, Android offers tighter integration with those services than any of the alternatives, and saves users the need to create extra accounts. See More

Top Pro

Lots of hardware choices

There are about 18000 released devices that run on Android. This means that a user familiar with Android can have a large variety of devices from which they can choose. See More

Top Pro

Customize what apps perform what actions

Android gives users the ability to define which apps perform which action. For example, if an Android device has several browsers installed, the user can choose a default one which will start every time a link is for example opened from another app. See More

Top Pro

Open source

The AOSP (Android Open Source Project) is the software stack for the Android OS. It is led by the open handset alliance which includes firms like Google, Acer, NXP, Motorola and many others. The fact that Android is an open source software has led to many custom Android variants. It also is a big assurance of Android's safety in terms of privacy. See More

Top Pro

More integrated sharing options

Has nice gnome theme looks really good. See More

Pop!_OS

Top Pro

Nice gnome theme dy default

Top Con

Not as stable as some alternatives

Pop OS frequently freezes on my hardware, even after being reinstalled several times. See More

Top Pro

Made by a hardware seller

System76 is a hardware company. It configures machines to ship with Linux pre-installed. This means its entire business model centers around delivering a quality desktop Linux experience. As a result, the company pours more attention onto the desktop. It can fix visual issues and may be able to provide a smoother overall experience than you would have installing a different version of Linux on your machine yourself. Providing Pop!_OS also empowers System76 to make certain fixes for users directly rather than having to coordinate with Canonical or the broader Ubuntu community. See More

Top Pro

Optimized for modern hardware

Whereas normally, to use a brand new computer with a Linux OS, you would typically try to use unstable and sometimes buggy drivers - or struggle without hardware support until a stable release comes along. See More

Top Pro

Ready to play games, out of the box

If you still miss how easy it was to just click-install and play games in Windows, Pop! will give you that similar expectation. See More

Top Pro

User-friendly installer

The visually appealing and easy to use installer makes dual booting as easy as it can be. See More

Top Pro

A separate NVIDIA version

Most linux distros seem to hate Nvidia's graphics cards e.g. Fedora and OpenSUSE. System76 have decided to be kind. They have decided to form a good relationship with Nvidia fans and Nvidia itself. By creating a separate installation media that is dedicated for providing support to Nvidia's graphics cards. Even going as far as putting Nvidia's driver updates on Pop!_Shop for users to easily access and install. See More

It really is a great and stunning looking OS. See More

KDE Neon

Top Pro

The best looking Linux OS

Top Con

Steep learning curve for beginners

It's a really sparse, bare-bones system, no automatic driver install for example. It can be quite hard for someone not used to Linux. See More

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:KDE

KDE Neon uses KDE as its desktop environment, which is highly configurable, but also has great defaults. See More

Top Pro

Really stable

Top Pro

Configurability

Top Pro

Works out of the box

Since it's built on the strong Ubuntu base, KDE Neon works seamlessly with a huge variety of hardware. See More

Top Pro

Works well on low-end computers

Unlike some abandoned, unfinished distros, Kubuntu is up to date and offers a fully functional desktop environment that targets workstation users. See More

Kubuntu

Top Pro

Full featured desktop environment that is actively developed

Ganton's Experience

Stable and works each day. A lot of software available, and hardware compatible. See More

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu

Default Desktop Environment:KDE

You can easily adjust the workspace to your needs. See More

Top Pro

Customizable

ImpartialAgdistis's Experience

Stable and works each day. A lot of software available, and hardware compatible. See More

Top Pro

Stable as hell

Super stable, never crashes. See More

Top Pro

With commercial support available

With commercial support available, and preinstalled by several vendors. See More

Top Pro

Light

Great and unique Linux experience, all configuration in one file is convenient, with nix you have no package dependency or upgrades issues, rollbacks are very easy and fast, super stable. See More

NixOS

Top Pro

No package dependecy hell

Top Con

Beginners Linux users may not want to learn Nix Expression Language to customize more advanced installs

