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.).

  • raubarno@lemmy.ml
    25·
    1 year ago

    I’d recommend rather boring Debian. Archlinux as well if you want to dive deeper.

    EDIT: For Debian, you want Debian Testing.

  • dark_stang@beehaw.orgEnglish
    17·
    1 year ago

    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?

    • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org
      4·
      1 year ago

      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

    • lenathaw@lemmy.ml
      2·
      1 year ago

      Linux user since 2008 here.

      Boring Debian for servers and Pop Os for my desktop because everything works out of the box

    • vettnerk@lemmy.ml
      2·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • Atemu@lemmy.ml
    16·
    1 year ago

    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?

    • chevy9294@monero.townOP
      5·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • al177@lemmy.sdf.org
    171·
    1 year ago

    Don’t sleep on OpenSuSE. It supports everything you’re looking for and has options for periodic and rolling release.

    • Emperor Palpapeen@mastodon.social
      21·
      1 year ago

      @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

      • StarkZarn@infosec.pubEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        That sort of configuration after the fact would be a fantastic addition, if not already in place.

  • Klaymore@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    1 year ago

    Plain old minimal arch to start is a great solution that’s not too painful to manage IMO. That is where I landed after not wanting to figure out how to make full compiles palatable.

  • BoofStroke@lemm.eeEnglish
    92·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • fraydabson@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • SunRed@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      1 year ago

      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.