Why did you choose the distro you chose?

I checked and this has been asked before - but the last time was a decade ago and times have changed while choices may have changed. I also didn't want to necro a thread that's been dead for a decade.

As a general rule, I'm using Lubuntu 18.04 LTS (64 bit). I do use other distros, but this is the base OS (bare metal) for most anything I use regularly.

It makes sense to go in reverse with this one.

I chose 64 bit because I like gobs of RAM and having a number of applications open simultaneously.

I use the LTS because I prefer stability over 'shiny new things'.

I use 18.04 because it's the last Lubuntu with LXDE and I'm not fond of LXQt. I'm probably going to go into the extended support with 18.04 because Lubuntu 20.04 runs more like a beta and I'm really not fond of how Canonical is going about this 'Snap' app thing.

I use LXDE because it's pretty straight-forward for me to configure and, once configured, it gets out of my way and I no longer have to play with it. It has the bonus of being light on resources - while being surprisingly good for customization.

I use Lubuntu because it's an official flavor of Ubuntu.

I use an official Ubuntu 'flavor' because of the community around it - which is there possibly because of the popularity of the OS. This community means that I can generally find a solution for any problems I encounter with the same DE, init system, applications, package manager, and things like that. It also means I can sometimes answer questions.

Anyhow, from searching the site, I saw this was last asked a decade ago and times have changed, distros have changed, reasons may have changed, and more. So, I figure it'd be informative to revisit this question.

I did consider some sort of poll, but this sort of info doesn't fit well into polls.

The first distro I ever managed to get online (this was the 90's, so winmodem) was LibraNet linux. Which was based on Debian. So when LibraNet folded, I switched to Debian.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller The first distro I ever managed to get online (this was the 90's, so winmodem) was LibraNet linux. Which was based on Debian. So when LibraNet folded, I switched to Debian.

I just realized I can't click to mark a post helpful in the 'general' subforum. Ah well...

Thanks - and that's a *long* time to mostly stick with one distro. IIRC, the last LibraNet was like 16 or 17 years ago.

Heh. The first distro I tried to install I forget what it was didn't. Slackware did.

So I started my Linux journey with Slackware v. 10.x, quite by accident, and I'm glad I did, because Slackware taught me to understand Linux.

Originally Posted by frankbell Heh. The first distro I tried to install I forget what it was didn't. Slackware did. So I started my Linux journey with Slackware v. 10.x, quite by accident, and I'm glad I did, because Slackware taught me to understand Linux.

And you've stuck with it just 'cause it was the first to install properly back then? I had to look and that was somewhere around 15 years ago.

I used to use Slackware long ago, but moved on when there were things like handy GUI installers. I distro-hopped for years, which probably didn't actually teach me much. I spent more time learning desktop environments, package managers, and distros - instead of learning more about Linux and the standard stuff that (usually) comes with it.

Thanks for answering.

Originally Posted by KGIII I just realized I can't click to mark a post helpful in the 'general' subforum. Ah well... Thanks - and that's a *long* time to mostly stick with one distro. IIRC, the last LibraNet was like 16 or 17 years ago.

OH, I don't ever stick to one single distro, I've used just about everything there is out there, but I always return to Debian. It's by far my favorite OS, with Arch slotting in #2. After that I'm not OVERLY fond of other OS's, although Fedora and Void are both tolerable.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller OH, I don't ever stick to one single distro, I've used just about everything there is out there, but I always return to Debian. It's by far my favorite OS, with Arch slotting in #2. After that I'm not OVERLY fond of other OS's, although Fedora and Void are both tolerable.

As a general rule, I don't dual boot anything. If I want to play with another distro then almost every device I own has absurd amounts of RAM and I just play with it in a VM.

While typing this thread's first post up, I was pondering various ways to effectively ask this question in poll format. Your response (and my own) really aren't great for poll-format questions.

I also wonder about how many people try desktop Linux and stick with it (exclusive or not) for more than a year. I can come up with no way to get accurate data for that. I suspect it's similar to those who try to learn a musical instrument - and some ~90% stop taking lessons within a year.

I don't dual boot either, but I have a desktop and 5 laptops to test distro's in. I don't like testing in VM's, although I will occassionally.

I have first installed Kurumin Linux, back in 2007, and when it was discontinued I chose Kubuntu, which was my main distro for years, while duabooting Windows and (Debian or Mint).

After remove Windows back in 2016, I started to dualboot up to 12 distros, until feel comfortable or discard each one.

Now I feel comfortable with openSUSE Tumbleweed, Arch, Debian testing, Fedora, Neon, PCLinuxOS, Void ─ always with KDE.

Testing MX Linux KDE Beta 2 since 9 days ago, and it is fine, too.

You mentioned your second favorite was Arch. Any big reasons for that? I find myself at their wiki quite often.

Originally Posted by Flavio R. Cavalcanti ... I started to dualboot up to 12 distros, ...

That's a lot of distros. I'd get confused with that many. Why KDE?

Pre 1999 I tried a few distros, & found Debian did what I wanted more easily than Slackware, RedHat, or SuSE.

I soon found better/more to my liking, & easier to install, versions of Debian based systems, & settled on #! (Crunchbang) Linux a long time ago, & used it until its demise - at which time I found AntiX, & have been with it ever since - (probably was my choice in the previous thread ).

P.S. I prefer to use Window Managers, & Fluxbox is my choice.

I think it was 1998 but could've been 1999 when I installed Red Hat but quickly replaced it with Mandrake on a friend's recommendation. I bought O'Reilly's Linux in a Nutshell and and Running Linux iirc from Comp USA. After about 3 months of Mandrake I did an "apt-get upgrade" and the system failed to boot accept to maintenance console. I managed to get to full multi-user CLI but X wouldn't run at all and I wasn't yet aware of /var/log/Xorg.0.log and even if I had I wouldn't have bothered because that failure was too unstable for me.

I asked around among the guys I respected most on various Linux channels on IRC and most of them told me Slackware. When I asked why, most answers were a variation on the same theme - "Stuff just compiles properly in it". I got v7 and installed it but within a week or two v9 came out so I got that. I've "test driven" at least 60 distros in 20+ years but Slackware has remained my Main, and likely will forever.

I've been through quite a few distros since I started with Linux in 2004 or thereabouts. Some (Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo) simply didn't "click" with me so, after a short trial, I moved on.

There were four distros over this period that made me say, "I really like this." The first was Debian Stable in its pre-systemd days. Then came Crux, recommended to me by someone at Linux Forums for its cleanness and speed. Then LFS, though I don't think that is really a distro in the proper sense. You make your own distro with LFS. For several years I had one that I really liked and used most of the time, building a new version out of the old every six months. But that has become increasingly hard to do with all the new build tools and languages that are needed to build some packages. So I finally settled for Slackware, the distro I use now. I like it for the same reason that I liked Crux and LFS: it's clean and internally simple, and I can understand how it works.

The first few years I changed distros fairly often; after initial installation I always ended up ripping out what I don't need, replacing components etc.

In the end I chose a distro that forced me to build my own system up from the foundations, and stuck to it.