Prove youre an OG, State your distro couz

Mint!

... alright, go ahead and shoot.

F-that! Take pride... Mint is ridiculously good. Well managed, stable, "just works" and yet has all the capabilities you want, including auto-running near the edge for current kernels (backed down to stable) without doing jack. You can run at the bleeding edge if you want to manage it yourself.
And for any haters - here's my take: I've been working with Unix for 30+ years, I installed Slackware off of floppies when 16MB of RAM was god-like. I have built, compiled and managed nearly every distro at some point certainly the upstream giants. I've been there for the birth of all of them. I've also professionally worked on AIX, SunOS/Solaris, HPUX. Yes there's a lot of fun in maintaining and running things to your satisfaction, but when you hit a certain inflection point of balancing your real life and maintaining distros across multiple machines and decide "This is the way" - Mint just fits the bill on so many levels.
Mint is the bomb and I'm done pretending. Fight me (not you, OP, you're cool)
- 20+ year Linux user here. Fuck it, I ain't got time to manage dumb shit. Install and go, please.
  Though I am curious about LMDE.
- I've got to admit, I do love Mint. I've thought about hopping, but I've never had a serious problem with Mint (that wasn't my own fault) so I've never really had the motivation.
- I love how wholesale that got ^^;; I tell all my friends who're switching basically the same thing. Linux is Linux and as long as works for you, it's well maintained, and does what you need it to then don't fix that's not broken (unless you're distro hopping then let the chaos ensue)
All my homies love mint, just because it's friendly doesn't mean it's bad!
Mint is the basic bitch of distros. Sure she shows up in fugly ugs, leggings, gripping a pumpkin spice drank. But she shows up! Works hard. That girl fucks! Make no mistake, basic bitches make the world go round.
Mint is the shit!
Mint works pretty well! I've never been much of a power user so using its GUI (Cinnamon 'cause I failed miserably at running KDE) to update and install certain programs is pretty convenient.
Mint power
the only objective problem mint has is that it's so good I struggle to get people I convinced to install it to be interested in other distros and stuff. And that's fine.
Mint is a solid choice and the one I recommend to anyone who just wants something that works or doesn't care about having several choices, and even when someone wants to explore more options I always include Mint. It just works, it's easy to install that even my non-tech savvy mother on a phone call with me managed to install it and Cinnamon has just enough customization options ootb to make it yours without being overwhelming to a noob like KDE.
I personally don't use it cause I am not the biggest fan of using GUIs, debian derivatives and I prefer KDE plasma so I just go with other options (currently Fedora 40, been using Arch and NixOS a lot before this), however even in my case I could most likely turn LM into what I want with some effort (I just don't see the point in doing that), and my father who has been using Linux since Kernel 1.0 and is definitely a power user swears by it.
- has just enough customization options ootb
  Mints biggest crime is not having a Mint-Y dark mode despite so many people asking for it if you Google.
  Best theme, bright mode only. Criminal.

Arch, but not fully installed. Just persistently in installation process.

Arch with extra steps, AKA CachyOS.
- lol I switched to CachyOS because it's Arch with less steps, at least as a user

Opensuse TW KDE

OpenSUSE TW KDE supremacy!
Opensuse TW KDE
I tried installing it 2 times, fucked it up the first time because I didn't read it well enough, then fucked it up when trying to encrypt an USB drive. I've found its installer really not user-friendly. Any tips on the installation?

Debian 12

It's just so good

It really is

Slackware.

D - to the E - to the ma' fuckin' BIAN

Puppy Linux, baby cuz I got that dawg in me!

First? Mandrake.

Now? Debian.

Ubuntu actually. I hated Ubuntu for a long time, until there was a game which only ran on Ubuntu. And now, after installing it, I'm actually pretty impressed and like it a lot. Yaru is a very good-looking theme, and the customizations Ubuntu made to stock GNOME are actually pretty logical (like adding windows buttons). It has among the best documentation and package support in the whole Linux universe. I'm a guy who likes to tinker, but for whom it is more important that the PC runs well, and I haven't encountered a single problem with Ubuntu yet - no kernel panic, no weird Bluetooth stuff, no apps which don't run for some reason,...

Everything just works. And that makes me happy. So Ubuntu it is.

My first try at linux was ubuntu 8 on a 2008 or 09 Lenovo idea pad. I left linux shortly after for windows based products for a little while for mostly pc gaming. After learning more about the current state of linux in 2022 i return to Ubuntu long term release and I'm very impressed with how well it works.
I have been tinkering with different things like large language models and a few other tools which has caused me issues with graphics drivers recently but overall it works well every time

Recently switched to NixOS.

