My favorite distribution is Gentoo, for 7 years now. It allows me to have all the flexibility I need (the perfect world between stability with only legacy packages or recent ones on a constantly broken system; as in Gentoo, you always have choice) and it teaches me so many things each day.
As I’m used to control everything, here is a list of kernels' configurations I use currently.
- Dreamplug: latest public Grsecurity kernel 4.9 (before, I used precompiled kernels from Xilka);
- Cubieboard 2: latest mainline kernel, currently 5.2;
- Odroid-C1: Linux 3.10 custom branch for the Amlogic S805 (quad-core ARMv7 Cortex-A5 and Mali450) + upstream patches on 3.10 not merged in the Hardkernel tree;
- Mirabox: latest public Grsecurity kernel 4.9;
- Cubox-i 4x4: latest mainline kernel, currently 4.16, running OpenGL applications through etnaviv driver;
- Creator CI20: Linux 3.18 custom branch for the Ingenic JZ4780 SoC + upstream patches on 3.18 not merged in the imgtec tree;
- ThinkPad X250: latest mainline kernel, currently 5.1.
- Orange Pi PC: latest mainline kernel, currently 5.2 on headless server.
- VoltaStream AMP1 & VoltaStream Zero: Linux 4.9 custom branch for i.MX6ULL + upstream patches on 4.9 not merged in the PolyVection tree.
- Pine A64: latest mainline kernel, currently 5.0 on headless server.
- Helios4: latest mainline kernel, currently 5.2 on headless server.