They say debian is free and has its promise, but Arch has like 2-4 maintainers?

I mean, you can install each in a VM if you want to play with them.

Is your hardware ten years old or more?

Do you want a system made up of software that is on average 3 years old?

Do you want absolutely ridiculous stability for the uptime memes?

Are you a fan of the idea that every design decision should be done by a committee of theoretically democratically chosen developers but is actually just whoever wants the job because there is never any real transparency or motion about when the meetings are, much less when elections are?

Does the idea of your operating system being compatible not because its good but because it's just the largest base thanks to corporate investment make you moist?

Then pick Debian.

If you answered no to literally any of those options then go ahead and pick an Arch flavor, or Arch itself.

If you know vaguely what you're doing or are willing to learn, you can go with whatever and it'll be fine.

Personally not a big fan of debian because they tend to be slower and more conservative on updates. Arch is a bit more technical, but very customizable.

I'm personally a big fan of Fedora. Software updated quickly enough to have all the bells and whistles, slow enough to not get cut by bleeding edge software.

I think it's Ubuntu that's slow, while Debian as its base is smaller and faster?

You mean Cachy OS? Yeah, I've heard of that, might choose it, I dunno yet.

The fact that you're asking this suggests you might be new to linux so go Mint but if it has to be one of those two then Debian

If you are interested in maintaining your OS as an ongoing and constant project, go with Arch. You will learn a lot about Linux, and about system administration in general. You will also have entire days where you are unable to do anything productive with your computer because the last update broke userspace again and you can either spend a lot of time troubleshooting your specific problem, or spend a lot of time reinstalling and reconfiguring your system.

If your computer is more than just a hobby platform and you need to use it regularly for any kind of productivity, go with Debian. Set it and forget it.

Either way, off-system file backups are recommended.

Linux '26er here. I tried a few and CachyOS is now my jam. I'm way too new to offer true insight, but as a new convert, Cachy has good video/gaming support and all the core features I need to keep exploring. 100% recommend a day or two to try it out.

Unless you intentionally doing something wrong or have close to zero experience with linux there might some of the problems you've mentioned, also you can expect similar on debian if you are having them on arch.

Anyway, I would recommend something other to OP because both of these distributions require some non-zero experience with linux. (Also OP itself feels like trolling)

NixOS ;)

Fucking sadistic bastard...........I second this.

No, Debian is typically quite a bit older than even the Ubuntu LTS. E.g. they currently still don't ship a Nvidia driver that supports the 50 series GPUs.

But is it catchy?

Ubuntu is based off the testing version of Debian, so they have newer software versions

Why have you forsaken God? You should be praying in TempleOS.

Slower on updates, not slow to run. Slower on updates is referring to how it takes longer for new features / software to be shipped out for you to download. Debian usually prioritizes machines that chug along for a long time without anything breaking, rather than adding new stuff

You're right that it's not slow to run. It is small and fast

I'm also fairly new, and one big benefit of CachyOS is the sensible defaults. You get to start with the modern way of doing things instead of having to discover them slowly.

micro instead of nano for example

I run Cachyos (KDE), for 10 months now, on a 13 year old HP workstation. Daily updates. Best distro I've used (previously used Mint, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu), wouldn't go back to any of the others.

Most based opinion i've seem here

Linux Mint Debian Edition. Best of both worlds.

Let me expose my lack of knowledge and experience in this.

Afaik. NixOS is completely build from configs, thus easy to VCS, and you can try stuff and then just roll back like nothing happened... what's the difference to snapshots and why is it sadistic/masochistic but worth it?

Give me your NixOS pitch.

If you don't care, go with Mint. Fast, secure, simple.

If you have some special thing like an old slow computer, uptime or specific security needs and so on, check out all the other good answers here in the post.

The lack of PPA support might bite you though. For newcomers I'd strongly recommend staying with the standard Mint (Cinnamon) version, any reason not to is highly technical and more of an issue for the maintainers.

What do you mean by free? Why did only those two make your list?

