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yala

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Linux on old School Machines?

Hi all, the private school I work at has a tonne of old windows 7/8 era desktops in a student library. The place really needs upgrades but they never seem to prioritise replacing these machines. Ive installed Linux on some older laptops of mine and was wondering if you all think it would be worth throwing a light Linux distro on...

yala ,

As others have stated, reviving them through Linux should be a piece of cake.

However, how many is “a tonne”? This is important information for the community to provide recommendations on administrating those systems.

yala ,

Small nitpick; layering is technically only a thing on Fedora Atomic. Not all immutable distros subscribe to it.

yala ,

Last year, this piece was written on it. And, based on an extremely small sample size (N=1), the takeaway was basically that the 1% lows (and the 0.1% lows) do seem to benefit on some games.

But, there are so many factors at play, it’s pretty hard to back up any claim of performance increase (or decrease). However, if you’ve got the time and you want to play around, then please feel free to benchmark the 1% lows (and 0.1% lows) of the games you play on different distros and come to your own conclusions.

yala ,

I’m afraid that you won’t get an answer from OP. Based on the last couple of days, and OP’s many posts, we’ve noted that OP has only rarely answered questions. I don’t think it will be different this time.

So, while I can’t read their intentions, I will provide my thoughts.

OP is a newb. And has asked this community many different (but somehow related) questions.

OP was on Xubuntu, but experienced a problem. After they saw that the solution involved more steps than they’re willing to take, they instead opted to switch distros. After prompting the community for some input and inspiration, they decided to go for Debian with Xfce. However, they’ve experienced a bunch of things since that have made them second-guess their choice; Xubuntu was perhaps better at some things AND Linux Mint Xfce was actually the popular pick in their earlier community prompt.

So, in order to resolve their second-guessing, they intend to put them all to the test simultaneously though multi-boot before finalizing their decision.

yala ,

I’m glad to be proven wrong.

Thank you for being more optimistic than I am.

yala ,

Windows ->

Fedora Kinoite: A relatively mature atomic/immutable distro combined with excellent security standards and that resembles Windows’ workflow. Unfortunately, it broke almost immediately. Though, to be fair, it was a known issue with the ISO back then. As a newb, however, I couldn’t be bothered with it. ->

Fedora Silverblue: Well…, I didn’t have much of a choice 😜. Or I had to forego Fedora Atomic altogether. However, I actually really enjoyed GNOME’s workflow. I used this as my main system for about year. Until I found a related project… ->

Arch: The memes got me 😅. In all honesty, though, it was mostly curiosity. Still, I didn’t intend to throw away my working Silverblue installation for the sake of quenching my thirst for experiencing Arch. So, as dual boot, I tried to install it. This was pre archinstall, so it took a couple of tries before I booted into GNOME. However, I guess I did mess up something as I don’t recall ever booting back into that system 😅. So, what if I want Arch, but don’t want to spend more time with the installation… ->

EndeavourOS: Yup. I actually enjoyed it. I also took the opportunity to install another DE; KDE. Tried out the hardened kernel. Was able to make Davinci Resolve work, which just caused a lot of trouble on Silverblue. Access to AUR. It was cool, really. And, for some time, I was actually pondering to dismiss Silverblue altogether in favor of EndeavourOS. But, I started to miss the ‘stability’ that I was used to from Silverblue. Though, I don’t exactly recall if it was the fault of being based on Arch, or rather linked/attributed to KDE instead. Regardless, I noticed that (over time) I spend more and more time on Silverblue. At some point, booting into EndeavourOS didn’t work any more. It had broken. I did engage in some troubleshooting efforts, but to no avail… ->

Zorin OS lite: On backup laptop; the poor thing couldn’t run Windows but (even today) it’s still kicking on Linux ->

Nobara: So, I guess I did miss some of the functionality provided by EndeavourOS; running Davinci Resolve being the primary one. But, I didn’t want to pass out of the opportunity to try something else. Back then, Nobara was released relatively recently and was received very positively by the community. And had even a special guide/tutorial to make Davinci Resolve work on AMD devices. Nobara was cool. But, it didn’t feel very special. I actually enjoyed EndeavourOS a lot more. It was mostly utilized for Davinci Resolve and for gaming if Silverblue wasn’t fit for the job (for whatever reason). Unfortunately, even this one broke at some point 😅. I could still boot into it. But, the system just didn’t do what it’s supposed to do. I tried troubleshooting. But, once again, to no avail. ->