YaxPasaj's Experience

Specs

Based On:Independent

Init-System:SystemD

Package Manager:Nix

Release Schedule:Fixed

You can generally never run "Linux" binaries without patching them or starting up an FHS sandbox. Some build scripts just won't work. See More

Top Pro

No package conflicts

Top Con

Difficulty running software that's not packaged

Top Pro

Reuse configuration

Top Pro

Roll back updates

Top Pro

Stable

Top Pro

Most settings just work

Isolation and well-made defaults means for most systems changes there's a simple flag to switch and it will work with everything you've got. See More

Great support for laptop and desktop. See More

Ubuntu Budgie

Top Pro

Hardware support

yurayura's Experience

It is very stable, robust, easy and accessible. my favorite feature is the reset layout setting. If you mess anything or just wanna go back to default config. Super easy installer and great support for hardware, i tested with both a AMD chip laptop and a NVIDIA GPU PC. Finally out of the box you get support for most media formats i.e. mp3, mp4, mkv, etc. See More

Specs

Based On:Ubuntu

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie

Release Schedule:Point (follows ubuntu releases)

Good interface on Budgie and a great approach on Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

User-friendly interface

Maybe because it's a relatively new project still in its infancy and this may be fixed in the future, but Budgie is not very customizable. You can only change the theme and wallpaper. See More

Solus

Top Pro

Lightening fast boot time

Top Con

The default desktop environment is not very customizable

HappyShahar's Experience

After much Distro Hopping I finally landed on Solus and it s the most stable and one of the fastest I've used. the negatives are minor and it just works.... See More

Specs

Based On:Scratch

Init-System:systemd

Package Manager:eopkg package manager (PiSi fork)

Release Schedule:Rolling

System boots quickly and stays responsive. Does what operating system should do, and does it really well. See More

Top Pro

Most stable Rolling Release Distro

Top Con

No USB Image writer

Top Pro

Responsive

Top Con

Systemd

Top Pro

Modern desktop environment

The default desktop environment used by Solus is called Budgie and is quite nice and minimalistic. See More

Top Con

Forums are not very friendly

Top Pro

Easy installation

The installation procedure for this distribution is quite simple. It's GUI based and all you have to do is to follow the instructions given by the installation window itself. See More

Top Con

There is often a black screen after update

Default Desktop Environment:Pantheon

Elementary OS

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu

Origin:UK

Some people pointed out that updating Arch is a high risk affair. And one should carefully read forums before doing it. The same is true about Ubuntu. Making system updates (like it was with 10.04 to 11.04) that screw so many things up became a routine. Even LTS releases should not give confidence that it will work. See More

Ubuntu

Top Con

Unstable

Top Pro

Just works out of the box

Lots of support for hardware, lots of pre-installed software, and a smooth install process means less time downloading drivers, less time digging through configuration files, and less time deciding on software to use just to get up and running. It also means less time digging through forums looking for support. See More

CaffeinatedNemesis's Experience

snaps, they slow down your system and can be a security nightmare See More

Specs

Based On:Debian Stable(core) Testing/Unstable(universe/multiverse)

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME

Package Manager:Debian Package Manager, Snap Store

It‘s one of the most stable Linux Distros. See More

Top Con

Canonical does not care about the interests and wishes of users

Top Pro

Stable

Top Con

No rolling release

New Ubuntu versions are released two times a year, during this period almost all software receives only security updates and minor bug fixes. See More

Top Pro

Unified search

Type any query into the Dash Home, and search will look through files, stores and web-pages to find what you are looking for. See More

Top Con

Relatively high system requirements

The default GNOME desktop environment is a resource hog which requires hardware accelerated graphics rendering in order to run smoothly, making out of the box Ubuntu unsuitable for low end systems and older hardware. Even mildly aged hardware, you'll get far better performance out of a lighter desktop environment like LXDE or XFCE. See More

Top Pro

Good UI for small monitors

Because the menu usually is in the title bar and the launcher auto-hides, the whole screen can be used by an application. See More

Top Pro

Company behind it

This means that the system must run well, otherwise they will lose money. There is no better incentive! See More

