Open Ballot: Best Distro 2012

Posted at 3:53pm on Tuesday December 4th 2012

As 2012 nears its cold, wet conclusion*, we're asking you to look back over the past year and let us know which distro you think deserves the award "Best distro 2012". If you're nominating a distro that's had more than one release, let us know which one.

Raspbian and Android Jelly Bean are a couple of less-conventional ones that have caught our eye. Security-focused distros such as Tails and Qubes are becoming increasingly important in a digitally-hostile world. Mint continues its relentless march towards world domination. Mageia has had a great year while Ubuntu has had it's ups and downs. System Rescue CD protects you from Zombies (honest). Fedora and OpenSuse have continued to deliver. Zorin seems to be attracting interest, as does Rosa. Arch continues to be perfect (if you believe Graham). Gentoo earned a perfect 10 in an LXF review ... the list goes on.

Here at LXF towers, we're divided. There's a rainbow of different distros on display and no clear favorite. Or, rather, there are five different clear favorites depending on who you ask.

Use the comments below to let us know your feelings and we'll ~~use them to gloat when our preferred distro wins~~ discuss them in the podcast.

We'll put our 2012 distro roundup feature online once voting closes (Thursday morning).

*Unless you're south of the equator where it's nearing its warm, sunny conclusion. We're not jealous.

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Your comments

The best is..

popey - December 4, 2012 @ 4:01pm

..the one you chose to run.

All other distros may or may not suck, but the one you selected is the right one for you.

(BTW Ubuntu 12.04 FTW)

Debian

DebianDave (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:16pm

ALL distros seem to have their roots in 1 of 3:
-slackware
-red hat
-debian

I've tried them all and looked for a balance of building/tweaking a system I can call my own, and yet have enough of the tedious basic such as mouse, wifi, video, sound, and networking 'just work'.

Started with Slackware in 1994 and has held a special place in my heart to this day. Later tried Red Hat 5.? and when I saw everything 'just worked' there was nothing left for me to do I dumped it. Any monkey can do that, I wanted to have more of a say in building my system so as to learn. Then I found Debian. Further from Unix than the rest (Slackware being the closest to pure Unix) it offered some smart tools including the almighty 'apt'. I've been 'apt-getting' my life away ever since!

For me that is Debian. A close second is Debian Mint which provides a few extras to smooth things out.

My vote, and what I currently run: Debian Mint

DebianDave
Mattituck, Long Island, New York
Running Linux since 1994

Senior Systems Analyst

Dominick (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:17pm

Linux Mint 13

Ubuntu and Debian

Brandon (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:19pm

I personally like Ubuntu for desktop/laptop uses. Debian for my server. All personal preference and what ever someone else says works best for them. Debian was the first distro I tried back in high school that I really liked and it just stuck with me. Ubuntu brought many of the Debian features to a more user friendly packaging.

Ubuntu 12.04 has Taken the

Anonymous (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:26pm

Ubuntu 12.04 has Taken the world by storm!

A Minty Year

Beardy Jesse (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:37pm

I've enjoyed Mint 13 with the Cinnamon DE for most of 2012, and having recently upgraded have found Mint 14 and Cinnamon 1.6 a good, solid improvement. Nothing has rocked the boat too much which is both a negative AND a good thing. Isn't it about time we had a distro that you could install and think "ooh, this looks the same" but as you use it you find the tweaks and improvements??

The year of fresh

Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:41pm

Surely there is no doubt that the tool and toy of the moment is Linux Mint?
My own favorites have shown less progress recently, so they are not in the running for the distribution of 2012. Another suggestion could be Arch Linux. The popularity of Arch has bloomed in 2012 and 2011. It is a strong contender for the distro of the year for the less intimidated Linux user.

Have to agree with Ubuntu 12.04

Neil Munro (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:42pm

I am running 12.10 on my laptop (I really wanted the latest gimp!) and because my laptop is fairly new I must be one of the few individuals that noticed a massive performance INCREASE rather than the regressions you hear about all the time.

However I have two other machines that aren't as new and they run 12.04 flawlessly, it's only my relucance to add PPA's to my system that I upgraded my laptop to 12.10, had it been back ported much in the same way firefox is, I'd have stuck with it!