uBlue; Silverblue image: Through all that was previously mentioned, I had stability in Fedora Silverblue. It was reliable. I could trust it. Well…, most of the time 😅. Decisions related to mesa or video acceleration in browsers definitely felt more like misses rather than hits. I can’t blame Fedora as they’re legally restricted. But, shouldn’t we be able to do better? Enter uBlue. It seemed like some black magic shenanigans. The earlier issues would have never occurred (nor did they occur) on uBlue. This ‘managed’ aspect of uBlue was clearly, at least for me, the reason to consider it over regular Silverblue. And so, I parted with regular Silverblue and started using the Silverblue image provided by uBlue. Not long after, I even had my own (hardened) custom image. But, eventually (to be more precise; about half a year after switching to uBlue), keeping up with hardening took up too much effort for me to bear. But, thankfully, I had already found the perfect solution… ->

secureblue (based on the Silverblue image): This was Silverblue hardened by someone that actually knows their shit. And, thankfully, I didn’t have to maintain this myself. I used this for a couple of months until the next best thing… ->

secureblue (based on the Bluefin image): Currently on this for I think half a year now. It has just been a lovely experience through and through. Everything I could have asked is provided.

yala ,

From the FAQ of Qubes OS (i.e. most secure desktop OS for general use):

“Why does Qubes use Xen instead of KVM or some other hypervisor?”

“In short: we believe the Xen architecture allows for the creation of more secure systems (i.e. with a much smaller TCB, which translates to a smaller attack surface). We discuss this in much greater depth in our Architecture Specification document.”

yala ,

Why are you even considering Manjaro?

If gaming is the priority, then I honestly don’t think anything out there can beat Bazzite in terms of ease of use, ‘hands-off’-ness, robustness and stability.

Honorable mentions include: Nobara and Pop!_OS.

yala ,

In your case it’s still an excellent choice.

Though, other opinionated images by uBlue (like e.g. Aurora and Bluefin) do deserve a mention. I’m on Bluefin (through secureblue to be more precise) as I desired more hardening than what Fedora offers by default.

The excellent part is also that it’s possible to rebase to another branch without reinstalling. So, let’s say you’re actually interested in experiencing these different images without going through the installation process over and over again. Then, you simple enter the following command:

rpm-ostree rebase …

With … being replaced by whatever is required for the image and/or branch you’re interested in. Then, simply reboot, (pro-tip: make a new user account and through the new user account) experience the other image. Rinse and repeat to your heart’s content.

yala ,

But they rely on rpmfusion, an external repo packaging the proprietary NVIDIA stuff for Fedora. The repo is not supported by Fedora, and the drivers cannot be fixed by anyone.

Not sure what you’re trying to say here. Would you mind elaborating? FWIW, Bazzite’s model (by default) allows automatic fixes to be applied to a broken driver without requiring any manual intervention from its user.

yala ,

The answer found here should give my general thoughts.

But, with embedded dev, I’d argue that both Aurora and Bluefin (with their respective DX: (i.e. development friendly) variants) should make more sense.

yala , (edited )

But there is no automatic repair voodoo anywhere, on any distro. That driver is proprietary, only NVIDIA can fix it.

Consider to revisit this, cuz this is basically (at least for me) most of uBlue’s schtick:

https://github.com/ublue-os/base/discussions/108

And the way it’s setup, is so that you don’t get the broken update ever on your device in the first place.

So, contrary to what you might expect, this black magic (or just excellent engineering) somehow does exist.

yala ,

I wanted to know from OP why they’re considering Manjaro.

Because it’s an excellent distribution which is also in the top of the Steam Survey (alongside Arch, Ubuntu, Mint and PopOS) (and Flatpak, and Steam Deck’s SteamOS).

I’d argue it’s to Arch what Ubuntu is to Debian. Do with that whatever you will.

Btw, ProtonDB’s numbers show that Manjaro is losing lots of ground over the years. I won’t deny that the negativity around it plays a significant role in this. However, to me, if it’s already installed on your device, your experience with it is simply more important than whatever’s said about it. Therefore, I’d argue that Manjaro’s ever decreasing market share has to be linked to users being ever so upset of its vision, direction and mishaps.

It’s a rolling distro but mitigates the risks of bleeding edge with a curated stable branch, offers LTS kernels going back to 4.19 but you can choose LTS or newer versions or RT patches, it does not force you to switch kernel version if you don’t want to, has visual management tools for packages, kernel management and driver installation, does a great job installing drivers during install, comes with extra safety features (update rollback built-in if you use BTRFS for root), Steam works great, you can use AUR and Flatpak etc.

