this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024

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what's your current linux distro? (beehaw.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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wanting to hop into the world of linux on a dual boot method (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, so I'm keeping windows for it specifically.) this'll be my second go at it, I used Pop!_OS briefly but had some issues with wifi and didn't love the GNOME layout. I have a new distro picked out, but I just was curious what other people are using in this community. was also wondering what made you fall on your current one.

and maybe as some bonus questions, what are some distros you've tried but didn't like? what about a distro you want to try eventually? I've seen distrohopping is a thing, hahaha.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Used Ubuntu for ~15 years, switched to NixOS a couple months ago and haven't looked back.

I've made a habit of clean installing all of the desktops/laptops/servers in my life on the first point release of each LTS (i.e. 22.04.1). That would mean there was time for the dust to settle and for me to tweak my install/customization scripts from the previous LTS.

So since I knew I was gonna have to modify my Ubuntu install scripts to work with 24.04 anyways, I fiigured it was a decent time to try and see if I could get the install scripts converted to a nix config instead, and it ended up working a treat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Gentoo, after a 15 year break where I used Ubuntu / Arch. Might try NixOS or something similar.

KDE for desktop env.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Give Debian Sid an opportunity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Nobara

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

If you like or need the latest software, use a rolling distro. I use Manjaro (boo, hiss) and really like it. But if you don't want the Arch users to beat you up and pants you, I hear Endeavour OS is pretty good.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Garuda Dragonized

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Ditto. Super easy setup, most stuff just works right off the bat. Super active community on the forum and high participation from the devs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Gentoo

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Slackware

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Hey I want to try out slackware real bad (for my own, religious reasons. Praise "Bob").

So anyway I was wondering, I've heard it's more difficult than your average distro, mainly in the sense that dependencies are not managed by a package manager like the dnf I'm used to, but then I've also heard they have tools for that now. Before I try it out I'd like to ask a few people like yourself how they manage dependencies, and if there are any other tips you'd like to share.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Slackware was my first real distro (many moons ago), glad to see people still enjoy it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Gentoo on my PC, Fedora Asahi on my MacBook

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Kubuntu

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I've been using Xubuntu for half a decade, zero regrets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

endeavourOS

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Kinoite has my heart forever

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm very intrigued by Guix. What would a Debian stable user notice most if they were to switch?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Open Media Vault (based on Debian)

I'm thinking of just using Debian on most of my machines in the future, just have to go through the effort to switch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

EndeavourOS on my desktop, Arch Linux on my laptop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Debian on servers, EndeavourOS on general PC (mainly because the aur is so good)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

PopOS for me. I have played around with Linux in the past, but never seriously dived into it. The whole Windows 11 Recall fracas changed that. I went with Pop because it's an out-of-the-box distro. Everything just works, and it has Nvidia and AMD graphics support baked in. I used to not like Gnome, but it's kinda growing on me now. Then again, that's the beauty of this OS: Don't like the desktop environment? Download a new one from a bunch of alternatives. Current distro not floating your boat? Make some bootable USB drives of different distros and take them for a test run.

It's a beautiful thing.

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