OMG I use cachyOS too, for the same reasons, plus I love how much I can tinker with it.

Arch because it helped me understand the os better and i like tinkering. Also pacman and the aur

Kubuntu, because when I got my Vega 56 GPU on release day (August 14, 2017), I had to download the proprietary driver straight from AMD to get it working, and Ubuntu was the only distro supported by both it and Steam at the time. (Otherwise, I would’ve picked Debian or Mint.)

I don’t love Ubuntu (especially how they push Snap), but I can’t be bothered with the hassle of reinstalling my OS.

I use NixOS for my desktop because I hate myself you can configure everything without needing to edit a bunch of different config files that use different configuration languages.

I use Arch btw for my Minecraft server because I am crazy.

Xubuntu. Convenience of ubuntu, less cluttered UI.

CachyOS. I use it because I am a fan of Arch based systems, rolling releases etc, but CachyOS is optimised for my generation of hardware, and has lots of good default configurations for various apps. They have a customised proton version, a good default fish profile etc.

tl;dr It’s Arch, but optimised, and slightly more pre-configured out of the box.

Ubuntu because I’m old, uncool, and tired

Previously arch now NixOS, just love the reproducibility.

from the comments, there’s a split between

• linux as a tool: debian, mint, fedora, opensuse, etc.
• linux as a toy: arch, gentoo, nixos, etc.

i wish this split was made more explicit, because more often than not someone comes looking for recommendations for linux as a tool, but someone else responds expecting they want linux as a toy. then the person will try out linux and will leave because it’s not what they want, not knowing that there is a kind of linux that is what they want

Linux Mint, because I don’t like to tinker with the system, I like good defaults (and Mints has them).