Gentoo, after a 15 year break where I used Ubuntu / Arch. Might try NixOS or something similar.
KDE for desktop env.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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Started with Mint, next tried Ubuntu and I just stuck with it for now. It's a polished experience although sometimes snaps issues show up, so I've been considering switching to either PopOS 24.04 when it comes out or trying out Nix.
NixOS on my Laptop, Desktop, Gaming Machine, and around 10 servers.
Still have two servers on Arch, waiting to be migrated, and I'm really itching to but NixOS on the Steam Deck as well.
Debian stable on Thinkpad 1 and Debian testing on Thinkpad 2. Testing is nice because Gnome is a slightly better version. Stable is nice because it doesn't bother me about updates.
What don't you like about gnome?
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Debian testing on my desktop
Endeavour on my laptop
Gonna switch desky to endeavour soon. Debian stable is great but testing is not a good experience but I need the more recent packages.
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Nobara
I've tried a couple different KDE distros and settled on Fedora 40 KDE spin. It seems to be the most complete KDE experience without all of the Canonical/snap bloat. It works great on my Thinkpad. Also runs decent on my gaming desktop using the latest Nvidia beta driver - I used to get stutters and artifacts in games/steam/plex and now with the beta driver those apps run fine
one of my favorite games unfortunately cannot be run on linux at all, and it's a gacha. I don't want to gamble with my account being banned
Yeah, let's keep it to one kind of gambling. I like and use opensuse tumbleweed. Rolling release, never had stability problems.
I recently stumbled upon OpenSuse again and want to try it out but can't decide if I should use Tumbleweed or MicroOS. Did you ever try MicroOS?
Stick to Tumbleweed. MicroOS is the container version.
I thought MicroOS is like Fedora Silverblue and an atomic desktop?
They are very similar. It honestly comes down to what you're comfortable with.
Can you elaborate? I think I didn't understand your point.
I'm not the one you asked your question, but I think I understood what they meant.
First of all, technically MicroOS is the non-desktop version of openSUSE's take on an atomic/immutable distro. The desktop variants are referred to as Aeon (for GNOME) and Kalpa (for KDE).
Secondly, while Aeon/Kalpa definitely is to openSUSE what Silverblue/Kinoite is to Fedora, there's a clear difference in vision and maturity.
Vision
Fedora Atomic is a very ambitious project; everything points toward it being Fedora's take on NixOS. But, unlike NixOS, it couldn't start from scratch nor did they intend to. Instead, it's the process of evolving their existing products into something special. As such, it has been over two years since Fedora has even explicitly stated that they intend for Fedora Atomic to become the default eventually (without saying anything about sunsetting the old). While, AFAIK, openSUSE has yet to make similar statements regarding Aeon/Kalpa.
Maturity
Everything points towards Fedora Atomic being more mature than openSUSE MicroOS; work on the project has started earlier, Fedora Atomic is almost done with their transition (from image-based) to OCI while I don't recall openSUSE mention anything regarding their transition (from 'snapshots') to image-based since they mentioned it briefly last year. Furthermore, Bazzite (based on Fedora Atomic) has become the face of Gaming Linux while openSUSE' MicroOS fails to deliver on anything but Aeon. Which, to be fair, is absolutely fine. But not everyone is fan of GNOME.
So, use Tumbleweed if:
- You prefer the traditional model
- You like YaST
- You like the rolling release model and not being tied to GNOME
Use Aeon if:
- You like GNOME and an atomic distro on a rolling release distro
- You prefer the opinionated, hands off, little to no customization path that openSUSE has currently chosen for its Aeon
- You like a containerized future
Use Fedora Atomic if:
- You want an atomic distro, but don't like any of the decisions made for Aeon; i.e.
- prefer to use KDE, Budgie or Sway (or any other desktop environment through uBlue)
- aren't that big of a fan of container workloads
- prefer having the choice of installing native packages
- Prefer atomic on top of a point release distro
Finally, regarding containers specifically; let's say you want to install package X.
- On Tumbleweed, you just do
sudo zypper install Xand you're done with it. - On Aeon, if it's available as a Flatpak, you do
flatpak install X. If there's no Flatpak of it, you install it within a container that you access through Distrobox. Within the container, use the package manager corresponding to the container. Technically, while inside the container, the environment is very similar to Tumbleweed. So, say you got a Tumbleweed container, then you can continue usingsudo zypper install X. - On Fedora Atomic, you can layer onto the system through
rpm-ostree install X; this is very close to how installing packages work on Tumbleweed. And, you can continue using both Flatpak and Distrobox; like how it's done on Aeon. Note that Tumbleweed also allows access to Flatpak and Distrobox. So, Aeon is most restricted as it can't install packages onto the base system. Btw, Fedora Atomic accomplishes this through layers that can also be peeled off later on (through uninstalling for example). With this, the base system actually isn't affected, but the end user doesn't notice it.
I run Fedora on my gaming PC (KDE) and my ThinkPad (GNOME/Hyprland). It’s a rock-solid distro. Some may think the release cycle is too fast, but then just don’t upgrade right away.
