“Distro recommendation” questions aren’t usually very useful…all you get is everyone recommending the distro they use. It’s unlikely you can get anything useful out of the answers.

I wanted something with support and with people that care for the code

Applies to pretty much every major linux distro that isn’t a derivative and also some of the derivatives that do more than just add some cosmetics (unless you specifiy a bit more in details what you mean with “care for the code”).

Also all distros can be configured, there is no real reason to switch from something like ubuntu because you don’t like how the “Files” manager works to another distro…you could get pretty much the same on ubuntu as other distros offer and in most cases easier than by doing a reinstall. Really, you are better off trying to fix an issue you have on one distro that distro hop at every little problem you run into…

I’ve been very happy on Zorin OS 16, it’s basically just Ubuntu with lots and lots and lots of spit and polish (much like Mint, but with a better aesthetic imo).

IMHO - Fedora is the new Ubuntu from a usage standpoint. It “just works”, is rock solid and has up to date packages, kernel and window manager. The kernel is important too because cutting edge hardware wouldn’t work without a compile.

I think you must be doing something strange that you are having upgrade problems no one else has. I have been running Manjaro for 4 years now with minimal update issues.

Are you by any chance installing a lot of obscure software via AUR?

Id say stick to arch-based and try out EndeavourOS. IMO thats the one that should be pushed instead of manjaro even though i get why that is not the case. Also isnt your ubuntu problem just the file manager? As in its dolphin (or whatever the default is) doing that and not ubuntu as a whole. So you could go ubuntu and just get a different file manager

My advice, Go vanilla Arch. Alot of Manjaro’s issues are actually tied up in the fact that it recommends you use PAMAC to install things. PAMAC, though user friendly, also seems to cause a lot of system stability issues when installing packages, vs just using pacman. I’ve also heard that, even though Manjaro is a rolling release, it keeps certain things back that are released on vanilla Arch branch more quickly. I don’t know this for cirtain but I’ve heard it some where I think.

Install vanilla arch via the archinstall command, then get an AUR helper like ‘yay’. In my experience it’s more stable and just plain better.

If you do decide to go with an Ubuntu based Distro, Give POPos a try

Would you mind telling a few things about your computer usage?

• Do you play lots of games or do graphics work?
• Are you a programmer or just like to make bigger tweaks to your system?
• Do you prefer having the latest features or would you rather have your applications work the same for >1 year?
• Preferred desktop environment?
• Enjoy working with the terminal or prefer a GUI?
• Are those 3+4 months your total Linux experience?

Thank you for the feedback people. You make a good case for Fedora, as people have before - seems to be a good distro.

I was inspired to ask this because of the browser privacy article someone made. It made clear which browsers are private and which are not, and that’s good. I just hoped something would come along that would give me a guaranteed smooth Linux experience, as Firefox user profiles and Falkon do for privacy.

@obbeel my daily driver is Pop OS and i’ve had no complaints whatsoever with it. it has a custom GNOME setup which adds some extensions for usability, adding desktop icons and a dock among some miscellaneous usability tweaks, but its best feature is Pop Shell, an extension that adds i3-like tiling. it’s entirely controllable with the keyboard or the mouse, and it has the ability to create tabbed windows too, which is really nice. it’s developed by System76, an indie computer company that genuinely puts a lot of care into their products, whether it’s hardware or software

I would strongly suggest you to try MX-Linux. I too was in a similar situation as yours 9 months ago and now I use MX xfce and I haven’t encountered one bug like I used to do on Ubuntu based distros

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