- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/42673820
Looking for suggestions besides Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Debian, Arch Linux, or Kali.
Would be on a modest Dell Latitude with i5, 14" 1080p display with intel graphics, and maybe 16gb ram. I have previous experience with XFCE, Ratpoison, Openbox, KDE Plasma. Recently started trying out LXQT.
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NixOS and Guix System! I’m currently using Guix System + Nix (via home-manager, mostly) but you can also do it the other way around.
NixOS uses systemd, but Guix System does not. They are both awesome though. Absolutely my favourite distros. Incredibility flexible, and reproducibility and “declarativeness” are core concepts. The only negative is that they both have quite a steep learning curve, compared to other distros.
Cool, added Guix system to the list with Nix.
I wanna use Guix but I worry about hardware compatibility, when I tried to run it the installer said my hardware wasn’t 100% compatible and recommended me not to continue.
Yeah, “unfortunately” since Guix is a GNU project, they don’t package the upstream Linux kernel, just linux-libre, which removes a lot of binary blobs. Great if you want a fully free OS, not so great if you need drivers only available in the mainline kernel.
The practical solution to this is to use the channel nonguix, which packages mainline Linux for Guix. You can follow the instructions for nonguix to create a guix ISO with the regular Linux kernel, then make sure your installed system uses that same kernel.
It’s not hard to do, but if one doesn’t have the inclination I’d just recommended using NixOS. :-)
Right now and using NixOS and I’m pretty happy with it, it suffers from There’s More Than One Way To Do It and there are so many options that do the same and the documentation isn’t great.
When I finally made my base flake.nix, easy peasy! But the difficulty curve is pretty steep.
Someone else was saying to go for Flakes
If you’re new I suggest not using flakes. You can always switch to them when you learn how to maintain NixOS.
Yeah, it’s been an ongoing debate whether the old Nix style or the newer Flakes are a better approach. I don’t really know that much about it, but thus far I definitely like using Flakes more
So Guix is the old stye?
No no, Nix has two ways of handling configurations, where Flakes are the new style, but still experimental. Guix just have one way of handling configurations.
i noticed you havent tried fedora atomic cosmic. if youre just looking to run the gamut of DEs its probably the best cosmic distro right now. bonus points its fairly easy to rebase between each fedora atomic distro so you can DE hop without too much pain
Sounds fun. I did try Cosmic some time ago on a live disk and it had almost no features at that time, but was very snappy.
One I’m always interested in but never tried is Void Linux
Trying for fun or trying to settle?
I like NixOS but Void is cool too
Just got void submitted. Will add Nix. Window manager preference? Any nix stuff to try?
Niri is a joy! Tried it once and never looked back.
Nix is a wide ecosystem and you have tons of tools to use for your config to your hearts content, so this is a bit tough. Id say: Make your config a flake (its an experimental feature, but it’s a de-facto default), use home manager or GNU stow to organize your .config and home directory, and if you like Nix and plan to stay, look into the dendritic pattern for your config (not the best for someone just testing nix, but for long term it’s a total life-saver)
Best of luck to you!
As in declarative?
Yup it is. You configure your whole system by setting options in your config files, using a functional language. It’s hard at first but with time you naturally get used to it
I’ve been dipping my toe into CachyOS, decent so far. Running Bazzite on my main gaming PC and…yeah, is nice but does lack some freedoms by being locked down a bit. Works well enough for what I use it for 99% of the time.
Both are on the list
I’ve just switched to Pop_OS and so far I’m really impressed. Very fast, and Cosmic desktop has a totally different design and aesthetic to any other DE
I recently went back to fedora workstation (gnome) after using Arch (Manjaro) with kde and hyprland for the last 3 years.
Got tired of things breaking with hyprland and Manjaro every other month. Had a few issues with AUR packages too (I know I’m supposed to carefully read release notes to figure out what breaks, but how many people actually do that?)
With fedora at least, I won’t have to worry about packages breaking and not working together. Gnome isn’t my favorite but I’m sticking to it for a while to give it a fair chance.
hannah montana linux
If you didn’t comment this first I would have
The only issue with this is it is Kubuntu, which is exactly what I already use. The theme and icon pack can be added onto any other distro, so that works.
it’s more like the oldest linux distro but slackware is good
Anything else to try in regards to Slackware?
there’s a stable release 15.0 released in 2022 and -current rolling release that’s up to date for everything. i recommend -current for desktop/laptops.
there’s not much automated tools like other distros, but the system itself is extremely simple and well documented. many tools in the system (package manager, init, etc) are all simple shell scripts.
there’s also distros that are based on slackware like salix, could be easier as it comes with apt-get afaik
Cool, so you are on the rolling release. Does it do everything you want as a daily driver?
Fedora.
I prefer the KDE spin over GNOME, but I hate GNOME.
