My Linux Tier List for Late 2025 and Early 2025

[@ShaunaJagan]

0:47 Alma 1:27 Alpine 2:12 AntiX 2:42 Arch 3:51 Arco 5:07 ArtiX 5:34 CentOS 5:57 Clear 6:17 Debian 7:06 Deepin 7:27 Elementary 7:54 Endeavour 8:35 Cachy 8:54 Pika 9:09 Fedora 9:52 Feren 11:07 Garuda 12:00 Gentoo 12:13 Kali 12:42 Kubuntu 13:11 Lubuntu 13:52 Manjaro 14:49 Mint 15:54 MXLinux 16:45 KDE Neon 17:15 NixOS 18:14 Parrot 18:42 PCLinuxOS 19:03 Peppermint 19:24 Pop_OS! 19:49 Puppy 20:33 RedHat 20:53 Slackware 21:04 Solus 21:43 openSUSE 22:38 Tails 23:21 Tiny Core 24:05 Ubuntu 24:32 Void 24:48 Zorin 25:15 Nobara

[@CoculesNation]

We have just added that list to the description and credited you. We appreciate the effort in setting up these chapters!

[@ShrimplyGaming]

I switched from Windows 11 to Nobara, great distro. I don't have much experience with other distros other than mint, but as a gamer and content creator that uses their PC a lot, I think Nobara strikes a great middle ground and has been really smooth. Communication in the discord is quite good too. I had thought about switching to EndeavourOS, but I might just bust out the laptop to tinker around with it for that purpose haha.

[@CoculesNation]

Sendo is glad to hear that Nobara is working well for you. While Nobara has its great points for gamers and content creators, Sendo was unable to get the OBS iOS Camera plugin working so he could do facecam with an iPad. That was why he decided to stick with Mint, and set it up for gaming and content creation.

[@ibossbabu1]

Where would you put devaun linux (fork of debian without systemd) im considering it for a daily user any recommendations? I really like void linux but just want to try something new

[@CoculesNation]

Devuan is just like Debian, so according to Sendo, he would consider it "Supreme". In terms of daily drivers, Sendo likes Mint, LMDE and Nobara, since they are stable releases, with the exception of newer software on Nobara (being forked from Fedora).

[@flamer_x2885]

I'll have to disagree with a few things, artix isn't just vanilla arch, it offers various init systems, and 99% of linux distros use systemd without giving choice to the user, so its a unique protest distro with different inner workings compared to vanilla arch, it should not be in the same tier as garuda which is terribly bloated and had a bug once where it deleted the users home directory. Lastly, Alpine should be supreme (unless the system uses an nvidia gpu and wants to use the proprietary drivers, which is not possible since alpine uses muscl instead of glibc), its incredibly minimal, hardened out of the box with a lower attack surface due to the combination of openrc as the init, busybox instead of gnu coreutils, and muscl instead of glibc, which is less powerful, but much more minimal and friendly with resource usage. Alpine has a relatively decent repo, and if you pair flatpaks and add the nix package manager, you have full glibc compatibility in an isolated manner, so it would be possible to lets say game using flatpaks of steam/lutris while keeping the host clean. I have to mention that I use arch btw but because I'm on a gaming laptop and use a specific daemon to adjust fan curves/temps/wattages/battery limits/rgb etc, and it needs systemd. Plan to go alpine when I build a pc in the future.

[@CoculesNation]

You clearly had your ducks in a row once you decided what you want to do with Alpine. That is information that even Sendo had no idea about. Otherwise, Sendo was able to start our channel using Garuda, and it worked well for him (until his old monitor could not handle the 495 NVIDIA proprietary drivers, since it was DRM'd to be Winblows only) for the most part. We had not noticed that /home deletion bug at all when he was using Garuda, so it must've been later after he stopped using Garuda.

[@amyodov]

Alpine is not (just) “Fantastic for veterans”, it's incredible in the "Certain Use Cases" scenario. It's basically a default "lightmost linux" used in Docker images.

