I have a MacBook Pro which is stock macOS.

Doing software development for nearly a decade, macOS combines that ease of using widely used software tools with the stability of macOS that seems quite rare with Linux (especially in the long term, when upgrading across new OS versions). Also, things like being able to consistently sleep and wake up and my m1’s battery life keeps me on macOS.

With that said, I also have a thinkpad with pop! OS on it. It’s nice, but I have this issue that I can’t alt-tab like I can on windows thanks to gnome. It only alt-tabs the window group, rather than individual windows, and it drives me up the bend.

I've been running Manjaro for 4 years now, never looked back. I know people have their thoughts on Manjaro, but I haven't had any issues and it comes with some great features out of the box that I'd rather not have to problem solve on another distro. That said, I've been having fun with Endeavor on my extra laptop, it's worked pretty well for me and can see why it has such a thriving community

NixOS. Mainly use it for the reproducible configuration between my machines. I've got my dotfiles hosted at https://github.com/chadac/dotfiles

Windows 10 because I play games. Ubuntu on my laptop where I don't, since its old and Ubuntu runs way better than Windows on it.

Pop_OS. It's the most polished Linux distro I've found and has nice keyboard workflows in the GUI.

I'm using Linux Mint rn on my laptop. I am using it because I have used other Debians for 15 years and they are easy to use, and easy to tweak. And same commands!

Chromebook because I just dont fucking care anymore.

I use Windows 10 and Linux, but mainly use Linux for general tasks, and Windows for gaming

I use Gentoo on my desktop/file server. I like the freedom to set up things EXACTLY how I want them. Compile times are no worry with a Ryzen 5700x and I do major updates overnight.

I use FreeBSD on my laptop. It is super stable, resource efficient and soooo much more neat and organized than Linux. Core software does not change every other year and everything feels right at home. I highly recommended giving it a shot if you haven't already.

MacOS on laptop and workstation (Mac Mini M1), windows in gaming PC, Proxmox on server.

Linux mint

You must get a completely different view than "normal people" here. I use Alma Linux 9 (RHEL9 clone) because it's what we use at work, and I've known RedHat since 1999. I use it because it generally is exceptionally stable, and can easily go 6 months without forcing a reboot. It also is much less likely to spy on me, and does most everything I need a computer to do.

Also, using XFCE for my DE means I don't have to relearn something every release version (XFCE has stayed the same all through v4 more or less, which is like at least since 2012. Some new icons here or there.

No forced cloud integration, my account is local, the way I like it. I also am much less concerned about malware (maybe this is unjustified in 2023, I guess IDK).

I got fed up with Microsoft with the rollout of Win10, and switched to Scientific Linux 7 at that time (RHEL7) and just migrated this year to Alma 9 and a new PC. I actually ran the same workstation for 12 years before that. Somehow, even with updates Linux doesn't seem to bloat the way Windows did / would. I.e. I haven't had a Linux install get slower over time for no reason like every Windows install.

Fedora Linux! <3

I really enjoyed the simpleness of PopOS. Got that familiar Ubuntu feel but looks better and runs great on my poor hobby laptop.

Pirated version of Windows 10 LTSC (v2021) because FUCK Microsoft.

I use Windows 10 because I'm lazy and like to game.

Manjaro KDE for years. I've tried ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Debian, Antergos and plain ol' Arch. I've stuck with Manjaro for simplicity sake, going through the motions of installing and setting up Arch was great from a learning perspective. It gave me a much better understanding of what's under the hood. In the end though, I wanted a simpler process of getting an OS going.

Dual boot with Windows 10 and Manjaro Limux. Windows is for games and adobe and linux for work

Debian on desktop pcs, Ubuntu on laptop pcs. I know, I know, we aren't supposed to use Ubuntu because it's bad but it's infinitly easier to get laptop drivers working on Ubuntu for some reason.

One of these days I'll try out arch but I've been using apt for so many years and don't want to learn pacman because I'm lazy.

MacOS

Ubuntu 20.04. My laptop is from 2013 and windows broke itself with an update in 2018 that rendered the computer useless and at 100% disk usage all the time. I already had some experience with dual booting and running Linux on old PC's so I just wiped it and never went back. I really don't miss it aside from excel.

Currently on my main PC I'm running Windows 10, as a few games I play fairly often aren't supported on Linux. Got a Steam Deck running SteamOS, and an old Macbook running Pop!_OS.

Plan on eventually switching my main rig over to the Linux side, most likely Nobara with KDE.

I use mainly arch and windows 11 for games that are borked on linux.

Currently, Ubuntu. I've been flinging back and forth between Debian, Mint and Ubuntu for years.

It works for my goals. I can even play my halb dozen computer games. I don't need to deal with MacOS prices or annoying "must be Apple hardware to run" [I could run a Hackintosh but why?], and I certainly don't want to touch Windows with a 3m pole in my machine.

Linux, usually Arch or Mint

Ubuntu cinnamon on my shared computer. MABOX Linux on my fuck-around Chromebook.

Windows 10. Why? Because 80% of my creative software doesn't work on Linux and I dislike Apple products.

Laptop: popos Reason: 2 hours battery on windows, 8-12 hours on popos due to sleep issues on windows and Nvidia GPU not turning off on windows.

Desktop: Windows, too many apps without relevant replacements.

Servers: Linux or bsd(depending on vm/reason)

Debian and Arch Linux. The Yin and Yang of Linux distros. Debian daily, Arch for occasional gaming

OpenSUSE on Desktop, macOS for laptop. I’ve used macOS on portables for years now but only in the last 3ish months have I gone the linux Desktop.

As to the “why” - macOS because it’s polished, tightly integrated with the hardware, the ecosystem works harmoniously, it’s secure and Unix-based (Darwin is the name of the base OS used for both macOS and iOS).

For Desktop - I used Windows pretty much all my life but it’s gradually turned into a bloated advertising and tracking engine. I’m speaking as a home user and a 10+ year IT professional. Linux has come in leaps and bounds and OpenSUSE is an enterprise-grade OS that also happens to run games and other personal things nicely. If I wasn’t using it I’d probably be using Red Hat but I dumped it largely due to their shitty business practices.

Arch because:

• it is the only distro I could install my wifi drivers on when I started with GNU/Linux
• too poor to afford hardware for Gentoo
• bloat = bad
• spyware = bad
• Appl€ & Micro$oft = bad