Besides size and looks, nowadays is there any significant differences between distros that might make one “better” than the other?
Besides size and looks, nowadays is there any significant differences between distros that might make one “better” than the other?
The difference between them is becoming less relevant but most of what you want from a distro are good defaults and stability. Some people don’t want to have to make 100 changes every time they download a distro to tune it to one specific task, so you have distros like Nobara which is tuned for gaming and productivity, distros like Endeavor which are Arch-based but with a ton of things set up for you, distros like ZorinOS which are tuned specifically to be beginner-friendly and have helpful popups, etc.
I think it could be argued that most distros out there now are “just Debian/Arch but with [thing]” but I still think the distro choice is important to people who don’t like messing with their system and want things to just work.
I’d argue the reverse is true as well:
Distro choice is important for people who enjoy messing with their system and want to meticulously set up every piece.
I think if people want to set up every piece they’re better off downloading Arch and just installing packages they want
That’s distro choice, no? Debian minimal would also be good for the same purpose, or any other minimal distro, really.