What Linux distro should I choose?
What Linux distro should I choose?
I'm moving away from Windows and I'm looking for distro for coding and occasional gaming. If more context is needed please let me know.
You're viewing a single thread.
Permanently Deleted
As long as it's tumbleweed.
Non rolling release distros are completely inappropriate for desktop use
Non rolling release distros are completely inappropriate for desktop use
Why exactly? Because you need to manually upgrade to newer versions?
Yes. It makes sense on production servers because you have staging envs to test upgrades. All it does on a desktop is make you use old versions of tools until one day you have a massive update to new old versions of tools, which is way more likely to break shit than doing small, consistent upgrades
I completely agree, it seems ridiculous to have to reinstall, manually edit sources or have a large number of programs break on you to stay up to date. It’s one of the things Windows does better. I’m personally considering switching to OpenSUSE Slowroll when it leaves beta testing.
Fwiw arch is great. As long as you regularly update, it's never an issue.
And they now have an
archinstallscript on the live image. It's not a GUI, but it's a very simple cli app to set up your complete install.But why would I choose Arch over something like Fedora?
Well for one, fedora comes with gnome. So that's already a reason not to. Also afaik fedora isn't actually a true rolling release.
Also pacman is the best and the arch repos are amazing, augmented with the AUR
Well for one, fedora comes with gnome.
There are spins with various DE's: KDE, Xfce, Cinnamon, MATE+Compiz, i3, LXQt, LXDE, SOAS, Phosh (Phone Shell), Sway, Budgie. You aren't supposed to able to change or install multiple DE's though as far as I know, but that isn't a problem for me because I always use KDE.
Also afaik fedora isn’t actually a true rolling release.
That's true, the updates are a bit slower. But I actually prefer that, that's why I'm interested in slowroll.
Also pacman is the best and the arch repos are amazing, augmented with the AUR
I have heard a lot of good things about the AUR. I'm currently using a combination of zypper packages, nix packages, Flatpak apps and opi and using a single method would be preferable (system packages and flatpak would be fine too).
But I actually prefer that, that’s why I’m interested in slowroll.
IMO that's a mistake. Especially for kde, and especially wayland. KDE moves very quick. If you're not on a distro that has the latest stable packages at any time you're missing out. I hear people on linux bitch about kde only to realize they're on some LTS distro running kde 5.24 or something.
And staying on old versions of stuff is stupid. Do you have a staging environment that you test upgrades? Because if not, all you're doing is pushing off changes until you have to dump a huge amount of them at once, which is WAY more likely to break stuff in ways that will be extremely hard to figure out, instead of incremental upgrades.
I have heard a lot of good things about the AUR. I’m currently using a combination of zypper packages, nix packages, Flatpak apps and opi and using a single method would be preferable (system packages and flatpak would be fine too).
I haven't used nix stuff, but the AUR and the official repos are why arch is so great. Basically everything you could possibly want is in there, and kept up to date. When I have to use other distros I think it's totally absurd how many applications want you to install ppas, or curl custom scripts and pipe them to bash, it's absurd. Totally a step backwards in linux.