My laptop is my oldest install, running Ubunutu. Started out on 14.04 and I’ve been updating ever since. My desktop runs Arch, although it used to be Antergos. I kinda convinced it to be Arch after Antergos died so I kept getting updates. Finally I’m currently trying Fedora on my secondary PC filled with old hardware from previous builds.
Honestly, out of these I personally like Fedora most currently. It seems to have up-to-date enough packages and seems quite stable. The AUR on Arch is a powerful thing, but it can also be quite hit or miss. While Ubuntu was fine as a first distro, I don’t really like how outdated all the packages are. I’ve had quite a few cases where packages where more than a year out of date.
Thoughts on NixOS? I have heard a lot of positive buzz, but I don’t think I understand it fully. (I’m primarily debian, ubuntu, fedora, arch user, and I’ve admin’d a FreeBSD server too).
in my system config (example from Nix manual). It will install lemmy, install caddy, start lemmy backend on port 8536, frontend on 1234, expose it with a caddy reverse proxy to that hostname, and initialize a postgres database. This is also reproducible across systems, so it’s pretty much guaranteed to work the same on one PC and on another.
This is very useful, because some programs require some more configuration, and this can remove the need to know where to put their config files, their package names, systemd service names from your head. It’s all in there.
Also, when I fuck something up… when changing the config, it makes a new boot entry with it, so when booting I can just press arrow down when booting to select an older, working config. Magic.
Packages are also nicely separated from each other. I don’t have to install stuff globally, when I need a program one time I can just do nix shell nixpkgs#audacity and have an ephemeral shell with the package installed.
There are (optiona) binary caches, so you practically don’t have to compile anything from source when updating your system.
I have all my configuration on GitHub, like a lot of people, which makes it easy to share information.
A con is that when a program hasn’t been packaged for NixOS (whether it’s in nixpkgs or has a flake.nix in the repo), it’s not that easy to use it, so learning to write derivations (packages) for NixOS is pretty much a must have.
Also another must have is being in some community that uses NixOS, because it is really hard to learn without someone to help and guide you IMO.
Should work fine. I really recommend installing the nix package manager on your current distro to play with the language and how it works, I did it on arch to get familiar and it has been really helpful.
I really enjoy using NixOS as it is good at what it does, declarative system configuration, but it does have issues that can prevent people from using it. It’s great if you want to put the configuration for all your computers in one git repo but that configuration is in the Nix language so you will eventually need to become familiar with the Nix language. The main issues are that the documentation needs work and understanding the difference between the Nix operating system, the Nix language, and the Nix package collection as the more you use NixOS the more familiar you will need to be with each.
That said, I find it worth learning and recommend some of the following resources for NixOS.
MyNixOS for graphical configuration management. See my configs there.
NixOS Wiki for the best collection of NixOS documentation. I’ve found this collection of people’s configurations to be very useful for inspiration.
Thank you for your helpful replies! I will put it in my “someday” inbox when I feel the need to shave some yaks or when debina/ubuntu/fedora piss me off about something. :)
Stable isnt just “for servers”. I run stable on my laptop as well
OP said they dont need it for gaming, so you dont need the latest, shiniest things. Stable + backports should be good enough for most people unless you’re doing some really specialized work
Been switching between Arch and Linux Mint for a while now. I run Arch and EndeavourOS on my laptops (Arch on my daily 2-in-1, Endeavour on my TV laptop) but I can’t decide which is better for VR on my main rig… probably because VR on Linux is kinda in a pathetic state anyway lol. Next week I’m getting a second GPU for simple display-out so I can use my 6800XT to run VR in a Windows VM, probably on Arch
Edit: landed on EndeavourOS, basically just Arch with a GUI installer, DE by default, and some other tweaks. It’s what I kept turning Arch into pretty much lol
“Motif Window Manager”? I’m on mobile and have old eyes, but it looks like WindowMaker. If so, great choice! If not, I’ll have to look closer when I get home.
I use Manjaro, but I run it like vanilla Arch (for example pacman/yay and not pamac). I find this to be a sweet spot for me - rolling releases are so incredibly nice, and Manjaro being slightly slower than Arch is good from a stability standpoint in my experience.
I use ZFS all over the place, including the root storage pool on my home server, which has overall been a great experience with systemd-boot.
Fellow NixOS traveller. I used Nix for work and never saw the appeal of a whole OA built around it but when I saw a tutorial with the declarative config I was instantly sold.
Manjaro + SteamOS. Wanted to refresh myself on gaming with Linux/Proton prior to the Deck launch and Manjaro seemed the most similar. Helped that my Win11 install decided to crash explorer.exe every 5 seconds around the same time.
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