Ask HN: Where are the paid Linux desktop distributions?

  • There's Zorin OS Pro: https://zorin.com/os/pro/

    And elementaryOS is kinda-sorta paid (you can pay $0 too): https://elementary.io/

    ArchCraft also has a premium version: https://archcraft.io/premium.html

    Finally, while this is not a proper distro as such, PartedMagic makes for an excellent rescue option: https://partedmagic.com/

  • The amount of effort to make a distro that's noticeably better than the free distros would be very large, meaning the price would higher than people are willing to pay.

    Windows 11 Home Edition is $140 now, just to add some perspective.

  • I thought SUSE had a desktop version. They used to sell it at places like walmart back when you'd get linux on cd/dvd media, but its been a long time since I've seen that. There is also stuff like PopOS that comes on System76 computers or PureOS for Purism/Librem computers.