Two years into full-time Linux and I’m finally burning the distro-hopping cycle. I fell for the Arch/AUR trap for a while, but I got tired of spending my weekends debugging file manager crashes instead of maintaining my home lab.
Switched back to Fedora, and it’s boring in exactly the way I need it to be. It’s a stable launchpad for my projects, not the project itself.
I honestly think it’s the best distro so far. Which sucks since it is so reliant on RedHat. I prefer to avoid corporate related distros like Fedora and Ubuntu, but I must admit they have a better experience right out of the box. I still want to give NixOS a try and maybe Gentoo, but after that I will probably come back to Fedora just like you…until something I think might be better comes along.
I personally prefer OpenSuSE, but Fedora is reasonably close second.
One reason OpenSuSE wins out for me is admittedly just because it’s not a US based project or related to a US based company like RedHat. Not that SuSE is “good” as a sponsor company; it’s just based in Germany and owned by a Swedish investment company, which edges out based in the US and owned by a mega corp like IBM. I know both OpenSuSE and Fedora are mostly independent, but both are under some control of their main corporate sponsors. So I prefer European.
Maybe that’s silly, but I have lost a lot of trust in the US legal system, project governance and their ability to exist without interference by the US state.
Are you talking about Leap or Tumbleweed?
As far as Leap goes. Isn’t it a bit behind compared to Fedora in terms of software package versions? And aren’t their package repos a bit smaller/limited in terms of what’s available?
I’m shopping for a new long term distro myself and can’t seem to make up my mind. I was set on Debian stable, but the software is kinda old. Especially for desktop environments like KDE Plasma. There’s some really cool stuff that came out in the more recent versions and I don’t want to wait 2 years before getting them.
PikaOS is Debian-based and maintaining its own repository based on trixie and unstable with similar patches to Bazzite & team. I’ve been using it as a daily driver on 3-4 systems for at least a year or two with no serious issues, and the updates are quick to fix any minor issues. Excellent for gaming. It’s probably not up to CachyOS gaming standards nor Debian stability but I find it’s a comfortable spot for me.
I dunno. The maintainer warns us on startup that this is a hobby for them. I don’t know how quick they’ll answer to important security issues.
It sounds great on paper, but I’m looking for something a little more stable and serious.
Tumbleweed is really really good, my second favourite after Nixos (which is leagues ahead of any other OS imo)
Tumbleweed is a very cool project
I would say for most people Fedora is one of the best options due to having a release cycle that is quick but not too quick, coming with all sorts of different DEs (GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, Cosmic, XFCE, hell, even Budgie), and not really having any issues in terms of usability (aside from installing Nvidia drivers, apparently that isn’t very smooth but I have no experience with this)
Mint is nice too and super easy to use, but you need to like Cinnamon (or XFCE and MATE).
I personally love EndeavourOS, which is Arch-based and minimal OOTB, but it is definitely not for everyone. CachyOS falls under a similar box, being an Arch-based distro.
To be honest, in the modern age, there is no such thing as a bad Linux distro (except maybe Manjaro, which feels a bit like the worst of all worlds). Fedora, Mint, the buntus, the Arch derivatives, etc. are all really neat pieces of software!
I’ve been rocking PikaOS for a little while now and I’m pleasantly surprised. Debian Cid based with prepackaged gaming tools. It’s been good
Did the same. We’re a mostly fedora shop these days. Debian based for servers.
Why use Debian for servers over Fedora?
Not that difficult to configure this by hand, but I like Debian’s dropbear-initramfs package for remote unlock.
Recently switched to Fedora myself, and I could not be happier ❤️
Tried Fedora Silver blue or universalblue spins? Unless you do serious embedded development work (which takes more setup on atomic distros), then I have experienced that it is less work in general in setup and upkeep.
I’m actually switching from Fedora today. miserable experience.
Add the repos for RPM fusion.
I already have them, didn’t improve anything.
Fair enough.
It shows you haven’t tried Void Linux. 🤪
OP posted to this sub with an article about void 17 days ago. OOP, sure maybe.
I’m trying Void on old hardware and it feels pretty usable. Package availability still an issue*. I’ve also noticed some dependencies not getting added (
gitnot included with programming lang that needs it for its package manager, installed archive managerengrampaand it couldn’t actually open zips until I added another package for that). I’ll probably keep this on my old machine just for testing musl compilation.* appimages might help, other solutions with redundancy not so much with extra downloading
Yes, the installation is similar to Arch, it gives you the versatility to do an installation however you want without software blobs.
I like that Void seems to better handle less frequent updates than Arch, but my point is that the package system seems to be a bit of a step backwards. (which to be fair doesn’t seem like anything unique to Void, optional dependencies is commonly not a thing or is inconvenient like OpenSUSE’s patterns)
I have looked at Void a little but honestly the handling of the package manager and even it’s name just throw me of for some reason. Why do you like it?
Precisely, the package manager is one of the best things about it. Quite fast. I like it because it doesn’t have systemd and it’s one of the few distros left with a Unix philosophy. A very well-made distro.
I started with RedHat 2.0 and CDE, then spent almost 30 years jumping around including almost a decade on Arch BTW, and now I’m back at Fedora and Plasma. Something catastrophic will need to happen to knock me off it.
The circle of life.
I haven’t done any distro hopping since I tried CachyOS.
Just read the title and made me realized I use 4 different OS…
Main pc: cachyos Steamdeck: steamos Tiny server: Ubuntu server RaspberryPi: dietpi
I mean yo could say two if you just say “2 arch based and two Debian based”
But never thought about it.
The correct choice is NixOS, fyi
I recently switched to Fedora after using PopOS for years. I like it because it’s just less… fiddly? Like, I don’t like COSMIC because it just doesn’t feel ready yet, and I honestly prefer DNF over APT. It has a very ‘set it and forget it’ sort of feel, which is great for a server.
I like fedora. I used it 20 years ago. I recently switched a laptop over to it, quickly realized atomic distros are kind of a PITA if you know how to linux and hopped off.
It feels… mature? Clearly there’s a lot of work that has gone into making fedora a “Set and Forget” experience, the normie distro… if you don’t try to use it like a windows machine.
If you want a machine that just works, doesn’t bug you about just frankly stupid shit that’s been solved already (looking at you kwallet), and feels like a computer that your grandma could check her email on without feeling like she’s starting the falcon’s hyperdrive, Fedora Atomic Silverblue is the distro for you.
I am not a shill. I don’t use fedora on any of my machines currently (unless you include my partner’s bazzite rig, I don’t, personally). I don’t plan to use fedora on anything currently, but the next time I get a laptop that’s meant to be “Just a fuckin computer”, you bet your ass I’m going straight to Fedora Atomic Silverblue.
