I was distrohopping for like a year or two when I first got into Linux desktop. As soon as I installed Arch for the first time that stopped. Now the thought of a distro pre-installing packages gives me the heebie jeebies. You don't get to tell me how I sync with NTP servers!
Low resource footprint — smaller than EndeavourOS on my laptop. Stability is fantastic. Bookworm practically just came out, so the packages are all much newer than they were in Bullseye, making it a viable option for someone who wants an uneventful Linux distro that fades into the background and lets you get stuff done.
Easy to set up, very helpful community. If you liked Manjaro or think Manjaro is sketchy but like the idea of a slightly pre-configured arch, check it out.
It's arch. It just happened to be the composition i had my previous arch setup as. Yay for AUR stuff, KDE Plasma for DE. Includes a couple of useful tools and makes for a very solid OS.
Anyone who has been in the Ubuntu sphere of things with Linux, should take a moment to try arch. EndeavourOS is perfect for these people.
The big advantage IMHO, is the out of the box BTRFS set up that lets you simply roll back to a non-broken state, right from the grub menu, should an update break your system. I haven't had to use it yet, but it is a huge source of comfort knowing it is there.
Also, many people coming to opensuse remark how much snappier it is than other distros.
image with baked in nvidia drivers which work out of the box without too much fuss
if you encounter problems, you can refer to the system76 website or use a solution provided by the community, since it's based on Ubuntu
installation with full disk encryption enabled by default
right now it uses a slightly customized version of GNOME as DE (with "normal"/traditional windows and optionally a tiling wm), but system76 is working on a Rust-based DE, named Cosmic DE
It is nice to install much normally harder to install crap, but there are so little trusted devs on there, that i rather not install something than getting it from a untrusted source.
It is nice to play around, but i also switched from Windows to have a more secure platform.
I switched to flatpaks from official sources.
Seriously, I realize this every time I have to install something on my server (running AlmaLinux). Now I've manually set up a personal LURE repo for some software that I use.
I wish PiKVM were based on NixOS. As it's used like an appliance, people are not expected to customize the image. Or even regularly install updates. I always fear it'll break and sever my connection to my server. I'd have a lot more peace of mind if I could just redeploy my custom wireguard-enabled config.
I have been thinking to give NixOS a spin but feel like it's above my brain capacity for me to handle.
Do you also use homemanager and Flakes? Homemanager kinda makes sense (manage packages for non root users) but what does Flakes do?
I am already trying it and I am still no expert. How I understand flakes is that it is a file with inputs, like nixpkgs and other flakes or repos you might depend on and some outputs that can be things like a nixshell with packages and environment variables, custom packages and configs like your NixOS configurations and home manager. When you use your flake for the first time, by entering a nix shell with nix develop, building a package with nix build, rebuild your NixOS system with nixos-rebuild --flake .#<hostname>, etc, nix will generate a flake.lock file that stores the hashes of all of your inputs and thus pinning the input versions. This means that if you ever run any of those commands again, you should get the same result because the inputs are pinned and the same version. If you want to update, you just run nix flake update and it will regenerate the flake.lock file with new hashes for the newest version. The advantage with flakes is that it is fully reproducible, even if one of your dependencies changes, because the hash is specified and centrally managed in the inputs of your flake.
Nix flakes can be used for your NixOS system by adding the nixos configurations in the outputs of your nix flake and adding the dependencies like nixpkgs to the inputs. You can also combine it with home manager by either specifying it as a separate output or adding it as a nixos module inside the nixos configurations output. You just copy your existing nixos and home manager config to the folder with your flake and reference them inside the flake.nix. If you added home manager as a nixos module, you only need to run nixos-rebuild switch --flake <path-to-flake>.#<hostname> and it will automatically rebuild both your NixOS configuration and home manager configuration. You can then backup the folder with your flake and configurations by uploading them to GitHub for example.