It is great looking, rock solid and very usable, I cannot commend Canonical enough for innovating in the UI area, it might not be to everyone's tastes, but I love that everything is search driven and keyboard based, I rarely have to take my hands off the keyboard. Unity actually got me excited about new desktop environments again!

Arch

Odaym - December 4, 2012 @ 4:47pm

Linux.

xubuntu/mint(?)

Anonymous Beaver (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 4:54pm

xubuntu 12.x, can someone tell me why mint is really loved,
i've only read that the difference is that some codecs are
included but you can tick a box to install such things during
a standard ubuntu installation.

Down hill

Ram - December 4, 2012 @ 4:59pm

Down hill I'd say, nothing has stud out this year.

Oh, still using Ubuntu 10.04 lts.

Slacky

Spegal66 (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 5:19pm

I think the 14 release of Slackware is brilliant.

It is stable and stopped me from distro hopping.

Tried and Tested

Ray Woods (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 5:22pm

Whilst the developers have been trying to force everybody into a smartphone/tablet hell I would vote for anything which still allows a great desktop picture to be displayed when the computer is idle. (Who the hell wants a screen load of icons?)

Cinnamon looks good but requires too much grunt from your processors. (Processor grunt should be there for the applications not for the background work.) The SolusOS 1.x range, by retaining Gnome 2, works very well for my computers and, the developer is quietly working on his take with Gnome 3 in the background for SolusOS 2, which will be released when ready. (Now fellows, this is the way you should revolutionise the desktop; not just to pull the rug out from everyone.)

Actually, I believe these new desktops have really been developed by Microsoft so that Windows 8 didn't look so rubbish when that came out and to reduce the Linux DE threat to their dominance of the PC market with a duff release like Windows 8. (There's nothing mainstream to replace Windows 8 with, they mostly all have the same stupid style of DEs.)

I've just started to look at Bodhi 2.1 which works well, even in VirtualBox, which says a lot for Enlightenment, I just have to figure out how it works! At least when I press the wrong thing, I soon now about it, unlike many DE which need a lot of resources to make things happen.

Message to Desktop Developers, we don't all have top of the range PC to hand, so please, make your number one priority for 2013 to be efficiency not bloat.

All Of Them

aSheepie - December 4, 2012 @ 5:30pm

How can you choose this? Most distros shine in their own way, and are often very different to one another. If you want to run a server, if you want to run a techie desktop, if you want to start someone off with Linux, if you want to rescue a failed hard drive - each one of those will haven a few different distros that will shine in that particular field but aren't so useful for other uses. Plus there's then the base distros that are used to create others, like Debian with Ubuntu and Mint - should these be raised aloft as unsung heroes?
I could try to list what I like, but then I use several different distros for different purposes, so I'm not sure I could even select one for my own personal preference. The closest I could come to choosing anything would be the Linux kernel, as that's what enables me to do lots of cool things with all the stuff built on it, but then that's not a distro, haha.

Linux Mint 13/14

Anonymous (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 6:13pm

Linux Mint 13 is great, 14 looks awesome. I am using the MATE version right now but i'm going to test cinnamon on 14.

Whonix (despite it's a "virtualbox distribution" that uses debian) deserves to be, at least, mentioned for its innovation on the anonimity concept.

3 distros

Serj (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 6:17pm

Chakra Linux and Manjaro Linux. And Arch of course as base for them. Both chakra and manjaro are simple, stable, up-to-date. And rolling release.

Mint 13/14 XFCE + compiz + Gnome Do

Anonymous Penguin 567 (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 6:19pm

Got to be Mint 13/14 XFCE with compiz and compiz icon plus Gnome Do. Perfect for any machine: desktop, laptop, netbook, nettop or home server.

As for touch screens; I think you are crazy to use anything other than android if you want a decent touch experience. Desktop OS's and touch don't mix well. I think Gnome3 is targeting a burning windows 8 hardware platform.

Mint XFCE is nicely (over 8 weeks) downstream from ubuntu and even the main MATE/cinnamon releases of mint so most of the bugs are worked out by the time it is released.

Turn compiz on or off as needed for optimal video/opengl performance. Codecs out of the box. More like windows than windows now so easy for beginners but has all the tools more advanced users need all ready to go. Add as many or as few compiz effects as you want.

Add a large XFCE bottom launcher panel for a simplified OSX like interface that works with or without compositing.

Perfect PPA compatibility so super easy to add the latest package versions. Open any app, folder or bookmark instantly with Gnome Do.

