so a common claim I see made is that arch is up to date than Debian but harder to maintain and easier to break. Is there a good sort of middle ground distro between the reliability of Debian and the up-to-date packages of arch?
I like the idea of a stable distro as the host OS and Distrobox with Arch and the AUR for applications.
For most of my machines, I do not need the latest kernel or even the latest desktop environment. But it is a pain to have out of date desktop apps and especially dev tools.
I think this strikes a nice balance.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but NixOS. It has package up-to-dateness comparable to (and sometimes better than) Arch, but between being declarative (and reproducible) and allowing rollbacks, it’s much harder to break. The cost is, of course, having to learn how to use NixOS, as it’s a fair bit different to using a “normal” Linux distro.
Double this, nix has entirely changed my perspective on what I should expect from software and my operating system. It’s so rock solid and roll backs are easy. Reproduction with all the customization you could ever want with incredible transparency.
While I never saw the benefit (it is to complex) I do think it isn’t a bad choice
to be honest it’s actually not that hard depending on what you do with your PC. If you want something you can set up once and forget about NixOS is perfect, put auto-updates and the stable channel and you will be able to forget about it for months, only having to occasionally edit your config file to switch to a new release. In fact I’d argue that if they manage to get a GUI package manager, and auto-update + auto-clean setup on installation, they’d probably be one of the best noob-friendly distros out there even.
The issue is that they sometimes tend to do big changes to how things are handled, documentation is sorely lacking and if you’re a tinkerer (especially if you like ricing) you may have a harder time than regular distros. That said the convenience of having a list of all the programs you use in a single file is amazing and I hope every package manager adopts a similar declarative way of installing software.
I find it much easier to just use something more “normal”
fair enough it’s one of the reasons I switched out of NixOS but it’s not too much harder if your usecase doesn’t involve programs not in the repo or building from source tbf
Fedora is a good middle ground, it’s what Asahi Linux uses as its official distro
+1 for Fedora. It is exactly what OP is asking for.
Another upvote for Fedora. I tried SO many flavors over the years and every single one of them, while cool and neat up front eventually developed “something” that was too problematic.
So I asked for a recommendation with a very specific set of things that I needed from a distribution. Everybody told me to just stop messing around with different flavors and just go with plain old vanilla Fedora.
It has been rock solid and perfect in every way, and I no longer have that need to distrohop because I’m missing something.
What’s wrong with Ubuntu/Mint/PopOS/Fedora or any of the distros usually recommended? They’re easier to maintain and more up to date than Debian
I wouldn’t call them up to date but they are a little newer than Debian with the exception of Pop OS.
wouldn’t call them up to date
they are a little newer
Huh
What is confusing? It is newer than Debian but still fairly out of date compared to Fedora or the latest Ubuntu release
deleted by creator
which Debian? Have you considered Debian testing or unstable?
install debian
apt install flatpak
flatpak install theThingYouWantTheLatestOf
I don’t get the down votes. This is a perfectly reasonable approach
This. (although I follow the directions here, which is a little more than apt install). The only thing I couldn’t get on Debian stable is the latest gnome. But when I tried debian testing, it was slightly broken anyway. And gnome extensions could get most of the functionality missing in my older gnome version. Debian stable + flatpak + anaconda + adding repositories (like for firefox) is a perfect compromise.
What’s nice about a stable distro is you can update the things you want to update, and your OS isn’t constantly changing a million packages a week that you don’t even know the function of.
Oh damn true I forgot about adding a repo
Fedora is generally pretty good
Debian and learn to use the nix package manager for your bleeding edge stuff
IMO Debian is already pretty far middle-ground. The packages are new enough for my personal usage.
Manjaro has been specifically designed to have fresh packages (sourced from Arch) but to be user friendly, long term stable, and provide as many features as possible out of the box.
It requires some compromises in order to achieve this, in particular it wants you to stick to its curated package repo and a LTS kernel and use it’s helper apps (package/kernel/driver manager) and update periodically. It won’t remain stable if you tinker with it.
You’ll get packages slower than Arch (depending on complexity, Plasma 6 took about two months, typically it’s about two weeks) but faster than Debian stable.
I’m running it as my main driver for gaming and work for about 5 years now and it’s been exactly what I wanted, a balanced mix of rolling and stable distro.
I’ve also given it to family members who are not computer savvy and it’s been basically zero maintenance on my part.
If it has one downside is that you really have to leave it alone to do its thing. In that regard it takes a special category of user to enjoy it — you have to either be an experienced user who knows to leave it alone or a very basic user who doesn’t know how to mess with it. The kind of enthusiastic Linux user who wants to tinker will make it fall apart and hate it, and they’d be happier on Arch or some of the other distros mentioned here.
or you could use a distro made by competent people and that actually serves the purpose Manjaro claims to have.
You really shouldn’t go for Arch & derivatives if you don’t want to fiddle with your system (the whole point of Arch & co) and really want stability (not that arch is that unstable tbh as long as you manage it proprely). Manjaro included. In fact especially manjaro since it manages to be less stable than Arch specifically because of their update policy. I mean why even be on Arch if you can’t use the AUR and have the latest packages?
Aside from this and maybe a few others there isn’t really a wrong distro to choose, better alternatives would be NixOS (stable), Fedora, Debian testing and probably several other distros that you probably should avoid for being one-man projects or stuff.
There is no other Arch-based distro that strives to achieve a “rolling-stable” release.
Alternatives like Fedora have already been mentioned by other comments.
Debian testing is not a rolling release. Its package update strategy is focused on becoming the next stable so the frequency ebbs and flows around stable’s release cycle.
manjaro since it manages to be less stable than Arch specifically because of their update policy
This is false. Their delayed updates mitigate issues in latest packages. Plasma 6 was released late but it was a lot more usable, for example.
