Hi, I’m looking for a distro for my laptop. My first distro was Pop!_OS, then I switched to Fedora, then Arch for a year and 2 months ago I switched to Fedora Silverblue, because I wanted to try immutable distro that relies on containers and flatpaks to be usefull. Silverblue is great but not so much for me, its not flexible enough.
I’m thinking of switching to Arch but maybe it’s time for something else. Maybe NixOS or Void, Gentoo probably not, I don’t have time for compiling everything. What do you recommend?
It must support full disk encryption, secure boot with signing with YOUR OWN KEYS, systemd (because of MullvadVPN), everything else I think can work on any distro (Gnome, podman, kvm, etc.).
- giacomo ( @giacomo@lemm.ee ) 26•1 year ago
Switch to debian and go outside
- demesisx ( @demesisx@infosec.pub ) English24•1 year ago
Since I’m the NixOS guy, I recommend GUIX. 😉
- Daeraxa ( @Daeraxa@lemmy.ml ) 3•1 year ago
I always wonder why GUIX seems to get left out vs NixOS
- demesisx ( @demesisx@infosec.pub ) English7•1 year ago
If NixOS isn’t ready for mainstream work, GUIX is at least doubley so. It is SUPER white beard while IMO, even an idiot (👋🏼) can grasp NixOS.
- caseyweederman ( @caseyweederman@lemmy.ca ) 3•1 year ago
NixOS isn’t coming very naturally to me. Just can’t quite grasp it.
- demesisx ( @demesisx@infosec.pub ) English4•1 year ago
If you want, here’s my config. Feel free to fork it.
https://github.com/harryprayiv/nix-config (you’ll have the most luck with the “plutus_vm” machine config output in my flake at first since the main output in my config is somewhat obscured by encryption).
I also have a Nix-Darwin config that I haven’t consolidated into my main one:
- caseyweederman ( @caseyweederman@lemmy.ca ) 2•1 year ago
That looks sharp, thank you.
- demesisx ( @demesisx@infosec.pub ) English4•1 year ago
No problem. Real thanks goes to gvolpe who I forked my config from.
- Daeraxa ( @Daeraxa@lemmy.ml ) 2•1 year ago
I’ve not used either, just look on as a curious spectator, I’ve yet to leave the more idiot proof distros of mint and fedora. What makes it so hard to deal with vs nix?
- demesisx ( @demesisx@infosec.pub ) English4•1 year ago
From what I hear, it’s a much newer and less popular project, so I expect it to be even more difficult than nix was for me.
- raubarno ( @raubarno@lemmy.ml ) 19•1 year ago
I’d recommend rather boring Debian. Archlinux as well if you want to dive deeper.
EDIT: For Debian, you want Debian Testing.
- GuyNoIRQ ( @GuyNoIRQ@infosec.pub ) English7•1 year ago
Debian is only as boring as you want it to be.
- dark_stang ( @dark_stang@beehaw.org ) English17•1 year ago
I’ve been using Linux for 2 decades and I still use Debian for containers and servers and Pop_os for my desktop and laptop. If I was going to run a straight gaming machine I’d probably use something Arch based.
What kind of experience are you looking for? Something that’s bleeding edge? Something that’s going to give you 99.999% uptime with minimal hassle? Something to give you a hobby?
- entropicdrift ( @entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org ) 4•1 year ago
Likewise, been using Linux for over 15 years but my main gaming PC runs Mint because it gets out of my way when I want it to
- vettnerk ( @vettnerk@lemmy.ml ) 2•11 months ago
I’m sure many petrol heads enjoy fine tuning combustion and make sure the suspension is tailored 100% to their neighborhood roads and all… but sometimes they just need a car with which to pick up some groceries.
Two decades here as well. And I run mint.
- lenathaw ( @lenathaw@lemmy.ml ) 2•1 year ago
Linux user since 2008 here.
Boring Debian for servers and Pop Os for my desktop because everything works out of the box
- Atemu ( @Atemu@lemmy.ml ) 15•1 year ago
I’m thinking of switching to Arch but maybe it’s time for something else. Maybe NixOS or Void, Gentoo probably not, I don’t have time for compiling everything. What do you recommend?
I’m a bit biased of course but you sound like you’d enjoy NixOS.
NixOS is immutable but quite a bit more tinkerable than Silverblue. Not quite Arch or Void levels of tinkering but this topic is not as black and white as it may seem.
secure boot with signing with YOUR OWN KEYS
Not yet in upstream NixOS but: https://github.com/nix-community/lanzaboote
systemd (because of MullvadVPN),
Unrelated to evangelising you into NixOS but I’m curious: Why does a VPN proxy software have any hard dependency on a process manager?
