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)

Results

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Comments

252 Comments

My laptop runs ELEMENTARY OS with a few tweaks. I'm a creative and I like the simplicity and the style and all that control is under the hood through the terminal.

Me too! Elementary os (freya)

Elementary here too :)

Gentoo with Pro-Audio extensions

Kubuntu on three laptops and one desktop.

Slackware

I use Fedora on my laptop and workstations, and CentOS on my servers and firewalls. I also play with Mint.

Sabayon, a rolling release distro based on Gentoo.

Arch, but also Fedora.

Been running Arch as my primary for quite a while now on my workstations. Though on secondary machines, I tend to make distro choices based on the specific task (or the specified software) the machine will be running.

I use Peppermint

Came to Slackware from Soft Landing Systems 23 years ago. Have not seen anything in all that time to make me want to switch.

Like you I run Slackware.. never found a distro that has been able to match it...

Antergos

Which distro? I'm only allowed to use one?

Fedora on the dev workstation, Ubuntu on the entertainment tablet, CentOS on the digital hub, CentOS on the web server, Ubuntu & CentOS on client machines, raspian on the Raspberry

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You are so correct! Thank you!!

openSUSE almost exclusively. Tumbleweed on the laptop and working with Leap for servers.

I have many distros that I play and work on. My laptop triple-boots with Mint, W10, and CentOS. I also use IPFire, OpenElec, and am starting to use more Fedora on a spare laptop. I just not been able to use Ubuntu due to Unity. I just have not had good experiences with Unity.

Lubuntu on netbook and desktop. Because its old school gui. I'm not a fan of computer OS feeling like it was made for a tablet (Unity)

fedora for my development projects... its design is very lovely

Gentoo on my laptop and long-living servers (hardened on servers). CentOS in the cloud, probably moving to either CentOS Atomic or CoreOS as devs move to docker.

Slackware 14.0

Kaos :) the best KDE experience!

I have several machines and several distros. I use Ubuntu on my main machine, but also use Linux Lite on an older laptop, MX-15 on an old workstation, and AntiX on a really old laptop.

Slackware. T400 laptop and server.

Debian

Gentoo, dammit!

PCLinuxOS on all my machines. Gave up on Mint, XXBuntu and I am an Arch hater.
Puppy on all my removable devices...

Elementary OS

Kubuntu

Mint and Netrunner

GENTOO!!!!!

OpenSuse & Mageia

On my notebook Manjaro now, before that Mint. Raspberry pi work with Debian (raspbian).

Xubuntu on my laptop

Debian Very stable distrub for server

I would be interested to see the poll multi-select and see if the results change significantly or not.

My primary laptop is running openSUSE (Xfce Tumbleweed) with other systems running Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate. I like the look of Unity, but it is a little bit heavier and Xfce runs much smoother on the laptop.

On my home servers they are currently running Ubuntu Server (14.04 LTS) and I am planning on setting up an ownCloud server running on top of openSUSE Leap.

I do try out Fedora but the short lifespan keeps me from throwing it on a server.

And then there is the Raspberry Pi, usually running Raspian.

Slackware

PCLinuxOS 'Full Monty' on my desktop & the standard KDE on my laptop.

Debian.

Puppy Linux is my favorite but sometimes I use Lubuntu

Xubuntu 15.10 on my laptop, Xubuntu 15.10 with i3wm on my Chromebook, Ubuntu server LTS on my VPS.

Raspbian, on a PI2

openSUSE

I use Linux Lite on my desktop, Xubuntu on my laptop, and Peppermint on a small laptop that I use when I have to carry it a lot. And I use XFCE on all 3 of them even though Peppermint uses LXLE by default.

Have been running Kubuntu on all my desktops/laptops since Novell bought Suse in 2003

I used to use Ubuntu, but I'm now using Sabayon Linux.

Tiny Core Linux - fast, clean and easy.

ubuntu-MATE & Xubuntu on desktops(LTS only).....debian stable on servers

Slackware 64 bit current. A rolling release that in my experience is more stable and configurable and up to date than every single release version I have tried (4) on the list.