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Niche Distro Users: Why?

I occasionally see love for niche small distros, instead of the major ones…

And it just seems to me like there’s more hurdles than help when it comes to adopting an OS whose users number in the hundreds or dozens. I can understand trying one for fun in a VM, but I prefer sticking to the bigger distros for my daily drivers since the they’ll support more software and not be reliant on upstream sources, and any bugs or other issues are more likely to be documented abd have workarounds/fixes.

So: What distro do you daily drive and why? What drove you to choose it?

0x0 ,

Debian for ages, now Gentoo, Slackware and occasionally Devuan. Not really niche i’d say…

Because i like choice and flexibility.

Big_Bob ,
@Big_Bob@hexbear.net avatar

Just saying, I’ve never had a virus with Temple OS.

cizra ,

Declarative system configuration is the killer feature of NiOS. Atomic rollbacks too. Versioning the whole mess in Git, too.

ssm ,
@ssm@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Because I’m a software luddite that believe we peaked in design at BSD/Plan9, and most of the “innovations” of enshittified corporate mainstream distros (redhat userland, atomic/immutable environments, “universal” (unless you’re not on linux) package management) don’t impress me, and more often than not turn me away. I’m not saying software can’t improve, but when it comes to mainstream linux (especially redhat), innovation is always 0 steps forward 40 convoluted leaps back with bonus windows compatibility.

reliant on upstream sources

Not relevant to independent distributions, which I’d actually consider more of a problem with popular distros very often being forks (most often of debian).

eugenia ,
@eugenia@lemmy.ml avatar

I use Linux since 1999 and I’m with you, I don’t like niche distros. I like them to be well supported with many devs in them, and a structure around them. My days of tinkering died already in 2002 (I’m looking at you Gentoo and sia). Since then, I want things to work the way I expect them. That’s why I now use Debian or Mint.

tetris11 ,
@tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

Same. I started off on Gentoo, jumped to Puppy, jumped to Slack, jumped to Fedora, jumped to Arch, jumped to Nix, jumped to Guix, jumped back to Arch, and now I’m thinking Debian is the only true stable upstream linux needs.

Plus I’m sick of tweaking my configs for the N’th time to work on the M’th system. To quote a random side-character in American Dad: “I have painted my children for the last time.”

(I will at some point start playing with BSD’s though, I just know it. And Haiku too once they have decent laptop support.)

Steamymoomilk ,

Gentoo linux, the main reason is ive tried many distros, which to alot of there credit worked pretty well for 99% of stuff. But like for example bazzite somthing broke upstream to where because of how OCI works and it layers systems. It takes Silverblue and adds alot of packages to become Bazzite and then my repo stripped out stuff i didnt want. But it became A NIGHTMARE when your builds fail and you cant figure out why. And its because of somthing upstream. And you cannot build/update because upstream brokey. And like with NixOS which i still daily on my main rig, but gentoo on everything else. Is really powerful but the immutability gets in your way for some things and it takes alot of time to adapt scripts or troubleshoot. So i ended up installing gentoo on my other computers because they do simple tasks, i dont half to worry about breakage because of snapper and stable channel (at least on the NAS) And its alot of fun to turn a live CD into a OS that has only what you want in it. SystemD or OpenRC, hardened toolchains or normal? And distcc and binhost are S tier

gnuplusmatt ,

On an atomic distro your build environment should be in container, where it doesn’t matter what ships with the base image

superkret ,

I daily drive Slackware.
What drove me to it was curiosity. “How the fuck does a distro without dependency resolution even work? And why are people still using it?” As it turns out, it’s working very well actually. And I am now one of those people.
I like to tinker and solve puzzles. Installing the most old-fashioned distro on a modern convertible laptop, then bashing it till it looks and feels modern was a fun puzzle.
And it turned out to be a system I can daily drive on any device. Cause contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to hunt down dependencies manually every time you install something, that would be dumb. Once it’s set up, it’s actually very low maintenance and the knowledge I gained about its quirks will likely still be applicable in 10 years.

mrvictory1 ,

bashing

I see what you did there

cizra ,

What’s the Slackware way of managing package dependencies, then?

superkret ,

For Slackware itself, you install all available software up front. That way, all dependencies are resolved.
You then just hide the stuff you don’t need from your DE using its menu editor, or ignore it.
During an update, the package manager updates all installed packages, installs all packages that were added to the repo and removes all packages that are obsolete.

For additional software, there is a semi-official repo that’s very similar to Arch’s AUR.
And like the AUR, it offers several helper scripts and additional package managers that do dependency resolution.
Or you use Flatpaks.

tetris11 ,
@tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

How long do software updates take then, if you’re updating the entire software stack? I can imagine the answer being anywhere from “hours” to “same as the incremental software updates on other distros”

0x0 ,

you install all available software up front.