Top Pro

Looks good

Ubuntu looks clean even when running from a LiveCD. See More

Top Pro

Dedicated software center

The Ubuntu Software Center offers a GUI interface for installing new apps which is extremely easy and welcoming for beginners to Linux. But it should not be used by more advanced users since the method of installing through the terminal is much faster and easier after one is used to it. See More

Top Pro

UTF-8 is the default character encoding

Beginning with Ubuntu 5.04, UTF-8 became the default character encoding, which allows for support of a variety of non-Roman scripts. See More

Top Pro

Perfect for collaboration on open source projects

This is probably the best option when collaborating on open source projects in hardware. This is mostly because packages and tools are readily available via software center. See More

Top Pro

Good PPA repositories available

PPA repositories allow you to install the latest version of your preferred software while keeping the rest of the operating system "stable". See More

Top Pro

Flexible

The setup for personal use is simple enough for anyone to achieve, and can easily be modified to act as a server. Programs and all features are easy to find and use, and first-timers can easily pick up on how to use it. See More

Top Pro

Use it on almost any device

Not just for laptops - Ubuntu was designed with tablets and touchscreen devices in mind, and with phone support on the way. Ubuntu also has Long Term Support releases, as well as a version oriented toward servers, so you can use the same OS at work or on mobile as you do on your desktop. See More

Top Pro

Great long term support release schedule (2 years)

This allows for users to always have a new supported release available without long unkown wait times in between. See More

Top Pro

Simplicity

Ubuntu is designed to be used by everyday people. Because of that, Ubuntu has tried hard to make a user interface that's intuitive and looks pleasant and clean. See More

Top Pro

Wide range of software out of the box

The default apps available in Ubuntu cover the gamut of most anyone's needs. From music, video or office applications Ubuntu has an app that will cover the users needs. See More

Top Pro

Lots of support

As the most popular Linux distribution, there's a wide range of sources for support online if you ever need help, including the Ubuntu Wiki, Ubuntu Forums and the Ask Ubuntu Stack Exchange site. See More

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

I Recommend...

Built By the Slant team

Find the best product instantly.

4.7 star rating

Try it now - it's free

score 94 · Accepted Answer

Debian GNU/Linux

Top Pro

Very stable

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: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting. See More

ProfessionalTawhirimatea's Experience

Incredibly stable. Good for desktop use, but Nvidia drivers are a pain. See More

Specs

Package Manager:dpkg (Debian Package Manager)

Release Schedule:approximately every 24 months

Main Usage:Universal

OS Family:GNU/Linux

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

Top Pro

Wide choice in desktop environments

Top Con

No default support for non-free hardware

Non-free hardware will not work upon install of Debian and the user will need to search out the correct non-free software to install in order to make them work. This can be difficult if one of the things not working is the WiFi connection. See More

CreativeDurius's Experience

it is too hard 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

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

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

Fails to restart system

System restarts for software updates will always fail. Fortunately they only hang after all programs and systems have been shut down. Solution is to just hard reset. 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

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

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

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

-

Top Pro

Big open-source project

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

Top Con

Uses SystemD as default init

Debian has support for other init-systems like SysV, runit or OpenRC, however, there is no way to choose a different init-system in the installer, so all Debian Linux installations will default to SystemD. 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 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

Widely supported

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

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

Breaks if you suspend/resume

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

Strict seperation 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 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

TUI installer

The debian installer can still be launched as text/curses-like installer which is more compatible and keyboard-friendly than the grapical version. 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: https://packages.debian.org/en/source/sid/nvidia-graphics-drivers 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

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

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 Pro

Standard vanilla Linux desktop

Debian runs standard Gnome, XFCE, KDE - it doesn't use its own special desktop environment, 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 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

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

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

Standard archives

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

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

Top Pro

Inconsistent init systems

While Linux uses systemd, non-Linux ports use the traditional sysvinit. 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 detailed as Gentoo's USE flags) See More

Top Pro

The Debian Social Contract

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

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 Pro

Rolling or Release based

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