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Gianni R @lemmy.ml

(Constructively) What is your least favorite distro & why?

I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit the mark for us because it can be very helpful.

So, I’d like to ask: What is your least favorite Linux distribution and why? Please remember, this is not about bashing or belittling any specific distribution. The aim is to have a constructive discussion where we can learn about each other’s experiences.

My personal least favorite is probably Manjaro.

Consider:

  • What specific features/lack thereof made it less appealing?
  • Did you face any specific challenges?
  • How was your experience with the community?
  • If given a chance, what improvements would you suggest?
119 comments

  • My least favourites are probably ubuntu and manjaro, not so much because of the distros themselves but the organizations behind them being a bit dodge.

  • I know it's probably an odd choice, but ChromeOS. It has the potential to be not just a good starting point for new Linux users but also a distro that could allow Linux to be a lot more accessible to people who aren't as technologically capable. The main problem is that, similar to android, Google prevents ChromeOS from being used as a proper Linux distro. Right now, it might be a good alternative to Windows and MacOS but as a Linux distro, it's just not worth using. Especially considering that Linux already has some options available for running android apps, such as Waydroid, that work pretty well.

  • I use Fedora as my primary desktop distro. It's a sturdy base with relatively up-to-date packages from the repos. It doesn't really push technology I consider undesirable, like Snaps. Even though I have to rely on RPMFusion for a number of proprietary parts, due to Fedora's free software stance, I don't have any particular qualms about that. I also increasingly use Flatpaks anyway.

    When I used to use Reddit the /r/fedora community was helpful and welcoming.

    One downside is because the kernel changes frequently, and I (sadly) own a Nvidia GPU, akmods runs very often. Another downside is sometimes that frequently changing kernel can cause issues. I think in the past year or two I've had two distinct occasions where a kernel upgrade caused my mounted shares to not mount correctly. Reporting an issue to upstream also takes quite some involvement, as I discovered when I had to create some Red Hat account to report an issue about the packaging of some software in a beta release of Fedora.

    So all-in-all I would say Fedora is a strong distro. It is probably not the most beginner-friendly one, though, given how you have to dip your toes into RPMFusion and related challenges. It used to be worse, since DejaVu used to be the default font system-wide and you had to install a fonts package from COPR to make the system actually look pleasant. Since then they switched to Noto, which makes the font situation MUCH better.

    On servers and VMs I use Debian because I do not have the patience to maintain a faster moving Fedora multiple times over. This is exacerbated by the awful defaults of Gnome, which I have to bend into shape with extensions. When Fedora 40 releases later this year I fully intend to reinstall from scratch since KDE Plasma 6 will be available.

    edit: i misread the prompt and just talked about my favorite distro that i actively use. whoops.

    My least favorite distro could be Manjaro if I actually used it, but it is Ubuntu because of how close it is to being a great distro. Snaps really soured me to that deal. Snapd and Snaps make it difficult to use in VMs, too, because now you have to over-commit resources for something that could and should be smaller and simpler. Debian stays winning, as usual.

  • I never figured out why, but I couldn't get any version of suse to work properly on my computers. I've been with Debian (sid) for about a decade now, so not the most up to date criticism here.

  • I really hate to say this, but Lubuntu.

    I enjoyed it for a solid few months (it's a lightweight XFCE LXQt version of Ubuntu, so it worked great on my very underpowered MacBook Pro from ages ago) so it was heartbreaking when one day, randomly, I couldn't get past the login screen and my TimeShift backups didn't work.

    If it wasn't for this out-of-nowhere critical failure, I would say I loved it.

    • I really hate to say this, but Lubuntu.

      it's a lightweight XFCE version of Ubuntu

      Do you mean Lubuntu, or Xubuntu? Lubuntu uses LXQt.

  • My least favorite is Linux Lite. It's supposed to be a lighter, simpler version of Ubuntu but I don't think it accomplishes this at all. It's very slow for something that's supposed to be lightweight, and still includes Snaps, which are also very much not lightweight. Plus its software center is just bad, which is not great for something that's marketed at Linux noobs. Linux Mint XFCE or SpiralLinux are better options for a Linux noob who needs a lighter distro, IMO.

    An improvement I'd suggest: obviously, ditch Snaps. Another would be to take a look at what Bodhi Linux does and have the "software center" run in the browser. I don't know how good this is security-wise, but it definitely speeds things up from the UX side of things.

    • Yes, this was my experience as well. Linux Lite was literally heavier-weight than Mint on my machine (probably due to the snaps)

  • I'd agree with Manjaro, It was my first I kinda know Linux distro after brown Ubuntu and Mint at the time it really worked well, but then package desyncing started affecting my installation followed by the first of many controversial behaviours from the team. It's one of many Linux distros that hasn't progressed much in the last few years, like elementary, and the idea it is easy to arch is false when you end up having to babysit updates because testing isn't as up to par as something like Fedora or Mint.

    Garuda is a distro that has swung from a do not install to prob the best "Welcome to arch" distro for me. Their focus on tooling is getting up there with Mint & Suse BTRFS manager being a shining program of the project. More so, shows how utterly pointless Manjaro has become and badly managed the project is.

  • The distro I came here to mention has been hated on already. My dislike goes to the distros that start off fine, and somehow screw it up.