Endeavour, fixing issues is easy enough.

Yes I have the arch logo as a wallpaper of my PC and my phone why do you ask?

hell yeah, endeavour is such an underrated arch distro, almost plug and play
running kde?
- Yep, I'll admit that I kind of gnomified it with the super button opening the overview (not slow since 6.0), but that's kind of the point of KDE, we can do what we want.

Nobara: Fedora "Gaming" KDE

Just installed this on a laptop. Really good. Love that it comes with steam, wine, lutris, and all that jazz preinstalled. Amazing docs and very easy to dual boot and put encryption on it. Highly recommend
- it is linux made easier than windows
Nobara club hi5

Opensuse. Screw all the haters, it just werks (except for codecs needing to be installed and some minor fiddling)

My first was SUSE followed shortly thereafter by the initial release of Fedora Core. Lots of distro hopping and tinkering later, I run LMDE these days as my daily driver and I distro hop on the other computers in my collection.

Debian 12

GNU Guix where even geeks are G

Kubuntu, because I did the "hard"-distro-to-show-off thing with Gentoo 20 years ago and can't be bothered anymore.

Depends on the machine.. Debian, arch, and fedora

Depends on the machine... Arch, Debian and ...Asahi! (Actually Fedora)
- Maaaaaaan I’ve wanted to try Asahi since its development took shape. I know I’m probably not that far off with my PBP running Fedora, but it’s just not the same…

Debian. Always have, always will

Fedora Kinoite The Future Is Now, Old Man😎

Um...

Manjaro (Stable) with Plasma 6 (and broken Oxygen icons).

I plan to merge those icons with GNOME icons... which are also partial, but I am too lazy. I like their early 2010s 3D look, but currently nearly half my icons are just missing.

I should be able to just rsync them together I hope and name it something else. Then also rsync the default Breeze icons as a last resort. I should be able to do that with --ignore-existing I think.

NixOS, surprised nobody mentioned it

They're too busy compiling the 15678th generation of their systems

I'm far from OG, unless you count my dad's SUSE that I "used" as a child for a while. I fondly remember SuperTux. But I didn't really interact with the system much beyond starting games or a browser.

Later (about six years ago, I think) I started dual-booting Ubuntu as a side piece for productive stuff while gaming on Windows. Gradually tried gaming on Linux too, then made the jump to Linux (Ubuntu) exclusive late 2021.

Since a recent PC upgrade, I've used an additional disk to try Nobara and am happy with it so far. I've now got a spare disk and more time to try new distros, so I plan to explore the distroverse some more, but all in all I'd consider myself more of a newcomer or at best a resident than an OG.

Red Hat 4, father say me down on one of his Frankenstein computers built out of his trash heap in our basement and told me to have fun. I found tux racing konquest and played the shit out of them

Gentoo for the last 20+ years. Slackware before that.

Ran something or other off dual floppy drives at some point in the ancient times... A boot diskette and a root diskette.

My first distro was Slackware 4. Now that I'm old and don't got time for that, I'm running Linux mint on my main PC, 2 raspberry pi OS, and Ubuntu LTS for a Minecraft server.

I use void because I liked the name

Arch🗿

btw
BTW. With clang lto'd kernel 6.9. When non-Arch get the buggy updates, We have already moved on.

Historically, Debian.

Right now, openSUSE.

Corel. You all are too young.

brooo. I heard about it. That distro was ahead of its time, too bad linux was not as developed as it is right now.
Check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cd6F5_FUt4
- This was a great watch, thank you.
- Yeah, it was good.
Slackware over here. High five

Debian Busta!

Because no one mentioned it here: tuxedoOS! Ubuntu based, so its stable, with nice and tested KDE packages

Redhat 5.1. I had no idea what I was doing.

Puppy Linux 4.20 in a pentium 3 laptop.

Current distro of choice is just bunsenlabs.

Slackware back in '05 to '09 stopped for a whIle and i just got back Into it. Currently distro hopping the BSDs and fiddling with gentoo, and Guix, trying to set up A reproducible system that doesnt use systemd and offers good wine and vm support with an Openbsd firewall/router and nas setup.

Whoa, I used Slackware for basically that same time frame (IBM --- not Lenovo --- ThinkPad 600e, which was pretty ancient even at the time). Good stuff!

