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Distro for experienced Linux user

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.).

atomkarinca ,

if you want systemd then void is out of the question, void uses runit.

danileonis ,
@danileonis@lemmy.ml avatar

And that’s actually one of the reason to choose it, runit feels so smooth on old hardware!

atomkarinca ,

i know, i have it installed on two machines, i love it. op wanted a distro that supports systemd.

danileonis ,
@danileonis@lemmy.ml avatar

Yes, I was just remarking that for everyone interested, like an addendum to your post. :-D

atomkarinca ,

understantable have a great day :)

GustavoM ,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

All distros are exactly the same. Theres no such thing as a “distro for experienced users”. With that said, just do a minimal install of (pretty much anything you want).

Hamartiogonic , (edited )
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

Different distros have different limitations and advantages but there are usually good reasons for these things. For example, Debian strives for stability, but that also means fairly old packages. Some other distro might not have a very wide selection of apps in the repos, but it might have some other areas where it excels. As long as you agree with these sorts of design decisions, it should be a good distro for you.

You don’t even have to like the default DE or any other package related decision that comes with the default image. Maybe there’s a bare bones image that allows you to build your OS which ever way you like, and install only the packages you really need. in this regard, every distribution can be made more or less similar, but your decisions won’t change what is or isn’t in the repositories or how the devs make their decisions.

For a lot of people, the default image is the one they’ll use. In that regard, every distribution is different, but can still be made similar if you put the time and effort into it. Some people prefer to have this and that preinstalled, while other people want something else to work out of the box. With these sorts of decisions in mind, there are huge differences between distros.

TunaCowboy ,

means fairly old packages

It takes very little effort to maintain a debian system with fresher packages. stable is not the only release nor the only mechanism for running newer versions of software.

dark_stang ,
@dark_stang@beehaw.org avatar

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 avatar

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

lenathaw ,

Linux user since 2008 here.

Boring Debian for servers and Pop Os for my desktop because everything works out of the box

lenathaw ,

Linux user since 2008 here.

Boring Debian for servers and Pop Os for my desktop because everything works out of the box

vettnerk , (edited )

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.

demesisx ,
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

Since I’m the NixOS guy, I recommend GUIX. 😉

Daeraxa ,

I always wonder why GUIX seems to get left out vs NixOS

demesisx ,
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

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.

Daeraxa ,

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 avatar

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.

caseyweederman ,

NixOS isn’t coming very naturally to me. Just can’t quite grasp it.

demesisx ,
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

If you want, here’s my config. Feel free to fork it.

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:

github.com/harryprayiv/nix-darwin-config

caseyweederman ,

That looks sharp, thank you.

demesisx ,
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

No problem. Real thanks goes to gvolpe who I forked my config from.

InverseParallax ,

I use debian as my absolute base and build lxc containers for everything above that with my own kernel, works for me.

I set my own complexity, but debian also doesn’t get in my way which works for me.

Ubuntu container for dev work (c++ mostly), arch container for some stuff, few vms for private data.

gigatexal ,
@gigatexal@mastodon.social avatar

@InverseParallax @chevy9294 whoa LXC / LXD since it uses virtualization means one can rock their own kernels? Hmmm

InverseParallax ,

Oh sorry that was badly written, I compile my own kernel and run lxc on top of that, with debian base userspace otherwise.

Then kvm on top for really different stuff.

For my server it’s debian on the bottom with zfs file serving raidz2, and on top of that 1 kvm for debian docker containers, and 1 kvm for freebsd jails which actually hosts most of the services I care about, docker is fallback if they’re a pain to set up.

nakal ,
@nakal@kbin.social avatar

Sooner or later everyone will find their way to Debian. It's boring and it works.

biestander ,

Linux mint

blarp ,
@blarp@lemmy.ml avatar

Well, they say Nix is the new Arch, so there’s that. Redcore is Gentoo but without the compiling – you might like that. Void is out because it’s too similar to Arch and has no Systemd.

Instead of experimenting with distros maybe instead you could hop on a reliable distro and explore some other facet of Linux. For example, I lived in Emacs for 9 months as a challenge. Or you could mess around with a WMs instead, maybe try to work your way from i3 to Qtile to Xmonad?

zelifcam ,
@zelifcam@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

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    Shrexios ,

    @zelifcam @chevy9294 I’ve become a fan. I’m not a coder or anything, and I have been able to navigate its package management easily enough. The manual could be made a bit simpler/clearer, but the system itself is not hard to manage.

    I’ve been meaning to figure out if I can set up the system and then generate a new configuration file based on what I installed using nix-env

    starkzarn ,

    That sort of configuration after the fact would be a fantastic addition, if not already in place.

    al177 ,

    Don’t sleep on OpenSuSE. It supports everything you’re looking for and has options for periodic and rolling release.

    GlenTheFrog ,
    @GlenTheFrog@lemmy.ml avatar

    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: superuser.com/…/am-i-using-zypper-correctly#36104…

    cbarrick ,

    I use Arch (btw) because of the ArchWiki, and I’m totally comfortable configuring my system how I like it.

    But I do appreciate Debian a lot. You can customize things to almost the same extent, but packages come preconfigured with great defaults and designed to better work together, unlike Arch which uses the upstream defaults almost universally.

    ferox ,
    @ferox@lemmy.ml avatar

    Fedora 38

    db2 ,

    Since you’re experienced with Linux already try a BSD for something new.

    pete_the_cat ,

    BSD sadly lacks a fair amount of support for things that Linux does. I gave FreeBSD a try a few years back and it annoyed me, especially coming from Arch. All the packages were so outdated and compiling updated versions from Ports took forever. Also the BSDs are just different enough from Linux to be annoying.

    I’m a Linux System Engineer and at my former job we had a few thousand Linux hosts but a handful of Solaris 5 hosts. Shelling into one of those, expecting it to be Linux and then raging when something didn’t work but then realizing it was Solaris and not Linux was always fun.

    onelikeandidie ,

    Void Linux was my daily driver for around a year and it was fast, really fast, and had a lot of tinkerability. I highly recommend it.

    owatnext ,
    @owatnext@lemmy.world avatar

    Void is lovely, I use it on my computer as my sole OS, but OP requested systemd so that’s a no for Void.

    onelikeandidie ,

    Oops, you’re right, I read as the opposite!

    MrPhibb ,
    @MrPhibb@reddthat.com avatar

    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 ,

    Seconded LMDE. Super stable, polished, and intuitive.

    Klaymore , (edited )
    @Klaymore@sh.itjust.works avatar

    You want immutable distros but Silverblue wasn’t flexible enough? Why not try NixOS? It’s really nice.

    I’ve been using it for two years and I love being able to make changes to my config and having those changes apply to all my computers. It’s also basically unbreakable, if my computer explodes I can just reinstall NixOS with my config files and it will instantly be set up exactly how I want it.

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