Hello everyone, I need help to decide on a Linux Distribution to settle and finally stop distro hopping. I have quite some experience with Linux(1year Mint, a quarter year Arch, nixos, debian, manjaro, fedora, suse tumbleweed and kalpa…)I have been experimenting for now almost 3 years. Now I finally want to setlle but I just don’t know where. I like Nix’s shell but don’t like installing everything in five steps(with git because my brain can stand neither the dirty tree warning nor leaving out on the git push) and I don’t need the reproducibility. I like rolling so I don’t need to reinstall or do any major update, but even more appealing is low maintenance and stability in the sense of nothing unexpectedly breaking. I’ll use the computer as an daily driver mostly for programming & 3d design, university related work, streaming and also some gaming. Thank you for your answers. #linux #distrohopping. EDIT: I don’t want to have a company behind my distribution. And my specs: Nvidia RTX 4070, Amd Radeon 7 7840HS, 16GB of RAM
Conclusion: Thanks a lot for all of that feedback, I decided to go for Debian 13 Stable and might check out MX once.
Fedora is a great choice.
I’ve settled on CachyOS, using Bazaar for flatpaks (I avoid the AUR). I get a rolling os with frequent updates and more or less secure and verified apps. It’s been a year, no problem so far.
I was avoiding the AUR as well, and I would definetly do so again. Even though I would probably stick with a plain Arch install instead of CachyOS
I had a similar journey and at some point settled for Debian.
I know, everyone around here will tell you how basic that is and how much program versions lag behind sometimes, but I have come to the conclusion that this really doesn’t bother me on daily use.
The main wow moment was, when the I noticed my system was running for 5 years and nothing ever broke.
Sure, I sometimes miss the AUR or some of the bells and whistles off bleeding edge distros, but in the end I want my main daily driver as a tool to other stuff, not a project to constantly put effort in.
The beauty of Debian is, its reliable AF, everything you got working once stays working, in 99,99% of cases even with a major version change, its the best documented and tested system and it does everything I need and more.
Plus with KDE plasma and all the native programs, like kdeconnect, kdenlive, kget etc I dont miss out on convinience. (Sure I could still use them on other distros, but I like how it is integrated into a good user experience with the option to tweak everything but without the need to do so)
The main down site imho is that some advanced things which may work in a hacky and time consuming way on arch just will not work on Debian at all, but I seldom have such moments and its a small price to pay for a system that’s just won’t brake from where I stand.
everyone around here will tell you how basic that is and how much program versions lag behind sometimes
which mostly show people don’t know they one can add a repository and fix that, my Firefox is 2 days old.
And that repository is flathub. Stable base for the OS, bleeding edge rolling release for the apps
I meant literally the repository https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#From_Mozilla_APT_repository_.28recommended_by_Mozilla.29 not an alternative method. One can add the official source of built packages my Mozilla, keep their Debian distribution otherwise untouched and get the latest.
I did enjoy debian a lot when I used it, I then left it for hyprland and the rolling release though. But debian is definitely something up top of my list right now. Especially because I am now back to KDE Plasma and I’m not planning to change anything about that soon. The only picky point was that it does not support BTRFS with custom subvolumes for timeshift out of the box. But the stability would be a blessing.
Fedora.
I used to a Fedora guy until IBM bought them and they killed CentOS. I first used Red Hat in middle school back in the nineties, so it broke my heart to leave, but I settled on OpenSUSE. It’s non-US based, and it feels just as polished, if not more than Fedora. I use Tumbleweed, which is a rolling distro.
debian :)
Personnaly CachyOS has been the one to stop my distro hopping, though I must say, I 'm an arch linux fan, so Cachy did it for me. All of the Fedora based distros I’ve tried were good at the beginning but felt limited at some point, though this is specific to my use cases. But one that I really liked, and I’m not much of a debian person usually was PikaOS, so I’d recommend trying it out if not already done.
I always vote for boredom, which means I vote for Debian. It’s a well rounded, reliable and solid OS. It can be a bit dated on some packages but it rewards with very low maintenance. It works. It does what it is supposed to do, which is allowing us to run and use our computer as we see fit.
You want something a bit more up to date? Move to Mint. If Debian still appeals to you, move to LMDE.
I don’t like Cinnamon but want to use KDE, but the user friendliness of LMDE would be really nice, not that i wouldn’t like the terminal.
I’d recommend LMDE over Ubuntu Mint. There isn’t much point to ubuntu mint anymore to be honest
Really?
Bias : I use debian for my own machine.
I have two machines on Mint I am responsible for; one craptop with LMDE and one tower for my Mrs with Ubuntu Mint.
I hate fucking about with the tower more than the craptop. The laptop is just as easy to use and was just as easy to install and everything. The only thing I needed to do was to replace cinnamon with XFCE in an attempt to make it run faster since the craptop has like 2gb ram.
I disagree. As someone who is running both Debian-Testing and ubuntu-Mint, there is a difference between the two, especially in support of some hardware and some pre-configurations that come handy in some “difficult” machines. Ubuntu has special workarounds for a lot of things, you see. Debian does not. Debian doesn’t even boot on my DELL Xeon workstation, for example. Ubuntu does. And that’s my main issue with LMDE, being based on Debian. Also, LMDE doesn’t have the nvidia driver panel, to make it easier for people with nvidias. If Debian was to create these workarounds for various machines, then sure, why not. LMDE would be just fine.
CachyOS, it is the way
Why not Debian? If you don’t have any specific reason for choosing something else, that seems like the obvious choice.
Of course, Gentoo Linux! :)
I wouldn’t call myself a distrohopper, but over the last 30 years I’ve daily-driven Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu (and derivates), Manjaro and now landed on EndeavourOS for the last four years.
I enjoy the vast and up-to-date software that pacman and AUR have, but I don’t really need the exercise in system installation/building any more. So EndeavourOS it is.
I’ve tried OpenSUSE and NixOS on virtual machines from time to time. I like, but I feel they’d be in the way for my computing needs at the moment.
I like Arch for this. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have recommended it, but it’s been a great decade for me. Rolling distro means not many big changes at any one time. Don’t have to reimage to cleanly install newer release. Arch maintainers are excellent, updates rarely cause problems. Not perfect of course, but you get up-to-date software and an amazing community.
My main conflict point with Arch is the maintenance factor. Whilst my priorities have been the bleeding edge for a long time, by now my thinking has been shifting more towards stability and being able to just use it. That’s what I loved about openSUSE Slowroll, but I don’t want to have a company behind it. And it had a KPM version mismatch resulting in broken nvidia driver.
Undoubtedly Void Linux. Rolling but very stable, and a good community.
After about a year on void Linux, I would agree. It’s a great, solid, and underrated distro 👍
Ah too bad you didn’t like nix. I was just about to propose a simple home-manager repo which could at least declare your tooling across any distro.
while I don’t understand the git problem, since versioning your OS/tooling is a major feature not a headache, you seem too have found a place with debian so go ahead.
maybe void? its rolling relase, stable and boring in a good way