I mean why even be on Arch if you can’t use the AUR and have the latest packages?
Anybody who wants Arch should use Arch. Manjaro is not Arch.
Some of us don’t want the latest packages the instant they release, we’re fine with having them a week or a month late if it means extra stability.
There’s nothing magical about what Manjaro is doing, it stands to reason that if you delay packages even a little some bugs will be fixed.
Also you can use AUR on Manjaro perfectly fine, I myself have over 100 AUR packages installed. But AUR is not supported even by Arch so it’s impossible to offer any guarantees for it.
There’s also Flatpak and some people may prefer that since it’s more reliable.
that’s because you can’t have both. It’ arch or it’s very stable. Granted Arch by itself is not that unstable if you manage it well and know what you’re doing but we’re talking hardly ever having to troubleshoot something.
Manjaro doesn’t acieve any more stability than Arch, and in fact is actually worse than arch.
Debian testing is a rolling.
Manjaro is an arch derivative and has the bad parts of arch still. Again, why recommend manjaro when you have better alternatives that actually achieve what manjaro sets itself out to be? Fedora had KDE plasma 6 sooner than Manjaro afaik and it managed to be stable, it is a semi-rolling with up to date yet stable packages etc, same for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Manjaro has no purpose, it’s half-assed at being arch and it’s half-assed at being stable.
AUR isn’t a problem in Manjaro because of lack of support, it’s a problem because packages there are made with Arch and 99.999% of its derivatives in mind, aka latest packages not one week old still-broken packages. Also Manjaro literally accidentally DDoSes the AUR every now and then because again they’re incompetent.
And if you’re going to be using Flatpaks then all the more reason to not bother using Manjaro or any arch derivative and just use an actually stable distro with flatpaks.
Manjaro has no purpose, it’s half-assed at being arch and it’s half-assed at being stable.
My experience with Manjaro and Fedora, OpenSUSE etc. contradicts yours. Manjaro has the best balance between stability and rolling out of the box I’ve seen.
“Out of the box” is key here. You can tweak any distro into doing anything you want, given enough time and effort. Manjaro achieves a good balance without the user having to do anything. I remind you that I’ve tested this with non-experienced users and they have no problem using it without any admin skills (or any admin access).
Debian testing is a rolling.
It is not.
AUR isn’t a problem in Manjaro because of lack of support, it’s a problem because packages there are made with Arch and 99.999% of its derivatives in mind, aka latest packages not one week old still-broken packages.
And yet I’ve managed to install dozens of AUR packages just fine. How do you explain that?
Matter of fact, I’ve never run into an AUR package I couldn’t install on Manjaro. What package is giving you trouble?
Manjaro literally accidentally DDoSes the AUR every now and then because again they’re incompetent.
You’re being confused.
AUR had very little bandwidth to begin with and could not cope with the rise in popularity of Arch-based distros. That’s a problem that needs to be solved by the AUR repo first and foremost. Manjaro did what they could when the problem became apparent and has added caching wherever it could. Both Manjaro and Arch devs have worked together to improve this.
How do you explain that?
Easy: You were merely lucky that they didn’t break.
And no it wasn’t just a rise in popularity of Arch it was Manjaro’s PAMAC sending too many requests DDoSing the AUR.
You were merely lucky that they didn’t break.
Lucky… over 5 years and with a hundred AUR packages installed at any given time? I should play the lottery.
I’ve noticed you haven’t given me any example of AUR packages that can’t be installed on Manjaro right now, btw.
it wasn’t just a rise in popularity of Arch it was Manjaro’s PAMAC sending too many requests DDoSing the AUR.
You do realize that was never conlusively established, right? (1) Manjaro was already using search caching when that occured so they had no way to spam AUR, (2) there’s more than one distro using pamac, and (3) anybody can use “pamac” as a user agent and there’s no way to tell if it’s coming from an actual Manjaro install.
My money is on someone actually DDoS’ing AUR and using pamac as a convenient scapegoat.
Last but not least you’re trying to use this to divert from the fact AUR packages work fine on Manjaro.
Debian Stable isn’t the only way to run Debian though people often act like it. That said, if you want the stability of Debian Stable then run it with the nix package manager (nix-bin).
Or with Flatpak!
fedora atomic desktops (silverblue, kinoite, and derivatives like bluefin etc) are really great. They are as up-to-date as fedora, with an additional layer of stability provided by its atomic and image based nature.
Garuda. It’s an Arch derivative that creates a snapshot of your system every time you update. That way, if the update breaks something, you can just roll your system back to the last working snapshot.
Debian Testing.
Debian Testing has a lot more current packages, and is generally fairly stable. Debian Unstable is rolling release, and mostly a misnomer (but it is subject to massive changes at a moment’s notice).
Fedora is like Debian Testing: a good middleground between current and stable.
I hear lots of good things about Nix, but I still haven’t tried it. It seems to be the perfect blend of non-breaking and most up-to-date.
I’ll just add to: don’t believe everything you hear. Distrowars result in rhetoric that’s way blown out of proportion. Arch isn’t breaking down more often than a cybertruck, and Debian isn’t so old that it yearns for the performance of Windows Vista.
Arch breaks, so does anything that tries to push updates at the drop of a hat; it’s unlikely to brick your pc, and you’ll just need to reconfigure some settings.
Debian is stable as its primary goal, this means the numbers don’t look as big on paper; for that you should be playing cookie clicker, instead of micromanaging the worlds’ most powerful web browser.
Try things out for yourself and see what fits, anyone who says otherwise is just trying to program you into joining their culture war