All of that is cool and all, but trust is what it’s all about. And honestly, I think someone should get a diagnose for Stockholm syndrome if they’re still putting up with Manjaro after all it has done.

yala ,

I think we’re misunderstanding eachother. So perhaps consider to outline if you agree with the following:

  • uBlue has some systems in place that enable it to detect some breakages.
  • uBlue’s pipeline is such to not ship you the detected breakages.
  • After a method has been found to fix a breakage (or other issues), uBlue’s maintainers implement these fixes and then, the very next update, the users will receive an image that contains both the updated package and the fixes required for it to not cause problems. Heck, the user didn’t know anything was up in the first place. They didn’t notice a thing*.
  • uBlue’s issue/problem detect systems are not absolute; things might slip through.
  • However, Nvidia drivers will not cause breakage that will make you shiver in fear.
  • uBlue does not fix it on your device. They fix the image and that fixed image will deliver you the fix built-in; so manual intervention are a thing of the past (except for edge cases).
  • Their pipeline does not require nor does it detect (through telemetry or whatsoever) the breakage on the device of the user. Heck, as implied earlier, most breakages are detected, prevented from shipping broken, fixed, ship the fixed one before any end user is disturbed by it.
  • uBlue is not a Stable system (i.e. it does not freeze packages (apart from security updates) until the next major release). So yes, you receive updates all the time.
  • Not being tied to legal restrictions is cool. However, a lot of derivatives do this. So this can’t be its unique selling point.
  • uBlue is not entirely free. Its maintainers do pay money for providing some of their services (as has been mentioned by Jorge).
  • Some of their images do have testing branch; even Bazzite has.
yala ,

Thank you for contributing so that people don’t misunderstand!

I didnt know they have testing images, but makesbsense in their flagship variants.

You can verify it yourself from here.

Though, with all that’s mentioned above; do you still think Pop!_OS is better than Bazzite for Nvidia?

yala ,

I’m glad to hear that it has been working out for ya.

But, you see, I don’t dismiss the fact that you and others like you are still using and enjoying Manjaro. In fact, as I just stated already, I’m happy for y’all. However, why do you dismiss/belie/behave like an ostrich that burry their head in the sand when so many others voice their concerns?

yala ,

I will make my case clear of what I meant earlier:

Me:

  • Doesn’t understand by everything that has already been mentioned under this post why one is considering Manjaro.
  • But, I am glad to hear that it has been working lovely for some people.
  • Doesn’t accuse those who’ve enjoyed using Manjaro for lying, being not genuine or misrepresenting reality.

You:

  • Argue why Manjaro should be considered.
  • Mention how your experiences don’t quite align to the ones others are experiencing.
  • Your reception to concerns:

That page is not legit criticism, it’s a bunch of nonsense. It misrepresents what Manjaro does, outright lying in some cases, it fails to understand how package updates and AUR work, it glosses over the fact that Manjaro helped the AUR infrastructure. It’s prejudiced information made out specifically to make it look bad.

There is not one pertinent criticism in there. It’s all meaningless drivel presented as legit concerns.

I suppose I don’t need to spell it out for ya. How about, instead of taking the subject to other places, you address the following elephant in the room:

All of that is cool and all, but trust is what it’s all about.

  • Do you aknowledge that trust is the end all be all for considering a distro?
  • Do you outright deny every single thing mentioned in the infamous Manjarno?
  • If so, are you aware of any place where (with facts) a rebuttal (or something similar) can be found?
  • If not, could you write up one yourself? So that we may benefit from that as a community.

I like for the truth to prevail. And for injustice to be stopped. If Manjaro is actually accused of crimes they’ve not committed and if (therefore) misinformation is spread, then I’d desire that the world is ridden of that fake news.

yala ,

But as far as I know, NVIDIA just supports enterprise distros.

I tried looking this up, but to no avail. Got any proof to back this up?

I didnt know that, but uBlue uses random OCI container builds by Fedora for all their stuff, that Fedora doesnt even officially use themselves.

I don’t know how it is currently. However, initially, images were provided by maintainers affiliated to Fedora. Could you provide a link in which your current understanding is better described/explained?

yala , (edited )

Do you use it?

Nope.

What are your problems with it?

If you meant problems from usage; none, as I’m not using Manjaro.

Besides, I don’t need to use Manjaro to state the problems some of its users have experienced.