This really is my favorite Garuda feature - it's saved my install more than once so that I can roll back a messy update, figure out what broke and why it broke, and then make sure the next update works
Besides Wiki and AUR that all Arch derivatives share, they have their own wiki that documents the changes they're made to Arch and a very good forum for help
Nvidia driver installation options that correctly set the mode setting, dkms drivers installed ootb, common apps like GreenWithEnvy ootb, great Nvidia support
easy enough to use for me (I'm a linux newb) and I can setup steam on it!
edit: forgot to mention I can get hibernation working on Ubuntu when I couldn't figure out how to do that in Fedora
Are you playing steam games that have Linux versions? Or is the "comparability mode" stable and fast enough that you don't really have to think about it?
Because it just works. Because it's based on free Debian and not corporate RedHat. Because mainstream Linux needs a flagship distro and that distro needs to be used and supported.
The Arch Wiki is in a language made by users for users. Meaning that its easy to understand because the wiki allows to talk about issues, alternatives and more hints about each small topic, every other wiki has some structure where important details are missing or not taken seriously.
I always am going to run into heavy issues when using Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora. On Arch, things also aren't always smooth, but the issues are mild, always solvable and transparent.
Starting with a blank slate is so refreshing. It takes time to build everything up from scratch and I understand that you can get a great experience out of the box with other distros, but I love the simplicity of not having any bullshit I didn't install myself.
True, yeah, didn't think about the downside that you need to build it up from scratch. But people could use arch based distros I guess? Never used them.
Yeah, but I rarely if ever leave those constraints, so it does not matter to me at all. Day to day, I use macOS anyway, and Mint only comes on my desktop PC.
Switched to Manjaro after running vanilla Arch for several years and haven't looked back. I appreciate the slightly less bleeding edge updates and extra added stability around it.
Easy installs are probably less of a big deal nowadays after Arch overhauled their installation process.
It still blows my mind that with nixos, setting up and continuously renewing an ssl cert is literally just two lines in the config file. I use nixos on my homeserver, thinking about switching my laptop to it too (currently Void linux).
the most rock stable distro imo. No systemd or snap stuff. Packages are almost (if not fully) vanilla version from upstream. Simple yet efficient unix-style approach to everything like package management, slackbuilds are really good too.
Slackware gets a lot of hate, especially from the btw bros. People are spooked about having to manage their own dependencies. But I couldn't agree with you more on simplicity and stability. I've been daily driving slackware since 99 or 00, and I don't think I've ever broken something I couldn't immediately roll back and fix.
I tried to install Ubuntu on a sbc recently. And within an hour of installing this and that with all the different dependencies, I had a completely unusable system. And I had no idea how to fix it. It was totally my fault but reminded me what I love about slackware.
Slack got me through undergrad on an IBM 600e ThinkPad (which was really old even then --- around the time of the early 2.6 series kernels iirc). Great distro, fond memories.
Haha fair, I guess that is a pretty objective statement. In my opinion, compared to some other distros and operating systems, it's pretty bloat free, but I guess if you're used to something else that is even more bloat free that you would probably disagree.
My favorite too. For me on other distros I was typically running into bugs that I'd find had already been fixed upstream months previously - and then I had to either live with the bug or do some hack to manually install the newer version. Somewhat related to this, but as Linux gamer it was also frustrating to have the older Mesa drivers all the time because it couldn't support the older kernel version the distro shipped or something.
My current isn't vanilla arch, but Endeavour OS, because as an unexperienced user I wanted to have the least trouble while installing, ...
I regret it ever since, because I began with a Plasma desktop and ended up with i3, mainly because of tiling, problems with some utilities, keyboard switching, etc.
In the end, I still love the system, one can get quite minimal with it.
I love that you talked about regretting it. Using one of the arch-based diaries that obfuscates the installation process honestly destroys a lot of the benefit of using arch. Having to vaguely understand how the system fits together makes fixing issues a million times easier.
There are dozens of us! And you can join us at [email protected] if you haven't yet!
I love it because it's super configurable, lets you choose compiler optimizations (and through USE flags, features that you need in your packages - you don't have to include everything).