Whatever DE you prefer, pick that one.
openSUSE. Either Tumbleweed (rolling) or Leap (stable). A few reasons for this:
- Their snapshot system is awesome (they develop snapper) and configured by default when you install it. It takes a snapshot of your system before and after updates and at other times as well. Uses minimal space because they use BTRFS and also have maintenance jobs by default. This is the main factor that made me settle on it. To me, it was the best of both worlds between the stability but restrictive nature of atomic/immutable distros and the freedom but potential for breaking your system of the traditional distros.
- They’re reputed to have one of the best KDE integrations of any distro. I’m not sure what this means in practice because I’m still a newbie, but I’ve seen this mentioned by others a few times. Other major DEs are also options at install time.
- They’re one of the traditional big distros. SUSE has been around since the early days of Linux. SUSE is also a commercial corporation, similar to Red Hat.
- The rolling distro, Tumbleweed has a reputation for being one of the most stable rolling ones because they apparently have an extensive automated testing system for updates.
- Their system configuration tool (YaST) is also supposed to be awesome and one of the best around, minimizing the need to resort to the command line, but I also haven’t used this too much.
- Their community is supposed to be really helpful as well. I haven’t experienced this myself, but have heard it.
Edit: it’s probably best to avoid their “SlowRoll” distro for now. It’s rolling but with less frequent updates than Tumbleweed, which many may thinks is a sweet spot. However, it’s still in beta and I’ve heard of people having issues with it occasionally.
Slowroll was recommended previously.
Yes, I’ve seen it recommended in the past, but just wanted to mention the caveats. Might as well go for Tumbleweed, which appears to be their main distro. In fact, if I recall correctly they had announced a couple of years ago that they were going to sunset Leap but then walked that back when the community protested.
Ubuntu server (headless)
Install pulse, x11, awesomewm.
Building the gui stack yourself on top of Ubuntu server gives you all of the debian/Ubuntu stability and issue searchability with none of the gnome/canonical cruft.
Have you tried this on base Debian? Works well!
If you’re going to do that why not just install Debian ?
Guix
Here are options, which I’ll choose by dice roll. Laptop arrives eta today.
- Project Name Window Manager
- Devuan —
- Fedora default Gnome
- Gentoo Libreboot firmware
- Void Sway or Niri + noctalia-shell
- MXlinux Sway
- CachyOS Niri + Limine
- Bazzite
- NixOS Cinnamon + Guix + Flakes
- QubesOS Whonix
- Zorin Gnome
- LMDE
- OpenSuse Slowroll
- EndeavorOS Plasma
- Slackware
- Alma
- Aurora
If you’re looking for something that won’t give you any headaches then I wholeheartedly recommend Bazzite. IMO it’s the best distro for the casual user.
I’ve also been interested in NixOS lately for the ability to easily transfer and back up the config, but I have yet to make that jump. It seems like a really great way to set up an OS though.
Okay, I’ll add bazzite and nix to the wiki suggestions. Thanks
I prefer Fedora over Bazzite as it gives you more control, but this also means it’s easier to break. Bazzite is an immutable distro, whereas Fedora uses the traditional mutable root filesystem. But despite the difference, Bazzite uses Fedora Atomic as it’s base OS.
Just as a fun little factoid, Linus Torvalds runs Fedora and while he was using KDE for a while, he switched to GNOME as he felt it required much less fiddling around with than KDE.
They are both on the list… Bazzite and Fedora w/ Gnome
I’d recommend KDE over GNOME, especially if you’re coming over from Windows. My take on Linus’s move is he’s tinkered with Linux 5+ days a week for ages, so GNOME makes more sense. But as a nerd who doesn’t work in tech, I love KDE as I can tinker until I’m content and changes are just made in settings. Either way, I’d say finding the Desktop Enviornment you like is more important than the distro!
I’ve been on Plasma for a while. Haven’t tried Gnome since version 2.
Until you want to tinker with stuff that doesn’t have an appimage or flatpak, also on amd I’m convinced blender runs slower than it did on cachyos, davinci resolve doesn’t work no matter what work around I try it freezes my computer when loading a project. Cycles can’t recognize my gpu on bazzite either (blenders renderer), if it does (through tar not flatpak) it doesn’t work.
I had no issues on cachyos, I just swapped to see if my displayport would work here, should’ve realized it’s a hardware issue earlier, did when I dualbooted windows and then googled my laptop and found out the usb c to display always had issues and likely never worked. (alienware m17 r5 all amd) Every person asking under warranty got it replaced with an nvidia variant.
I agree. On a new machine I’ve been using I tried Ubuntu and then Zorin, but Bazzite just works better. Could be the Fedora base that’s helping a lot, idk. But switching that machine over when I’m not lazy.
It’s the first distro I’ve tried where everything just works right out of the box and nothing is overly bloated. All of the software I use was available from the Bazzar and my printer even worked right away. No fiddling with CUPS or trying to install from binary/tar/appimg/etc.