Btw, I’ve read your comment(s) under this post in which you clearly outline your thoughts on Manjarno. Thank you for those insights! My only question at this point would be have you (or whosoever) voiced this to Manjarno’s maintainer?

I say this, because I believe this approach to be a lot more effective and productive than discussing this with random people on Lemmy. Heck, one of Manjaro’s contributors has opened issues in Manjarno and it has gone as you’d expect; i.e. the truth prevailed and Manjarno changed some of its content to better represent reality.

Or, have you (or whosoever) considered writing up a ‘Manjaryes’? In which, most misconceptions regarding Manjaro are addressed and discussed.

yala ,

Yo! Apologies for the spam. I just wanted you to know that I appreciated this interaction and adore your enthusiasm towards Manjaro. Wish ya tha best. Bye!

yala , (edited )

Ubuntu is no longer the user friendly everyman’s desktop system anymore.

Agreed.

Arch is extremely user friendly, just not the installation process.

I do wonder what your definition of user friendly is. Cuz I can’t fathom how you can think that a distro that subscribes to what’s quoted below can (by any stretch of the imagination) be considered user friendly.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations

Which simple means that you have to check if you can update before you actually perform an update. That’s just wild.

And you know what’s most curious about this, we’ve actually solved (within Linux) issues related to updating your system. You read that correct, it’s a solved problem. And I hope that you’ll benefit from these advancements even if you continue to use Arch.

Btw, please don’t come to me with packages that automatically pop up in terminal to inform you about manual intervention. On my system, updates occur automatically in the background and with some black magic shenanigans (or just great engineering) it ‘fixes’ itself without requiring any manual intervention from me. That pop-up message in terminal can’t compete with that.

I find it to be much less of a pain in the ass to use than Debian based systems.

That’s subjective, but sure; you’re absolutely free to think that.

For one, you have the Arch User Repository, so you’re very unlikely to need to not be able to find some software you want, and more importantly, so many packages in Debian are out of date and they take forever to update them, stuff often breaks because the version needed as a dependency for something else is not in the repositories.

Distrobox exists. Moving on.

and pacman is so much more robust than apt.

What do you mean with robust here? And what makes you think that pacman is much more robust than apt? Thank you in advance for clarifying/elaborating!

I get frustrated online when I see people saying “Ubuntu is the most user friendly distro” or “arch is not for noobs”, this stuff was true like 10 years ago, that’s no longer the case. Ubuntu is user hostile, and there are arch derivatives that are basically arch with a graphical installer, which is the only part of using arch that is hard for people who aren’t hardcore nerds.

Honestly, I actually agree with you. Ubuntu has indeed lost all of its credibility. And Arch is absolutely not as bad as people make it out to be. But! In an environment in which Linux Mint, Zorin OS, Pop!_OS, Bazzite are mentioned; Arch simply is (by contrast) the lesser option in terms easy of use etc. So, while in absolute terms, it’s definitely not as bad as peeps make it out to be. It is, compared to the earlier mentioned distros, simply less newbie friendly.

It’s not like Gentoo or Void or Alpine or Nix or running a BSD system or something advanced like that.

Thankfully, no one ever bothers to recommend these to new users 😉.

So, to be clear, these are clearly too advanced and thankfully people never recommend these to newer users. However, while Arch isn’t that bad and thus can be used by some newbie users, it should IMO only very very carefully be recommended to new users. If it’s the kind of person that likes to learn as they go and enjoys reading documentation, then (by all means) it’s absolutely fine to recommend it. But you won’t find them that frequently…

yala ,

Thank you for your reply!

If you’ve ever “held broken packages” you’ll know what I mean by robust. I’ve had an entire distro upgrade break in Debian, it seems with a Debian system, eventually, you’re wiping and reinstalling because something broke. I have had this happen to every single Debian system I’ve installed since the gnome2 days.

I’m relatively new Linux user (just over two years now), so please bear with me. But, did I understand you correctly, that you hint towards the curious observation that rolling distros in general are technically ‘immortal’ while point-release distros eventually implode on themselves? If so, wouldn’t it be more correct to attribute this to the release model (i.e. point vs rolling) instead? Because, IIRC, this issue persists on openSUSE Leap, but doesn’t on openSUSE Tumbleweed. While both utilize zypper as their package manager.

When I talk about Debian and arch, I’m also talking of their downstream distros. So Mint would be a desktop oriented downstream distro for Debian. It inherits all the problems that come along with Debian, just as Manjaro or EndeavorOS would inherit anything that comes along with running arch. This is all in addition to any issues caused by those distros themselves.

