this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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You will get very different opinions here. Important are what you want to do
I would recommend Fedora Kinoite. Install the official image or use the Ublue image. They are recent but checked updates, versioned, resettable, etc. With Fedora and lots of other distros you have automatic backups, if an update may break something.
Its basically the future of Linux, at least for most use cases.
PS: I literally broke evey other Distro, most of the recommended ones here.
While disagreeing, I still upvoted. I think more people should see this suggestion and add their opinion too.
I'm a huge fan of SB/ uBlue, but I don't know if I would recommend it to a new user.
For me personally, it's the best distro ever. It's reliable, modern, AND it doesn't break.
I'm the most talented person ever to break my stuff. I already managed to do that, even on on SB and fixing the kernel panic (+other breakages), which I would have done by reinstalling, was only one reboot and boom, it worked again. I just want to get my tasks done (gaming, etc.) and knowing I never have to spend a weekend reinstalling is godsend.
BUT, things just work differently, and sometimes more complicated. You never install something traditionally, only per container (e.g. Distrobox or Flatpak), which is extremely uncommon. And, there are still here and there some limitations. For example, you will never install a VPN client, since they want to interact and change the base system, which they can't
I would recommend something Debian-based, like Mint. If you don't tinker, they also never break. And most guides are for exactly those distros.
SB is more for either people you KNOW that they will never explore the system (e.g. my mum) and only use their device like a tablet,
or who are exactly this advanced in their Linux journey that they begin tinkering without knowing what they're doing, breaking their system and not being able to fix it themselves. Or they begin distrohopping.
I for example always broke any distro somehow "without doing anything wrong". Reinstalling was always easier than fixing for me.
And I was a huge distrohopper too, which is fixed by now.
Yes I also broke lots of distros, (Linux Mint, Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Fedora KDE) and switched away from MXLinux (too old) and Manjaro (bad reputation even though great experience)
You can install packages normally? I think you got something wrong here.
Just do
rpm-ostree install apporrpm-ostree install /path/to/app.rpmfor local RPMs. Like normal actually.Yes agree and agree, I broke everything else.
I disagree with Debian. Apt is horrible, updates are bad. Linux Mint is nice, but the Desktop is still X11 which is now basically unmaintained. You will probably get no real support for X11, and I dont know how long it will take the devs to get XFCE / Cinnamon to Wayland.
I mean I literally had an issue with the otherwise great MXLinux, where my Nextcloud simply didnt work, because the client was a vew versions too old.
Debian is all about preinstalling stuff, which is pretty annoying, and thus native packages. Debian with auto updates and only Flatpaks maybe, but like it is, no way.
Yeah, you can, that's right. But it's absolutely not recommended (except drivers or stuff like that). You only do that when there is absolutely no other way.
But I'm not that exactly sure on how "bad" it is on rpm-ostree tbh. I've definitively done my research when I switched to Silverblue, and reason for the direct-install-disrecommendation didn't get explained good enough for me. Afaik it is only an additional layer on top of the base, so it is also not OS-changing. Please do me the favor and explain it to me if you can :)
I said "Debian based", not plain Debian. I never got warm with it tbh, for deskop I prefer rpm-based distros, I don't even know why. But, like it or not, Ubuntu (and therefore Debian) is just the standard if you google " how to do x on Linux". And a newcomer, who doesn't know the difference between apt and dnf for example, will get into trouble sooner or later.
True Ubuntu and debian is standard and to this day many external Devs just provide .deb files or now even snaps XD
So layering, as far as I understood:
If you install/layer additional RPMs, after 3. you have an additional step, where rpm-ostree also uses traditional Fedora repos and downloads regular RPMs to your system. You can use any regular Repos, even COPR but you need to add the .repo files manually to
/etc/yum.repos.d/. RPMFusion has a fancy way where you layer a package and that handles the updating of the repo files to your current version, really nice.So this package is installed along, and as its done through rpm-ostree its very well traced. It will do changes but an
rpm-ostree uninstall PACKAGEwill completely remove it again. If you are not entirely surerpm-ostree resetwill completely reset your system to be a mirror of the ostree remote.If you have a background service, you could reset the system every month or so. Not necessary but this would make extra sure your system directories are not weirdly modified. You would do this through
Or maybe that doesnt work, not sure, and you need
Here you can also remove added packages like Kwrite or firefox + firefox-langpacks