Don't miss paid apps from the ubuntu software center because the latest versions are usually downloadable from vendor websites (or the humble bundle) as .debs.

All the mint goodies like mint menu and mint themes/wallpapers/icons are there if you want them and Nemo is the best file manager on linux (perfect balance between features, performance and ease of use).

Everything wrapped up in an easy to use and super fast package that doesn't radically change itself from version to version.

Debian SId

rattus (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 6:42pm

And for a fun(mostly) learning experience LFS

Best KDE distro goes to...

Sultan_of_Swing - December 4, 2012 @ 6:42pm

Linux Mint! This often overlooked branch of Mint has produced, in my humble opinion, the best KDE distro this year. That said, kudos must be apportioned to KDE developers, as they have made the graphical desktop work perfectly. But a distro is more than just the desktop, but also the way things work behind the scenes and the applications available by default. Mint KDE works smoothly behind the scenes (as long as your PC is modern enough) but comes packaged with a good selection of applications which means you can just jump right in.

Yes, there's still a bit of tweaking required if, like me, you like to fiddle to get things exactly as YOU like them, but it works right out the box for those who don't.

PearOS and Bodhi have also impressed this year. And of course Puppy, my faithful companion, who has saved my PC numerous times and is just so damn quick and awesome, it deserves to be awarded Best Puppy Linux of the year!

Bodhi

ElanMan - December 4, 2012 @ 6:54pm

Bodhi Linux. Enlightenment has been, well, an enlightenment... I have Bodhi installed on my desktop, laptop and netbook and there's even a version for my raspberrypi! Love it!!

They all have their foibles

Andyb (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 7:02pm

I have played with Linux on and off in some form or another since 1992/1993 while studying at the UWE in Bristol. I've been using Linux full time for about 18 months after deciding I wanted to see if I could replace Windows. I started off with Fedora, moved to Mint, Ubuntu and finally ended up at Arch because I decided I wanted a rolling release distro. I've Been using Arch for nearly a year now and loving it.

I keep meaning to give Slackware a try in a VM, it is a long time since I last tried it so I will try that next year.

I have given Gentoo and Funtoo a go in a VM and I like them but prefer Arch.

My vote goes to Arch, it gives a great balance of stability and always having the latest updates.

Arch ! Rock stable and NO

Jan (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 7:26pm

Arch !

Rock stable and NO suicidal dist upgrades any more.

Puppy and Ubuntu 12.04

Prolific Puffin - December 4, 2012 @ 7:27pm

Puppy Linux has had 2 major releases this year, and both the "Slacko" and "Precise" versions are outstanding. I have found there is really nothing I cannot do with Puppy, and it does it faster than any other OS I have ever used.

Ubuntu 12.04 also gets my vote, as Unity has become mature and polished in the LTS. Of all the desktops out there on any OS, Unity is the only one I see as 100% functional on both the desktop and a tablet.

It has been a very good year for distros indeed!

Illiteration

Beardy Buffalo (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 7:54pm

Ubuntu 12.04

Simply because despite what many people might say, I think that Ubuntu still strikes the best balance of stability, usability and bleeding edge. I run Ubuntu with GNOME 3 and it is incredibly productive for me; the unity interface isn't my cup of tea but it isn't even funny how easy it is to install a different DE. Canonical has done and is doing something that no other company has ever done with Linux and taken some risks and put some money into getting it on hardware standard along with riding the right waves (Android).

TL;DR, Ubuntu 12.04 FTW and I think that it's time the community stopped being so cynical, realized it's easy to switch if you want to and started supporting Canonical.

OpenSuSE 12.2 best KDE very comfy rolling release, etc.etc.etc

whathappenedtorealnames_franklindemann (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 8:01pm

Open SUSE had 12.1 and 12.2 releases this year.

Using it since SuSE 7.0 (Your CD got me hooked back then)
I like the completess of these releases, the "One click"
install for everything from single programs to whole window
managers (like KDE 4.9). You can change to a rolling release
(Tumbleweed) mode with a "One click" if you like.

The rock solid foundation (with a bias towards KDE) and no
problems with other window managers (on my 2 13' sub-notebooks
the SUSE LXDE are the most stable compared with Mint / Ubuntu)
allows you to experiment.

