My Personal Top 5 Linux Distributions of 2020

 Hey guys, I am going to review my personal top five Linux distributions for this year. These distros, (distributions), are ones that I have personally used in the year of 2020. You may not agree with what I say, but that is alright. We are all human beings and we have our own opinions. These distros are just the ones that I selected because I thought they were the best.

5. Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a great distro for beginners and more advanced Linux users looking for a stable option. I put this at number five because I have not had the best experience with Ubuntu. I had issues with the proprietary drivers, and I hated the experience. It is still a great distro, as I ran it on my Macbook for a long time using the Unity desktop. If you have to use Ubuntu, you should definitely install the Unity Desktop Environment. It makes the experience much better, even if it is outdated. You can download it by typing sudo apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop. Ubuntu is a great distro for beginners coming from Windows and more advanced Linux users looking for a more stable experience.

4. Arch Linux

Arch Linux is a great distro of Linux for those who want a bleeding edge experience. I used it for a month or so, and it was great. I could install very little packages and still have an amazing Linux experience bloat free. However, I did have some issues with Arch. For example, I could not get the NVIDIA drivers working for me whatsoever apart from the Open Source drivers. I have a very old NVIDIA card, a GT 8800, and the latest drivers do not support it anymore. Trying to get proprietary drivers working was a nightmare, and it ultimately caused my install to break. That is one of the things with Arch Linux; things can and will break, and you have to fix them. If you are a more advanced Linux user or are curious as to how Linux works its magic, try Arch Linux.

3. Manjaro Linux

Manjaro is a great distro for gaming and stability. It is based on Arch Linux, but it is more stable than Arch, as it has its own repositories and package system. They hold packages from Arch Linux for about two weeks in their testing branch, then they put the package into their stable repositories. This makes Manjaro a pretty stable distro. I really liked the XFCE version of Manjaro, as it was fast and fluid. I did not have any problems with it, although a Discord user linked me to a GitHub repository that told me how Manjaro is not great, so I switched to Arch Linux. Overall, Manjaro is great if you want to game on Linux and have a stable system.

2. Debian GNU/Linux

Debian is a great distro for those who want just plain and simple stability. Debian runs on many servers, but it is a great option on the desktop as well. I used to use it with GNOME, XFCE, awesomewm, and even dwm. Debian could handle it all, and it never broke apart from the time that I broke the bootloader. The only downside is that the software in the repositories tends to be old; however, you can use the testing or even the unstable branch of Debian for the latest software. If you want new software without compromising Debian's amazing stability and security, you can use flatpaks or AppImages. Both are great methods of software delivery without compromising Debian in any way. If you are looking for a stable experience that you can rely on, you should use Debian.

1. Fedora Linux

Fedora is great for developers and those looking to get into GNOME. I am a developer, as I made my own Discord bot and host it too. I also love the GNOME workflow more than any other workflow, and that includes window managers too. Fedora ships with a stock GNOME experience, and it is one of the best distros for it. I love the dnf package manager because it is more legible than apt or pacman to me. It comes with no proprietary software out of the box, and it is one of the best distros I have tried when it comes to NVIDIA. Fedora is also really stable, and it stores two additional kernels in case something breaks. The only disadvantages is that you need to enable the RPMFusion repositories in order to get things like multimedia codecs and proprietary graphics drivers. Other than that, Fedora is just a great distro, and I have been using it for a while now. That is why I placed it at number one on my top five list of distributions. 

Thank you for reading. There are links below to each respective distribution.

1. Fedora Linux 
2. Debian GNU/Linux 
3. Manjaro Linux
   
4. Arch Linux
   
5. Ubuntu
   

Using Fedora Linux

Awhile ago, I decided to try out Fedora. I really like GNOME's workflow and Fedora seemed like the best option because it is based around GNOME. 

Initial Installation

I installed it, which was pretty easy thanks to the Anaconda installer, and tried to get the proprietary NVIDIA drivers working, but my card, a NVIDIA GT 8800, is older so the drivers ended up making the experience not great. The background would be all corrupted after suspending. I tried my hardest to fix it using systemd and scripting, but I couldn't fix that issue. I ended up deleting the partition and switching back to Debian.

Second Try

Today, I decided to give Fedora another chance. I didn't use the NVIDIA proprietary drivers and instead opted for the open source drivers. So far, the experience is great. I got all my keybinds set up, and I customized it so it uses the Adwaita-Dark theme. It looks great and I love it. I had to initially upgrade from Fedora 32 to Fedora 33, but it wasn't hard. It just took a bit of time due to it having to upgrade all the packages. Installation of my programs wasn't hard either because I don't use heavy IDEs like Visual Studio Code, and I generally only need my web browser to function on my computer.

 The GNOME Experience

GNOME 3.38 is really great and fixed some of the annoyances I had with GNOME. It moved the buttons to power off, suspend, and restart all into one menu instead of a prompt that would take up the whole screen. So far, the experience has been speedy, and I really love the workflow. I like the overview menu, as it makes it easy to see all the applications I have open. I also love the dynamic workspaces of GNOME. So far, I have been using GNOME without any extensions, and it has been great.

Conclusion

So far, Fedora has been an excellent distro for GNOME 3. I like the workflow, and I like the dnf package manager. If you want a stock GNOME experience, Fedora is the distribution for you. It only comes with one plugin enabled out of the box, and it is super speedy. Programs are up to date, unlike Debian, and it is just so good. This has been my experience using Fedora so far. I might write a followup to this article after I use the distro more.

Using the Samsung Galaxy S5 in 2020

 I tend to switch phones somewhat often, just to rediscover what made these devices great. Today, I decided to switch to the Samsung Galaxy S5 for one day. The experience was pretty good, as I will write later in this post. I managed to get Android 10 to run on it using a custom ROM called Resurrection Remix. 

The Good

The phone experience was pretty good. It was even better than some low budget phones that I have tried in the past. Android 10's design really helped to modernize the device. I felt like it was a brand new phone, as it uses the stock android design. The phone itself has some pretty cool features such as a headphone jack (yes that's a feature nowadays), a IR Blaster, a removable battery, a fingerprint sensor (which isn't that great), a fast charging port, and Micro SD expansion. The phone also has IP67 water and dust resistance, so it can withstand a downpour, which is great where I live. Android also has some apps that iOS doesn't, such as an official Blogger app.

The Bad

The software was not very fast at all. Apps took a while to load and the animations are slow. There are also some software issues too. When I updated from Android 9 to Android 10, I had to reinstall the Google Apps using OpenGApps because it would keep on saying "Google Play Services keeps on crashing" or something along those lines. After that, the experience was alright. Bluetooth was not great, as it would crash sometimes. YouTube Vanced was a bit laggy on the device, and it is not very fast to reboot. I also had an issue where I would try to put in the Pattern, but it would be stuck on the pattern screen until the phone timed out. Also, the fingerprint sensor is not like a normal fingerprint sensor. Now I will cut it some slack, as it was the first attempt by Samsung at a fingerprint sensor. The sensor makes you swipe your finger down vertically instead of resting it on the sensor. While it sounds good in concept, it is not great in reality.

My Overall Thoughts

The phone is great in 2020, as long as you Custom ROM it. I never tried the original Android 6.0 ROM, but I would think that it was slow because TouchWiz is very bloated. App support is great, as most if not all apps will run on the device. I would even go as far as saying to pick up a Galaxy S5 and Custom ROM it as a budget device. It is a great flagship, even in 2020 with some features that modern phones simply don't have. I will not be staying on the device, but it was nice to revisit it in 2020 and see what features we miss out on by using modern smartphones.