I’d like to settle on a distro, but none of them seem to click for me. I want stability more than anything, but I also value having the latest updates (I know, kind of incompatible).
I have tested Pop!_Os, Arch Linux, Fedora, Mint and Ubuntu. Arch and Pop being the two that I enjoyed the most and seemed the most stable all along… I am somewhat interested in testing NixOS although the learning curve seems a bit steep and it’s holding me back a bit.
What are you using as your daily drive? Would you recommend it to another user? Why? Why not?
mint
it “just works” and I dont have to update it constantlybut my daily driver is endeavourOS
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Currently NixOS having been a long time Arch user. The power of Nix is unbeatable once it finally clicks.
Arch because I like simple.
Other distros are an exercise in patience I think. Each Ubuntu version has different names and versions of stuff like docker, mysql and everything else. It’s really annoying to work with. I assume all six month distros are like that. And you have to add extra repos, keys and whatnot for it to even find things.
With arch, since it’s rolling, I just install the latest version and I already know the command. It’s always the same. Always.
There are many reasons I like arch but the simplicity of the installations is one of my favorite reasons to use it, and the fact that it’s always the latest version.
i settled on fedora kde a few years ago(altho i recently switched to fedora silverblue kde)
imo a nice middleground.if you are intrested in immutable distros, i can recommend silverblue (not as drastic of a change compared to nixos)
if you are intrested in nixos package management, you might want to try out the nix package manager on your current distro.
an intresting way to get the fresh but stable system you want is to,
install some rock solid distro like debian,
and then use the nix package manager and/or flatpacks to get the fresh software you want.Debian stable, the os for 50 year old nudists.
It’s the stable branch of one of the oldest distributions around.
You tried most of them. You found Arch enjoyable, so I’d stick to that for the Wiki, the community, and flexibility.
NixOS looks interesting too, but nothing beats Arch in terms of having so much software at one-click distance with the almighty AUR.
For desktop Linux, I use Arch. It’s a community driven base distribution, so the needs of the community are what drives development and there are no financial decisions of a company that get priority, which is refreshing. It also has access to the latest and greatest that Linux has to offer.
They have a philosophy of expecting basic effort from users and to have a tinkering mindset. Historically, Arch devs and users have a reputation of being grumpy greybeards, but many of the rough edges have been rounded off in the last few years. If you are willing to do a bit of reading or watching some YouTube videos, it’s not really that hard.
You can really build a lean and powerful machine that has just the software you want on the system with Arch. All it takes is a little effort and willingness to ask for help from the community after you have tried and failed to solve problems yourself. It’s really not the badge of elitism to use Arch in 2023. It’s never been easier to use and doesn’t blow up on you nearly as often as the reputation implies. Just use good hygiene and make snapshots so if you blow it up, it’s only a 5 minute recovery.
Fedora. Mainly because I work at a RHEL shop and I want a daily driver that is somewhat similar to my work environment.
The recent RHEL drama hasn’t changed any of that?
Debian for servers and debian for desktop. Debian everywhere!
Debian. I always come back to Debian.
It’s just a rock solid, multipurpose distro that has everything. If you have an issue with some older software versions, you can just track testing or sid and treat it as rolling release or use flatpaks for GUI apps.
To me, Debian is almost perfect.
I wouldn’t call it rock solid… It was running old versions of kde with lots of bugs. Bugs that had been fixed months ago.
So I don’t know. It’s good we have choice but I don’t personally see Debian as more stable than arch. I see it as having older bugs than arch.
KDE could fix 80% of it’s bugs overnight and it will still be the most bug-ridden DE by a longshot
For the past six years it has been Kubuntu, but I think it’s time to finally abort Canonical and their idiosyncrasies and choose Debian as a KDE base, especially now that Debian 12 includes non-free firmware by default.
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