Trolls like max.b are taken too seriously. If they see they're getting people upset/angry, then they've achieved their aim, they've won. Reasoning with them, giving them facts, feeds them.

Fortunately there's an efficient, if drastic, way of restoring peace and quiet.

The worst one I ever used was Crux. Now i'm not calling it bad, but it has everything I don't like in a distro. I don't like source-based packaging, I hate compiling my own kernel, and it's defaults were usually awful. Again, i'm only saying it was the worst for me.

Only reason I was interested in it was because it had a BSD-style init, which I love. I thought I could atleast tolerate it's faults. 8 hours later compiling rust only for it fail (and the only reason I was compiling that was because of ONE library librsvg), and I was like "Nah, i'm out." lol

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It is hard to single out a distro as the worst. However, I had various difficulties with different distros.
1. Linpus Linux was not the easiest for me to handle, due to lack for software, and it was buggy to install packages
2. Decades back, Fedora did not handle 3rd party software well, even mp3 etc. but this has changed over time
3. Ubuntu: version 12.04 had a deal with Amazon, so amazon app was installed by default, added ubuntu1, then removed it, and then added Snap packages. I had a version, that had a bug, it could not upgrade or download packages.
4. Mint: tends to underestimate its System Requirements
5. elementaryOS: lacked malleability, clear search bars, or ability to locate apps well on its DE GUI
6. Micro-distros in general: seemed to cut the balance harsh on packages in the sake of size.

Problem is, there's just too many distros.
Most of them simply fall under a certain level that I would consider zero.
Just look at the queue that is waiting for inclusion in DistroWatch.

All those one man vanity projects. Esp. if the one person gets delusions of grandeur and starts messing around with more than just theming. Usually they start falling apart after the first few updates.

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I used Crux for years and loved it for precisely those reasons! In particular, I liked having my own kernel containing only the drivers I needed because it loaded super-fast and didn't need an initrd. Incidently, once you have built one kernel to your satisfaction, all the others are a doddle because you just keep reusing the config. And I found the automated builds hypnotic.
That's not the fault of Crux, it's the fault of rust and of a lot of modern software that uses such monstrosities. I had the same problem in LFS. When I started with LFS, I could create a system with everything I needed on it and then use it as my main system until the next LFS came out. Nowadays that's impossible. Oddly enough it was librsvg that was the last straw for me too. The gimp needed it and I needed the gimp. But rsvg needed rust. I looked at the instructions for building rust and thought, "That's it! My main system from now on needs to be a binary one." Sad! But it's unfair to blame a distro for that.

Characteristics of the bad distro:

1. Systemd: pronounced "Trojan Horse"
2. Derivative "double the bugs" distros: eg. based on Arch, Gentoo, Debian, but purports to be made easier for noobs
3. Corporate branding: Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu do not love you or care about your use cases.
4. GNU-madness: Nothing fun works because of absolute freedom from binary blobs and non-free software.
5. Privacy-madness: Everything is difficult to do because of encryption, bloaty VMs, chroot jails, screwy onion routing and the NSA is watching you anyway!
6. Minimalism madness: Damn Small, Tiny, runs on your Pentium II with 64MB and is a fascinating proof-of-concept, but nobody will want to wear a hairshirt as their daily driver.

I should add that these faults are non-orthogonal: many awful distros combine them in creative ways! There could even be more characteristics that I'm unaware of. Better go check distrowatch.

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That's a great list slackmench. If I may add to it, meme distros are often not the best, the target is the fun eg tooty fruity linux, or distros named after celebrities.

Indeed, worthy list of concerns/indicators to be aware of.

I do just want to point out however, Hannah Montana Linux was a superb example of a fun/celebrity distro, not being bad. At least, relative to such things. XD And that made the joke of it all the better.

Many criteria.

*buntu