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.).
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Gentoo probably not, I don’t have time for compiling everything
Just wanted to say I use gentoo and was going to recommend it. Compile times really shouldn’t impact you that much as they’re running in background and can be configured to not impact other processes. And compiles are very fast for most applications, it’s only the few heavy ones that aren’t.
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.
Whichever one works best for you.
Now that’s an experienced user.
NixOS definitely. The disk encryption with keys you may need do that manually though.
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.
Sooner or later everyone will find their way to Debian. It’s boring and it works.
@InverseParallax @chevy9294 whoa LXC / LXD since it uses virtualization means one can rock their own kernels? Hmmm
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.
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@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
That sort of configuration after the fact would be a fantastic addition, if not already in place.
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.
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.
Can confirm NixOS is the shit. Can’t imagine myself using anything else
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.
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.
There’s an immutable Arch project out there called
Let me suggest: Fedora. It’s a solid distro that makes some good decisions, doesn’t require a huge amount of effort (unless an update bricks it but it’s been a long time since that happened), and can be further customized if needed.
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?
Linux user since 2008 here.
Boring Debian for servers and Pop Os for my desktop because everything works out of the box
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
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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.
just install tumbleweed and never distrohop ever again
Fedora 38
Linux mint