But, if you noticed, I didn’t actually explicitly mention Arch’s install or its unopinionatedness as its downfall; which are indeed solved by its derivatives. The problem is with updates. At least on Debian and Ubuntu LTS, packages are (mostly) frozen and thus updates are in general non-existent and thus are not able to cause issues. The inevitable implosion happens once every two years at worst. Is that bad? Sure. But does it cause any trouble within those two years? Nope. And honestly, I don’t blame anyone that simply prefers to worry about updates once every two years instead of daily.

I wouldn’t recommend any new person install arch, in fact I don’t even do it because I get tired of the installation process. I’d recommend someone install EndeavorOS, which is just arch without the installation issues. If someone wants a Debian based system, I’ll recommend Linux Mint, but if you don’t already know why you want a Debian based system, if you’re just looking for a desktop that works, I’ll recommend EndeavorOS because the underlying Arch system is just IMO better than a Debian system.

Once again, installation is not the problem. I would like to kindly remind you that I haven’t even mentioned it once in my previous comment.

yala ,

If rolling release causes the system to implode, doesn’t that make arch more user friendly?

Actually my point was that point release distro seemingly implode at some point 😅. But, I’ll assume that you meant point release here. Then, I’d argue, if you really dislike reinstalling, then Arch scores better at that. But we don’t measure how user friendly a distro is on just a single metric. That doesn’t make sense.

I’ll quote the main body in which my argument against Arch being user friendly has been laid out. I hope you’ll respond this time:

I do wonder what your definition of user friendly is. Cuz I can’t fathom how you can think that a distro that subscribes to what’s quoted below can (by any stretch of the imagination) be considered user friendly.

“Note: It is imperative to keep up to date with changes in Arch Linux that require manual intervention before upgrading your system. Subscribe to the arch-announce mailing list or the recent news RSS feed. Alternatively, check the front page Arch news every time before you update.”

Which simple means that you have to check if you can update before you actually perform an update. That’s just wild.

And you know what’s most curious about this, we’ve actually solved (within Linux) issues related to updating your system. You read that correct, it’s a solved problem. And I hope that you’ll benefit from these advancements even if you continue to use Arch.

Btw, please don’t come to me with packages that automatically pop up in terminal to inform you about manual intervention. On my system, updates occur automatically in the background and with some black magic shenanigans (or just great engineering) it ‘fixes’ itself without requiring any manual intervention from me. That pop-up message in terminal can’t compete with that.

it’s package manager is just better than apt

Earlier you called it more robust. I laid out the fault in your logic. But you didn’t care to react to it… Regardless, if it’s only speed that makes you think that, then please just say so.

yala ,

Great observation on Ubuntu and drawing parallels to Red Hat.

Actually I’m going to accuse Fedora of doing this too. You kind of have to know “Fedora WorkStation” is the Gnome version which is considered the default, “Spins” are the versions with other DEs, and “Silverblue” is the immutable file system version.

I’m mixed on this. It’s a fact that Fedora Workstation receives the most love from Fedora. And while it’s undeniable that they also put a lot of effort into all DEs that they support, none come as polished as WorkStation. One might argue that the way different installations are found on Linux Mint’s website isn’t that different to what Fedora does on theirs.

yala ,

Hahaha. Okay, yeah you laid it out brilliantly. Thank you for that! I can’t but agree with you then. I hope some Fedora employee sees this @joojmachine. Apologies for the ping*.

yala , (edited )

😅. Alright, I’ll digest it for ya.

You said: “If rolling release causes the system to implode, doesn’t that make arch more user friendly?”

Which, if I’ll have to guess, is what you understand from the following sentences of mine:

  • “But, did I understand you correctly, that you hint towards the curious observation that rolling distros in general are technically ‘immortal’ while point-release distros eventually implode on themselves?”
  • “The inevitable implosion happens once every two years at worst.”

Which, are the only two instances I used the word. And, in both instances, it is pretty clear what I meant. I even just checked this with a LLM and it agrees with me on this.

However, the question you posed (i.e. “If rolling release causes the system to implode, doesn’t that make arch more user friendly?”) has many flaws within it:

  • Like, if rolling release cause a system to implode (which I never said nor implied), then, because an implosion is clearly undesirable and thus not user friendly, Arch (as a rolling release distro) would also have been less user friendly (not more user friendly*).

