The latest stats from Distrowatch reveal the most popular Linux distributions of the past six months, ranked by page hits per day (HPD). Some of these names will be familiar, but there are also a couple of them making waves.
MX Linux continues its streak at the top, showcasing its strong user base and appeal among lightweight distro enthusiasts.
Linux Mint is a consistent favorite, especially among users seeking a familiar, Windows-like experience.
EndeavourOS, an Arch-based distro, is gaining popularity rapidly, catering to those who want a streamlined, minimal Arch experience without the hassle of manual installation.
CachyOS, a new entry, is shaking things up. It’s clear that users are interested in trying something fresh that prioritizes performance.
Which of these distros have you tried?
Are there any distros on this top 10 list that you haven’t heard of or curious to try?
I have tried all of these except CachyOS. Looking forward to giving this Arch Linux-based spin a try!!
Fedora, Mint and Ubuntu I have tried. Used mostly Ubuntu till now till few months ago and then shifted to the Fedora and will stick to the Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora as that suffices. If my workplace offers a Mac then will also take.
Good to know that, havent heard about it as I have never used Arch Linux but why not. The main problem with the Arch linux is the command line based installation and this seems to overcome that so why not. With this, it might be that i have all system worked on from Ubuntu, Fedora to Arch Linux based CachyOS. Thank you for giving me this information and i am not yet sure that i will use right now but surely i will give a try as and when i find it suitable to work.
I look at the command line installer for Arch Linux as an opportunity, not a problem.
The Arch Linux manual installation process provides an in-depth understanding of Linux, especially in areas like disk partitioning, configuring bootloaders, managing services, and understanding package management with pacman. This foundational knowledge can be invaluable for troubleshooting and system customization in the future.
I believe long term Linux users should try to experience at least one of these 3 distros for a good amount of time, at least once: Arch, Slackware or Gentoo.
These distros emphasize control, transparency, and minimalism. By working with them, users gain a deeper appreciation for the underlying system processes and are forced to learn more about Linux internals. This experience builds confidence and can make users more proficient in using any Linux distribution, not just those more generic/ popular ones.
Also remember that Arch also now has Archinstaller, which much faster for those who maybe have done it manually many times.
Thats very true @hydn and i have no problem in using that unless it offers something intitutive and out of the box. Trying many distros just for the sake of trying a distros, graphical layout and others is not my specific aim and goal.
Yes, learning them along the way is what i am intrigued about. However, i appreciate this information as this tells me that when i have suitable time then which distros i should looked upon as a part of trying them out. Apart from that i find that Fedora, Mint and Ubunutu does all the work, which all others distros do and according to the slackware, these are the dominant ones at any workplace in addition to Arch Linux.
First, let me specify that I don’t consider having tried a distro unless I have actually installed it and used it for real work or play for at least a couple of weeks. In other words, just booting to a live flash drive and checking it out for a few minutes dosn’t count, although I have done that many, many times. Having said that, I have used Zorin OS 16 and 17, Linux Mint 22, and, as a main driver, Ubuntu 24.04. Of those, I really enjoyed Zorin for its good looks and well thought out desktop customizations. Mint is fine, if you were a big fan of Windows XP. Ubuntu is stable, businesslike, and offers a pleasing combination of everything-done-for-you and do-it-yourself. I like the Ubuntu community and the support thrown behind it by Canonical.
Agreed. Yes, and with Ubuntu, Canonical is a step above the rest with Ubuntu Pro, which allows a personal subscription for 5 machines for you or any business you own!
Tried all the popular ones, like 20+, and found out slot of them either doesn’t have a proper working power settings or screensaver/dim screen and so on. I was on a quest for Stremio and YouTube on Linux. Ended up with mostly Mint and Fedora in the end but most Ubuntu variations worked well along with Ubuntu itself.
MX Linux
yes I tried it, it’s based at top of Debian stable, there’s a couple of points for me for don’t use it: it’s packages are quite outdated and I don’t like the default Desktop Environment, it should be some sorta XFCE, I tried it for short amount of time but I did not like. From my POV I don’t know how it can be in first position at Distrowatch lol
Linux Mint
Yes I was with this distro a couple of times, pretty decent distribution, but I prefer using something else.
EndeavourOS
I sometiimes heard about it but I never tried on my system, nor in physical machine nor in vm.
Debian
The grand daddy of all, yes I was using alot this distro, expecially on testing release. On my experience I sometime found some package incompatibilities and something that was working as I don’t like, for example emoji on Discord. I tried many times to install them but I was never able to do it.
