Damn. Is it really just Debian and Arch that don't have skeletons in their closet?
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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I dunno I've never seen any valid criticism of slackware.
With Red Hat Device Edge Lockheed Martin is leading the infusion of cutting-edge commercial technology into military capabilities that deliver advanced solutions to our customers.
Justin Taylor, Vice President, F-22 technology, Lockheed Martin
this sentence should be enough to drop red hat instantly
"grey"hat to the max. disgusting.
This is so much worse than I expected. They seemed to be actively pivoting to a Palantir-esque "yeah, we're the bad guys" strategy, but are chickening out a bit on broadcasting it.
I'm not a Linux newbie, but I do hate having to compile and install and generally "be a tech guy" about my casual gaming and writing computer.
So I just use Linux Mint. I know, I know: it's Debian, you've probably got many Linux User thoughts about it. But several folks were like "what will I suggest to the normie's now?" Mint. Get them on Mint, it's easy, well supported, and rarely gives me trouble.
Plus, they're not doing war crimes (that I know of!)
I have mixed successes with Mint but when it works and when it's on well supported hardware it is a nice convenient distro. I hesitate to suggest it because I've recommended it to people who had a horrible time with it.
It's so hard to recommend distros.
I have been saying that Fedora is THE GUY for doing linux in bed with the US government. It's always the first distro to push to mainstream new tantalizingly convenient technologies developed by their pet devs replacing well understood code that's had thousands of eyeballs on it over the years.
I don't fuck with Fedora. I considered them fairly benign-to-positive back when I was less of a hardliner, but these days I consider them to be sucking the good will, talent and money out of the industry, sitting in an incumbent role as a commercial contractor that could be served by a thousand smaller local companies.
BDS the shit out of them. Redhat was cool back in the day, thanks for that, now move out of the way.
People on the FEDiverse almost convinced me to switch from NixOS to FEDora because NixOS is too problematic.
Problematic in what sense? I don't know much about NixOS or its "scene" or whatever.
I had to make an installer for someone who wanted to install Bazzite which I was disappointed to learn is yet another FEDora RAT.
A large part of tHe NiXOs CoMmUnItY is MIC like Anduril. Which yes is a big whammy.
There are other divides too but this is the most morally hazardous.
Instead of Bazzite, try CachyOS.
But actually tho. Its testing better than Windows at running Windows games in Wine. https://www.pcguide.com/news/new-cachyos-vs-windows-11-gaming-benchmarks-reveal-impressive-results-for-linux-from-space-marine-2-to-resident-evil-requiem/
CachyOS
What's the selling point for CachyOS? Is it basically the gaming distro based on Arch that is not SteamOS?
Yeah, basically. And its set up to be a much simpler install than Arch.
Again, it beat Windows at Windows gaming.
Linux Maoist standard english lol.
NixOS is also dependent on Microsoft GitHub and AWS for infrastructure and have zero plans to address this.
It's a fuckin shame because Fedora is genuinely the most stable and functional distro I've used since moving to Linux. It feels like a polished product.
Then again, it feels like a product from an American corporate machine that gets away with it because they're marginally better than their competitiors (see: Valve Inc. and Steam).
And then what? we have Ubuntu derivatives (another US state asset). Debian is potentially close to a stable user distro that isn't as deeply entrenched in the imperial core. But then surely any distro is under the thumb of the fascists? Linux is de facto property of Intel, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and a bunch of other CIA fronts.
Not to shit on boycotting Redhat or Fedora, but I just wonder how many steps of separation it is from Linux and its own evils.
Yeah I had to make a burner laptop for travel a while back and was really surprised with how slick and luser-proof their distro was. Had like way better mixed DPI support and a bunch of other conveniences I didn't think were solved at the time.
I reckon OpenSuse might be the next best thing to Fedora in this regard, but I've only used it a little bit and don't know enough to whole heartedly recommend it. I just have found Suse had also managed to create that slick professional experience and also streamlined a lot of the best "new shit" into a distro that felt like it should meet the expectations of eg a Mac user or a corporate Windows user (with some training.)
So, which distro should I switch to from Fedora?
I switched for the same reason long ago and I only used it because it was more up to date than Debian. Now I use Solus. It's a curated rolling release with a weekly cycle. Pretty good so far, not much issues.
Solus
I had no idea this is where Budgie came from. How long have you been using Solus?
Do you use your computer for anything obscure or interesting?
Are you trying to do enthusiastic linux nerd stuff or do you want something that just works and is (relatively, hopefully) easy?