Distrohopping is an addiction for me. As soon as I get settled, I’m ready to bounce. I want my gaming PC to stay where it is, but I might hop my ThinkPad around. Maybe. Fedora on it is fantastic.
Garuda Dragonized
Ditto. Super easy setup, most stuff just works right off the bat. Super active community on the forum and high participation from the devs.
I wanted this, but it wouldnt boot for me. :( my hardware was pretty new at the time though, so maybe works now?I'll have to try it again some time.
Hmm, yeah my PC is about 2-3 years old now and it booted just fine. If normal Arch can boot (EFI ideally), then Garuda should be good.
Slackware
Slackware was my first real distro (many moons ago), glad to see people still enjoy it.
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Gentoo
My first choice is Pop!_OS because my graphics cards are NVidia, but you said that you don't like their DE. My second choice is LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition). It is boring and stable and gets out of your way.
Linux Mint. Yes, it's not that interesting, but as many others point out, it just works. Both on my laptop and desktop pc. No issues for over two years.
Agreed. I'm using Linux Mint XFCE edition. Works great. Mint is still based on Ubuntu 22.04 (Ubuntu Jammy), which is the only down side for me as a developer. Since all packages are very outdated in general.
Arch KDE and SteamOS.
Arch + riverwm on my desktop. I know barless tiling window managers look daunting, but simplicity is liberation.
I can't imagine doing that on my laptop though, so I've got arch + KDE Plasma and I love how it just works.
Gentoo on my PC, Fedora Asahi on my MacBook
I've been using Xubuntu for half a decade, zero regrets.
I started with PowerPPC back in the '90s (it did not even ship with a working X system). Then went to Debian a few years later, and it was great. I played around with Gentoo for a little while when it first came out, then ended up back on Debian after a couple months. Then I played around with Arch for a little when it showed up, then went back to Debian. After that I just said fuck it, and have stuck with Debian. I run testing/unstable unless it's some side server I have, in that case I just run stable. I hear good things about OpenSUSE and Fedora, but at this point I'm old and don't feel like trying something when I have no issues. Tiling WM and Vim. That's about all I seem to need.
endeavourOS
Debian on servers, EndeavourOS on general PC (mainly because the aur is so good)
Kinoite has my heart forever
Currently I run GNU Guix on my desktop, laptop, and servers. I like the dedication to software freedom and the way package management works. Before that I used Debian until 2019, Trisquel until 2014, and Ubuntu until around 2010. Debian and Trisquel are fine and I don't have anything against them, I just like the Guix package manager more. I've used Xfce with all of these (and before then, GNOME 2). I set it up the way I like it and it never changes.
I typically run LineageOS on my mobile devices, without microG or any proprietary apps. As I've said before my preferred OS would be some variant of GNU/Linux, preferably Guix as well, but LineageOS works well enough.
I run OpenWRT on my router, and had a previous router than ran LibreCMC (a variant of OpenWRT using Linux-libre).
Windows games are made for Windows so I prefer to use Windows for them. I don't particularly want to turn GNU/Linux into Windows, I think it deserves better than that.
I'm very intrigued by Guix. What would a Debian stable user notice most if they were to switch?
The most obvious difference going from Debian stable to GNU Guix is that Guix is a rolling release distro, not stable (in the Debian sense) at all.
Package management is also very different as it's fundamentally a source based distro, although sometimes the build servers can provide prebuilt packages if they're available. Also, Guix has the concept of "profiles" which group sets of installed packages; typically, there is a system profile as well as a profile for each user, but users can also create their own separate profiles. This means that a user can install packages to their own profile without needing root permissions.
Profile updates are done in an atomic manner, such that changing the set of installed packages (installing, updating, or removing a package) actually creates a new generation of the profile, and it's possible to roll back to a previous generation if something breaks. This is true of the system as well as the user profile(s), of course. A profile generation can also be exported as a manifest, which can then be imported to create a profile generation on another system, allowing package management to be done in a declarative manner.
Finally, Guix has a commitment to ship only free software, and uses linux-libre as its kernel. Debian has a clear separation between free and non-free components but does ship non-free software, including firmware blobs, and I believe as of recently the installer provides them by default. There are unofficial Guix channels (=repositories) that provide these things.
EndeavourOS on my desktop, Arch Linux on my laptop.
slackware
EndeavourOS on my desktop and laptop. Works like a charm. By far the happiest I've been with a desktop distro.
On my server VMs I'm running Ubuntu Pro because it's absolutely impeccably stable, Pro is free and I like the idea of having the option of not upgrading them for 10 years.
All running on Proxmox. I have a few appliance type VMs like opnsense and 3CX and they're nice and stable too.
I'm running Pop!_OS. I tried Mint and EndeavorOS. I found that I don't like vanilla gnome, and while I appreciate KDE, it's too Windows-like. Which is contrary to what I'm trying to do by switching to Linux in the first place. So Pop is perfect for me.