Linux Mint 14 MATE

Shimi - December 4, 2012 @ 8:25pm

The one distro that just works.

(for me)

Mint 14 for me

Ken Watson (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 8:54pm

Mint conquered my distro-hopping a few years ago. I have been a little frustrated as all the major DEs went through their convulsions, but think Mint 14 has finally achieved the stability we need to get real work done, while preserving the flexibility we love in tweaking our environment "just so." Whether your preference is MATE, Cinnamon (my favorite), XFCE, or KDE, Mint 14 makes them all work beautifully. For 2013, I might vote for Mint Debian, but I'm waiting for the iso respin, which probably won't make this calendar year.

Mint. Has to be

heiowge (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 9:20pm

I'm gonna throw in my vote for Mint. I've not tried Mint 14 yet, so I'm going with 13. Actually, I don't really care which version you go for. It's not the distro that I'm voting for, it's the community!

Something breaks, they fix it. You think a package improvement needs making, they listen! The distro might not be 100% perfect, but they at least care about what you think perfect means.

There are many big names can't say that.

Fedora 17

Ricardo David (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 10:21pm

Ubuntu Unity still could not get as stable as I need it. Have to bang my head while using any Mint desktop. openSuse 12.2, very nice, but, the first place goes to Fedora 17.

Best for me

Brian36, Dorset, UK (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 10:23pm

For general use: Mint 14 (MATE and Cinnamon).
For testing stuff with ease of setting up: PCLinuxOS LXDE.
For testing older kit: Antix Base 11.
For partitioning and initialising USB sticks: Parted Magic.
Horses for courses, really.

Mate DE

J Fartpants (junior) (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 10:23pm

Out of Unity, XFCE, Gnome Classic and Mate as desktop environments for Ubuntu 12.04 on hardware which is not ancient, but fairly basic, I find Mate the most usable and visually pleasant (after a bit of tweaking with compiz config and whatnot), which probably means I'd give my vote to Mint as a distro if I had tried it.
Certainly a number of programs seem to run better with Mate (Ardesia for example causes everything to freeze in Gnome classic, but is fine with Mate).

Debian

Unimportant Penguin (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 10:35pm

Well given that it's what I've been happily running most of the year, since the slow implosion of sidux/aptosid my vote goes to debian sid.
Really once you go rolling release the periodic turmoil of the six-monthly crowd is just too much hassle to contemplate. Sid does break sometimes, but it breaks in small ways that you can do something about.

gentoo

reup dereut (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 11:11pm

it seems I am the only one so far to speak about gentoo. well, I tried them all and I do agree that each are great for someone. for me, after 16 years of Linux, I choose gentoo and stick with it

366 versions of Arch

Patrice LACOUTURE (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 11:14pm

Arch released in excess of 366 versions and each and every one of them rocked if you ask me.

Mint Maya 13

agegap1 (not verified) - December 4, 2012 @ 11:40pm

OMG one letter away from Mayan and 13 is an unlucky number. What does this mean for the end of 2012.
I am using Mint in the same way as I used to use XP before updates killed it. Easy to use and not too flashy but at the same time being concerned that it is using too many resources.
Also Raspian.

Debian

twitter (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 12:09am

Wheezy or Squeeze depending on your needs.

PCLinuxOS

ender21 (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 1:36am

Once I had this distro installed I stopped looking until recently when I decided that a plan B would be good. I still haven't found plan B. PCLinuxOS is a rolling release so there is ongoing support for the 'version' you have installed and no need for those tiresome OS installations when a new version is released. It is easy to install so not even tiresome for this distro.

Mint, but...

Craig L (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 3:33am

Mint 9 allowed me to get away from windows some years ago and despite some experimentation with other distros, I've returned to the warm embrace of Mint 13 (MATE and XFCE).

Special mention should go to Scientific Linux 6 and other distros for the part they played at CERN.

Kubuntu 12.04

Another Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 5:25am

Tried a few this year...
Other contenders are Bhodi (clean and functional) and OpenSuse 12.2 (bling)

Kubuntu 12.04 just works and is efficient to use. Haven't tried Mint 13 KDE. Time to fire up Virtualbox :-)

RHEL 6

Anonymous Penguin2 (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 8:21am

For me and for sysadmin purposes the best Linux distribution for this year is with no doubt RHEL 6 or CentOS 6.

What about Elementary OS?

