Hello, fellow internet users. I am currently using Debian but would like a distro to try the new Gnome on. I have been using Debian for a while and I love the stability, but would like newer packages. I also, for no rational reason, would like to be able to use the default package manager exclusively. I used Fedora before and liked it more than Debian (apart from that it felt vaguely Windowsey) but I would like to distance myself from the whole red hat thing. What distro do you think I should get?
I’d like to help, but you said Fedora was “vaguely windowsey.” I’ve used Fedora off and on for close to a decade, and I have no clue what you mean. Like, it’s not at all windowsey in my experience.
So, in order to avoid what you’re talking about in other distros, I’m going to need some more details… what do you mean by “windowsey”?
This was a very minor complaint about some very minor UI choices. Fedora is an excellent distro.
Well, then you don’t want a pure Gnome experience. That’s what Fedora Workstation is. So any pure Gnome desktop is gonna feel “windowsey” to you. The new Gnome is excellent, but it’s still Gnome.
And I am even more confused as to what’s windowsey about it.
It wasn’t gnome. It was budgie but I wasn’t talking about the DE at all. I don’t know the name for it but it was the software that runs to display a loading bar during updates when rebooting. It was a very minor issue that I probably shouldn’t have mentioned, but I just like to see terminal stuff flying by at a million miles an hour during updates. I really shouldn’t have said that as it wasn’t my reason for switching. I am not one to judge a distro by its DE because that can be changed easily but the progress bar was a mild annoyance that I didn’t feel like figuring out how to change.
Edit: I am seriously sorry for describing such a small element of it as windowsey without elaborating. I stand by that element feeling windowsey, but Fedora itself is by no stretch of the imagination windowsey.
I’m a huge Debian fan, but I’d say everyone should give openSUSE a shot. It’s a well thought out distro that doesn’t get enough love.
I vote Arch. Yeah, yeah, but it taught me Linux better than any other distro. Yeah you can break it but that’s kinda the point because once you’ve figured out what went wrong you’re left knowing how to fix it again in the future.
The Arch Wiki is second to none, is kept updated promptly when things change with the relevant package to the page you’re reading and in many cases it’s literally referenced as a source for other Non-Arch distro’s documentation
Btw I use Arch.
Edit: I also, for no rational reason, would like to be able to use the default package manager exclusively. I mean sure, you can use makepkg manually with the AUR so Arch still applies but that’s pretty inconvenient. If you go with Arch and give up this part I recommend yay as my aur-helper of choice.
Debian testing?
i don’t think it’s even in sid yet, at least not the released version of gnome 45… which, like, just came out–yesterday.
check the pre-release dailies of ubuntu 23.10. it’s due to be released next month and is slated for gnome 45. if you use the dailies, prepare for some… uh… ‘instabilities’
It sounds like you want a rolling release distribution. Which means the software repository will have versions close to upstream, or the latest versions shortly after they hit. There’s plenty of those.
The best entry level rolling release distribution is, in my opinion, EndeavourOS. It is based on Arch Linux, but provides a fully working desktop out of the box. It grants you a package manager with a rolling release repository.
Next up would be Arch Linux. Similar to above, but it comes with a minimal system and you have to explicitly install most applications that aren’t required to boot and start a terminal-only session, including your desktop environment.
Next up would be either gentoo or nixos. But I feel like the other two will cover your bases so I won’t talk about those unless you want me to.
