I use Fedora 38, it’s stable, things just work, and the software is up-to-date.
I use Mint. As a beginner the Windows-like feel is convenient for me but once I get the hang of it I could see myself trying something else
@Anolutheos @Lolors17 I use Mint Debian edition. I got fed up opening my laptop and having to update when MS said so, so switched to Ubuntu, then Mint, the LMDE and have stayed for 4 years. It’s not exciting, cutting edge, etc but neither am I! It just works all the time. Updates are easy and everything is boringly reliable - I love it!
Hopefully LMDE6 is a game changer for the most popular first Linux distro. If the CosmicOS by System76 doesn’t win that title.
My grandparents were 1,5 years with Mint but LMDE5 has now been for 10 months and it is awesome. Literally 0 issues since day 0 whereas Win7 and Win10 caused constant headaches for me over the phone.
@Nuuskis Are you using a System76 machine? If so, how do you find it? And importantly how would you rate the keyboard against a ThinkPad / Lenovo?
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I like it for being a rolling release with quality control. On the one hand I don’t like its restrictive defaults but on the other hand I know enough to work with them and that’s given me a leaner system.
That’s also what I run.
I want a boring up to date system with a good KDE desktop that just works (even with an nVidia GPU). Tumbleweed is fine. I don’t want to mess with my computer, I want to use it. I messed with it ages ago when I had to enter xmodelines by hand to make the damn thing work, I’m glad we’re past that.
Debian as a server base OS is well-tested and (for me) ultra reliably stable.
How different (if at all) does Nixos feel as a daily driver, if at all? Is it only about getting used to the system, or does it require to do everything the Nixos way?
Also how does user-level configuration work? Does the upgrade system just ignore your $HOME in terms of version control?
- Largest repos of any distro, so package availability is good (also supports Flatpak).
- All package installation and configuration is handled via config files, so it’s easy to keep track of what’s installed. Also makes re-installation convenient and easy (this is also great if you’re fond of unixporn-style setups).
- Because it uses config files to manage this, you can also take advantage of VCS.
- Instead of having to work with several shitty DSLs to configure your system, now you only have to use one!
- Being able to install multiple versions of the same library is nice. With Nix you can just install whatever the fuck you want, really. Want to use DisplayCAL, but can’t because it was dropped from the current release’s repository for still depending on python 2? No problem, just have your flake pull it from a previous release when it was still in the repos; it’ll just work because builds are done in isolation.
- The generation system makes updates fearless, since if something breaks you just rollback.
- Development is both better and more annoying. There’s no FHS, so you have to set up a dev environment with a flake every time you want to do a project. This is nice because you don’t miss dependencies as everything has to be explicitly laid out in the flake and other Nix/NixOS users can share your flake and get the same exact dev environment (kiss “it works on my machine” excuses goodbye). Annoying both because you’re required to put in more forward planning with your dev environment and also because it breaks language-specific package managers, so you’re limited to supported languages.
- You can’t just git clone/make/install stuff from GitHub, as there needs to be a flake first. If the software already has one included, great! If it doesn’t, you’ll be making it. If you need a dependency that currently isn’t packaged for Nix, you’ll be making more than one. If the software is difficult to package, god help you.
- Nix documentation can be really lackluster and also assumes you’re Linux-savvy.
Also how does user-level configuration work?
You use a 3rd party tool called home-manager for this. It provides about the same experience as the system config and has more configuration options for software, so should be preferred when it makes sense.
Overall, it’s great if you’re Linux-savvy and is one of the few distros that is legitimately innovative. Said innovation can also be a pain in the ass on occasion though, but still worth it.
Can I use a file in the same place as the nix config to set the configs for i3 for example? Or anything else that would go in ~/.config? It would be amazing to have all the configuration files in one single folder to easily move to new hardware.
I use Arch. I use the command-line to update, I am very glad that I can do the updates when I do want them. Of course, going over the update list is my responsibility, but such is the power my OS grants me—I can make or break things.
Otherwise, yeah, it’s the customization it offers me. I can make it as janky as I want it to be, or rice it to my heart’s content.
I use arch too. Mainly because of rolling releases. I love the install once last forever philosophy. i also like that arch ships vanilla upstream packages, quickly.
That said arch makes very few choices for you. It aends you to the excellent wiki to make your own choice. So the first install may take a bit of time if you’re new.
To be fair, the fact that Arch makes very few choices for us users is one reason, perhaps the biggest reason, I was hesitant jumping in at the start. A well-meaning friend pushed me off the ledge of hesitation and into the thick of things. Did I feel nervous? Hell yes! But was it worth the frayed nerves? I guess it is.
So many nice things about Arch. I got into Linux with Ubuntu, switched to Debian for many years, and now use Arch.
Why Arch?
- AUR provides a huge library of software that natively integrates into your system, including git versions of major components like kernel/mesa so you can test the latest features.
- Rolling release means it’s always up-to-date and you don’t have to worry about version-hopping to the next version every release cycle.
- Follows upstream projects closely
I installed all my Arch installations with the Calam Arch installer ISO. The one big complaint I see with Arch is the complicated install process, but with Calam installer it’s no different than most other distros.