I'm a filthy casual who seeks something that just works without me constantly trying to find and solve what broke each time.
Feels weird to keep recommending it, but https://www.opensuse.org/ OpenSuse Tumbleweed is regularly updated (rolling release) and nicely packaged for end users.
Suse is another old linux consulting powerhouse so you can expect a similar level of polish to Red Hat stuff.
Its default settings include a good modern filesystem that supports taking snapshots and rolling back, which is very useful if you run into a problem after updating a lot of software and you just need to revert to your system's previous state instead of fixing the issue immediately. Or if you're about to do something weird with your computer and you want to save a snapshot for whatever reason.
I'll keep thinking and pondering to see if I can get a bit more variety in my suggestions.
Random roughly organised thoughts in general about this though:
Obviously you can try almost any distro out using a live USB installer before actually installing the system. This is handy if you wanted to try something like Manjaro which is supposed to be a more user friendly version of Arch Linux with a nice installer and stuff, so you can have a play around and see whether the OS is capable of cooperating nicely with your computer.
A rule of thumb with live distros is they are built for maximum compatibility so sometimes they will have full driver and/or software support for hardware that isn't installed by default when you install the OS to the computer, so don't get too attached to anything you play with and be prepared to try a couple of distros if you decide against one of the super user friendly desktop distros.
Low key though and I hope nobody on hexbear dot net sees me tell you this. Running Fedora on your computer at home doesn't really provide any support to red hat the company and its government and military shit. It is also unlikely that they are overtly backdooring their distro specifically (its more likely/true to say that they have helped backdoor almost all distros via systemd.) So if you can't find an alternative that works for you, at least be reassured that running red hat's distros doesn't put you in immediate moral peril and probably doesn't increase your personal exposure to surveillance.
So I guess what I would say is don't feel pressure to rush into a change. Take your time and hopefully you'll find something nicer than Fedora that you like.
A real shame. I do think there are other OSes with the same level of polish as Fedora, but not ones as "normie-friendly" to recommend to people.
Debian stays winning.
While I'm not all that surprised I'm upset nonetheless.
Is there anything else that has smooth installation, vanilla GNOME, and a good balance of stability and updates? I stopped distro hopping after I found Fedora because it was perfect for me 
As far as traditional style distros, I have always been impressed with OpenSuse Tumbleweed when I've needed like polished "corporate ready" distro.
They build and maintain the distros and build tools etc. In particular OpenSuse was the first distro I used that offered to set up BTRFS filesystem snapshots and rollback support as part of the GUI installer. A lot of corpo / consultancy money goes into keeping it competitive and fairly slick. Same as Redhat really.
Thanks, I'll check it out.
Oh and when I say ""i have been saying" I mean since the early 2000s btw.
And older archive of that page, but I don't think much has changed in the text since its an old blog post from 2012: https://archive.ph/7GBl4
accusations / discourse from 2014: https://fossforce.com/2014/01/red-hat-working-nsa/
systemd
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
(lol redhat's consultancy wing's gitlab instance got pwnt by a crew called Crimson Collective at the end of last year - I'm guessing there are some really interesting clients in the data set. lol based they just found leaked auth tokens with trufflehog. that's so funny)
Non-archive link for those that struggle - https://www.dlt.com/sites/default/files/documents/2025-01/ve-compress-the-kill-cycle-detail-693397pr-202402-en_3.pdf
Ugh. I use Fedora, which I'll probably keep doing for now. But I'll stop showing it any support or helping with code at all. This shit is unfortunately inevitable when a profit motive enters.
I guess I won't be recommending Fedora anymore. Holy shit.
Context, buddy?
I think I messed up formatting. Context is Red Hat helping military kill people with AI.
Linux has always drawn the most depraved, antisocial losers on the internet; when someone tells you they use Linux, scour their posting history
Never be alone at night with a Linux user
Look I'm not that weird I just want to know what OS you run for normal polite conversational reasons.
Windows 10 of course! The most human friendly OS there is!
Bringing people together since (Googles when the first windows came out) 1985!
more like uhhhh 1993 Windows 3.1 for Workgroups. you weren't bringing people together on windows before that. ;D
edit: wait shit I forgot to do something snarky about win 10 ah fuck it.
I run grokcomputer with macrohard.
AI something something idk what he is up to
AI something something idk what he is up to
Don't worry about it, you won't even notice him in the NPU, it wasn't doing anything else anyway. He's helpfully sitting there on the bus making sure you're being a good poster.
but I am a badposter
weird bit
I run Linux and every night I am alone with myself 