(Also extends to people who refuse to use Linux too!)
Every unique Linux Desktop setup tells a story, about the user’s journey and their trials. I feel like every decision, ranging from theming to functional choices, is a direct reflection of who we are on the inside.
An open-ended question for the Linux users here: Why do you use what you do? What are the choices you’ve had to make when planning it out?
I’ll go first: I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with the Niri Scrolling Compositor(Rofi, Alacritty and Waybar), recently switched from CosmicDE
I run this setup because I keep coming back to use shiny new-ish software on a daily basis.
I prefer this over arch(which I used for 2 years in the covid arc), because it’s quite a bit more stable despite being a rolling release distro.
I chose niri because I miss having a dual monitor on the go, and tiling windows isn’t good enough for me. Scrolling feels smooth, fancy and just right. The overview menu is very addicting, and I may not be able to go back to Windows after this!
This was my first standalone WM/Compositor setup, so there were many little pains, but no regrets.
Would love to hear more thoughts, perspectives and experiences!
Astrology, but penguin themed.
You are such a Debian.
Arch and Gentoos never got along.
If you are a Nix do not install KDE on the first monday of the month, it’s bad luck.
Me with every new Linux installation:
My network looks like George Foreman’s kids names.
Anyway I use Ubuntu to make other Linux users mad. Stay mad, nerds.
Actually, Ubuntu is pretty good if not for the snap issue
I would unironically use it on a system that can run it fine without the loss in performance being noticeable
Ubuntu with snaps disabled is my daily driver…
I use Fedora with Plasma.
I hate customizing ui elements, so I wanted something that used plasma and looked good with tweaking things.
I don’t want to deal with Snap, so my choices were a bit limited, but I’ve used Fedora in the past and liked it. I still do.
I did try arch with plasma and couldn’t get hardware video decoding to work in the browser, so I switched to Fedora. I was pleasantly surprised that Fedora had so much more configured for my laptop out of the box.
I also use Niri. Previously I basically used maximimized windows on dual monitors. But I really liked the idea of switching to one ultrawide display. Maximized windows wouldn’t work well in that setup. Tiling hadn’t really worked for me because you end up with a screen full of awkwardly skinny or short windows, or windows hidden away in tabs. I also didn’t like the idea of managing floating windows with… a mouse.
So I looked for a better option. I found PaperWM, and I loved it! Exactly what I needed! But it has a number of quirks, being an extension that entirely reworks Gnome’s window management. For a long time I wished for a native scrolling wm. And then Niri came along! And it’s so polished!
I used PaperWM for some years in the past, it was great. But then came compatibility issues and I couldn’t just live with plain Gnome. I forked catwm and used this as a classic tiling wm. Then wayland came and I wanted smooth animations. By then the PaperWM situation did not improve and I settled on default Gnome.
I followed with interest what Niri was doing. I tried it some months ago and realized that my waybar and niri config needs a lot of improvement to be good enough for me. I went straight back to Gnome, because I did not want to invest the time.
I am currently sort of happy with the useless gap extension for Gnome. I am not sure whether I should give PaperWM another go and whether it is available for Gnome 48. What I like about Gnome is the complete ecosystem and how GDM is part of it. I would loose some of its functionality when I do invest the time to configure niri and all the little tools that mimic gnome-shell.
I got tired of windows feeling like my only option. I knew there were alternatives out there so I went searching.
Mint and Kubuntu are both super easy to install and use and I’m glad to help my friends with installing a new OS whenever they ask.
I use secureblue, because it offers the (AFAIK unique) intersection between:
- a security-first[1] approach while being fit for general computing
- a first-class citizen of the
‘immutable’reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm - a well-maintained project with many active contributors that exhibit a proactive stance when it comes to implementing (security) improvements
To be precise, it’s actually Linux-first and security-second. For an actual security-first approach, consider taking a look at Sculpt OS employed with the seL4 kernel run on ARM or 64-bit RISC-V. ↩︎
i decided to install linux mint over windows one weekend and here i am. plus i got sick of microsoft and their continuing quest to be terrible.
I use NixOS for the atomic updates that I can roll back to at any time, so I can more or less never completely break my system. And even if I somehow manage it, I can just do a fresh install and apply my flake to get my entire setup back.
The drawback is that it does not follow the filsystem hierarchy standard, so a lot of scripts and binaries does not work out of the box. It gives me quite a bit of friction, but I’m sure that is a skill issue.
My desktop started by being inspired by a lot of Linux YouTubers, and I’ve gradually modified it to fit my needs.
I’m using Hyprland, Ghostty, neovim (btw), Rofi, waybar.
But, I’ll have to check out Niri after reading here.
I run Nix but never heard of Hyperland, ghosty, neovim, rofi, waybar? What are those? Extensions or programs?
Nice :)
Hyprland is a window manager (or actually a Wayland compositor if you want to be pedantic) , alternatives would be i3, dwm Niri, etc. A window manager is a more basic alternative to desktop environments like Gnome and KDE Plasma. It requires you to set up more things yourself, which is what most of the other things solve.
I use Rofi as an application launcher (it can be used for a lot more things as well), it basically does the same job as the Windows startmenu.
Waybar is a statusbar, can be configured to display anything really, but it usually displays the date and time, application tray, active workspace, RAM and CPU usage, battery level, etc. It basically does the same job as the the Windows taskbar.