My Linux knowledge has skyrocketed compared to before I used Gentoo. Which of course means it's NOT the distro for people who want something that just works, but honestly, now that it's working properly, I feel it's actually pretty hard to break, and when it does break, I know how to fix it! Versus with Linux Mint a decade ago, if I broke it, I had no idea where to get started and just reinstalled it.
Of course, about half a year ago I decided to move from x11 and OpenRC to Wayland and systemd. And I use KDE. And have Nvidia graphics. Soooo it was a fun ride both relearning how my init system works, and also running into problems with Steam, etc.
I also try to keep my kernel in single digit megabytes, but occasionally I find something missing and have to recompile with more "bloat". So right now I believe it's around 11 MB, but I'll see about improving it over my next vacation. Not that 11 MB takes long to load off a gen4 NVMe drive, but the ePeen needs to be stroked! Also no initial ramdisk, to save even more boot time.
I've been trying to convert to linux since the mid-2000's. Ubuntu and derivatives, fedora, and SUSE. Gaming and my lack on knowledge always brought me back to Windows.
In 2018 I tried Manjaro and loved it. But I broke it without the knowledge to fix it multiple times. The Arch BTW memes were strong at the time so I took the plunge and studied the wiki, and documented my own installation process and really learned a lot in the process. Proton was released and suddenly gaming got WAY better. I didn't remove my windows install completely until 2022 but Arch has been my home on my main machine.
I have since put together a proxmox cluster and run many distros for various things but that's a whole other rabbit hole!
I want to preface this by saying that Red Hat absolutely deserve your ire in light of the recent news.
I appreciate that Fedora has relatively recent packages for a fixed release distribution. I really appreciate how they've pioneered in desktop-oriented technologies to help make Linux a more palatable experience for regular users, and I'm glad to see these gradually be adopted by others over time.
I'm happy to hear that the Fedora project still mostly operates Independently under redhat / IBM, but I'd be lying if I said the IBM acquisition didn't worry me to the point of looking into alternatives.
Agreed. I've been using Fedora Silverblue for about a year. I love the immutable OS paradigm but IBM/Red Hat's recent actions have left me feeling uneasy and I want to find an alternative.
I've also been using silverblue for about a year, it works well. Didn't know about IBM acquiring Rad Hat, sad news.
For a similar experience there is Vanilla OS that I tried briefly and that seams to have similar immutability features and hastle free setup with a vanilla gnome desktop. It's based on Ubuntu.
There is also NixOS which takes the immutability to another level. The entire system with all packages are configured in a config file. Which is nice if you want to have an identical setup on multiple machines but makes it a bit less user friendly imo.
Silverblue is cool. I've been playing around with it on a portable NVMe drive. Planning on making the switch soon (whether that's Silverblue itself or another immutable option).
The MX Snapshot utility & other built-in tools make it instantly functional as a daily driver, even for people new to Linux, and the Quick System Info is such a handy baseline for troubleshooting if you run into problems and need help from the community. All the stuff that's provided out of the box just makes it a really practical distro to learn on!
Being a source based distro, programs are compiled and optimized to your system configuration. Additionally you can add/remove features you dis/like using USE flags.
It allows me to run any weird combination of applications I feel I need on a given day, (fairly) easily integrating basically all open source packages with a custom/local overlay and have those managed as part of the system just like everything else.
Specifically I am using the Dr4g0nized Gaming Edition. So far I have been using this distro for about a month and for gaming everything seems to work great.
My favorite overall, they're community-run, stable, well-maintained, have a rich history of being awesome, and they're just top quality general-purpose distros. I tend to use Arch for more recent desktop systems and Debian for server systems or older desktops.
NixOS
What I'm dabbling with currently, the concepts here are amazing but it's a bit of work at first to truly get value out of it. Still, seems to be a good option for my next notebook OS.
Fedora Silverblue (respectively the immutable variants)
Also cool, as is Fedora in general, although with the recent Red Hat fiasco and Fedora's plan to introduce opt-out telemetry I'm more hesitant now. Some time ago I'd have listed Fedora at the top but now it's slid down a bit.
