Should Phoronix switch to a different "main" distro?

[david_drew]

I think it's interesting that the poll seems to reflect home/desktop almost exclusively rather than business use (e.g. servers). That's not bad, just an observation. I voted "I don't care", but in terms of usefulness for work, I would expect results like: CentOS > Ubuntu > OpenSUSE > [everything else].

For home use, I might be in the minority, but I've generally had more than enough power to do what I want and thus some, but not a lot, of interest in performance metrics. For work, which is nearly equivalent to servers, hardware and software stack decisions make a huge difference that plays out over years. But I'm not trying to argue in favor of a server bias, just surprised that votes aren't reflecting that in the poll.

On the desktop, I used Arch for about 5 years at home and work, then decided that I cared more about the desktop experience than the distro flavor, and switched to Bodhi. Then I recently switched to Ubuntu Budgie. I'm still an Arch fan but at this point I'm more interested in whoever provides the most convenient and useful DE (for me, of course). And I'm still waiting for the perfect distro.

[existensil]

So long as Phoronix does some distribution comparisons now and then I rather like having the default distro be Ubuntu. It is my distro of choice at home and in the cloud, but even if it wasn't it's popularity and predictable releases make it a solid target. I might switch to Arch, but Phoronix should stick with Ubuntu while it remains the most popular and accessible choice.

[sarmad]

I voted Ubuntu. Ubuntu is still the most widely supported distro by both software and hardware providers so it makes sense to use it for benchmarking. Down the road once Ubuntu switches to Mir there will probably need to be more than one main distro, one for Mir benchmarks and one for Xorg and Wayland.

[villeneuve]

I'd prefer another Ubuntu-based distro like KDE neon or Xubuntu once Ubuntu moves to Mir.

[Hi-Angel]

You didn't vote "Ubuntu" based on that, did you?

If so, that's not the point of this poll. The point is to select your favourite. Voting Ubuntu doesn't mean you don't mind how it is; it means you would prefer it over something else.

You're creating controversy. On one hand you want peoples to vote one's favorite distro. Mine is Archlinux.

But on the other hand, the whole thing is about "what distro phoronix should use" — and I definitely would not advice Archlinux. If Archlinux was used for testing, new peoples would start with Arch — but Arch is not for newbies. The problem is not even installation, rather that if one don't know what system should look/work like, they may end up disappointed. For example, by default in Archlinux doesn't work middle-click scroll in gtk3 apps — if you didn't know that you have to setup it yourself, you'd be disappointed by the discrepancy in gtk2, qt vs gtk3.

[mv.gavrilov]

Please make accient on Fedora Linux and Wayland it is Future of Linux.

[fedora-user]

Fedora is very good choice, it is up-to-date, stable and popular.

[geearf]

As long as phoronix uses up to date drivers and kernels, I really don't care.

[Geopirate]

I chose Ubuntu because it's still IMO the easiest to install/manage for someone with little non-Windows/Mac experience. If you need to quickly look up a problem, the first/most relevant result on Google is still for Ubuntu. This will probably change when they actually make the change over to Mir by default, but I really don't see them getting that done in the next 3-4 months which is what they would need to do to have it in for 17.10 in the fall, and implementing that first in the LTS would be crazy even for them.

[oleid]

I'd prefer Debian or Archlinux, but with proprietary AMD drivers, if possible. Which, of course, would be more difficult with those two.