Ghostty is a terminal, alternatives are Kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, foot. All operating systems come with a pre-installed terminal like Windows Terminal on Windows and Gnome Terminal on Gnome. But, you can change it out for some improved functionality.
Neovim is a terminal based text editor. New and improved version of the Vi and Vim text editors. Very steep learning curve, but very fun once you learn it. :q to exit the editor, if you ever feel like testing it.
I see and I’m going to check some of those out. There’s so much software in the open source world it’s hard to keep up, identify what is used for what.
I use conky for most stats on desktop, the default editor, default cinnamon terminal likely gnome, I’m going to look into the waybar though to see if it fills anything different that conky. I’m unsure why someone would need a window manager instead of tiling or dual monitor. Perhaps I don’t fully understand or I’m missing out on something, I’ve seen a lot of posts recently talking about window managers.
I use my PC fairly traditional. Nixos running cinnamon, I’ve tweaked it a bit but nothing outrageous as that’s when shit breaks or you go error hunting more often than I care too. My moving to nix was graduation from mint looking for even more stability through immutability and cutting out system drift with impermanence. I swap hardware as deals come along, so nix allowed for the most customization and ease of backups. Much more friendly for swapping hardware than a traditional OS.
I know right. xD I just have to learn things one at a time as they become relevant, otherwise it’s too overwhelming.
After a quick search of conky, it seems to me that it solves a different problem than waybar does. Waybar can display stats, but that is not its main purpose. Since you use Cinnamon, I doubt you need waybar or Rofi, as Cinnamon comes with pre-installed alternatives for them.
I should have mentioned before when I talked about window managers, I was mainly thinking about tiling window managers. They are really good for a keyboard centric workflow, so if you like using keyboard shortcuts, they’re worth a try. Ideally, you’ll spend less time moving windows around with the mouse, and less time trying to find the window you’re looking for.
But, we’re all different, of course. To each their own. To keep to the trodden path is definitely a good strategy for a stable system :)
I’m old and not keen on tinkering around anymore, that’s why I use Linux Mint Cinnamon. It just works and doesn’t take much time to maintain.
Same. I have installed so many systems that I just want the defaults to be what I’m used to. The OS itself is just a tool to let me work on the things I actually find interesting.
Fedora Kinoite, because it fits my workflow the best and has a nice mixture of stable and leading edge.
Everything I run was containerized either way (Flatpak, Docker or Podman) long before I switched to an immutable distro.
I have lots of different development environments for various versions of different programming languages that are incredibly easy to setup, throw away and recreate with toolbox without having to dive into the language specific tools for creating virtual environments (venv, conda, …). On regular Linux/Windows systems I end up at a point after a few years where there is junk laying around everywhere from 6 different PHP versions, 7 gcc variants and 8 .NET versions.
I was on Fedora KDE before that and the main reason for choosing it was that Ubuntu/Debian/Mint were too old to include firmware for my GPU. Arch and derivatives are on the opposite side of the spectrum and are too new for my taste, I’m fine with waiting a few weeks for .1 versions to release with bugfixes.
As for why not Bazzite or Aurora: Because I wanted to be as close to the original (Fedora & KDE) as possible. The modifications those distros make (and I need), I can do myself in a few minutes.
I do recommend Bazzite or Aurora for less experienced people though, they have a lot of tweaks that Kinoite is really lacking. Kinoite, just like the Fedora KDE variant has a lot of polishing issues that quickly become gigantic obstacles for beginners (Nvidia drivers, Flathub repository, H264/H265 codecs, missing udev rules, …)
I had configured a windows/linux mint dual boot a few years ago because I thought it would be a cool and fun thing to do. Flash forward to now, and I’m using the mint OS 99% of the time.
I’m a fairly new user to Linux and I first got a laptop with Pop OS since I read that it was a beginner friendly distro and great for gaming. Although I didn’t use it for gaming it was great to get to learn how to use Linux and use it for everyday purposes.
Later with lots of trial and error got Fedora Linux working on an old laptop with bad battery life that was lying around. I wanted to try my hand at a bit more of an advanced distro. So far I’m loving both distributions and learning more each day about how things work.
I use either debian with plasma, or mint with cinnamon. Why? Because it fucking works out of the box and I can use my computer. I rarely customize my DE. I usually end up customizing my terminal more.
I have distro hopped like many others. Started out on Ubuntu more than a decade ago. It wasn’t something I loved then, or now. But tried a few more along the eayway.
Ultimately, I landed on Arch. I want newest packages available, I like to tinker. And I wanted arch so that I could learn how my OS worked on a deeper level than windows would ever allow me to learn without extra dissection. I swapped from being a windows user directly to Arch.
My first few Arch installs were done by hand, but anytime I reinstall now that I have an understanding, I use the ArchInstall script.
Arch for me is the perfect cross of form, functionality, and up to date with large dash of customizability.
Yes, I am familiar with what Gentoo is, but never delved into using it. The next “leap” or discovery I am going to invest time into is Nix.
I use Fedora because I barely have to do any customization to get it how I like. An almost vanilla version of Gnome? Check. Flatpak? Check. Nothing to uninstall (I’m looking at you, snapd)? Check. Steam with just a few clicks? Check.
It’s almost perfect, and making it perfect is trivial. That used to be what I said about Ubuntu.
I haven’t used Windows much since Windows Vista, so I don’t really have any way to compare with Win10/Win11.
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