That’s unnecessary and inefficient, you can install a small subset and go from there.

kittykittycatboys ,
@kittykittycatboys@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

void boots fast on rather old or very low powered copmuters :3

HakFoo ,

Also on modern firebreathers.

I like runit better than systemd, the packages are current, and it has most of what I want in the main repos.

I also found the documentation excellent in thst it’s a cohesive list of real-world topics rather than a 500-km-deep wiki or forum archive.

I should try a modern Slackware one day. I loved it back before I had broadband and just ordered a burned CD for each new release, but I should try following -current and the Slackbuilds stuff.

superkret ,

Slackbuilds are really nice. Sbopkg lets you download queue files for each program, then automatically install necessary dependencies in the correct order, no matter if they’re available as packages or from source. Unfortunately, Slackware is so bare-bones out of the box that there are still pitfalls. For example, LibreOffice depends on avahi. And to successfully install that, you first need to create an avahi user and group, then install avahi, then write an init script that starts the avahi daemon and another one to stop it on shutdown.
-Current is much too active for my personal taste. I run Slackware because I’m a lazy Slacker.
The laziest approach to Slacking today is to install the default full install, then do:


<span style="color:#323232;">wget https://github.com/sbopkg/sbopkg/releases/download/0.38.2/sbopkg-0.38.2-noarch-1_wsr.tgz    #Download the Slackbuilds helper Sbopkg  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">slackpkg install sbopkg-0.38.2-noarch-1_wsr.tgz                                                  #Install it  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sbopkg -r                                                                                        #Sync its local repository to Slackbuilds   
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sqg -a                                                                                           #Build queue files (dependency info) for the repository
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sbopkg -i flatpak                                                                                #Install Flatpak and its dependencies  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">flatpak remote-add --user flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo                #Add the Flathub repo
</span>
bsergay ,

I daily drive secureblue; or, to be more precise, its bluefin-main-userns-hardened image.

“Why?”, you ask. Because security is my number one priority.

I dismiss other often mentioned hardened systems for the following reasons:

  • Qubes OS; my laptop doesn’t satisfy its hardware requirements. Otherwise, this would have been my daily driver.
  • Kicksecure; primary reason would be how it’s dependent on backports for security updates.
  • Tails; while excellent for protection against forensics, its security model is far from impressive otherwise. It’s not really meant as a daily driver for general use anyways.
  • Spectrum OS; heavily inspired by Qubes OS and NixOS, which is a big W. Unfortunately, it’s not ready yet.
Sunny ,

Very interesting had not heard of this one yet. What are the main advantages of using this, that make it more secure?

nerdschleife ,

Not sure if niche, but I use Arco Linux instead of the alternatives like Endeavour, Manjaro, or plain arch.

Why? Its easier to setup than straight Arch. Manjaro was all over the place when I tried it a few years back. Arco, right from the ISO stage, let’s you configure exactly what you want, with a handy guide on their website.

But the thing that keeps me loyal is the excellent community. The maintainer himself responds to most of your queries on telegram / discord (not FOSS reeee) and he’s very active on YouTube as well with no nonsense guides and walkthroughs. Shoutout Eric Dubois

Max_P ,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

Generally, those people are experienced users that know exactly what they want out of a distro and don’t really need help for anything. Those distros usually do a few things that the user is seeking.

For example, for some people, typing their thesis in LaTeX using emacs is the better workflow. To any average person that sounds insane when Microsoft Word is so easy to use and does the job just fine. But they enjoy it, it works for them, paper gets written, everyone is happy.

Distributions are a spectrum between novice users and expert users. Some people want to put the USB in and be good to go. Some people want a very precise setup for very specific needs.

You may ask, why not start with Ubuntu/Mint/Pop and remove what you don’t like? Well, it’s much easier to start with a blank slate than making one by chopping everything out. For my particular use case, I moved to Arch in big part because I got tired of the mainstream distros getting in my way, and wanted to start the other way around and only install and configure what I want, the way I want it. So Arch for me.

I know experienced users that really don’t care about messing around and are happy with how it runs out of the box and are happy with the development environment provided by something like Ubuntu/Fedora.