So, what did you actually try to convey with that sentence? Did you make a mistake while formulating it? If so, what did you actually intend to say/ask?

Regarding me quoting myself; it’s pretty simple. I just want to ask you if you think that a distro with the following policy can be considered user friendly. And if so, could you explain why you think that’s the case? Policy:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations

When I quoted the text found below, I wanted to ask you why you feel pacman is better than apt beyond the claimed robustness. I agree with you that I could (and perhaps should) be more explicit.

it’s package manager is just better than apt

You didn’t lay out “fault in my logic”

I meant the following parts of my previous writings:

I’m relatively new Linux user (just over two years now), so please bear with me. But, did I understand you correctly, that you hint towards the curious observation that rolling distros in general are technically ‘immortal’ while point-release distros eventually implode on themselves? If so, wouldn’t it be more correct to attribute this to the release model (i.e. point vs rolling) instead? Because, IIRC, this issue persists on openSUSE Leap, but doesn’t on openSUSE Tumbleweed. While both utilize zypper as their package manager.

But, if you noticed, I didn’t actually explicitly mention Arch’s install or its unopinionatedness as its downfall; which are indeed solved by its derivatives. The problem is with updates. At least on Debian and Ubuntu LTS, packages are (mostly) frozen and thus updates are in general non-existent and thus are not able to cause issues. The inevitable implosion happens once every two years at worst. Is that bad? Sure. But does it cause any trouble within those two years? Nope. And honestly, I don’t blame anyone that simply prefers to worry about updates once every two years instead of daily.

To make it easier for you:

  • Is Debian (according to you) not robust because it breaks eventually?
  • Do you acknowledge that this occurs beyond the Debian ecosystem?
  • Do you acknowledge that this occurrence seems to be found on distros with point releases, but not on distros with rolling releases?
  • Do you acknowledge that, therefore, blaming the package manager for this lack of robustness is perhaps an oversight?
  • And do you acknowledge that, with openSUSE Tumbleweed (rolling release distro) and openSUSE Leap (point release distro), this is perhaps most evident. As both rely on zypper, but the former is basically ‘immortal’, while the latter will eventually succumb to some major release.
  • Thus, do you acknowledge that, in fact, Debian’s lack of robustness can not justifiably be attributed (solely) to apt. Nor, can Arch’s (seemingly) superior robustness justifiably be attributed (solely) to pacman?
  • And thus, do you acknowledge that, we can’t continue to make the claim of pacman’s robustness as the reasoning doesn’t hold any truth in retrospect?

Earlier, when I said

Then, I’d argue, if you really dislike reinstalling, then Arch scores better at that. But we don’t measure how user friendly a distro is on just a single metric.

IF we both understand with your earlier statement of “pacman is so much more robust than apt” that you meant that Arch installations survive longer than Debian installs (under optimal conditions). Then, we could translate this argument to; if you dislike reinstalling, then Arch scores better. But, then I proceeded, with “But we don’t measure how user friendly a distro is on just a single metric.”. I don’t think this sentence needs any explanation, but I can clarify if you feel like it. The reason why I said “single metric”, is because I assumed - with how you actually didn’t try to rebuke anything that I said in this comment of mine - that you also agreed with my points. This might be a wrong assumption. So please feel free to correct me on this.

yala ,

First of all, I’d like to apologize if I misunderstood the situation. Communication only through text can be hard. And, in retrospect, I agree with you that I should have been more careful with my writing.

Secondly, please dismiss my last two replies. Especially the first is atrocious, while the second one was written under time pressure. Something that I should have not done to my fellow human being.

Thirdly, you’ve had another conversation with another user under this post. And I got most of what I wanted to get out of this conversation from that one already. And, I’d have to agree that that person was a lot more punctual and eloquent when wording their views. Thus, I understand why my writings might have felt as a downgrade by comparison.

Fourthly, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And I wish you a great day.

Fifthly, there’s actually one thing that I really want to know 😅. But, I’ll not bring it up, unless you allow me.

Cheers.

yala ,

So you’re really butthurt, eh 😂. Don’t worry; I won’t initiate any further contact. Consider growing up though. Cheers.

yala ,

So I have a two monitor setup, and I really dislike how gnome only lets you have the bar on the primary screen unless you install a plugin that is very outdated and I cannot get working on the latest version of gnome or use dash to dock, and I am not a fan of the dock style…

I believe both Dash to Panel and V-Shell are capable of resolving this issue in a way that should suit your needs IF you wish to continue using GNOME.

yala ,

Furthermore, a CLI instruction is DE-agnostic. So you don’t need to cover the same topic with explanations for at least 3/4 desktop environments. GUI instructions also change a lot faster than their CLI counterparts; so by providing the commands one provides the method with the best longevity. Overall, it’s just so much more efficient.

yala ,

Why does your brother use NixOS in the first place?