Usually Chad VoidLinux because it avoids the Unix-philosphy ignoring piece of garbage systemD but now I'm trying NixOS

Time to shoot the newbie. First used Ubuntu 20.04 in 2022. It was a necessity at the time on that shitty laptop and I had never used Linux before. Wouldn't go back to using that distro or laptop ever again since I have upgraded.

Garuda

Mint + xfce

Grew up in red hat- you know? Back when red hat wasn’t the enemy.

Endeavor is my flavor of the month. (Why pick one?)

I discovered Linux with RedHat 4.2

Im pretty glad I got to hear him speak in person.

OpenSUSE Aeon

Wubuntu

Kubuntu

Debian 2.2 "Potato" on a stack of floppies. If one was corrupted, you had to reimage it, and hope the download was good or you'd be sitting and waiting for a while.

#!++ just to be too cool for school

First boot was MKLinux. Before there were books about Linux in book stores. I had no idea how to login.

Started on the 'buntu in 2005 or 2006. Distro hopped for a decade until I found Solus. That had some dark times a few years ago but seems to be back now but I moved to Debian anyway. Feels right.

Fedora on lappy 486, Nobara dual boot on compy 386.

Might pick something else for compy though. Don't really game on it with Linux since my games are Windoze only (iRacing)

first distro was Linux Mint as far as I remember, but the first distro after I actually learned why linux is good was ZorinOS

Is that Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant?

First: SUSE 9.1.

Current: Arch

Qubes OS.

EndeavourOS, best one I've used yet.

Very tempted to try this one. What do you like about it?
- Endeavour has basically all the pros of Arch without the challenges. Most times I just want to do some gaming with minimal fuss so for me it's perfect. I can still tinker when I want to.
  I think they've standardized on KDE Plasma and Wayland (though I still recommend X11 for stability) as the default but last I knew they offered current builds for almost every DE, which again just saves hassle if you prefer another.
  I used Manjaro previously but it seemed too disconnected from Arch / the AUR, so it felt like a crapshoot on whether certain package versions would work or whether the Arch wiki was relevant.

Debian 2.x (don't remember exactly) was my first attempt. But I don't actually count that because after annoying driver troubles (networking and mouse) and having to recompile the kernel multiple times I unfortunately lost interest.

Tried again with Debian 8 on my laptop and stuck with it until I moved 100% Linux just a couple of years ago thanks to Valve/Proton.

Mabox.

I started with some UMSDOS-based "full X11 desktop in 5 floppies" distro on a 486, then went through Slackware, RedHat 5 with glibc breakage, actually bought a SuSE boxed set in the 7.x era, mostly stuck with Slackware unril I realized I wanted stuff like Steam and perhaps some degree of dependency resolution is nice. Bounced off of Arch (the AUR is a terrible concept IMO) and ended up on Void, which gives me Slackware-like vibes, but a little more built for broadband instead of CD images. Been trying Debian Sid latrly, just because I put it on my new laptop and I figured I'd go consistent, but I'm not sure I'm sold. Everything works, but even for an "unstable", the packages are dated and I dislike systemd on principle.

What is it you don't like about the AUR?
I run Arch but don't install anything from the AUR unless absolutely necessary (or if it is dead simple enough for me to understand). I find the pacman-only experience makes a great stable low effort stable PC with all the latest bells and whistles. System updates on the weekend, once a week. No problems.
- I guess I was startled when I went for my go-to desktop (fvwm) and it wasn't in the main repo, but the AUR.
  It feels like it means they're not actually maintaining a lot of their package pool, just tossing it off on third parties.

Flaked NixOS unstable

I'm using Arch Linux as my daily driver, my previous distro was Void for quite a while. After Void I tried out Fedora but I hated . Right now I'm testing Guix on a virtual machine too

Started out with mint back in the codec days. Now use Aurora at work , Bazzite at Home

Started with OpenSuse, then Mandrake, then looong time Debian, now back to OpenSuse TW

In the beginning, i used mint, then i used arch for a while, now im chilling comfortably with a dual boot of bazzite/arch. bazzite for the gaming setup, arch for the work setup.

Void! I used arch btw for quite a while, but then decided to switch and I don't regret nothing... Except the docs, the docs aren't very good. I'm also running debian 12 on my home server, and it has been a good experience

I use a distro that describes perfectly my will to live - Void Linux

I've tested Ubuntu (before they switched to the Unity interface), played a lot around Linux Mint, including dual booting. I ultimately settled on Manjaro. I do still occasionally test out other distros with virtual machines, such as Debian, Trisquel, and Zorin.