Which Linux distribution do you use?

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Your Linux distribution of choice says a lot about you. Of course, one of the many great things about Linux is the diversity of options you have to choose between. Maybe you like a slimmed down minimalist option. Maybe having all of the bells and whistles is important to you. Or maybe you just prefer a distribution that you find easy to use.

Whatever your preferences, chances are, there's at least one distribution out there that's a perfect fit for your needs. Because of the huge number of choices, which we couldn't possibly list all here, we relied up DistroWatch.com to provide us with a starting point of the ten highest ranking distributions from the past twelve months.

"The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more."

When we asked this question in 2015, over four thousand of you took our poll and many others joined the conversation in the comments.

So let us know: Which is your favorite distribution for daily use? And if your favorite isn't in the list, let us know in the comments below. More importantly, we'd curious to hear why you pick your chosen distribution: let us know why you think your distribution is a great pick!

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8945 votes tallied
Mint
13% (1121 votes)
Debian
11% (965 votes)
Ubuntu
23% (2058 votes)
openSUSE
11% (990 votes)
Fedora
12% (1052 votes)
Mageia
1% (65 votes)
Manjaro
3% (225 votes)
CentOS
8% (683 votes)
Arch
13% (1182 votes)
Android-x86
0% (28 votes)
Other (tell us in the comments)
6% (576 votes)

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252 Comments

On work equipment I run RHEL or Fedora. On my private laptops and servers I run Scientific Linux, and perhaps Fedora virtualized if I need to test something more bleeding edge.

Xubuntu

Arch/Xfce, been here awhile. Like my linux simple.

Desktop runs Arch with i3 and Laptop runs Manjaro i3 Community edition

Slackware, of course.

Slackware ... 21 years and counting. I scrape all of the KDE/QT stuff out because. I never got the whole desktop thing. I just use JWM as a window manager and text-mode, Xlib or GTK applications. xfig forever.

Fedora generally, although since the KDE fiasco that was 22 have been using Mint a lot recently

While I see thru NoScript that Red Hat has apparently asked for some sort of permission to run a script, I actually rarely if at all use Red Hat, Fedora, or CentOS. Instead, myself and others have been running Debian host systems and running multiple distros as guest VMs; primarily VM Linux guests such as other Debian versions, Mint, Ubuntu, Arch, and Slackware.

Slackware

It was Ubuntu until unity turned my tower into an ipad, its been Mint ever since, love switching between kde and mate'

PCLinusOs, Slackware, and Linux Mint. Usually in that order.

Currently I run Fedora on my desktop, Ubuntu GNOME on my laptop, and Debian on my server.

I use Fedora on my laptop, CentOS 7 on my server and Docker for application distribution

Lubuntu

Slackware Linux

Trisquel

Recently switched to Netrunner Rolling (based on Manjaro).

I use Void Linux www.voidlinux.eu Very cutting edge, first to use "runit" as init replacement and libreSSL as openSSL replacement. Built from scratch with its own package manager and many other features.

Mint Mate 17.3, runs fast on an old 6 year old dual CPU, 3 Gb HP Pavilion dv6. Use it for Web development mainly. It's so hassle free and so smooth that I'm not looking for anything else.

Lubuntu LTS (which is v. 14.04.3 at the moment)

I use kubuntu on my desktop. I've investigated Opensuse & LinuxMint. I should probably try Gentoo or a derivative.

Kali and Tails, ao both debian wheezy

Manjaro.. KDE version , Kubuntu.

FreeBSD

Devuan VM on either ESXI or qemu/Devuan hardware.

Gentoo

Xubuntu on desktop and laptop. Xfce is great!

FreeBSD

Gentoo php7.0.1

PCLinuxOS on my machines since 2006, it rocks!!

Antergos

I used to have slackware on my box but now switched to backbox

Kali

Slackware, stable.

Slackware

Gentoo! What kind of poll is this?

Slackware, all settings in text files which makes it easy to manage classrooms of 100 Slackware Linux PC's.

- openMandriva Lx 2014.2
- Mageia Linux 5
- SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12.0
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7.0.
- CentOS Linux 6.0
- CentOS Linux 5.3
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 9.04
- Kali Linux 2.0

Gentoo for me

I use Mint for light stuff and CentOS for serious business.

Solus OS

Gentoo

Bodhi.

No Linux distribution but FreeBSD.

Slackware forever

Debian stable and a smattering of ?ubuntu 14.04, mostly KDE. Jessie is a good release, stable and supported for a reasonable period. I don't think KDE5 will be ready for prime time by the time the next LTS of Kubuntu is released in April, the alpha of Xenial Xerus is still a piece of dreck, as was 15.10 Wily Werewolf before it, so I suspect I'll hold on to Trusty and Jessie as long as they are supported like I did with 8.04 Hardy and Debian 5 Etch before them when KDE moved from 3 to 4. A major problem with rolling releases and cutting edge distros like Fedora is that they often force you to move on to new software while it is still pretty half-baked. With backports and PPAs you can add newer software to a stable older base on Debian and its spawn.

Slackware

Archlinux with xfce DE

I voted for Mint because that's what I use on my laptop. However, I also have three servers running CentOS.

Slackware