I think i had trouble with Debian on newer hardware/laptops, as the stable build is normally a little behind. Ubuntu worked better for those purposes. I also found finding answers online easier with Ubuntu because of the size of the community and amount of noobs (including me)

I loved the concept of the rolling release of Arch linux, but the reality for me turned out to less than the promise. Things broke. If you only used things occasionally, you’d find them broken when you needed them. And then the community could be hostile to noobs. I also tried a couple of variants like Manjaro etc, but the numbers of people using it becomes less and less until you are the only person running that hardware on that distro, so it’s your problem.

Ultimately, resigned to the fact that Ubuntu was a safer bet for me. On one machine, I run the latest version with updates. On an older laptop, I have the 24.04 LTS, and will probably stick on that as long as I can. Ubuntu LTS basically ends up like a Debian stable, but there always seem to be one application that I need that eventually requires an upgrade to a later version.

Also, not a fan of the snaps, flatpaks etc, so end up installing native deb packages, and blocking some snaps

anyone running vanilla debian for desktop?

Yes. With more cult-of-the-new OSen, I got quickly tired of unwanted churn and the resulting breakages.

Standardising all my (user-facing) devices on Debian means I can choose how rapidly I want it to change, but everything about how to use and configure the system applies to them all.

Devices I never want to think about except to patch security vulnerabilities? Debian “stable”, which makes that a promise.

Devices I want software that’s had a good period of shaking out already? Debian “testing” runs on my desktop and notebook devices.

Devices I want the instability of changing packages, to whatever has recently released by package maintainers? Debian “unstable”. Though this latter has for the past decade been entirely in temporary virtual machines, that get created on demand and then discarded as soon as whatever I’m futzing around with has succeeded or failed.

I switched to Debian recently and haven’t had any major issues.

IMO, definitely dump Ubuntu as quick as you can. Linux Mint is a great Ubuntu-based alternative that gets you all the benefits of Ubuntu (plus some) and none of the Canonical bullshit. If you want to divorce from Ubuntu entirely, LMDE is a great project that rebases Mint on plain Debian! Another lovely project by that team.

Personally, my first pick daily driver is OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. If you like playing with config files and the idea of hyper-replicable system setups NixOS is a very interesting project that I’ve enjoyed a lot in the past.

CachyOS is getting quite a lot of attention recently, and as far as Arch-based distros go I have enjoyed using it. It has a lot of performance claims, but does come with all the drawbacks of ArchLinux and bleeding-edge rolling release distros – not that it’s a terrible experience, it just requires you to be more mindful and more capable than your average distro, especially if you’re going to utilize the AUR.

TL;DR - there are a boatload of interesting distros out there. My first recommendation would be Linux Mint/LMDE for familiarity and ease of entry.

Catchy on the PC. Kubuntu on the old MS Surface’s. I preferred Bazzite to catchy.

EndeavourOS: the minimalism of Arch made intermediate-user-friendly.

I’ve used Arch with Cinnamon as the DE for the last five(ish) years. I used to run Mint (which is what got me onto Cinnamon) on my previous desktop but figured I’d try something else. I’d often come across helpful info on the Arch wiki when I needed to look stuff up so decided I might as well go with that, and it’s worked out fine (ok, I did get the system to not boot fully once due to an update issue, but I sorted it without reinstalling).

Debian, on both my various servers and desktop. It just works.

I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora once I had enough of Ubuntu being weird. Very happy with Fedora in general. I know it’s not a very enlightened suggestion.

I’m also curious how Gnome OS develops, but I’m not sure I would go there yet.

I’ve been running Bazzite for a while now, it isn’t truly inmuteable but it isn’t the best if you want to tinker.

Bazzite has been excellent for trouble free gaming but probably wouldn’t be my first choice for an older laptop

Debian (stable, with necessary non free) for both desktop and laptops. XFCE. Solid as a rock.

My daily driver laptop is Fedora KDE Plasma … because I love updating everyday. I also have an old all-in-one for the kitchen that runs Mint perfectly. My bro uses Arch from the command line only, but I don’t have time for that

I’ve been running CachyOS for a while now after switching from Bazzite. Bazzite was really good, but I wanted to install system packages and wasn’t feeling up to screwing around with Bazzite like that. CachyOS has been fantastic so far, both it and Bazzite are excellent choices for gaming setups.

CachyOS - wanted Steam hardware compatability, and familiarity; KDE provides.

I liked Ubuntu but at the time it randomly crashed my Wi-Fi driver, killing my system within hours to weeks…

Wish I’d go back to Nyarch (KDE) for the meme but I was on Gnome and wanted to try some recommendations. I liked Bazzite more than CachyOS, but I don’t understand Fedora and struggled to install an RPM file despite instructions :(

Been using Linux Mint - Cinnamon starting over two years ago just before Spring. Made the decision to take the plunge when at the time, Windows 10 was going to lose support in 2025 and hated the idea of upgrading to Windows 11. Glad I made that leap, because it’s been a pretty good experience and everything felt like a breath of fresh air, especially since you can actually change the fonts of everything on the desktop as well like you could Windows 7 and earlier iterations of that OS and I can even still do the gaming that I enjoy, what with proton and even Heroic.

Even decided to get a 1TB drive for my Zenbook and pop Linux Mint onto that. Since then, no computers I have, be it laptop, or even netbook have any iteration of Windows.

As for the netbook, an EEE PC 1000HE model, I would take it with me to a library just to mess about with it, which has MX Linux running on it, which sadly the 32-bit version will lose support in 2028, which is a bit of a shame.