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Cake day: November 6th, 2024

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  • It was heralded as such a couple of years back. And while I’d argue it didn’t manage to keep up the momentum since, this recent update has definitely reignited my enthusiasm towards the project.

    Regardless, you should test out distros that interest you on a Live-USB. I’d recommend employing Ventoy to that effect as it allows you to simply stack multiple ISOs on the same USB. Furthermore, adding/removing ISOs is as easy as placing/removing it in/from the designated folder. In effect, it does a great job at streamlining the process.

    As for which distro to use, consider making a dedicated post in one of the Linux communities with this inquiry. Consider mentioning stuff like:

    • activities on PC
    • what software you use
    • device specs

    If you’re not interested in creating a dedicated post, but would like a rundown/infodump instead, then consider requesting that in a reply to this comment.


  • I love both GNOME and automatic/dynamic tiling. So Regolith should have been a match made in heaven. However, unfortunately:

    • It’s not found in the repositories of any major distro. You know it’s messed up if it’s not packaged as a nixpkg!
    • If you can look surpass that, it’s still intended only on Debian/Ubuntu. While the AUR package exists (and even RebornOS -an Arch-derivative- offers it in their own repos), you’re simply out of luck outside of that. So, as a Fedora enjoyer myself, this unfortunately applies to me as well.


  • Unsure if you’re being serious or not. Or if this is just bait. So I apologize in case I just got whooshed.

    There’s a decent amount of distros that don’t require you to ever operate a terminal. Updates either

    • happen automatically in the background
    • Or, you’re prompted for an update and can choose to run it
    • Or, within settings or a dedicated app, you can press a button to initiate the process of updating

    Furthermore, most distros that are recommended for beginners don’t need regular updates anyways.

    Updating isn’t the only part that has been taken care of by this set of distros. Linux has become pretty smooth sailing overall.

    Notable exceptions to the above are mostly tied to some janky/troublesome hardware setup. Or, if you’d like to run software that isn’t easily accessible. In those cases, while a GUI-only solution may exist, it’s simply a lot easier for all involved parties if a terminal solution is offered instead:

    • it works on most distros; irrespective of version, DE, base distro or whatsoever. So, the one providing a solution doesn’t have to create over a dozen of distinct solutions to cover all bases
    • these methods tend to change a lot less frequently. Sometimes solutions are tied to DEs, and these may change how they organize stuff over time. So, terminal solutions have better longevity
    • instead of moving through dozens of menus/toolbars/buttons or whatsoever, you literally copy and paste a couple of commands and you’re done. I would prefer the terminal any day

    OP, you did get me curious, though. Which distro do you use?





  • Obligatory watch for those interested in buying a new laptop. TL;DW: the latest generation of CPUs is such an improvement over the last one, that it feels like you’re seriously missing out if you don’t buy one of 'm.

    Assuming that Arm-powered Linux devices aren’t ‘ready’ for your workloads, we’re left with the latest by AMD and Intel.

    However, it’s noteworthy to mention that these aren’t provided by traditionally Linux-first vendors like NovaCustom, System76, Star Labs or TUXEDO computers yet.

    Heck, these are currently only found on laptops by ASUS, HP, Lenovo and MSI. And from within their offerings, none are sold with Linux OOTB yet. This isn’t important for easy install (as I’ve yet to find one bundled with EndeavourOS anyways), but it is for proper Linux support so early into its lifecycle.

    So, quite frankly, I’d suggest you to abstain from buying a device right now as it might lead to buyer’s remorse. Instead, consider buying one at next year’s Black Friday.


    However, if you truly need one device right now, then I’d stick to one sold with an AMD Zen 4 processor. Furthermore, either ensure that the device is sold with Linux OOTB, or check out its ArchWiki entry to see how well-documented it is and buy accordingly.

    For specific device recommendations, you seem to be particularly interested in making use of Black Friday deals, and thus I’d assume that price is an important factor. Unfortunately, most Linux-first vendors aren’t particularly known for offering great buck for your money. This does make it easier to choose, though.

    Taking all of the above into consideration, we actually arrive -perhaps unsurprisingly- at Lenovo’s Thinkpad line of devices with AMD’s Zen 4 processors.




  • however, for them to be “main”, they should have “derivatives”,

    Got you. Aight. I suppose that does disqualify NixOS. Though, to be fair, Guix System is heavily inspired from NixOS.

