Which one(s) and why?

  • Servers are a different story but for Desktop, OpenSUSE.

    Because:

    • It’s stable even on their rolling OS (Tumbleweed)
    • Gaming works exceptionally well
    • CUDA works with little effort
    • RPM-based (personal preference)
    • zypper is an excellent package manager and my experience has been better than that of yum/dnf
    • Extensive native packages and 3rd party repos
    • No covert advertising in the OS
    • Minimal (no?) Telemetry
    • Easy to bind to active directory
    • it feels polished and well built
    • I do not have to mess with it to make it work

    Part of my transition from Windows to Linux was that basic tasks like installing software or even the OS itself shouldn’t be a high effort endeavour. I should be able to point to a package file or run a package manager and be able to go about my day without running “make” and working my way through dependency hell.

    I say this as a Linux user of all different flavours for well over 15 years who has a deep love for what it brings to the table. If we want it to be common place with non-IT folks, it needs to work and it needs to be simple to use.