Why does a VPN proxy software have any hard dependency on a process manager?
Probably because of killswitch. App installs a service that manages internet and vpn access, the app is just a GUI for communicating with that service.
- flashgnash ( @flashgnash@lemm.ee ) 2•1 year ago
Can confirm NixOS is the shit. Can’t imagine myself using anything else
- al177 ( @al177@lemmy.sdf.org ) 12•1 year ago
Don’t sleep on OpenSuSE. It supports everything you’re looking for and has options for periodic and rolling release.
- GlenTheFrog ( @GlenTheFrog@lemmy.ml ) 1•1 year ago
OpenSuse is great except for one (imho) zypper. When I do updates zyper has this huge section which is labeled “will not be upgraded”. For me it’s really distracting and makes reading which packages will be upgraded harder to parse visually at a glance
This is what I mean: https://superuser.com/questions/273424/am-i-using-zypper-correctly#361047
- kixik ( @kixik@lemmy.ml ) 8•1 year ago
Guix !
- astrsk ( @astrsk@artemis.camp ) 7•1 year ago
The one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the more experience you have with Linux, the less you rely on preconfigured distributions. Find a stable minimal install and build up your own set of base packages, DE, configs, etc.
Only you know your habits and needs and experience is how you narrow down the field.
For me personally, I have found my groove in a minimal Debian install with a first run setup script or two that is repeatable and automatable so I can start with a known quantity for any applicable need I have.
- db2 ( @db2@sopuli.xyz ) 6•1 year ago
Since you’re experienced with Linux already try a BSD for something new.
- Vilian ( @Vilian@lemmy.ca ) 6•1 year ago
every distro is for experienced users, you can tranform arch in ubuntu and vice versa, but if you want sumething different try fedora silverblue, or other nonmutable distro, it’s fun learning how to use it(it’s what i’m doing with my laptop)
- Contend6248 ( @Contend6248@feddit.de ) 2•1 year ago
I don’t know who downvotes this, but it’s true, you can get your hands dirty with any distro.
- fraydabson ( @fraydabson@sopuli.xyz ) English6•1 year ago
I love arch. I want to switch to NixOS for my home server but I think I’ll be sticking with arch for my main I see no further reason to switch.
- SunRed ( @sunred@discuss.tchncs.de ) 2•1 year ago
I learned that using nix on arch for the home directory in addition to pacman and the aur is quite an unbeatable combo that I prefer to having everything managed by nix. The problem with nix and nixos I see for one is that it leaves some performance on the table for reproducibility and that many packages are or cannot be packaged for nix. Additionally arch already is quite reproducible albeit not as much as nixos. Writing your own meta package with a simple pkgbuild to manage the system base seemed like a good substitute for me.
- BoofStroke ( @knobbysideup@lemm.ee ) English4•1 year ago
I prefer doing useful things with my workstation vs playing with the OS itself, so mint cinnamon is my recommendation. Servers are ansible-managed alma. Professionally I’m a Linux systems architect and devops engineer.
- Mx Phibb ( @MrPhibb@reddthat.com ) 4•1 year ago
Arch is a good choice, Endeavour was my flavor of choice, but these days I use Linux Mint: Debian Edition, which works mostly fine for me (got one minor piece of software I can’t get for it).
- PanaX ( @PanaX@lemmy.ml ) 2•1 year ago
Seconded LMDE. Super stable, polished, and intuitive.
- Gunpachi ( @gunpachi@lemmings.world ) 3•1 year ago
There are a few options. Like many have mentioned, Nix OS is a wonderful distro with it’s own quirks.
If you are looking for something normal, consider Opensuse Tumbleweed and arch linux (or arch based distros like EndavourOS).
- noddy ( @noddy@beehaw.org ) 3•1 year ago
I’d recommend go back to arch. I use arch myself and have decided to stop distro hopping. I always end up regretting and come back to arch. The arch install script is quite good now, spares me hours of hunting down what packages to install for a working desktop and configuring of bootloader, etc, that I had to do before for installing arch.
Last time I tried something else was fedora. I liked the seamless experience, but I was annoyed by the very slow updates (why does it take soo long to refresh the repos?), and I missed the awesome wiki and package availability on arch.
- hornedfiend ( @hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz ) 1•1 year ago
I’m a long time arch with plasma user and recently tried arch with gnome and couldn’t get into it, so decided to try something new so I switched to Fedora Kinoite and yes, updates are incredibly slow. I mean it’s ridiculous really when compared to arch, but the distro seems solid ( curious how long I’ll last before inevitably going back to arch).