    I also tried Nix OS, the use of 1 config file is refreshing, however that ease comes at the cost of some flexibility, installing Steam there is too complicated for me

    Hehe 😜. Yeah, the paradigm shift associated with NixOS isn’t one that’s overcome in one sitting. But it’s cool to hear that you’ve tested it for yourself.

    Anyhow, this was a cool interaction. Thank you for offering your insights! Wish you, my akhi in (at least) humanity, a lovely day!


  • I suppose that’s a fair assessment. Thanks for the clarification!

    However, I do give precedence over their current situations.

    • So, if e.g. Arch would continue to exist, but ultimately became the downstream/derivative of another distro, then I would stop regarding it as ‘main’. Which one may argue happened between RHEL and Fedora.
    • Similarly, if a derivative starts building their own repos and becomes entirely independent from the distro they were originally derived from, then I’d stop regarding them as a derivative. Instead I’d acknowledge them as an independent distro. Like how openSUSE ultimately is derived from Slackware, but they’re hardly comparable today.

    Regarding NixOS, it and other independent distros are absent in the link you provided. NixOS is literally its own thing and also old; older than Ubuntu and Android for example. So, if anything, it did deserve a mention. Though, I suppose the maker of that website didn’t think it was relevant enough to be included over three years ago. NixOS’ popularity has thankfully exploded in the mean time, though.



  • I suppose we differ in our definitions. Which is absolutely fine, to be honest*.

    For completeness’ sake, IMO it’s basically the intersection of Major Distributions and Independent Distributions. Which happens to consist of Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE and Slackware.

    Out of these, Arch and Gentoo don’t have defaults, but their documentation uses ext4 most frequently for examples. For the remaining four, Fedora and openSUSE default to Btrfs. While Debian and Slackware default to ext4.

    In all fairness, one might argue that Distrowatch’s list of major distros is arbitrary. Therefore, we could refine what’s found above by including actually data. For this, I’ll use Boiling Steam’s usage chart based on ProtonDB’s data. This ain’t perfect either, but it’s the best I can do. Here, we notice how both Gentoo and Slackware are not represented. Furthermore, NixOS poses as a candidate instead. For which, we find that (if anything) ext4 is the default. Regardless, it doesn’t actually impact the earlier outcome:

    • Arch (and Gentoo) don’t have defaults
    • Debian(, Slackware and NixOS) default to ext4
    • Fedora and openSUSE default to Btrfs

    Anyhow, what are the main distros according to you? Please offer an exhaustive list, please. Thanks in advance!



  • Initially, I was drawn to KDE Plasma for familiarity. Therefore, when installing Linux for the first time, I chose a distro with KDE Plasma. Which happened to be Fedora Kinoite 35, a very new distro at the time. It was clearly buggy and after fiddling with it for some time, I just had to rebase to Silverblue (and GNOME) for the lack of alternatives.

    Thankfully, I actually happened to really like GNOME. This was on a laptop and GNOME’s touchpad gestures just felt very satisfying and intuitive; much better than anything else I had experienced before. Its (intended) workflow also made a lot of sense that way.

    GNOME has really grown on me ever since. And while I’ve revisited KDE Plasma to see what I was supposedly missing out on, I simply stuck to GNOME as it felt cleaner and more elegant.



  • You didn’t get my point. Btrfs is one OG distro removed from being THE standard. It’s doing a lot better than you’re making it out to be.

    It’s not like Btrfs is dunking on all other file systems and Debian is being unreasonable by defaulting to ext4. Instead, Btrfs wins some of its battles and loses others. It’s pretty competent overall, but ext4 (and other competing file systems) have their respective merits.

    Thankfully, we got competing standards that are well-tested. We should celebrate this diversity instead of advocating for monocultures.


  • Both Fedora and openSUSE default to Btrfs. That’s all the praise it needs really.

    With Bcachefs still being relatively immature and the situation surrounding (Open)ZFS unchanged, Btrfs is the only CoW-viable option we got. So people will definitely find it, if they need it. Which is where the actual issue is; why would someone for which ext4 has worked splendidly so far, even consider switching? It’s the age-old discussion in which peeps simply like to stick to what already works.

    Tbh, if only Debian would default to Btrfs, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.