this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
103 points (97.2% liked)

Linux

48323 readers
673 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

so a common claim I see made is that arch is up to date than Debian but harder to maintain and easier to break. Is there a good sort of middle ground distro between the reliability of Debian and the up-to-date packages of arch?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm sure I'll get shouted down for this suggestion by the haters, but I'm going to make it anyway because it's actually really good:

Use an Ubuntu LTS flavour like Kubuntu. Then, add flatpak and for apps you want to keep up to date, install either the flatpak or the snap, depending on the particular app. In my personal experience, sometimes the flatpak is better and sometimes the snap is better. (I would add Nix to the mix, but I wouldn't call it particularly easy for beginners.)

This gets you:

  1. A reliable Debian-like base that you only have to upgrade to new releases every 2 years
  2. Up-to-date apps, including confinement for those apps
  3. New kernels every 6 months (if you choose - you don't have to, though)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ubuntu not only lacks some basic packages but they make apt install them with snap instead.

I would go Debian testing as it has a huge selection of apps and has good support for Flatpak (like pretty much all Linux as Flatpak is build on standard kernel components)