- 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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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.
Fedora.
Its not new, its not special with some big changes or special kernels, it has sane settings.
It has releases every 6 months, and updates about as much as arch
This was the first thing recommended: Fedora with default Gnome. I’ve never even tried Yum, so would be interesting.
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
Where I got stuck before was in the number of packages that were not actually supported within Nix. I found the documentation very frustrating, but the community very welcoming.
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.
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.
I’ve played with Nix twice over a week each time. I’m not afraid at all, but I suppose at this point I’ll decide which distro by dice roll.
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’ve been enjoying LMDE. Mint without Ubuntu.
Any notable differences between Ubuntu and Debian base for you?
The big one is no Snaps. You can get them, but I prefer flatpaks which I use on LMDE.
Added to list
Nixos
Cool, I’ve tried Nix twice for a week at a time. Still have my configs. Struggling with lots of missing packages and the docs being frustrating, but love how it works once configured.
I want to set time aside to set it up but I’d rather go with a fresh drive
Exactly the sort of situation I am benefiting from, thanks to receiving a spare machine.
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.
Hannah Montana
Someone else just asked for it as well, lol
Just do it!
Didn’t I see something about someone bringing it back? They should call it Miley CyrOS.
It got a whole new release within the last week. Only thing- it is a reskin of Kubuntu, which is exactly what I already use.
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
Added to list
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.
Yeah, definitely super interested as someone who has tried neither Fedora, nor Gnome (since version 2).
Qubes OS. Enjoy a taste of absolute security.
I know a developer of it, but have never tried. Will add to the list of options. Anything else to consider in Qubes software?
The install can be pretty tough with Qubes as the compatible hardware for it is quite narrow. But if this is what you go with, be sure to setup and play with Whonix!
Dell Latitude 5410. edit, seems this model is not listed under qubes…
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.
theyve come a long way, i keep an eye on them all the time. i think its possible that one day they will eclipse kde in functionality but theyre still in the adding features stage. its getting close though, maybe another year baked and i’ll swap entirely. its very snappy on cheap laptops, fully recommend it for that use case
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!
Yes I have, admittedly it’s been about a decade but at the time I switched because getting hardware acceleration in chrome and Firefox was difficult on debian, trivial on Ubuntu. I like the stable, but newer packages that Ubuntu offers, plus the first-party support you get from a lot of projects. I wish debian was the standard dpkg assumption for first-party support but it unfortunately is not.
Guix