Vladimir Kolev (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 10:00am

Well I hate the path Canonical has taken with Ubuntu. At the moment we see - just targeting: targeting TVs, targeting Tablets, targeting ... well everything except a computer. There was a time I promoted Ubuntu to a lot of my friends, so they can migrate from Windows - that was successful, but now - users that don't care about shiny stuff and just want something familiar to do their everyday work - Now they all use Linux Mint. That should be 10 of my friends who don't want to see Windows on their laptops/computers anymore.

Now as the title says - What about Elementary OS? They have done a lot of work. I decided to test it about 5 months ago with their hidden daily Alpha Release - it was stable enaugh so I could do almost all my work logged in to Elementary. It is nice, elegant - works with mouse and a keyboard. No more boaring GNOME Shell, no more stupid Unity, no more KDE (probably the only mature DE at the moment). The elementary team did something different and nice looking. They rethinked, designed and made it simple - elementary. I think they deserve a lot of credit this year.

My Vote - Elementary OS

Pear Linux 6

Dave P (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 10:13am

I have 2 laptops with Ubuntu 12.04 and the other with Pear Linux 6 although both systems are similar I prefer pear it's faster and suites me better thanks to all involved.

Anything Wheezy...

Xelous (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 10:23am

I don't think any of the desktop or server distro's win any plaudits this year, but the innovation and enthusiasm created by the release of the Raspberry Pi has brought a quite pure form of Linux into the headlines and imagination, so my favourite distro for the year has to be Wheezy for the Raspberry pi.

P.S. Its pronounced "Zel-us", like Jealous... Not Xelooose... You did make me laugh.

A little bit of what you fancy

Egregious Penguin (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 10:49am

I have to agree with Popey, the best distro for anyone is the one they find easiest to use, which for me is Kubuntu or Mint 14 with cinamon.

Popey has the answer

JohnB (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 12:57pm

I Totally agree with popey its whatever distro you prefer.

Ubuntu 12.4 LTS is my choice.

openSUSE

Linuxrich - December 5, 2012 @ 2:01pm

My personal 2012 distro has got to be openSUSE 12.2. Suites my needs perfectly in terms of reliability and frequent updates to key applications.

2013 Mayan prophesy

Ken Bates (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 2:02pm

it's all very well for you at Tux Towers to have a laugh about "best distro 2012", while cocking a snook at your masters in Bunga Bunga land, but quite frankly you're missing the point. What the punters want to know is...
"Is 2013 going to be the year of linux on the desktop?"

Puppy Linux Precise

Dale (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 4:02pm

Puppy Linux Precise for the WIN! This distro goes with you anywhere can run on virtually everything and saves all your data back to a flash drive without leaving a trace on the computer. The community is fantastic and it just makes geeking out a joy. It's good for a girl or a boy. Don't overload your shiny new computer with crap. Let it run free with Puppy!

Xubuntu 12.10

Rhakios - December 5, 2012 @ 4:39pm

Xubuntu 12.10 fixes several problems I was having with 12.04 and is working pretty well for me so far. A proper desktop is a relief to use after the frustrations of Unity.
Otherwise I have been much impressed by Mint13 KDE, to the extent of seriously considering migration of my main desktop box.

More Puppy info..

Prolific Puffin - December 5, 2012 @ 7:02pm

@Dale - I have several installs of Puppy Precise, and I agree it is outstanding, but have you run the newest version of Puppy Slacko? It came out about 2 days ago, and it is amazingly polished. Your Precise save file will not get recognized when you boot it, but look at the Live CD, and I think you will be impressed!

I hope Barry gives Puppy-Precise the same face lift. :)

Construction man turned Linux wannabe Geek

Frankie (not verified) - December 5, 2012 @ 9:12pm

Since I wiped out My 2 Apple computers and put Bodhi and Pinguy on them I can say I'll never go back to Apple. I did put Ubuntu on my Sons desktop and he likes it alot. Just waiting for another customer to throw out there Apple so i can put Linux Mint on it . If I had 200 Computers I would praise every version of Linux . Linux Rules ......

salix and puppy

Grandma Penguin (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 12:06am

Salix is an easy to remaster Slackware-based distribution with with a fine XFCE desktop but also works well without any tweaking. Fast on an older PC

Puppy a very small light distro that is easily configurable and has found a way to hide the geeky stuff so even an OAP can install it! Very fast on an older PC.

