To improve Android-application function on the go, AOSP-derivatives (LineageOS, GrapheneOS, /e/OS, CalyxOS, etc.) are also tolerated, at least on the phone. This because so many people say mobile Linux (PostmarketOS, Sailfish OS, etc.) is not so nice yet in daily phone use.
This question didn’t come from me originally, but I’ll add my context anyway:
I come from Ubuntu (eww, Canonical) and Android (eww, Google, nope!).
I currently have Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop on the laptop, and because of the bugs, I’ve been considering moving to something else with KDE (serious desktop UI), maybe OpenSUSE because its roots are so European.
I tried Fedora with Gnome on a tablet I had 2025, which seemed fine on a touchscreen, unlike Fedora with KDE.
My phone runs /e/OS with the default Nextcloud hosted by Murena (the company behind /e/OS), which is fine, and I appreciate that /e/OS can be bought pre-installed, and that it supports bootloader re-locking (against pickpockets) on many devices (Fairphone and Shiftphone of the European ones).
Special thanks to Firefox for a unified experience through a Mozilla-account. More of this kind of unification would be welcome.
Personally, I would say anything Linux.
I’ve got a docker server at home running my containers and because of my wire guard, I can access it from everywhere.
Mainly file storage and backup with nextcloud, some -arr and jellyfin nonsense, and a few odds and ends.
First, let me get this out of the way. If you are just starting with Linux, find an easier path. I would say Debian, fedora, something simple with reliable packaging.
With that said, Arch is my go-to. Arch requires a little more understanding of the Linux environment and has helped me learn a hell of a lot. But the primary reason I use it is for hyprland. Now, while I haven’t fully setup hyprland for gestures, it is possible. My cheater dot files have touchpad actions. I want to see this expanded. Perhaps, each application automatically launches in a different virtual desktop. And if you want to split a screen, simply use the needed gesture to get there. To get even crazier, technically you can run Android applications from within a container, so you don’t even lose any compatibility. This aspect may take further testing, but technically you can run Windows apps in a container utilizing freerdp to remote app to the container so it appears as if it is running on your Linux machine even though it uses a containerized vm. I do not know if it would work on a phone because I don’t know if libvirt can visualize x86_64 on an ARM64 device.