[@CoculesNation]

Docker gives Sendo a lot of trouble, but that is good information to take into mind.

[@Roronoazoro92006]

The title is Little wrong i guess....you didn't notice it.....great video btw....

[@CoculesNation]

Sendo worded it like that for a specific reason, and that was because, technically, the last time we did this list was for this year.

[@lOmaine777]

@@CoculesNation You spelt "tier" wrong in the title

[@CoculesNation]

Sendo had decided to fix that, since it turned out that his spelling (despite being a writer) is not that great sometimes. We appreciate the catch you two.

[@savagej4y241]

Good list, although I would put MX Linux in amazing for new users as well. The tools it makes available without needing to use the terminal might not help you learn the deeper intricacies of Linux, but they are very useful for those dipping their toes into the Linux sphere for the first time. It is considered "midweight," but I recently refurbished a 2011 MacBook Pro that works like new now with MX Linux, free from the Apple ecosystem.

[@CoculesNation]

Sendo did not have much experience with MX, but he does see potential in being very good for beginners as well. He put that in "Certain Use Cases" as a result of some multimedia things (since there is AV Linux, an MX fork designed for audio work).

[@savagej4y241]

@@CoculesNation That is a fair reason, and I accept Sendo's judgment.

[@raughboy188]

I will share something about garuda linux because i used it. Now i don't know about normal version of garuda but dragonized version squizes every ounce of juice from your system meaning all ram and cpu clocks are maxed out and all your cpu cores will be active from the moment you login to garuda dragonized because garuda is aimed toward gamers. You can put Tails on sd card and and have it in your laptop when you're in cafe using unsecure wifi network so Tails is good not only for paranoid people but for pretty much anyone and is ideal solution for enyjoying your time online in cafe safe from possible attacks on your data since everytime you boot up Tails you start from blank slate. I think I'll flash Tails on SD card so i can boot it somewhere in cafe and surf internet safely.

[@CoculesNation]

Sendo had used Garuda Dragonized KDE, and it worked pretty well for him (until his old monitor gave a bad code to mess up his resolution). As for Tails, he had not used it, but appreciates the information that even he didn't know.

[@raughboy188]

@CoculesNation To add little bit more info on Tails. When you boot up tails you're using live distro like a normal distro so as long as your laptop is on everything you do remains intact, when you shut down Tails before shut down that wipes out everything execept system itself and then shuts down. Anyway i think i'll put Tails on SD card or if i decide to play around with Arch linux i might be able to assemble something similar to Tails but based on Arch. Of yeah Tails is based on debian.

[@matthiasbendewald1803]

I am a very convinced NixOS Fanboy. It belongs into each of your categories besides "for new users" and I'm not even joking. it can be the devil for being completely impossible to use for some things when you are not a complete expert of nix. It can be the most awesome experience ever if you like the reproducible builds to build you home server, gaming PC or laptop.

[@CoculesNation]

We wouldn't put Nix in "Devil" tier, but if people know how it works, we could see other teirs being the case. However, Sendo believes the best use of Nix would be for reproducible builds so the IT guy at any company doesn't need to rebuild the entire system from scratch.

[@matthiasbendewald1803]

@CoculesNation yeah Sure,i didn't want to argue, the classification was fine! I Just needed to add Something as Nix fanboy because i'm way too excited about NixOS, you know... 😜

[@CoculesNation]

We knew you weren't arguing, since Sendo sometimes has the rare occasion of spotting someone who doesn't argue and gives their two cents.

[@user-zn1db9fe5w]

Early and łate 2025 WTF?

[@CoculesNation]

That is how Sendo instructed us to write this title. Nothing special.

[@xSqr_]

i think you just copied Christitus's linux tier list

[@CoculesNation]

The list template is publicly available, and we just used that. We had no intention on copying it, as it is public in Tiermaker.