Rate the top Linux distros in order of preference

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Hey, title says it all

Mine would be,

Arch Linux
Debian (Minimal Install)
Mint
Puppy Linux
Slackware

Linux distros I loathe,

Ubuntu
Fedora

LFS
Debian
Clonezilla
Ubuntu
Kali
Slackware
Centos

Ubuntu
Kali
Gentoo
Debian
openSUSE
Arch Linux
Slackware
CentOS

OMG WHY?

Burn this list with fire,

Ubuntu and Gentoo are better than Arch? WHY? I can see Debian being ahead of Arch if you want something user friendly but WHY Ubuntu and Gentoo?

Ubuntu is crap and Gentoo is actually kinda cool but not really practical for everyday use, kinda like LFS. I can picture maybe something like Arch, Gentoo and then LFS so I am not really bothered with Gentoo being so high on the list but Ubuntu is horrible. Do you have a secret for making Ubuntu suck less? Is there a hidden minimal install or something?



This is my bro right here,

I never could get LFS to work but I would love to play with it again. I got kernel panic before, don't know what I did wrong but I was setting it up on the Raspberry Pi, might be easier with a x86 based computer.

Having abandoned any preference for GUI/CLI, I roll my own Fedora installations. Since I have one desktop nigh perpetually on a full screen terminal, I can adapt to any repository standards I have to. I'm not looking to publish any code of mine exclusively as .rpm, there's just no objective reason for me to write that list. Since you might ask otherwise, I've used Puppy derivitaves, Debian, Kali, Gnome Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Qtopia & plenty more I'm ignoring.

Arch
Black Arch
Mint
Kali
Does Android count?

sort of like Bodhi, but it seemed buggy last time I tried it

All I know is that I like Manjaro (Arch).

I tried all the big Debian based distributions and didn't like any of them.

I like Arch and Slackware a lot.

Mint and Ubuntu have the best software support. I tend to drift between the two. Currently using Mint (Cinnamon) on both my laptop and my desktop.

I like the conservative philosophy of Debian and I'm tempted to install LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) on an old XP laptop I have lying around. LMDE is one of the few distros these days that still makes provision for non-PAE CPUs.

I can't imagine there's pae-nx on my Pentium D Latitude D610 and Fedora 22 behaves just fine. The best software support is user ability, so I use Red Hat because frankly nearly all the rest is a mess to me. No matter what I run it's gonna amount to a bubble in EXT4 or btrfs, so I may as well let some GUIs take advantage of all those neat tricks. I provision Gnome to run KDE, QT, Xorg11, whatever else I need and let the rawhide build folks handle the rest.

Crunchbang or something light/Debianish like Elementary OS would be nice if it weren't so damned impossible to hand a one-off desktop UI to your friend whose iPhone just got smashed. In a pinch, my XPS works like an 18 inch iPad, that never interferes in my BASH workflows. I like Xmonad but anything less in this day & age is just ridiculous unless the install needs to be headless.

LMDE isn't bad (it's much more memory efficient than ordinary Mint), but it's not based on the stable Debian branch, and seems to be receiving less attention from it's creators than the ordinary Mint. This is a shame, because it has a lot of potential.

I currently use Bunsenlabs, which is the community continuation of CrunchBang Linux. --It's based on Debian Jessie, so it qualifies somewhat as a minimalist Debian install.

Ialso have Crunchbang installed on another drive. I'm looking forwards to trying out the next Slackware which allegedly will have the ability to boot into a Live session that you can install from.

I think that the last credible Ubuntu Release was 10.04, and generally avoid anything based on Ubuntu.

I have not used Arch, and have minimally used a Gentoo based distro, (Sabayon) and wasn't particularly impressed with it.

So far not mentioned (and perhaps a bit silly):

[Parted Magic] - Yes, it's a distro. And yes, when you need it, it's the most useful distro in the world, and your best friend. It's sorta like DBAN that way...
[GoboLinux] - What the Linux directory structure system would be like if it was invented after OSX.
[Sabily (Ubuntu Islamic Remix) / Ubuntu Christian Edition / Jewbuntu] - because why fight over who Ubuntu loves more?
[Hannah Montana Linux] - Because "Ubuntu Satanic Edition" was already taken and Miley was about to tantrum and do...something weird with her tongue. Again.
[Zeroshell] - embedded, mostly for routers, lots of fun.
[Tinycore] - because sometimes you have to fit Linux in a tiny little 16MB flash/ssd chip. And for masochists.
[Caine Linux] - Forensic environment distro, for exploring that laptop drive you got off eBay.
[CLFS] - Cross Linux From Scratch. Because a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero is a terrible thing to waste.

I really like LMDE as one of the better light distros, and one of the few that plays nice with non-PAE. Also, I've a long history with Debian so it's the only Mint I've used. My first Ubuntu was 6.06 & my last was 11.something. It just wasn't fun anymore after that, for so many small reasons that added up. I still do a test install every now and then but see nothing enticing.

Brings back memories of when Ubuntu didn't suck, before my main distro became Arch Linux

Ubuntu's only virtue these days is that it's easy to install. After Unity, everything went downhill. The only thing it does well is draining your battery.