Don’t get me wrong; I think NixOS is a very interesting project with a very bright future. It probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration if I said that NixOS has single-handedly inspired the current immutable revolution. However, it’s also a distro that wants you to learn and digest its ways before it will return the favor.

But, based on my reading/understanding of your comment, your brother doesn’t strike me as a seasoned Linux user. Am I right? Btw, NixOS is hard unbeknownst of how many experiences you got with other distros. However, I would simply never recommend a new user to use (Gentoo, Guix System or) NixOS. There are definitely outliers, but they would have to find it themselves then.

yala ,

I would argue that NixOS absolutely is the OS you get if your time is worthless

Hard disagree. Does it require you to climb through heaps of trash documentation? Absolutely. But, if you persevere, you got yourself a rock solid system that will even make Debian Stable jealous; all while requiring no maintenance.

  1. Better documentation has been made available since relatively recently.
yala ,

I agree that Fedora Atomic, especially if you consume it through uBlue, provides (somehow) even less headache with only a fraction of the investment.

I say this as a very happy user of Fedora Atomic; who has (almost) exclusively been using Fedora Atomic on all of their systems (read: 1 laptop) for over two years.

yala , (edited )

I just wanted to offer some nuance to the table. After everything has been learned, enabling some (otherwise complex and obscure) features can be accomplished by a single line in your NixOS config. Like, this efficiency can not and should not be ignored.

You can find some of my thoughts on Fedora Atomic in another comment found under this post. Spoiler alert; for a lot of people, it’s what they seek from NixOS but (by contrast) with excellent delivery. I won’t ignore that it doesn’t have some of the more insane/interesting functionalities that NixOS provides. But, some just want atomicity, reproducibility and (some) declarativity; and Fedora Atomic does deliver on those without requiring you to go into the deep and learn an entire new language that’s only used for managing your distro 😅.

18+ What are the differences between the 'base' of various Linux distributions?

I’ve been using linux desktop for a year or so now. One noteable thing i keep seeing is that one person will say I dont like XYZ distrobution because of its base. But I am still a little unsure what is meant by it. I am assuming the main difference between each base is the choice of package management(?). But what other...

yala ,

You can divide distros into two categories:

  • Independent distros; these are not forks of other projects (at least not in their current iterations). We may also refer to these as upstream-projects.
  • Derivative distros; these are forks from the earlier mentioned projects. We may also refer to these as downstream-projects.

E.g. Zorin OS is a derivative of Ubuntu, which itself is a derivative of Debian. After the gargantuan effort it takes to make Debian possible, Ubuntu’s maintainers ‘grab’ Debian, apply a set of changes and ship it as Ubuntu. After which, Zorin OS’ maintainers grab Ubuntu, also apply a set of changes and ship it as Zorin OS.

Of course, not all derivatives are created equal; sometimes a single change is applied that by itself constitutes the fork. And other times, the changes are so massive that they blur the lines between independent and derivative; Ubuntu’s changes to Debian is a good example of this.

Derivative distros can’t simply change everything as they see fit; some things are simply essential parts. In most cases, these include:

  • the release cycle of the base; rolling-release vs point-release, but also LTS vs bleeding edge and everything in between
  • the (base) packages of the base

But what other factors/aspects that are important for the average user to know about each ‘base’?

I was about to write a long ass dissertation, but it became very unwieldy. Consider asking for specific bases and perhaps I will respond for those.

On a final note, it’s worth mentioning that differences between different distros have never been as blurry as they’re today. With e.g. Distrobox, one can install whatever package from whichever distro they want. Thus, we aren’t as tied to the packages provided by the base distro as we were used to. Furthermore, most distros have different ‘variants’ that allow access to different channels or release cycles. E.g. for those who want Debian packages but bleeding-edge; there’s Debian Sid etc.

Sure, a lot more can be said; like how corporate interest plays into all of this. But what has been mentioned above should suffice for now.

yala , (edited )

Unfortunately, perhaps understandably so, popularity is very hard to measure on Linux. Though, while far from representative, ProtonDB’s measurements do exist and provide us some insights. As for the distros found on the chart:

  • Arch (base):
    • Endeavour
    • Garuda^[1]^
    • Manjaro
  • Debian (base):
    • Ubuntu
      • Linux Mint^[2]^
      • Pop_OS!
  • Fedora (base):
    • Nobara
  • NixOS
  • openSUSE

Note that Flatpak is not a distribution, but a packaging format.