Manjaro
Heard alot of opinions about this OS, a colleague of mine was using this distro on his primary machine in the office. It’s based at top of Arch, so updates on this distro are very frequents, sometimes it tent to broke. I never used neither installed on my pc.
Ubuntu
Who does not know about Ubuntu? If you talk to a non tech person he’ll understand better the word Ubuntu then Linux.
I honestly don’t like it and I never used on my system because it’s full of bloatware and telemetry. Chris Titus Tech called this distro “The Devil”, and I’m agree with him.
POP!_OS
Yes! Very beautiful distro! I’ll would like to use it daily but no updates from System 76 yet, and distro current release is nowdays becoming obsolete. I used this distro alot past years.
Fedora
This distro would be a perfect compromise between Debian old-ish packages and Arch too bleeding edges updates. I tried a couple of times, but I don’t like about rpm and dnf packet manager. Notice that the distro Nobara is based at top of Fedora, it’s maintained by Glorious Eggroll, the guy of all Proton and all Wine compatibity layers, still today one of best distro for gamers.
CatchyOS
I never heard about it and I never tried, so I can’t say a word about.
openSUSE
Yes a couple of times I was trying openSUSE tumbleweed, expecially in 2024. I remember I installed it on my main computer but I was never into this. Let’s say it’s not my cup of tea.
This is my a part of my experience during my Linux journey. If you want to say something about my POV please do it!
I have used
Linux Mint - this was my first distro, and I used this for a couple of year.
Debian - I did not like the default dated software.
Manjaro - Currently using for about 2 years
Ubuntu - I have had this installed on other persons computers and maintained it.
Fedora - Used it but not for long. I don’t like the updates.
openSuse - not as easy to get software like the AUR.
I’ve tried Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE. Although I love the ideas behind Debian, Fedora, and openSUSE and I think they are great distributions, Ubuntu just works best for me to get my (daily) work done, but that’s mostly related to application availability and compatibility.
Agreed. I think they only briefly lost themselves when trying to force Unity as their default DE. I know some people liked it but just defaulting to a taskbar being on the left side was a no go for me. I knew it could be moved but the fact that they knowingly defaulted it to the left side didn’t give me confidence in the UI decision making.
Then they got rid of it and Ubuntu has just been doing really incredible stuff since then. Snaps is still a bit questionable, but I haven’t checked that in a long time either. I like that even on servers it allows you even easier access to software not available officially
But I didn’t like that after a couple of months when I try df -h it would be like 20 lines long
But yes, Ubuntu being a Debian based distro is so solid. Then you have also Xubuntu, and Kubuntu and others that are so easy to setup and run and always solid.
I am using Ubuntu 24.04 at work now, and I am really not noticing any problems with snaps (indeed the only minor annoyance is that they appear in lsblk). However, it’s extremely user friendly (especially as I had to deal with Nvidia drivers for the first time, it’s a blessing to have a small GUI to manage it).
hey @andreas
about Snaps I would say they are cumbersome because they install, beside the application, all the required libraries and dependencies. It’s good because you won’t have a missing or broken library dependancie, but application tent to be very huge (more then hundres megs each).
The second point is about Snaps apps are made as virtualized environemnt, so you’d have some difficults while read / write files in a mounted drive
The third point is about their speed and responses: as they are made in a virtualized envirionment they are more laggy and they might be affected with some minor graphical glitches.
About Ubuntu I would say I don’t like as Distribution because:
Is using Snap as Default
Canonical is putting some telemetry on your computer usage
so Ubuntu is more a commercial Linux distro then a priority choiche for a tech guy.
I’m agree about Nvidia GUI for manage the drivers, but I think it’s just the nvidia-settings package, which you can install almost over any distro, afer installed the proper Nvidia drivers.
Indeed Snaps install all libraries/dependencies, but do this only once and share them amongst applications if possible. This implementation is similar to Flatpak. As I have enough storage space, I don’t mind this currently.
Regarding Snaps operating in an isolated environment: true, but I don’t use that many so I haven’t encountered any issue yet with wrongly set-up permissions or anything of the sort (which usually causes not being able to access certain storage locations).
The only speed/responsiveness you might notice is upon first launch, when they get decompressed (this has nothing to do with the isolated environment). Also, there is no environment being “virtualised”, it is just isolated, meaning there is no performance hit from any sort of virtualisation.
Also, finally, I believe you can simply turn off Canonical’s telemetry (in fact, I did so during system set up). If I’m not mistaken, this option should turn it off:
@andreas
as @toadie said yesterday I also prefer keep distances from Canonical and Ubuntu.
I think it’s better to use a native Debian installation or an Ubuntu derivate such as Mint, Pop or Linux Lite.