And then there’s my box which is a NAS, a workstation, a media PC for the TV, a build server, and a few other things, and it’s all dynamically reassignable. Friend can pick up the controller in the TV room and a GPU gets assigned to it and starts up Steam in Deck mode on the TV, while I can still do my stuff and game on the workstation side for local multiplayer. If the game needs a server, no worries, it’s a kube node, I can temporarily transfer the server locally and back on one of my real servers. Guest needs a PC? Sure, take this monitor and this keyboard, here’s an ephemeral Windows install. Sure, I could probably twist Ubuntu into doing all that, but it’s one hell of a lot easier starting from scratch.

logir ,

Would you explain better you set-up? At least a reference to the underlaying system. Is it kubernetes?

Max_P ,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

It’s a Threadripper system which effectively behaves like two CPUs and loads of coree, two GPUs, one dedicated to my desk for the monitors, and the other one can be reassigned freely with VFIO to be a few different things. The TV is connected to that GPU. Storage is all ZFS.

  • One VM is a kube node to run stuff on that GPU
  • One VM is the media center / gaming stuff
  • Technically I have a Windows and Mac VM too but I practically never use them.

When the second GPU isn’t attached to a VM, I can also use it on the host with DRI_PRIME. The host is also a kube node, so I can also run some (modest) AI stuff there too.

The rest is random glue scripts like detecting when the controller connects and shuffling VMs around on that signal. The kube stuff is brand new, half the things are just regular docker compose files still.

I’m looking into trying out kubevirt and see where that goes. The GUI is the only thing left that’s relatively normal on the host and I’d very much like to make that a container and split things up in sort of “activities” so the browser is its own thing, each project is its own thing so I don’t npm install a rat.

linuxoveruser ,

I really like immutable distros, and am currently using NixOS. I feel like despite still being relatively obscure, NixOS is a bit of an outlier since it has more packages than any other distro and is (so far) the only distro I’ve used that has never broken. There is a steep learning curve, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for non programmers, but it is something truly different than all mainstream Linux distros while being extremely reliable.

dhhyfddehhfyy4673 ,

Recently started learning NixOS and seems like it's going to be ridiculously awesome! Documentation doesn't look to be great in a lot of areas though unfortunately, so might be a while before I really figure shit out.

UnfortunateShort ,

I probably should try NixOS, but I’m tempted by BlendOS

lemmyvore ,

Repology artificially reduces the number of packages instead of reporting the actual number. Which I find highly dubious because most packages have a purpose. In particular for repositories like the AUR artificially eliminating packages goes against everything it stands for. Yes it’s supposed to have alternative versions of something, that’s the whole point.

If there wasn’t for this the ranking would be very different. Debian for example maintains over 200k packages in unstable.

j4k3 , (edited )
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

It’s like Linux From Scratch… with friends. Every distro has a purpose. I haven’t done super niche. One day I’ll probably try to run Gentoo much more seriously, and maybe an LFS just to see if I can.

Linux is the realm of all computer science students when it comes time to learn about operating systems, processes, threading, interrupts, schedulers, memory, etc. All levels exist in this space. The major distros all have underlying reasons they exist too. It is not branding/marketing like much of the consumer world.

phanto ,

I shouldn’t talk because I dip in and out, but I do that because I like the possibilities. Like, what if someone comes up with a concept, but no one tries it, and it turns out to really work? Like, I like immutability as a concept, so I’ve tried Silverblue, Kinoite, and Bazzite. If nobody gave it a go, then the concept would die on the vine.

Also, I like seeing different ways of thinking about technology.

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

Why? Why not?

Currently running Debian Stable, but in the process of switching over to Alpine (yes, Alpine on the desktop). The lightweight, stripped-down feel calls to me and I like the little BSD-isms thrown in. musl might present problems down the road, but a lot can be bypassed by using flatpaks. Also using the change as incentive to try out Wayland and LabWC (bringing back that Openbox goodness). Kinda enjoying the process of piecing stuff together rather than trying to pare it down afterwards.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Kinda enjoying the process of piecing stuff

At the risk of sounding crazy… You might enjoy Linux From Scratch (LFS) and Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS). Maybe not as a daily driver, but it’s a great way to learn how everything works, since (as the name suggests) you build everything from scratch. No package manager, just tarballs of source code. It really helps with getting an understanding of how everything works.

BLFS even includes instructions for building Xorg and all the major desktop environments.

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

Stage 1 Gentoo installs

superkret ,

I wonder if it would be possible to set up Linux From Scratch in a way so that its file structure is compatible with one of the KISS distros like Arch or Slackware, then install their package manager and turn it into a system you can update and maintain.
Otherwise I feel like it’s a bit pointless to put so much work into a system that can’t be kept secure, unless you run it disconnected from the internet.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Otherwise I feel like it’s a bit pointless to put so much work into a system that can’t be kept secure,

You just need to recompile stuff when needed :D

I think it’s designed mostly to be a learning experience rather than as a daily driver. It serves that role very well!

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