That's not really a choice. :) You can change the desktop environment after the installation.

That's the least of Ubuntu's problems. Most people stopped using it because of its policies/change in direction.

Although, Mint is still very much based on Ubuntu, even using its packages in the base distro. I can comfortably say that Mint is just another derivative. Even if it brings some new stuff, those things are mostly visual and forked from already existing projects. Although I admit they are doing a great job with that. And they actually listen to what the users are asking.

I generally don't like Arch. But it is not really that complicated. The install is a bit complex, but I think they did that in purpose because it was becoming very popular with noobs. :) The usage is pretty simple. My main problems with Arch is potential instabillity and not enough of testing. And systemd acceptance.

I've tried Gentoo too and found it to be much more nicer and more stable distro than Arch. But compiling everything from source is pain in the a**. Although, the installation is not much more complicated if you have enough time and at least an average machine.

Well, I don't say Arch is a bad distro. I know a lot of people who use it. But I don't like some things about it. And I don't like fanboyism around it. :) I used to be annoyed by Ubuntu fanboyism too, but now when they are not so popular anymore I end up often defending them. :P But that's mostly because people say all sort of sh*t, some of what is outright untrue.

Anyway I guess why I get annoyed when people are overly enthusiastically promoting their option is because I use what suits me the best and don't try to show it down people's troath. Although to be fair, I've been using Linux since 2000, so I know what suits me the best. Or what distro is flexible enough to customize in a way I like it best.

Enough of the rant. :) I hope you will be satisified with whatever you choose. ;) I would encourage you to explore if you have time.

It was really a symptom of incompetence, arrogance and mismanagement. Something like that should never have been slipped into a release in that state. But, even before that I found things were broken for long periods of time and never fixed. As I recall, I couldn't log in with my bluetooth keyboard, so I had to set up an OSK just to log in. That's not really a Linux problem that was a Ubuntu problem and I didn't observe that problem with SUSE when I briefly ran it.

Linux Mint is much more conservative with changes, it's an extremely small project. Or at least it was when I started using it, not sure how big it is now. But, they tend not to change things just to change them.

Installing Arch was a good learning experience for me, because you pretty much do all the installation in the command line, and after a base install you don't even have X.Org, let alone any graphics drivers (among other stuff important for desktop use), so all the driver and software installation/configuration is left to the user.

I personally like Arch because of its versatility, package management/build systems, and massive online documentation. I would have to agree with you on potential instability though... that's why Debian Stable is my primary OS, with Arch being dual-booted alongside it. Both are among my favorite Linux distros so far, because they do a better job at satisfying and feeding my inner Linux geek. ;) I'm also a bit more familiar with them.

That's just my taste though....

Anyways I think I'll go with Debian on my live USB, though my plans aren't quite set in stone yet. Thanks to everyone again for their advice.

You did say that you like Gentoo though.... that's certainly an interesting one :D Haven't tried it for myself, but it would be quite an adventure setting it up, even more so than Arch. ;)

Not sure about the first and third, but second one sure. It's kinda like what MS did with Windows Vista. :) It was rushed to fill the schedule. They wanted something more so they tried to get into mobile market. And they basically enstranged they previous users, while not actually succeeding in anything.

Although, I doubt Mark will ever admit the mistake. :)

They had some strange bugs. So a lot of users were actually releived when they started publishing long-term supported version (LTS). Although, early LTS editions can be buggy too.

I liked that Clement decided to test systemd a bit longer before including it. That was a rational decision. Many think it is not yet ready. Although there is a large number of people who think it is. That all depends how stable do you want to get.

Anyway kudos to Mint for listening to the users.

I generally love Debian. Especially Debian stable. Although you have to update it manually if you want newer software. :) But they sped up the development so I'm not sure if that changed. Most of my grievancies with Debian is that it's a bit too patronizing. I don't like when OS is trying to hold my hand. :)

They also have binary packages. So some software that is tedious to compile like LibreOffice or Chrom(e/ium) or Firefox can be installed without compiling. Although, Gentoo is a bit conservative so you would need to use community overlays for newer software versions. But that's kind similar to Ubuntu/Mint 3rd party repos (although I'm not sure if they contain the binary packages or only the ebuild scripts). :)

I've used it only shortly, but I liked it a lot. :)

I personally tent to prefer simpler systems.

My desktop, the most complex machine I have, is running Gentoo GNU/Linux with OpenRC as the init system. I use a Debian Jessie chroot (which hasn't been updated recently) for running proprietary games.

My current laptop is running Debian Stretch (with bits of sid/experimental). I don't run x.org on it most of the time (though it is installed). One nice thing is that Python 3.5 is in the repository, so I can
apt-get it and try it out. I am using systemd on it, but I might try switching to OpenRC (which is in the Debian repository; remember, the init system vote was only to change the default init system, not to make it the only supported one).

For live distributions, I tend to prefer those that don't come with a GUI. I happen to like Tiny Core (specifically the Core and dCore flavors). Sometimes it's nice to run something a bit different, such as mfsBSD.

I always keep an Ubuntu on one of my USB drives for emergency.

OpenRC was ported to Slackware a while ago. I was planning to test it but never got around. It's still on my todo list. It's a community port, not an official one. So it will go in a VM first.

Ok, I'm offtopic. But dtgreene's post threw me away. Not my fault. :P