I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit the mark for us because it can be very helpful.
So, I’d like to ask: What is your least favorite Linux distribution and why? Please remember, this is not about bashing or belittling any specific distribution. The aim is to have a constructive discussion where we can learn about each other’s experiences.
My personal least favorite is probably Manjaro.
Consider:
- What specific features/lack thereof made it less appealing?
- Did you face any specific challenges?
- How was your experience with the community?
- If given a chance, what improvements would you suggest?
If Debian is not great as a desktop distro, it’s at the very least remarkably stable as a server distro. The sentiment extends somewhat to Ubuntu LTS. It could be better, but in terms of uptime and just working I can’t fault either distro.
Debian is a great desktop distro if you get your software using Flatpak, as anyone should be doing in every distro.
Whats wrong with apt?
Nothing at all, the main issue is that with graphical applications developers have an hard time to package things for all the useless distros out there and some other distros like Debian on stable will only haver older versions of software. Flatpak solves both of this issues.
Currently using Bookworm and KDE as my desktop right now. Works really well! If I need more up to date software I use Distrobox and run whatever distro’s version of software I want. I have both Debian Sid and Arch Firefox versions installed on my machine right now just to see if it worked and it’s flawless. I mostly just run apps from SID container and it exposed the app to my desktop wonderfully. Really the only way I will fly these days.
I just now discovered why people are hating on Ubuntu pro by receiving a note that Ubuntu will not provide security updates for some apps it came with unless you activate Pro.
I think I’m done with Ubuntu on any personal machines.