I can't really put these into order, but I have some preferences
Manjaro
I like that everything I need is already pre-installed, or available in the repos / AUR. Themes look good out of the box. I'm running a VM with XFCE and Cinnamon. I think I will probably keep the Cinnamon version just because I like the way I can customize the panel with different launchers. I like the stability and the ability to have the bleeding edge software.
Fedora
My favourite OS for Gnome. Gnome is probably my favourite DM, but I really don't like the default Adwaita theme. Installing different themes isn't as easy as it could be. Video drivers are also a bit difficult to install on this too.
Ubuntu
I like running Ubuntu in a server environment. It is also good on a desktop with software that is easy to find because it is a popular OS, however the repos are so out of date and recently I've been avoiding it due to the lack of updated kernel by default. Good and quick to get up and running. System stability isn't the greatest, but it works very well for the most part.
Honourable Mentions - Linux Mint and Debian
Both are good, but Debian can be a bit more work to set up and Mint is great, but I find Manjaro does everything better.
Yeah, i'm a bit of a lazy person and most of my issues could be solved if I actually put effort into it. Manjaro has my preference for its out of the box stability and looks. Takes a lot of the thought into setting up a new PC or VM. I still do a lot of distro hopping though
Please do. At the moment, I still am on manjaro, trying to get knowledged enough to install Arch. Isn't Antergos pretty much the easy way to install Arch? Is there anything I've overlooked?
Personally, I can't stand Cnchi, Numix, and it isn't optimized for your system in the same way Arch is. That's what I thought about it; Manjaro is better IMO.
Manjaro is the easy way to install. The problem with antergos is that it is so broken I'm not even sure they know what they are doing. There is good thought behind it but they shove so many ideas into it it just does not work.
You have to install it again and again and again to get it to set up right, then there is a list of things you have to do as soon as you login otherwise it will just break again, CnChi doesn't really work in the first place, if it DOES happen to install correctly on your first try, you will go to reboot and GRUB will be broken and any attempts to fix it will come to nothing..... I have had a few experiences with AntergOS and have read A LOT of forum posts :|
I actually want to get away from manjaro because it's so "slow".
I heavily rely on R. Getting 3.2.2 is not possible. I had to install RRO instead, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, but still, I am not as happy with manjaro as I was nearly two years ago when I first switched over to it completely.
Sounds like I have to go all the way and just install arch already.
Funny, the shit with grub was the exact same issue my buddy had with antergos. I thought it was a typical case of pebkac. Now I'm not too sure anymore.
Ubuntu, Mint, but basically, anything based on Ubuntu should be good from the larger stable distros. It doesn't really make any difference, as more as I use Linux, i realize that every distro is the same, there is literally no difference, apart from env., programs, and their configurations, it is same system after all, yeah, some have "different" package managers (pacman, apt etc.), but yet, they all work on same principle, and I am unable to find difference between them (apart from commands).
In short, i guess Linux is my favorite distro lol, as long as it is stable and not some broken nonsense :).
Fedora for a daily driver (running cinnamon) - I like how it feels, and it's pretty easy to find answers. I've been running Fedora off and on since FC3 - Heidelberg (my personal favorite of them all) My first variation was called College Linux v2.5 based on Slackware. I loved how small and efficient it was, but I decided to stick with Gnome in the long run. Slackware was always fun too...but a little too 'difficult' for everyday use. Knoppix (debian) has saved my a$$ plenty of times over the years. Watching people stare in disbelief after you save their data from their crashed windoze is always fun! Hiren's bootcd is on my list too. Along with Ophcrack. Lately Puppy has been on my Pentium 3 laptop for kicking around public networks. Dsl has been there too, but support seems to be dried up. Linux has been a back and forth issue with me for years. I love opensource, but sometimes I just don't want to spend 4 hours trying to configure Linux. Now I get the best of both worlds with kvm-vga-passthrough (12 hours well wasted) As a matter of fact I'm writing this on my virt windoze machine:)
Debian with Openbox. I'm the minimalist. I like building my own environment. If I made my own distribution, I'd do it this way, and I'd call it, "Sexy Linux" or just, "Sexy."
Xubuntu (community) Mint Mate (easy) Salix (slackwarefork, everything just works like it should) Q4OS (debianfork: pretty good, ready to use) KNOPPIX (livedistro made in Germany) Trisquel (Freedom) Slackware (What's not to like? And I still have 3½-inch floppy disks lying around ...)
Debian - because Ive used it at work for servers for 6 years now, so when I get home it's an obvious choice - gets the job done and is stable (no real motivation to change)
RedHat 6 - because nostalgia.
Also have a machine rocking AIX 2.1 - (to IBM's credit, there is a /usr/bin/games), and almost a machine rocking UNIX R3.2 (HDD interface has gone poo - anyone got a spare 3B2-400 motherboard??).
Also, I've been trying out Ubuntu Mate 15.10. The polish on the look and options of this release are fantastic. The backend though, still as buggy as ever. Tried to enable compiz and somehow bricked the install. Even logging in with x disabled and uninstalling compiz didn't fix it. Did a clean install, because I want to keep playing with Ubuntu Mate for a bit. I will just leave compiz alone for now.
I ran kali for my first time for linux because I felt that as a windows user that had never been out of the windows ecosystem, It would be a good "boot camp" so to speak. I wanted linux at the time to learn what more I could do along with having to figure out how to do the things I already do in windows. I spend hours trying to solve issues in linux so I know how to fix them later. The plan was to be able to install a more flushed out version of linux later so that I would be like "oh, this does that for you" but after playing with kali this long, It's like crack. "I made this old router (of mine) melt, what now?" So, I wind up spending a ton of time behind terminal. I still have yet to figure out how to do every windows equivalent task, But I feel that is because I have to learn how to be more patient for the mundane shit. I'll get it. I have tried mint with cinnamon, It did not grow on me. so I am still on kali and likely will be for a long time.