Good Old Kubuntu

Phil (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 5:46am

I keep coming back to Ubuntu based OS as it simply has such a truckload of apps to choose from and heaps and heaps of support. Like it or not it is the one that manufacturers look to and as I like my KDE I use K-ubuntu.

Slackware

acolyte of the church of volkerding (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 9:37am

"Systemd, Upstart, Gnome, PulseAudio, 'recommended packages'? Turn away from your decadent life of dependency resolution; your disgusting love of needless complexity; your sinful disgregard for KISS and POSIX - and turn towards the one true distribution."

- His Holiness Patrick Volkerding

Mint 13/14

sudo rm -rf / (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 10:54am

Linux mint with the MATE desktop has been easy to configure and simple to use. It's got its parent distro, Ubuntu's great hardware support and huge software range without the controversial decisions and untested software.

A close second place goes to Fedora 17 with KDE desktop.

Ubuntu 12.04

martyw (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 11:55am

For use in desktop, laptop and htpc ubuntu 12.04 wins my vote, the Unity interface gets mature and the stability is flawless

Best business distro: red

Anonymous IT Penguin (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 12:18pm

Best business distro: red hat, it reached one billion
Best all open distro: debian
I've used it for 6 years at work at least 40h each week with no problem: ubuntu

Bye!

Thanks for the puppy advice

Dale (not verified) - December 6, 2012 @ 1:11pm

@ProlificPuffin Thanks. I tried Slacko 5.3.3 and it did work well but I have never run a Slackware distro before and I am more comfortable with Ubuntu/Debian based systems but I will definitely give this a try....downloading right now. What are the major differences between Slackware and Debian anyway? I have more reading to do...Thanks again!

Am using Mint 10 Julia

Mihaly - December 7, 2012 @ 4:56am

And it seems to be working fine for me, I tried Ubuntu (9, possibly 10) but didn't really have the hardware to make the unity desktop run, and without shiny, whats the point? Also tested Fedora 14, but I think Mint just beats it overall ease of use, and still has nice desktop.
I've invested in Dream Studio from OSdisc (via distrowatch), but I don't think it will run on my current hardware, so am waiting for next update.
Wishing Everybody good wishes for the season, thanks again for your podcast and the opportunity to contribute.

There is no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you in its hands

Mint 12

Al Lemand (not verified) - December 7, 2012 @ 11:44am

The last version that can be installed from a CD. Newer versions are too big. Too many distributions are getting too bloated for installation from a cd. Some of us have hardware that only has a cd and won't boot from a usb stick

Solus OS

Kevin O'Brien (not verified) - December 7, 2012 @ 1:51pm

I want to give a little love to this distro.

Ubuntu 12.10

Xavier (not verified) - December 7, 2012 @ 11:12pm

I loved using Ubuntu 10.04 and later 10.10. With the change to Unity, I was disappointed and did not like the the new look and limited options. I hated not being able to customize the ugly launcher bar as an example. Now, 2 years later I decided to give 12.10 a try and I must report that I'm pleasantly surprised and extremely happy with my new Ubuntu desktop! Yes, a few things could still be improved, but as a whole the experience is great and everything just works and works better than before. The software centre is a pleasure to use and I hardly have to resort to direct package installs to get anything I want. I do try out other Linux flavours on a regular basis, but I always find them lacking in some respect. I guess once an Ubuntu fan, always a fan... 1st place for Ubuntu!

Mint 14 and Fedora 17 for me! :D

Markus McLaughlin (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 12:36am

Linux Mint 14 and Fedora 17 are worthy of BEST DISTRO! :D

@MarkusMcLaughln

Hudson, MA, USA

Arch just keeps rolling on...

Mervin (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 12:54am

I've spent a few years with Ubuntu. Some upgrades were pretty hairy. Then I tried Crunchbang, then Archbang, and now Arch and a number of spinoffs.

Arch updates sometimes get you into trouble, but the comfort of not having to face a quantum upgrade every 6-18 months, not to mention the latest & greatest drivers (mostly with better performance and stability each time) is fantastic for me.

Fuduntu!

AnonymousPenguin (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 12:59am

Fuduntu is the best distro of 2012!

Manjaro

Jaxmetalmax (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:08am

Manjaro Archlinux !
An Arch based distro, stable, rolling release, and ultra lightweight.