    Honestly, I remember using Manjaro ages ago. It had an official Openbox spin (not a community thing). I had already used Arch but I didn't even check to see what it was based on when I tried. I thought, "green is nice" and it was. It very quickly became less nice. I didn't use it after that, but I've heard plenty of hate since then.

    I'm going to put another one out there just for fun.

    Distrowatch's n°1... MX Linux

    Nothing wrong with it, but the fact that it is number 1 (I know their ranking is just for fun and based on page hits) and doesn't deserve it is the issue. It works great, when I used it I didn't like how there was a second application for installating certain software. I think I used the Xfce setup. Again, it's fine, but if a first-time Linux desktop user sat down and installed that, it might not be the best initiation.

    Popular and highly ranked distros give Desktop Linux a bad name sometimes is what I'm saying.

  • I don't like Ubuntu because of their forcing method to use Snap package manager.

    I don't like Manjaro because of its poor dependency management. Many dependencies are not declared, so that if you update a package, it won't update the undeclared dependency and it won't work any longer. You have to update everything or nothing, and when disk space becomes low, updating everything at once is impossible.

    • I assume that Manj follows #Arch and doesn't improvise on sys dependencies. Definitely not poor.

      Arch-archives by date, means you can build a system exactly as it was fully upgraded on a specific date, and the system works just like it used to.

      Other systems that may carry 3 versions of the same library because different sw use different versions are the ones with the problem. Except for redundancy and space the system is not very coherent..

      @Shamot @gianni

    • partial upgrades on distros without hard linked dependencies is a disaster caused by the user.

      You should never have a system with less than 20% free space, but I mean system, not /home, not /var/cache/ of /var/cache/pacman,
      Make partitions and mount things separately, especially /home

      In a pinch you can live without man-pages remove /usr/share/{doc,man,html}/
      and on /usr/share/locale/ keep just the ones you use

      When you need a man page reinstall the pkg.

      @Shamot @gianni

  • Pull out your pitchforks, debian.

    Don't get me wrong, it's good in a VM or a server, but it's the worst Linux desktop experience I've ever had.

    • Apt sucks, it's the worst package manager imo (and I use Gentoo). Slow, bad a dependency resolution and apt-autoremove nuked my system both times I tried to use debian.
    • It's old. LTS is only good for servers, you cannot change my mind and I don't see a reason to use sid or unstable, when I can use literally why other distro with a better prepare manager.

    And it just does some bizarre things, like not setting up sudo with the graphical installer...

  • I don't get the hate for Manjaro, TBH. I never had any problem with it, and I used it as my main OS for a few years now.

    • People dislike it because:

      • There's no real reason to use it over Arch/EndeavourOS
      • Their holding back of updates for 2 weeks is stupid and can cause breakage/dependency issues when you also have stuff installed via AUR (which doesn't get held back for 2 weeks)
      • They hold back packages for 2 weeks, citing stability and that they can check for issues then patch before they push, but then they just... don't do that. Known issues still get pushed.
      • Manjaro repos have had issues with malware in the past
      • Manjaro has on multiple occasions had their SSL certificates expire, with their advertised "fix" being to roll your system time back. This is a job that can be automated, or at the very least should have a reminder for someone in Manjaro to sort out. The fact it happened once is an embarrassment, but the fact it's happened more times is absolutely inexcusable.

      • Once, I listened what some people said on the Internet, and I tried Arch. I came back to Manjaro, but I learned a lot so I'm not unhappy with the experience.

        However, to say that there's no reason to use it over Arch (I don't know about Endeavour, I never actually used it) is just wrong. Maybe you don't like the differences, but they are important and useful for someone like me. When I installed Arch, I needed to tinker it for hours before having something usable. I don't want to tinker, I want my OS to work, even if it means other people made choices for me, as long as I can revert them; that's what Manjaro offers. For example, I love GNOME, but only with some plugins, like dash to dock. When I installed Arch, GNOME made an update which broke a lot of plugins, included dash to dock; while Manjaro waited for dash to dock to work to push the new GNOME. Some issues may be pushed, but a lot of others aren't. I prefer to have one big update twice a month instead of having to update and tinker again my OS possibly every day.

        Manjaro is far from perfect, no distro is, but for people like me, it works very well, and better than Arch.

    • It's fine. People like to shit on it, usually people that have never even tried it.

      I've run it for years on many systems and had no issues, which I can't say with most other distros I've tried on and off.

  • Debian.

    Everything is so manual, not even system upgrades or enabling automatic updates. Like, this can be easily scripted using sed, why dont they do that?

    It gets outdated very quickly and people complain that their apps are outdated, while Debian is simply shipping an extremely outdated package.

    I respect what they do, and maybe for a Server it is a good OS (even though I would trust Fedora with SELinux and quick updates more).

  • I don't really have a least favorite distribution. I mean, I guess between Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, openSUSE, Manjaro, and Gentoo, the least appealing choices to me are Manjaro and Gentoo. Manjaro is just Arch but worse, because the packages are old and likely to cause incompatibilities with AUR packages that need really up-to-date system packages, and I...don't trust the maintainers to have configured everything better than I could have myself. Just based on history.

    Debian has ancient packages. That's the only reason. I'd just end up using Flatpak packages or compiling from source.

    Any other distribution I could use, including Gentoo, but Arch is the sweet spot for me.

119 comments