I was just wondering, what's the distro that has been the most stable and had the best performance for you guys? With I mean that It had the less bugs, crashes etc. and with performance I mean best file I/O, best graphics performance, best CPU performance (compiling, rendering etc.). And If there wasn't any distro that combined these two, what were the two that had these two.

There are comparison tests. I don't suggest using a rolling or testing distribution.

Clear linux was the winner but it is a highly optimized distribution and maybe not the best choice for a beginner if you are not familiar with linux or don't want to have to tweak the system.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...-distros&num=1

Sorry that's all opinions.

For instance, my favorite distro is all of these.

Valid question. Just not sure how you can remove subjectively from it.

Using a meta-distro like Gentoo (or Funtoo) would enable you to tailor a system based on your criteria, to your needs. More generally, I find Slackware to be a great blend of stability and performance.

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Obviously the best distro is mine.
From the other hand the question is completely pointless. It always depend on the software installed and used on that host and on the maintainer. In general you can tweak and/or play the mischief with every/any distro.

I have to add Linux in general is very reliable, I run Gentoo unstable since 2004 and although I obviously have had my share of build-time failures as it is expected with unstable branch I never had any run-time problems. Custom built binaries as it is in Gentoo may be a plus here, as there is less unneeded code. All my crashes - haven't had many - have been hardware issues. I had more lockups with non-Gentoo distros than with Gentoo. In my opinion stability-wise you just can't beat custom built binaries which are optimized for hardware which they are running on. Of course, this is more of "butt feeling" than result of research. But if it is practically never crashing then there is nothing to complain about.

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I've enjoyed Debian the majority of my open source life. I ended up with Ubuntu though mainly because the Kodi ppa is fully supported and at the time I didn't believe in compiling if I could avoid it. My server still runs Ubuntu quite happy and stable. The only problems I've had recently have been my own misunderstandings with how Snapraid works. My router is Debian with an iptables script and it's doing just fine as well. At one point I was going to move to CentOS. 20/20 hindsight I'm glad I didn't now as it's effectively gone as the fully open RH clone. I suppose if you don't have a compelling reason to move then you don't really have any reason. A system is as stable as you make it I think.

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Except most people don't understand the consequences of the options available.
When I used gentoo it was for a particular requirement that I felt I needed to ring the neck of the hardware to get all the performance I could. Once that need passed, I found others fit my needs. For now it tends to be Fedora with rawhide kernel.

Linux means choice, so "best" is a very nebulous concept.

I was looking for more control to have a lean install, and I got it with Gentoo. Instead of trimming down as one might attempt with other distros in Gentoo I build it from ground up adding only components I want. Since I've been running it for so long my time dedicated to maintenance of 6 boxes is counted in minutes per week.

Back to the original question, Debian, Mageia, and Slackware.

Full disclosure: I have experienced some issues with Slackware --Current (that is, "testing"), and I eagerly look forward to the impending release of v. 15. If one uses a "testing" release, issues are to be expected.

AntiX - been stable for many years on my computers....

But any of the 'bigger' (established) distros should be likewise.

Performance differences between distros are tiny compared to performance differences between different CPUs and GPUs. You have to spend money on hardware if you want the best performance.
Ed

Two different answers, because you have combined two different questions. And really four or more, if one considers the differences between server and desktop distributions and all of the different KINDS of performance!

Stability:
Server: RHEL is a great production and rock solid server distribution. I like Debian stable better, and it is the one I use at home. SUSE is a solid alternate. Outside the Linux ecosystem, AIX is can be rock solid and clustering using something like an SP stack provides interesting advantages.
Desktop: Debian, though with totally different tuning and options. I almost never use it because in a desktop environments there are things I value more than pure stability. Something like slackware should be able to surpass anything else for stability IF YOU MANAGE it for stability: it is what you make of it!

Performance:
Server: This depends largely upon storage options, networking, and internal hardware options determined during the build. RHEL is hard to beet is an environment with high performance SAN, massive numbers of cores, and 360G ram or more in an enterprise environment. Debian can also be a solid performer, but you choose different packages and options and may sacrifice some stability to get that performance.

Ultimate performance is achieved with cluster specific high performance modules linked into a cluster and using a custom tuned cluster specific image. For this the NODES must be fast, the NETWORKING must be fast, and the cluster communication must be fast. This is the technology that becomes a "super computer" when fully provisioned and functional. Home users rarely need such resources, but if you want to play with the concept I recommend reducing the costs by using low performance nodes that are inexpensive such as Raspberry Pie boards.

Desktop: my fastest boot and run performance was a slightly custom TinyCore instance. I believe one could run the same performance metrics and get good results with a Puppy instance. They rip, but are significantly limited as a desktop environment. Debian (Also RHEL) is certainly a solid desktop, but a more customized approach out of box that performs well is achieved with something like Fedora, SPARKY LINUX, or VSIDO LINUX that have built on the testing or development base.

Performance depends very much upon your use and options, and the underlying file system and how well it supports those specific operations. EXT4 is a good balance between stable and performant: some things are faster under some conditions, but nothing really beats it at everything. BTRFS does better for stability on SSD, as it autodetects flash and self-tunes its behavior, but may not perform quite as well unless you have the latest cutting-edge kernel and drivers. (Development is ongoing to improve both stability AND performance in BTRFS.)
(XFS shines if you have many LARGE files, but borks a bit on clusters of SMALL files, so it is less appropriate for general use.)

All of that said, what I am using RIGHT NOW as MY perfect compromise between performance and stability are Q4OS, Debian, Manjaro, and Sparky Linux. Only Sparky comes close to maximum performance for my use. Only Debian (server/stable) is totally rock solid stable, and it is built for that (server processes only, no x-windows no gui, only the packages i require installed, mostly running headless, webmin access and ssh only for control to get the maximum performance possible from that stability). The others are desktop working environments that fit what I do. In the past I have also used Ubuntu (it sucked within a week, looked nice for the first few days though), Mint (it was fine), MintDE (if I run mint again, this is the one), Elementary, and a perhaps dozen others that turned out to either be less than stable, less than performant, and not even a good compromise (for me).

The question you REALLY want answered is "what is the best compromise between performance and stability that I could live with in what I use my machine for?", and we cannot answer that. Only you can judge what you can live with, how you use your machine and OS, and what you need for performance. The compromise, and the judgement, only remains valid if YOU make that judgement. The rest of us are all making those judgements based upon OUR experience and what WE do with machines! Our best answers may or may not serve YOU well.

There are many (and I man MANY) performance reports using benchmarks on the internet. Most of them are only somewhat valid for operations that match the benchmark tool assumptions well and on hardware much like the test hardware. Those give you an idea to start, but the only numbers that REALLY matter are the ones you achieve on YOUR storage, driven by YOUR machine. For most desktop use it is not worth spending a few weeks running benchmarks and reconfigurations.

My general advice is to pick something that does not suck and that has a decent reputation and spend that time getting work done and having fun. If you WORK, wit it, you need a DE that gets out of your way and lets you get work done. In the Linux world there are only a very few BAD choices! Just stay away from distributions intended for a single purpose like penetration testing, or zombie distributions (they died but have not yet been buried and still walk!).

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For me it was the one I installed from scratch to make it the way I want.
All mainstream distros offer an install image like that.

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Another Sparker eh ? KIller distro