I’ve been considering Manjaro as well. The 6 month release cycle of Ubuntu based distros is bothersome, especially if there is a risk of an upgrade not working.
Ok. So quite a few people indeed have Manjaro, although I have never actually met someone in person who has Manjaro.
Well I am curious what systems the LUGA people will have…
Are there no Fedora users here? No MX users?
I recommend Arch Linux (on which Manjaro is based). Because you start with a command line, the package manager (pacman) and the most basic set of Linux applications, you can build a minimalist system without any bloat. The Arch Linux wiki will hand-hold you through the installation process and you’ll come out the other side with more knowledge about how the whole thing hangs together. As with Manjaro it’s bleeding edge so you have to be prepared to get your hands dirty if it goes wrong.
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Gentoo, but by far not a fan of Python scripting.
Compile RawTherapee (and your other heavily used applications such as Gimp, Internet browser) with the following LTO enabled CFLAGS and RawTherapee will be amazingly fast/quick! Or just switch to Intel’s Clear Linux.
# ACCORDING TO YOUR CPU, THESE ARE FOR Intel i7 Ivybridge
CPU_FLAGS_X86="aes avx f16c mmx mmxext popcnt sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3"
# Devirtlto
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fdevirtualize-at-ltrans"
# FLTO
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -flto=auto"
# GRAPHITE
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fgraphite-identity -floop-nest-optimize"
# IPAPTA
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fipa-pta"
# SEMINTERPOS
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fno-semantic-interposition"
# Common CFLAGS
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -Ofast -march=ivybridge -pipe -falign-functions=32 -fno-unsafe-math-optimizations"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
NOTE: Disable FastMath Optimizations by swapping “-Ofast” for “-O3” for applications with problems compiling and executing with fastmath optimizations. eg. dev-lang/python 
Took me a while to grep CFLAGS from the Gentoo LTO project.
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Ok. Is there more to distro choice? Are certain distros for a certain kind of people?
E.g. I noticed: I know 2 Linux users who have a PhD and both of them have Debian; or I have the impression that among Fedora users there are more French, Spanish, Italian, Catholic, maybe Turkish, Arabic or Mediterranean people. Are there certain tendencies? Are there distros for e.g. women? Do distros represent certain values (except more or less freedom/open source)?
Btw, I am amazed about people who love a certain brand. That is difficult to understand for me. Is it like politics (which is easier to understand for me)? Is Fedora more left than Debian or the other way round?
I don’t see it that way. For me, I just stick with what works for me. It is the advice that I have given several times with apps. Instead of pitting software A against B, whatever you end up using becomes your choice. Of course, if and when the decision will affect more than just you, esp. when it is made by committee, the decision making process is much more complex and complicated.
Personally, I have tried all types of Linuxes in a feverish sort of way. Each one has its unique flavour, feel and frustration. Some are cute and others practical. Some are well supported, others require regular maintenance.
PS BTW, this thread reminds me of What OS are you running?, sharing very similar comments.
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There are a few no-brainers, yes. If you are into creating audiovisual content (photography, music, videos) you should end up with https://ubuntustudio.org it’s REALLY complete and runs out of the box. All the weird add-ons are already installed, you can’t go wrong with it. I used ubuntustudio from 2011 to 2019.
feel like getting into some scientific computing? There’s https://www.scientificlinux.org/ made to measure for and by Fermi labs and CERN, so it should be OK for your “self driving model car” school project, too
and the “classic” for everyone who want’s to test the safety of a system he is administrating is https://www.kali.org/ … I like the term “offensive security” ;o) but it’s really not a distro to toy with. Kali has no user, you are always root and … you pay for every stupid error.
I remember some “Christian Linux” but it sure was not of the catholic persuation. A single google search got me this: This Linux Distro Tries to Save You and Your Soul - a bit weird, but hey - giving computers with Linux away is the perfect definition of “doing God’s work” in my book ;o)
My very first Linux distribution - my first install from six CDs - was DeMuDi (debian multimedia distribution). I searched for it and … someone still pays for the server and domain https://www.demudi.org/ check the calendar top right … yes, I am THAT old.
This is actually an interesting question: does anybody know other specialized distributions catering to clearly defined users? Wasn’t there an Open Suse Medical distribution? Who can add more info and/or distros here?
