I’d like to settle on a distro, but none of them seem to click for me. I want stability more than anything, but I also value having the latest updates (I know, kind of incompatible).

I have tested Pop!_Os, Arch Linux, Fedora, Mint and Ubuntu. Arch and Pop being the two that I enjoyed the most and seemed the most stable all along… I am somewhat interested in testing NixOS although the learning curve seems a bit steep and it’s holding me back a bit.

What are you using as your daily drive? Would you recommend it to another user? Why? Why not?

  • crystal@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    I use NixOS on my main PC.

    If you want to use NixOS, you have to be willing to read.

    Two things are especially difficult:

    Coding: You will have to learn the Nix-specific way for everything you do. How does Nodejs work in NixOS? How does GCC work in NixOS? How does my IDE work in NixOS?

    Using unofficial packages: The nix repos are very large and you’ll most likely find everything you need there (or on flatpak/flathub). But if something isn’t there, the easiest way tends to be packaging it as a nix package yourself. And that’s something many people probably don’t want to do.

    The coding thing is annoying enough that I may switch away from NixOS at some point.

    Other than that, NixOS is great.

  • DerRackletTänzer@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    Solus - get updates all the time, don’t have to think about reinstalling and don’t have to pay attention if an update could break my system

  • ehrenschwan@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    So I use Arch for my personal work. I never had a problem with stability. I’ve also started to be interested in NixOS, but I’m gonna just use it as an Server OS, I feel like it makes sense with the infrastructure as code implications.

  • anteaters@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    openSuse. After my years of distro hopping ended over a decade ago I settled on openSuse Leap and never switched to something else again. It’s reliable and gives me the least bullshit. And by now it’s the one I have the most experience in.

    //edit
    Leap on my server and tumbleweed on my work laptop but Leap would be sufficient there, too.

  • denny@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    I tried quite a few of distros and I keep on going back to Fedora. A lot of things come out of the box such as Flatpak, it won’t pester you about the password when you just want to install a app and i barely find myself solving issues with command line.

    My other two favorites are Mint and Pop, i can recommend these to beginners and I really just like a good out of the box experience, avoiding command line where possible. Are there others that tick these boxes?

  • TheFrirish@jlai.lu
    0·
    1 year ago

    Well I would have normally said Fedora but with the current RedHat issues I’m thinking of making a switch. but in my opinion Fedora was always rock stable and leading edge. currently looking at an alternative.

    • denny@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      It got me worried too but finding out that Fedora is practically Red Hat’s testing ground to test new features before they end up in the paid product is a relief. Red Hat has no reason to pull the plug of their own coffee machine they’ve been using for the longest time, particulary when kind people come along and maintain it for free. It’s just that fewer than usual come because of Red Hat’s changes: Quite a few people of Fedora have left the community. Not just because of the recent stuff but the CentOS fiasco a few years back.

      I’m based and think that company backed distros are the easiest and stablest OS. There is one that ticks your boxes and as much as it pains me to tell you, it is Ubuntu. However you should look into its derivatives that choose not to employ Snap first: Mint and Pop. :) Addendum: OpenSUSE

  • aksdb@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    I am typically on Arch on all my machines since 2006. For a while I bootstrapped new machines using EndeavorOS, but usually stripped out their packages and returned to vanilla arch. Since I now prefer ZFS as root fs, I am back to installing from scratch, to get exactly the layout I want.

  • gkpy@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    unless we’re talking about my main machine, which runs gentoo, i’ll always default to alpine. super solid base system and packages. super accessible when it comes to upstreaming packages. I only wish they had s6 as an option for init/service manager

  • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    Go to? Probably Mint. Such a good distro. Unfortunately I recently joined camp KDE Plasma and no other desktop environment can even compare.
    I’m on Fedora KDE now. Solid distro for now at least.
    If I need to return to monkee: EndeavourOS

  • Lemmchen@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    For the past six years it has been Kubuntu, but I think it’s time to finally abort Canonical and their idiosyncrasies and choose Debian as a KDE base, especially now that Debian 12 includes non-free firmware by default.

  • CarlCook@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    Xubuntu - great ootb configuration, lightning fast on my old thinkpad without compromising on functionality