If you have been using Linux for +10 years, what are you using now?
Been using Linux for over a decade, and last few years Ubuntu (on desktops/laptops), plus Debian on servers, but been looking to switch to something less “Canonical”-y for a long time (since the Amazon search fiasco, pretty much).
Appreciate recommendations or just an interesting discussion about people’s experiences, there are no wrong answers.
Edit: Thanks for the lots of interesting answers and discussions. I will try a few of the suggestions in a VM.


Same, with one exception I don’t really like Debian. Ubuntu, I’m surprised it’s still around. I wonder who uses it, especially on a server.
I’m eyeballing NixOS. And Gentoo too. And I’m looking for excuse to try FreeBSD.
You’re surprised the most popular desktop distro is still around?
I’m surprised this shite is the most popular distro, let’s start with that.
Really? They did a ton of work to make Linux accessible to the masses, have an active and helpful community to help out if you get stuck, works really well out of the box on most hardware and you’re pretty much guaranteed there’s going to be a compatible deb available for it if you’re looking for software outside normal repos. Seems like a no brainer tbh.
Why don’t you like Debian?
I’m not old enough to appreciate its obsolescence. It broke on me so many times, basically every single major update on various machines. Arch Linux never broke on me, and I still run my very first installation. Basically on every single machine. Had no need to reinstall anything. I wasn’t deliberately breaking Debian even, never introduced any unusual repositories, used the default flavour of the desktop environment I chose from the installer. Didn’t change defaults too much. Yet every upgrade I did, something was wrong, it simply broke, and the easiest was to simply reinstall than attempting to fix anything. Arch, broke just a few times, most of which was either me doing something, and I knew that was me, or it was on the main page of the distro, in their news, the breaking changes announcement, plus the steps to mitigate them.
I see no point in using Debian, at least for me personally. I use its flavours, DietPi and Armbian on the SBCs, as there’s no Arch, and I don’t really like Arch ARM. Also, Debian’s website yells unprofessionalism, and it’s a bit difficult to tolerate. And the cherry on top, each time I’m about to download it, I have to hunt that BitTorrent link. I know it’s less than a gigabyte, and I could just download it as is from the website. But it’s a matter of principle, if I can download via BitTorrent protocol, I’d do that. Less pressure on the servers, easier and faster for me. Arch, you don’t have to hunt that link. Debian isn’t simple enough for me, I don’t understand its ideas and approach. Having obsolete everything because of stability … how do you know the updated versions are worse, huh? I don’t know, perhaps Sid is stable too, but my bet it’s less stable than Arch.
And the names, I personally dislike them. You choose a random Pixar movie and stick to that. Why? Even Ubuntu’s animals are just so much better. To me that’s as weird as naming your software as Gimp, or having fun with these GNU is not UNIX and other recursive abbreviations. It may be fun when you’re a teenager, or a part of some community, but I just don’t like it either.
I just don’t feel like I’m the part of this community. I’ve been around Debian for like two decades, and never grew liking it. Not my cup of tea.