Fuduntu

mitchell da yeti (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:09am

Fuduntu is the perfect balance of speed and usability. I have it dual-booted on two laptops. Everything works right, right away. I've tried a half dozen others, and Xubuntu came close, but Fuduntu is the best.

I say Fuduntu. Great distro,

MrInch (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:10am

I say Fuduntu. Great distro, awesome community with great support.

+1 on Fuduntu

Kate's baby (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:10am

Fuduntu is the best I've seen in 2012.

This is Commander Shepard

Commander Shepard (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:11am

and Fuduntu is my favorite Linux distro.

Voyager Linux - an improved Xubuntu!

Xubuntu a la Francais (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:11am

Needed a new distro to replace a no longer supported version of Ubuntu Studio and so made the switch to Voyager Linux after seeing it on the Linux Action Show.

It's Xubuntu made beautiful and dinosaur AMD3200 is running like a charm.

I will say Kororaa

Fahad Ahammed (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:21am

Kororaa is my favourite . Full of power .

SlackerD

SlackerD (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:32am

Fuduntu is best distro you fargin' iceholes! :redlid:

so many choices

Anonymous linux user 05 (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:34am

It all depends on what you are into. Fuduntu is really nice and great on net books if you are into RPM distros. Zorin just works and looks pretty. Can't wait for Solus OS 2 to come out because it will probably be my distro of choice. Elementary OS luna beta is beautiful, works great looks nice but some of the DEVS have this arrogant attitude about them and have said if you don't like what we chose then try something else..you can't configure it that much. The idea of Linux is freedom to choose and with elementary if they don't watch out, people will choose but not them. I do not have enough computers for all the distros I like.

Fuduntu Other distro's have

Anonymous (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:38am

Fuduntu
Other distro's have little quirks that cause me to always come back to Fuduntu. It is rock solid.

Mint 14 Cinnamon edition

Anonymous hippie (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 1:44am

Mint 14 Cinnamon edition

Fuduntu

Fuduntu_love (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 2:17am

Fuduntu is still rocking Gnome2 !!!!

That one guy from some place...

M4t3us (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 4:24am

Fuduntu has my vote on this one!

SimplyMepis, still

Art Levine (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 5:13am

I really don't have a pressing need for anything bleeding edge. I just want something that is incredibly easy to use, easier still to figure out how to use, and just for me, pretty much moron proof. SimplyMepis fits the bill. And SM is still, in my experience, the most stable distro running. Works for me anyway.
SM followed by Ubuntu 12.04, followed by Vector 7.0
I eagerly await the release of SM12 beta.....

PCLinuxOS 2012 Full Monty

Anonymous Penguin - December 8, 2012 @ 2:54pm

A great way to break up a huge menu into 6 colorful, logical desktops each dedicated to a different subject: 1)Internet, 2)Office, 3)Games, 4)Multimedia, 5)Graphics, and 6)System. You still have the Menu Icon, File Managers, etc. in the Taskbar, most commonly used programs are icons in widget boxes.

XUBUNTU

Happy Penguin (not verified) - December 8, 2012 @ 4:40pm

Xubuntu (XFCE) on somewhat older machines else Ubuntu.

Fedora 17

H Annen (not verified) - December 10, 2012 @ 2:54am

Fedora 17. Gnome 3.x out of the box. Fast. Tons of documentation.

Once again it seems to be those who have

Mihaly - December 11, 2012 @ 8:06am

as compared to those who use.

Linux operating systems will always be a choice. And CHOICE is good. Perhaps it comes down to being able to re-invigorate older hardware which does physically exist, enabling an old computer a new lease by virtue of becoming a household server or simply connection technology is always going to become a problem when the desire to upgrade overwhelms the reliability of the very technology commercial interests wish to represent as useless or outdated.
From a perspective of wanting not to put old computers into landfill, the possibility of making use of old hardware is appreciated.

There is no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you in its hands

Ubuntu all the way

Dylan (not verified) - December 11, 2012 @ 4:04pm

Although Mint folks are quite vocal, Ubuntu 12.04 is by far the best distro I have ever used.

Other desktop environments are available to install and use, even Cinnamon or Mate (via PPA). I don't see any reason to use Mint.

Once you get used to Unity and how it works there is no way of going back to anything else. Especially great services included like Ubuntu One are fantastically integrated!

