I use the following in my home setup: 16 ubuntu machines, 3 OpenBSD machines, 1 freebsd, 8 centos (one headnode, 7 diskless compute nodes) 2 osx, 1 windows (oops-two; wife's laptop). Several of these are old recycled boxes, but every one of these has a job.<p>In retrospect, I wish I had done 8 of the ubuntu servers as freebsd.
I run FreeBSD on my home fileserver (primarly for its stable ZFS support, but also for its unparalleled documentation and ports system).<p>For all production servers I run Debian because they're the easiest to keep updated and to re-deploy at short notice.
I used OS X for about 7 years, but finally decided to give up on the Apple Tax. I bought the first refurbished laptop that met my specs (cheap, lots of ram) and installed Mandriva (as I'd read that it would enable me to use my Windows Mobile phone as my network connection).<p>I hadn't used Mandriva for many years (although I'd used Fedora, CentOS, Suse, Ubuntu in those years). I've been very impressed by Mandriva laptop in the last 3 months or so.<p>And to buy an Apple laptop with the same screen size and ram would have cost as much as 6 of these el cheapo laptops.<p>I can't think of anything I've missed from my powerbook in the last few months. And I could always install OS X inside a VM if I really needed it.<p>Can't see myself ever going back to Apple now (although I've still got 4 macs around the house, it's just that I don't use them any more).
I ran Gentoo from 2003 to 2007 -- I credit it with opening my eyes to how simple and elegant *nix is. When I got tired of monthly upgrades taking six to twelve hours on each of my four systems (including twenty to forty minutes at the console for each, running various commands and fixing things that inevitably broke), I switched to Debian Sid. When it (unsurprisingly) proved too unstable, I moved to Ubuntu, and have remained with it ever since. I don't always get to play with the latest shiny toys, but I'm amply compensated by weekly upgrades that take no more than sixty seconds. I'm glad that I gained a more thorough understanding of my system's workings through Gentoo, but I find Ubuntu lets me focus my attention on tasks more interesting than system administration.
This is turning out to be interesting. Ubuntu and OSX are top choices and everything else seems really distant. From the top clicks on distrowatch.com, I had assumed OpenSUSE,fedora, debian and mint will be closer too.
Primarily a Windows user, but I use Gentoo on occasion. It doesn't get a lot of face time since I'm not doing the work that I originally installed it for anymore.
Once used Ubuntu for desktop (I loved it, but my old laptop eventually died).<p>Right now, OSX for desktop (I just use a laptop that I always keep with me, no multiple computers, just a single one!). And Debian for headless machines / web servers and so on. I really love it.<p>(I also have to deal with "degradated" Windows installations at home, so every computer keeps its factory OS with a good security policy, much easier to re-install from zero)
Moblin, actually.<p>I'm really enjoying the Moblin 2.1 interface. It's a pretty radical rethink of how you use your computer. Most importantly, it feels fast and easy to use even with the tiny trackpad and small screen of a netbook.<p>However, it's still not baked enough for general use. I'll probably switch back to Ubuntu Netbook Remix after Koala comes out.
Archlinux. It has literally proved to be an end to my distro hopping. I've had crazy experiences with Ubuntu. And IMHO, the only 2 distros that are fun to work with, are Arch and Gentoo. I just dont have the patience to compile each and every package, so Arch it is. :)
The main server at home is debian. i have one desktop box and the tiny vaio running ubuntu. recently being hacking obj-c for the iphone so osx has become my main desktop. have been considering switching to opensolaris for my server.
I use slitaz mainly, works great and fast... Smallest distro I know that is still very usefull (better then dsl imho).<p>I also have an ubuntu laptop, still running 8.10 but I'll be upgrading soon. And my main machine is a macbook running X.6.
I've been using Arch for quite a few years now after trying Redhat(befor Fedora), Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, etc. I like Arch's minimalistic philosophy, but then, I also use Fluxbox as my window manager. ;-)
Kubuntu for main development, on my laptop; Vista on the main PC thing; Snow Leopard on the Mac Mini for when I have to do Mac dev or testing.<p>I've a C64 in the closet, too. Should bust that out, see if it still boots.
Gentoo on my laptop because I want the extreme flexibility there, but my official "home machine" is Debian testing/unstable because I wanted something more consistent that was easier to maintain.
Not sure why some people expressed surprise with debian being so far behind. I would use Ubuntu for home use as well even though we use Debian for all things Linux + Server.