In general, I recommend Fedora KDE Spin (or Fedora Kinoite if you know what containers are)

For your question, I would go for debian. But the answer also depends on your use-case. Software dev? CLI user? Gamer?

larp larp larp sahur ✌️

free as in free beer: literally any distro other than winux/linuxfx/wubuntu
free as in libre: trisquel

Performance differences between distros tend to be negligible. Unless you have a specific use case and a distro specifically tuned for that, you will hardly notice any difference.

Debian is rock solid, there are even more user-friendly distros though. In a few edge-cases it will expect you to know your way around things, however there are a lot of guides for it. Going with this will cause the growth of a mighty white beard!

Arch Linux will make you cry. If you want to learn how to fix and configure things it's great (and their wiki arguably is the greatest of all), but their lack of QA and expectation to do that yourself often causes issues. You'll probably cut your fingers on its bleeding edge. If you want to learn with less bleeding I'd recommend CachyOS these days. I'm certainly not saying this because my computer didn't boot after updates multiple times. /s

HOWEVER if you have an Nvidia GPU, first off: I'm so sorry. Secondly, you absolutely (!) should use a distro that takes care of their driver for you. Their drivers are hot steaming garbage that you do not want to meddle with (many distros try their best to do it for you, but often enough it won't work for some people). See below, Nvidia distros marked with recycling symbol.

A few other options to consider with noticeable features:

• Bazzite (♻️): If you mainly play games. User-friendly, most compatible with handhelds next to CachyOS. Takes care of a lot of small things related to gaming.
• Fedora: If you want modern features on a very stable system. Very good ecosystem. Basically the other stable workhorse next to Debian. Will spawn a nice hat on your head, m'lady.
• OpenSuse: Also very stable, best distro for those concerned about US influence (it's strongly EU-based). Tumbleweed arguably most stable rolling-release distro (newest system software) with a great graphical settings' tool YaST (future unknown, unfortunately). Leap is rock-solid but slow, meant more for Office PCs and Enterprise users. After installing this you'll suddenly start talking german.
• Linux Mint: If you want things to just work with the flattest learning curve possible for former Windows victims. Helpful tips for Ubuntu usually apply and that weird software offering you a manual download for Ubuntu will just work.
• ElementaryOS: Very good for users used to MacOS, probably flattest learning curve for them. Great accessibility! Not as feature rich as others (their whole desktop is made in-house, so it's very cohesive but a lot of work for them), but what they have is very well tested.
• ZorinOS (Core): Also very good. Most likely the one with the biggest software selection from the start (comes with both Snap and Flatpak pre-configured). Probably the one you'd eventually find on some school computer.

And three others interesting if you might buy new hardware soon (damn, you rich):

• TuxedoOS (♻️): Default OS on devices from Tuxedo Computers (EU). Works on any machine and is a really nice distro in general.
• SlimbookOS (♻️): Default OS for Slimbook (EU) devices. Also nice.
• Pop_OS! (♻️): Default OS for System76 (US) devices. They're currently developing a whole new desktop environment (Cosmic), so their normal release hangs a little bit behind. It's okay though. Be aware it's from a US company (not just maintainers, but commercial entity). Fucked up Linus Tech Tips once.

Gentoo is where you learn the most about Linux and software in general.

Arch is a challenge, be prepared to spend more time learning and tinkering than using your computer for the first few months (and forever). It's not impossible, but you will most likely have to reinstall a few times as you learn. If thats what you enjoy, great. Go for a distro made for the lay person like Mint or Bazzite.
There's a backup program called Timeshift, it will replace windows snapshots and can help you recover from mistakes without having to start over.

If you put your home drive on a separate partition/drive it will be easier to distro hop as you try different ones. Still, make sure your data is backed up, ideally put the backup on an external drive that you can unplug while installing new a OS.

Idk, I never reinstalled anything and just installed a bunch of packages and followed some configuration guides for Arch and the respective packages. Took probably 5 hours or so to get the whole thing set up to a place where I could use it for 95% of things I usually do, which is gaming and browsing.

