What Linux distributions, hardware, and software do I actually use? In this video, I share some of the Linux distros, laptops, desktops, server operating systems, and applications that currently support my workflow.

You’ll learn which Linux distributions I’ve been using lately, why keeping an alternative distro in mind can be useful, and which distro I prefer for Linux servers. I’ll also show you some of my current computer hardware and briefly discuss several Linux apps and tools I use.

Distro Choices

So, you might be wondering which Linux distributions I’m actually using these days. Well, let’s go over that, and we’ll start with desktops and laptops first.

On my workstations, my primary distro of choice is Fedora Workstation. Specifically, I use the flagship GNOME edition, but I also install the COSMIC desktop alongside it as well.

Nowadays, COSMIC has actually become my favorite desktop environment overall, and it’s what I spend most of my time using day to day.

One of the main reasons for that is autotiling. I absolutely love tiling workflows, and I think COSMIC implements autotiling extremely well. Beyond that, it’s also a very fast and responsive desktop environment that avoids a lot of unnecessary complexity. It’s not overloaded with flashy animations or excessive bloat — it’s simple, clean, and gets out of the way so I can focus on my work.

That said, I still keep GNOME installed as my secondary desktop environment for a couple of reasons.

First of all, COSMIC is still fairly new, so it’s not available everywhere yet. For example, at the time of recording, it isn’t officially available on Debian, so on Debian systems I typically stick with GNOME instead.

But beyond availability, I also think it’s a good idea in general to maintain a secondary desktop environment. If your primary desktop ever breaks after an update or configuration issue, having another environment installed gives you a fallback option so you can still log in and troubleshoot the problem instead of being completely locked out of your graphical environment.

Now, speaking of Debian, that’s actually what I consider my “Plan B” Linux distribution overall.

And honestly, I recommend everyone maintain a secondary distro that they’re comfortable with, because you never really know what could happen to your primary choice over the long term.

In Fedora’s case, Red Hat is the primary sponsor behind the project. And while I don’t have any specific reason to think they’d suddenly abandon Fedora or anything like that, companies do sometimes make decisions the community doesn’t necessarily agree with. We’ve seen a few controversial decisions from Red Hat in recent years already.

So for me, keeping Debian as a secondary platform gives me some peace of mind. If my primary distro ever changes in a direction I don’t like, I already have a fallback distro that I’m very comfortable with.

And honestly, I think that’s just good long-term planning in general.

Another distro I’ll mention is Pop!_OS, which I specifically use on my video editing machine.

Now personally, I actually prefer using COSMIC on Fedora overall, and in general I try to avoid Ubuntu-based distributions for personal reasons. But my editing workstation is really the exception to that rule.

The reason is simple: DaVinci Resolve is significantly easier to get running reliably on Pop!_OS than it is on many other Linux distributions. And if you’ve ever dealt with Resolve on Linux before, you already know that getting everything configured correctly can sometimes become a frustrating experience.

So because my editing machine is such a critical part of my workflow, I intentionally keep it somewhat isolated from the rest of my configurations. Even small changes to that system can potentially disrupt my editing workflow and end up costing me a lot of time.

In fact, I take that so seriously that I even maintain a full Clonezilla image backup of the machine, just in case I ever need to quickly restore it back to a known working state.

Now when it comes to servers, historically my primary distro has been Debian, and most of my servers are still currently running it right now.

However, I’m actually in the process of gradually migrating my server infrastructure over to AlmaLinux.

And just to be clear, this isn’t because there’s anything wrong with Debian at all. Debian is an excellent server distribution and I’ve had great experiences with it over the years.

The reason I’m moving toward AlmaLinux is really because I’ve become a huge fan of the project itself and I want to become more involved with that ecosystem going forward.Hardware Choices

So now you know what my distro choices are, what about hardware? Well, let’s take a look!

When it comes to workstations, my daily drivers are both computers made by System76, specifically the Pangolin laptop and the Thelio Mira desktop – both of which I’ve reviewed on this channel. The Pangolin is a great general purpose machine, but it’s not powerful enough for editing video – I do that on my Thelio Mira, which can actually render a 14 minute 4K video in a minute and a half, which is incredible.

In addition to my daily drivers, I have a number of other computers in use too – such as a Nucbox I have underneath my desk that I use primarily for development, as well as a number of other laptops. Among them, I have an older Thinkpad X1 as well as my HP Dev One.