Mint
Kubuntu
Easy recommendations for new users coming from Windows
VanillaOS
I like the idea of making it possible to install packages from all distros (they will then run in a distro-specific container). I wouldn't use it, but it's cool
Kali
Tails
Alpine
From the more specific distros
Slackware
Honorable mention, because it introduced me to Linux back in the day (yes, I liked starting the hard Unix way). I wouldn't recommend it these days but it's kind of like the granddaddy of all Linux distros, and it was awesome in its prime. I'm sure it can still be used today but it's gotten quite niche.
Based on Ubuntu, is KDE's "flagship" OS (so I trust they know what they're doing with their own DE), and is the first to get bleeding edge KDE updates. Everything else is pretty much standard Ubuntu.
I installed this on my wife's aging laptop to breathe some new life into it. She's not tech savvy but gets along with it just fine. Mission accomplished.
Funny side note though, because Linux doesn't force you to update unlike Windows, it means she just doesn't ever update the thing. I've opened it up a couple different times to see pending security updates ready to download. 😆
Arch. It's a "build-your-own" distro without the hassle of compiling everything from source, like with Gentoo (still love Gentoo, though). Also, it has pretty big repos with the AUR on top of that.
And no, it's not unstable, if you can read. My oldest Arch install was 5 years old and even then, it didn't break. I just wanted to do a fresh install for no particular reason.
**Stability**. Mint is stable, easy to use, and has a good help forum. I am better with the end-user side than the developer side. This allows me to focus on what I need to do.
1a. If I need to do something more complex that requires the terminal, there are plenty of sites that explain it step by step. So, I don't need to become a programmer to tweak my system.
**Simplicity**. It's easy to find where to go to change settings and add new programs.
**Safety**. Linux has repositories of trusted programs, and it's super simple to download from them. Even with trusted sites for Widows programs, I did get a couple programs that came with malware. The open source nature of Linux eliminates much of the profit motive for scammers, plus other developers would quickly expose such attempts in the Linux community.
**Speed**. When I had a dual boot system, the Linux OS booted on avg in 15 sec, where Widows took 30-60 sec. I can't quantify, but the Linux OS overall seemed to run smoother faster than Widows too.
**Security**. I've never had to deal with viruses or malware with Linux. (This may change as Linux gains increased market share, but, so far, so good.) Linux doesn't come with bloatware or potential spyware either. There are many Widows programs -- MS Games, Cortana, MS Photos, etc -- that cannot be uninstalled. Cortana cannot be disabled. (It says it can, but it still runs in the background. Who knows what data it is collecting.)
**Conscience**. MS has a multibillion dollar contract to develop VR headsets for soldiers. These will be used to control machines (and maybe robots) on the battlefield. Once we have troops off the battlefield, war (and all its horrible consequences) will become a much easier choice. I know my govt has lied about EVERY war after WWII (at least). Staying away from MS helps me to not fuel the war machine and promote peace.
@InternetPirate Fedora it is has all the good and new stuff without being unstable. Will switch to Silverblue for an even more stable experience sometime soon.
Started on SuSe, but Ubuntu stuck with me since the early releases... Just very familiar to me at this point. Been my goto os on my laptop for ages....
its a tie between linux mint and garuda linux, linix mint for stability and garuda for being an arch based linux for people like me that are too stupid to get arch running by itself
@InternetPirate I've been happy with Ubuntu since 2007, I don't always like Canonical's choices, but they're easily changed. Recently tried Vanilla OS, easy install and seems solid, good alternative to Nix I think.
Another vote for Pop OS. I was already somewhat familiar with Ubuntu, and the nvidia drivers included in Pop as well as its gaming support drew me to it. It's worked very well for the most part.
Manjaro. I love it's simplicity and ease of use. It's the closest I can get to Windows without actually using Windows. I'm glad it makes using an Arch distro easy and accessible.
KDE is a godsend as well.
Once I started using Manjaro KDE I found no real reason to leave.
-Reason: It just works. I'm not a developer, just a user. I don't like tinkering and Manjaro just kind of takes care of everything for me.