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I remember disliking Ubuntu Studio because it was clunky and I had a hard time getting things to work properly. Instead, I started from Xubuntu or Lubuntu and set up the system from there.
That was before your experience with it, so it could have been solid by then.
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Well, I’m pretty sure there will be a good amount of niche distros, probably of use to just a small group of people (thinking globally), and here is one of those rarities:
It’s in Spanish, and it’s meant for schools, to help both teachers and students with a comprehensive set of apps aimed to improve education.
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I’m not sure what a gender specific linux distro would involve… 
At the end of the day, you should use whatever linux distro suits your own needs, not what anyone else says you should use.
For me, that’s ubuntu based distros. I’m currently on Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, but I’m going to replace it with Kubuntu, as I find the KDE desktop environment quite appealing.
You may find this site useful: https://www.distrowatch.com/
I am surprised to see Manjaro is that high in the list. It has been quite some time I had checked when I was using Mint…
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I used Manjaro and still consider it the best Linux distro of all in terms of easy and friendly install, new software but also advanced usage. It just works and is professionally made. You pick your desktop flavor and go.
However, I moved to Arch, because it’s advanced on every level and I got to know my system and linux much more during install.
I had one problem with gnome-shell crashing under certain conditions in both Manjaro and Arch. It turned out GRUB wasn’t installing AMD microcode by itself. I fixed it in Arch because you know what’s installing where and when. It was easy to debug due to wonderful Arch wikis and forum support.
For advanced Linux users and people that want to learn more → Arch all the way! There’s no question.
For everyone else → Manjaro.
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The distro watch “rankings” are pretty tounge-in-cheek. Since they only rank distros based on clicks on their own website, it is more or less a list of popular distros who have poor SEO 
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Although doesn’t Distrowatch just show what people search for, rather than what people are using?
Anyway, looks like I’ve got a dose of distro fever in 2020. I’ve installed Kubuntu 19.10, and I’m missing Mint 19.3 Cinnamon in under 30 minutes of using KDE!!! 
I just guess I’m too used to Mint & Cinnamon! 
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Manjaro I found was maintenance heavy. I just prefer the simplicity of Ubuntu based distros.
I know distrowatch. As far as their ranking is concerned: MX is #1 and apparently none actually uses or has tried it except me! Many Linux users don’t even know about MX.
What do you think about MX?
To each their own I guess, as always.
But if you are anything close to someone wanting newest software (and I do, same as in Windows), you have to rely on PPAs and other nonsense. Their repos are far too restrictive for me. I have been Ubuntu user from 2005 to 2010.
Never Tried MX, but afaik, I’m not moving from Arch anywhere, no chance. 
It’s like I have finally found what I was looking for. It was tough but worth it.
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Couldn’t agree more. I distro-hopped for a while when I was starting out with Linux and for newbies I’d certainly recommend something like Ubuntu or Mint, but since I’ve found Arch, I don’t need to hop again. With Arch you’re basically building your own distro and not reliant on what the developers choose to bundle in the release. Most Arch packages are as close as possible to the upstream source, which is also nice.
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Ok. Different question: Since when do you use Linux?
I tried it for the first time maybe in 1999 or 2000, it was Suse with KDE. But around 2005 I more or less went back to Windows because Gimp was not good enough for me, mainly because it had no adjustment layers (which it still does not have). Let me think. Most of the time I actually used both Windows and Linux, later Ubuntu and Mint. There was a short time when I did not use Linux at all, I think it was… between 2015 and 2018, because… although I am not sure when exactly it was. Anyway, I had an old router which did not accept the wifi adapter of one of my computers in Linux, but I am not quite sure if it was the Fujitsu which I had from 2008 or the Acer which I had from 2016. And with the Acer the trouble was that I needed a long time to find out how Linux could be booted.
I wrote my master’s thesis on Linux but my doctoral thesis on Windows Vista, with LibreOffice/OpenOffice. Maybe I would have received a better mark on my doctoral thesis if I had written it on Linux, although I think that it is much better than my master’s thesis. And I think I always used Firefox and Thunderbird resp. Netscape.
Ok. I think I just realized that I am using Linux since 20 years. That’s a long time… am I so old?
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I just found Manjaro too heavy maintenance wise, I found it broke after a few updates. Possibly that was down to user error, but I just prefer Ubuntu / Mint, and a few PPAs for software such as Darktable / Gimp etc.
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