BoilingSteam’s article in which their thoughts and reflections are written can be found here.

  1. While it’s technically not labeled, the blue-colored columns found right below openSUSE belong to Garuda; as can be seen here (from an earlier iteration of the graph).
  2. Technically, Linux Mint also has their Debian Edition. But, the vast majority of its users should be using the one based directly on Ubuntu.
yala ,

Fam, with all due respect, reconsider how you go about interacting with the community for support.

We love to help, so don’t get me wrong. But you have to allow us to help you. Paramount with this is communication; so consider responding to questions asked by those who reach out to help.

Like, I’m not exaggerating when I say that your issues would have already been resolved if you had been (more) responsive.

yala OP ,

Traditionally; definitely. But if the purpose of package managers is to acquire packages fit for use with the distro, then the position of alt packaging formats (e.g. Nix) and/or solutions that make use of container technology (e.g. Distrobox) at least provide some food for thought.

Like, if I choose to install Debian (Stable) and openSUSE Leap and then proceed to install all my packages through distro-agnostic ways accessible on both distros (e.g. Flatpak, Brew, Nix etc.), then wouldn’t you agree that these systems become remarkably close to one another?

yala OP ,

Hats off for the efforts provided by maintainers. But I feel as if that potential should be better utilized (in part) to achieve greater goals.

yala OP ,

The philosophies behind the different distros is definitely something I didn’t touch upon earlier. Thank you for mentioning that!

I wonder how different the philosophies are between Arch, Debian Sid, Fedora Rawhide and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

yala OP ,

Thank you for touching upon the human-side of things! I wonder if my original point could be distilled to “Can we, humans, simply act more rational?” 😅.

yala OP ,

The main difference at this point isn’t what you can do with them, but how they’re set up by default

Excellently distilled most of my post.

I wonder if distros are interested to further blur the lines themselves; like how Debian and Fedora both enable Flatpak by default.

To be honest, I think the homogenization is a net positive.

Definitely. But I feel like we fail at capitalizing on this. Though, in all fairness, the fact that derivatives have lost (some of) their significance does convey to me that we’re currently in a major shift. I just wonder where we’ll end up and if there’s anything we (as a community) can do in order to accelerate the process.

yala , (edited )

Technically not a distro, but give Bazzite a try. It’s probably the most hands-off gaming experience on Linux. Valve employees also make contributions to it.

Any advice for a long-time Linux user, first-time Linux *desktop* user?

I’m a regular user of Linux systems but apart from a couple of test Ubuntu installs many years ago they’ve always been containers or VMs with no DE which I can throw away when I break them. The Steam Deck showcasing how far Wine/Proton has come combined with Windows being Windows has given me the push; I’ve made a Mint...

yala ,

If it is the default on the distro they intend to use, then, by all means, they should definitely go with it. Btrfs has been really stable for a pretty long time anyways. Just don’t use it for RAID 5/6 and you’d be absolutely fine.

yala ,

TIL. Thank you!

yala ,

There’s also the herd mentality; i.e. peeps like to up vote something that has already been up voted and down vote something that has already been down voted. I was the first to up vote; with my vote it became +2 -7. So, since then, it has received 4 up votes and 6 down votes. Which is at least an improvement.

The point I wanted to make is that there’s more to it. I wouldn’t simply refer to it as symptom of toxicity and call it a day.

New Linux user, here is my use case. Distro recommendations?

Update 1: Thanks for all the responses! I’ve gotten a lot of very good comments saying I should stick with Mint, and that’s sitting comfortably in my top two picks right now. Between new distros, I’m most interested in Arch’s rolling release model, as it provides some benefits for me for reasons I didn’t really get...

yala ,

Update 2: After trying out EOS, Arch, Manjaro, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Universal Blue, among many other options, I’ve come to the decision that I’m okay with sticking to Mint for now on my main desktop and setting up UBlue Aurora on my work laptop, but might consider switching to Kubuntu or Fedora if I want something similar at work and at home (one of my main draws away from Mint was that it didn’t offer a KDE option), or to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed if I must have a rolling distro for some reason. Thank you all for your guidance, and happy distro hopping!

Thank you for the update!

Could you elaborate upon your decision-making?

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