This is such a fantastic answer. I wish stuff like this was the top search result for these questions.

I will note that perhaps Linux Mint should get a ♻️, since it comes with a very simple "Driver Manager" utility that detects your GPU and allows you to select the appropriate proprietary driver for it. The onboarding welcome program directs you to open it.

Edit: demo video: https://youtu.be/12FKdE0ZRc4

Snapshots work in filesystem level. NixOS rollbacks work in system configuration level. NixOS has steep learning curve due to the nix language and fragmented documentation but once you get grip of it, it works great. Either way, you netted the days of suffering to set everything up :)

Depends a bit on what you want to do.

Debian stable tends to have rather old versions of everything, but Debian testing (currently codename Forky) is really nice. I installed it a few months ago on my ThinkPad, and it's running beautifully.

I'm not in it for the uptime, so I shut down whenever I'm done and when I shut down, I do an update / upgrade, and there's always something being upgraded. I've had zero issues with stability or performance.

I have no experience with Arch, so I can't really compare.

Isn't it true that a server running TempleOS has the best protection against remote exploits?

I only marked those who bundle the driver with the image since that way they can treat is as core system package and add the necessary deep system configurations + helper scripts straight form the start. There are in fact quite a few distros who use such a helper tool (I think Zorin has one too?), but even with their best effort the driver still causes issues so god damn often or just fails to install for weird reasons. Additionally there might be issues after updates. Distros that integrate them from the start might add a few extra scripts to mitigate update problems, perhaps ensure Secure Boot still works, make specific changes to Wayland due to Nvidia being really bad with it by default, set up everything for hybrid graphics, ecetera.

My brother just threw out an RTX 3060 because of all the issues (in that case on OpenSuse) and I had so. many. issues. In the last 10 years with all kinds of green GPUs that I can only in good conscious recommend distros with pre-installed drivers to Nvidia users, and to avoid that company like the Plague.

I didn't game, but use Bazzite. It has worked on every system I've installed it on, even an old AMD A6. I just feel safe in there, but it's not perfect. And the distro is large.

Fedora is a middle ground between the two.

[Arch's] wiki arguably is the greatest of all

100% agree. Even as a Fedora user, in the rare occasion I have some obscure issue the Arch wiki is a godsend. Even though I've never actually used Arch, I'm still extremely grateful for the work they do on documenting every little thing for desktop Linux. A lot of that info is applicable for all Linux desktop distros.

I know its tough to see through all the noise. Everyone tells you what you should do and to not listen to the others. But what I want you to focus on is that they are all nobodies. Randos you don't know and never will. But I'm Magnum PI, you know me, so listen to me and forget what everyone else has said.

Go with Debian.

I use Arch btw. Arch is amazing, but you need to be willing to learn a few things. No shame in wanting an easier distro that just works.

If you have to ask, you definitely don't want Arch

Use FreeBSD. It literally has FREE in the name.

I will push back on this a bit because Debian is great, but point release distros like Debian that focus on stability can be incredibly behind on important updates that include features users will want. I personally recommend Fedora to start because imo it's the best of both worlds for new penguins and greybeards alike.

I use both, debian on servers and old machines, arch on my desktop. Arch being rough is way overblown in my experience, the install script makes it straightforward to setup and it's been pretty much painless since I switched to it two years ago, I had experience with debian before that. Both arch and debian have fantastic documentation available.

Debian and derivatives, in my experience, are really well supported so that's a plus. Age of packages has never really bothered me and cases where I want bleeding edge there's options for that.

Both are solid options and I don't think you'll be upset either way, if you can I'd try both.

Debian Testing doesn't get timely security updates.

Yes, the networking stack is perfectly protected for it only connects directly to the heavens via faith based prayer-wave.

Debian is chosen for Satellites because it is "stable", that is it doesn't do major changes like changing the Kernel.

Arch isn't for beginners, but it's a rolling release distro that's nice and simple but powerful.

Neither. Void or OpenBSD. Not hating on SystemD, but I aint lovin it...

If you want to go with bsd, just make sure your hardware is supported