In my studio, I have a really nice Ultrawide OLED display that I use, which is great for editing video. Beside my display is a pair of Edifer speakers, which I chose specifically because the model I purchased was rated highly for vocal quality. Anyway, attached to my display is my Thelio Mira, as well as a Thunderbolt dock – specifically the CalDigit TS4. I have a metal tray under my desk where I can place my laptop, and the dock is mounted under my desk too so whichever notebook I’m using at any given time is connected via just one cable. For the keyboard and mouse, I’ve mounted a USB switcher as well, so I can toggle my keyboard and mouse back and forth. Of course, I could’ve purchased a keyboard that uses bluetooth, but I prefer mechanical keyboards and most of them are wired. Speaking of that, I’m still using the System76 Launch Keyboard I reviewed recently, and I’ve been using Launch keyboards primarily ever since they were first released. I love the configurability and the typing experience – it’s great to have a native Linux app to configure my keyboard, something that’s actually a bit rare.

But there’s one more thing I want to mention about my Thunderbolt dock. I reviewed it over three years ago, and I’ve been using it ever since. I really love this dock, and it works with each of my computers. However, recently the audio input and output jacks in the back completely died, so I’m going to have to replace it. I’m not sure how I feel about that – it sucks that it has such an issue, but I did get three years of life out of it.

Software Choices

Next, I figured I would spend some time talking about my software choices.

Now, I use a ton of different applications and utilities throughout my workflow, so there’s no realistic way I could cover everything in a single video. But what I can do is go over some of the more important tools I rely on the most and explain why they’ve become such an important part of my environment.

And the first one I’ll mention is Syncthing.

As I mentioned earlier, I regularly move between multiple computers throughout the day, and keeping files synchronized across all of those systems can quickly become a nightmare if you don’t have a good solution in place.

The last thing I want is to sit down at a machine, look for a file, and then realize I accidentally saved it somewhere else and can’t remember which computer it was on.

With Syncthing, all of my systems always have the exact same files automatically synchronized between them. I don’t have to manually think about synchronization at all anymore.

I can save a file on one machine, walk over to another computer, and it’s already there waiting for me.

That has made moving between systems dramatically easier and honestly removes a huge amount of friction from my daily workflow.

Now at the center of all of this synchronization is TrueNAS, which is where my primary Syncthing instance lives.

At this point, TrueNAS has effectively become my single source of truth for file storage.

Not only does it act as centralized storage for all of my files, but it also handles my offsite backups as well.

So the way everything works together is fairly simple:

• all of my systems synchronize files through Syncthing
• the data ultimately lives on TrueNAS
• and then TrueNAS handles replication and offsite backup protection

The end result is a workflow that’s extremely seamless.

I save a file once, and automatically:

• all of my computers receive a synchronized copy
• and the data also gets backed up offsite

Which means I rarely have to think about file management manually anymore.

Now when it comes to web browsers, honestly… I don’t really have a favorite.

In my opinion, modern browser choices are mostly a matter of figuring out which one compromises the least for your specific use case, because I don’t think any browser currently checks all the boxes.

For example, Mozilla Firefox is generally very reliable and of course it’s open-source, which is a huge advantage. But at the same time, Firefox often lags behind other browsers when it comes to newer features and certain workflow improvements.

Then there’s Vivaldi, which is actually the browser I primarily use most of the time.

And to be clear, that’s not necessarily a recommendation.

One downside of Vivaldi is that it isn’t fully open-source, which I definitely don’t love. But at the same time, it has many of the workflow features I personally depend on, so I end up using it somewhat begrudgingly because it currently fits my workflow better than the alternatives.

That said, it definitely isn’t perfect either. Every now and then it’ll lose my browsing session, which is incredibly frustrating when it happens.

So even though it’s the browser I currently use the most, I’m still not fully satisfied with it overall.

Then of course there’s Google Chrome, which generally works very well technically, but it’s also made by Google, and frankly I don’t necessarily trust Google to prioritize users’ best interests long term.

So honestly, every browser seems to involve tradeoffs in one way or another.

What I really want is a truly excellent open-source browser with strong workspace synchronization and modern productivity features.

Ironically, I actually think Safari has some of the best workspace syncing in the industry right now. But of course, Safari is locked entirely to the Apple ecosystem, so that’s not really an option for me in practice.

But anyway, moving on before this turns into an entire browser rant…

Some of the other software I regularly use includes:

• LibreOffice
• GIMP
• Bitwarden
• Standard Notes
• Todoist

And honestly, there’s a ton more beyond that, but those are some of the bigger highlights that make up a large part of my day-to-day workflow.