I tested the top 5 Linux distros on DistroWatch—here’s how I rank them

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There are a ton of Linux distributions out there, and figuring out which one to use can get overwhelming fast. DistroWatch is a great place to start because it’s the go-to hub for tracking what’s popular in the Linux world. At the time of writing, it’s ranking CachyOS, Linux Mint, MX Linux, Pop!_OS, and Debian as the five most popular distros.

However, just because a distro is popular doesn’t make it the right fit for you. Now, I’ve tested the five most popular distros on DistroWatch and ranked them based on my own experience. Use this as a guide to get an idea of what each distro has to offer, then come up with your own ranking based on your needs.

Pop!_OS

Still waiting for this Phoenix to rise

A few years ago, around 2021–2022, Pop!_OS was one of the most popular Linux distros. People often call it what “Ubuntu should have been.” It was based on Ubuntu but added a bunch of extra features that made it perfect for beginners and power users alike. It was also one of the few distros to ship a dedicated ISO with NVIDIA drivers built right in, so you get stable performance out of the box without having to deal with manual driver installation.

Unfortunately, things have changed since then, and right now it’s one of the buggier distros you can choose. I’d call it an okay option for enthusiasts, and even then only if you’re installing it on a spare PC or running it on a virtual machine. For Linux newcomers, however, I wouldn’t recommend it at all.

If you’re wondering what caused this downfall in quality, it largely comes down to one word: GNOME. Like Ubuntu, Pop!_OS used GNOME as its desktop environment, but it relied on a heavily…

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