I genuinely don't understand why anyone would use anything other than Debian (or Ubuntu), Fedora or Arch. Every other distro is a) based on one of those and b) is essentially just a package set + some wallpapers.
While I get your point, you are missing a big player: NixOS. It is not based on any of those distros, it is not similar to any of those distros, and it offers significantly more than just a package set and wallpapers.<p>My NixOS install is immutable, so I can trivially roll back any changes to my system/software/configs.<p>It has a lockfile so the versions of all of my software do not change _at all_ unless I tell it to. That lockfile doesn't just extend to the software I have installed but all the software that is used to build the software on my machine, so I can perfectly reproduce the same system with the same version of software compiled by the same exact versions of the compilers.<p>On NixOS you can trivially have many versions of any software or library installed on your system and use them all (for example, foo can depend on python 3.7.2, bar can depend on python 2.7.1, and baz can depend on python 3.14. They can all happily live on my machine. You can even have multiple copies of the same version of python but compiled with different flags if you want. On arch linux your only option for python right now is 3.14.2.)<p>On NixOS I can trivially run 1 command and generate a bootable ISO that has exactly the same software and configs that I have installed on my computer. This has been rather nice for repair/debugging USBs and for running virtual machines off the ISOs.<p>You're also missing:<p><pre><code> - Gentoo (not based on any of the distros you listed)
- Chimera Linux which brings in the FreeBSD userland, musl libc, and Dinit
- Suse Linux (a pop music video cover band that also made some Linux distros. They were pretty big in the live kernel patching ("Don't reboot it just patch!"). Not based on any of the distros you listed)</code></pre>
I'm not trying to defend the comment you are replying to, but if we're going to bring up NixOS in a discussion that started out being about <i>security</i>, I have to point out that even by the low standards of Linux distros, NixOS's security is bad.<p>For example, NixOS famously didn't require package maintainers to sign the artifacts they upload to NixOS's servers. (They still might not: it has been a year or two since I inquired.) The NixOS project considered it more important to make it easy for people to start maintaining NixOS packages (so that users would have a large selection of packages to choose from) than to have any kind of supply-chain integrity.<p>Maintaining a distro that is even remotely secure is a great deal of work, and the people that are willing to put in that work don't pick a distro to base their work on at random: they strongly tend to base their work on the distros that already have a pretty good security story, so for example the relatively new distro "Secureblue" is based on Fedora Atomic Desktop because Fedora already had for many years a pretty good security story. (E.g., it and RHEL are the only distros that use selinux in any real way.)<p>The point is that it is probably going to be hard for NixOS to improve its security much because most Linux maintainers either do not care about security much or do not even realize that the security of <i>all</i> Linux distros is lacking (compared to ChromeOS, MacOS, iOS or Android) The small fraction of Linux maintainers willing to work on improving security and aware of the immensity of the task naturally tend to direct their work toward a distro and an ecosystem (e.g., Qubes, Kicksecure, Fedora or Debian) that has already been the target of much previous security-improving effort.
Defaults matter way more than many think. More often than not, defaults are what inspire distro hopping.<p>Why? Because the path to the desired result from a big-name distro is frequently non-intuitive, often to the point that the user may not even realize it's possible. When something doesn't work as expected, the response isn't "I need to figure out which packages to install and what config files to change," it's "oh I guess this distro isn't what I'm looking for".<p>I think it would do an immense amount of good if the big distros did more to address this. If they made it such that a fresh install could be made to fit any remotely common use case and hardware combination with no more than 1-3 clicks that would make tiny distros much less appealing.<p>A handful of distros have the right idea by offering an install ISO with preconfigured proprietary Nvidia drivers for example, but even that could be improved upon by just rolling some heuristics into the stock install ISO to figure out if the user needs Nvidia drivers or not.
Add the gaming distros to the list too.<p>People generally want something that works, without tinkering - particularly on an entertainement device. I'll happily let Valve etc. pick the kernel and driver versions, set up the compositors, make the controllers work, etc.
> Every other distro is a) based on one of those<p>Apart from NixOS, Guix, Alpine , Void, SuSE, Gentoo, Slackware, PCLinuxOS, GoboLinux.....<p>> essentially just a package set + some wallpapers.<p>Not Ubuntu with a different support cycle, Mint and PopOS with their own DEs, Arch derivatives that are easier to install, Elemantary with a DE and apps, Devuan with multiple init systems, ......
NixOS would like a word<p>Beyond that, Gentoo, SuSE and a few others.<p>But generally, yes, be careful with what you install :)
I prefer Alpine because it's lighter weight. And not derived from any of those.
Debian is out-of-date with packages although for good reasons and Ubuntu is a corporate lobotomized version Debian.<p>Fedora is bleeding edge not recommended for anything other than testing and is of corporate RedHat now owned by IBM and Arch is Gentoo's jealous cousin.<p>It's why I use FreeBSD and keeping close tabs on Haiku.
This is a good illustration of the general rule that short one-sentence explanations of a complex technical topic or decision should usually be ignored whereas long explanations that go into details are at least worth something if there aren't obvious falsehoods in it.
> Fedora is bleeding edge not recommended for anything other than testing<p>we have vastly different opinions on bleeding edge.
Well, I may of made an error in my poke. I more meant is that it's not recommended for production usage and I would call daily driver systems as production. I will admit fault on that.<p>As myself I'm currently using FBSD16 for my colocated servers and desktop. I have been bleeding lately.
I wouldn't consider it suitable for servers but I think it's perfectly fine for desktops. I still use Debian stable on my desktop because I prefer keeping out of date packages.
I agree with the sentiment you're trying to express.<p>But as a Gentoo / SuSE user, I'm also a little offended!
My first Linux install was SuSE 7.2 =)<p>Then Slackware, Mandrake (Mandriva now), dipped my toes into RHEL and OG Fedora (had a Fedora 1 DVD) but eventually settled on Debian and haven't looked back.