Im currently enjoying Steam thanks to Canonical for creating the worlds best distro! :)

ubuntu 12.04

glynn (not verified) - December 11, 2012 @ 6:40pm

Very happy with 12.04. 12.10 is still a little shaky. Interestingly last week a installed 10.04 on an old machine. It was really quick but I have got so good with 12.04 that I found 10.04 difficult.

I just don't know

Lieven (not verified) - December 12, 2012 @ 11:49pm

This year was my third year using Linux. I used Ubuntu from the start and really wanted to give Unity a chance. So I tried to stick with it, 12.04 was almost perfect, but when the news of the development of 12.10 was starting to get out, I started trying out the other DEs.
- I am intrigued by openbox, but don't have the time and will at the moment to figure everything out and configure my entire desktop.
- XFCE isn't quite there yet in configurability.
- Gnome is also very configureable, but unfortunately the developers think that my desktop is a 7 inch tablet, and I just can't abide that. Also upgrading to a newer version of Gnome is useless if most of your favourite extensions are only months afterwards.
- KDE is my current desktop and I use it on openSUSE's Tumbleweed, which I absolutely love.
I really wanted a rolling distribution and LMDE isn't up to date enough and often things go wrong with upgrading. Arch is a bit to cutting edge for me and I wasn't sure if Chakra was going to stay true to her Arch-base, or move away from it.
I want a distro that isn't on an island of it's own, but one that is fully compatible with a distibution with strong support be it either from a company or a large community, but preferably both of course.
openSUSE is a distribution which is incredibly powerful and still user friendly, and combined with KDE it's a power house. The openSUSE build service is very familiar to Ubuntu's PPAs and building your own distribution has never been easier.
So for me the best distribution is openSUSE, because it didn't do anything crazy but in this time of turmoil dares to continue to iterate on existing concepts and ideas and only focus on the desktop. Their courage goes even further in saying that they are currently aren't completely sure where to go from here. In a time where everyone else is trying to revolutionize everything with the next greatest thing, they are taking a deep breath and try to think before they act.

Fedora 17 & Cinnamon

Hunkah (not verified) - December 13, 2012 @ 5:01pm

I am a firm believer in the community aspect of Linux and by far, the Red Hat/Fedora team have consistently been the top contributors back into the community... where as Ubuntu has consistently been one of the worst.

Props goes to Mint team for fixing the stupidity of Gnome, by creating Cinnamon.

Now if Mint could create a rolling release based on Fedora, I might actually consider switching, but until then it is Fedora + Cinnamon.

Korora

Geekwhitenorth (not verified) - December 15, 2012 @ 3:23am

For me Korora is to Fedora as Mint is to Ubuntu\Debian.
I have always loved Mint but now Korora wins it for me.
I have to say I have a partition 50\50 split Mint and Korora (with Cinnamon) and I hardly ever go into the Mint side.

The worst thing about Korora is having to remember how to spell it.

Best Distro

Arpawolf (not verified) - December 15, 2012 @ 12:58pm

The best Distro is the one that fits your needs, and for me that is Slackware 14.

Be blessed,
JP

Debian is king

MovesLikeJagger (not verified) - December 15, 2012 @ 9:17pm

Sorry for being unoriginal but I think Debian stands out.

I have been using wheezy and although it is not officially classed as stable yet I am finding it to be rock solid stable.

The apt package management system is fantastic - very easy to use contains more packages than you could ever use in a lifetime and is very reliable.

The Debian Free Software Guidelines are also a big plus for me. Some folks regard Debian's strict refusal to allow any non free components in the main repos to be an inconvenience but I find the ethical/idealistic commitment inspiring.

Debian's array of different architectures is something that other distros cannot match.

Debian is also very versatile. It is renowned as a server but I believe it is underestimated as a desktop.

What is a more difficult question is which desktop environment is the best?

Unity? Cinnamon? Gnome 3? KDE? xfce?

Also, here's one for you...

Gnome was created because of legal issues over KDE at the time (since resolved). If these legal issues had never arisen and Gnome had therefore never been created would the Linux desktop be in a stronger position today than it is?

Gnome complains of a shortage of devs as does KDE.

Is it unfortunate therefore that we have 2 main camps rather than one? Does the split from a single Gnome interface to several exacerbate this problem?