Linux distributions are breaking the mold and setting new standards for beauty and functionality.

Which Linux distributions will rise above the competition in 2026 to dethrone the old guard? These are my picks.

An obscure Linux distro that quietly respects old hardware.

When I first started using and writing about Linux in the late 1990s, there were just a few distributions to choose from, and even those were a bit hard to discover (unless you knew the right bulletin ...