A random question about Linux distros

Lounge
21

Yepp, I confirm the Neon part, although my experience with it is a bit dated.

Three years ago when I last tried Neon it was just a testing platform for Plasma. That translated to a pretty unstable system overall with lots of bugs continuously added and squashed. Totally unsuited for a production machine. I was surprised to see how much more stable any rolling distro i tried ever since is (and I tried opensuse tumbleweed, manjaro, antergos, endeavouros).

3 Likes
22

I considered it about a year ago, when looking for an alternative to Kubuntu (before settling on Manjaro). I installed it, ran it for a couple of hours and then nuked it. It was pretty bad, even worse than Kubuntu. :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
23

Surprised you didnā€™t check out KaOS. Great little KDE distro IMO.

2 Likes
24

Thanks for the idea, but one search said that they are looking into switching out Linux altogether with the illumos kernelā€¦ Maybe Iā€™ll VM it just to see what it has to offer :slight_smile:

25

Opinions on Solus? It obviously uses a different package managerā€¦

26

Iā€™ve tried it out. Seems fine, bit of a smaller community though.

1 Like
27

Solos is fantastic as its not terminal based for new users, the repro is small its rolling,stable as hell
But why are you asking others to decide what you want to use its your choice and only yours at the end of the day.

6 Likes
28

For people who love the command line and keybindings, I recommend a base install of Arch Linux followed by installing (compiling) DWM, Dmenu and ST. I have this installed on my secondary computer and I love it. You canā€™t use a display manager with DWM (well, you can but itā€™s tricky), but you donā€™t need one. After login as user just type startx.

1 Like
29

Solus installer didnā€™t let me start the install . It takes forever to recognize devices . If it did I wouldnā€™t be here on EOS

If you can install it Solus Plasma is great @slayerproof32

1 Like
30

I donā€™t think there are any mainstream distros that STOPS you from using the command line. That said very few outside of Endeavour and pure Arch has no graphical package manager set as default. But the point stands - just donā€™t use it. Use the terminal.

For me it boils down to what ā€œmore fixedā€ means: Actually Fixed, or Slower Rolling?
For fixed I would go with OpenSuse or Fedora. The main problem with both is that you have to do a (very easy and widely documented) workaround to get non-open source codecs working for your videos and audio. Same with video drivers if you use Nvidia.
The other problem is that Suse does not have a live images for anything but Plasma, and on top of that you cannot install from the live ISO. Suse is one of the very few distros without that. The GOOD news is that if you use their net installer ISO you can pick your DE, like on Endeavour.

For ā€œslower rollingā€ I would go Suse Tumbleweed. They are a few days behind Arch but somehow rock solid.

2 Likes
31

I havenā€™t looked on a while, but what about KaOS? Iā€™m almost positive itā€™s not a rolling release, KDE only and even uses pacman so you donā€™t have to even learn or re learn apt/dnf

Edit. Itā€™s rolling. Nevermind. Opensuse leap would be my next choice then. I just really like pacman

1 Like
32

Didnā€™t they just release a KDE version with 19.2?

MX-19.2 KDE now available

Edit to add: nevermind, I see the 19.2 is their version of the distro. I read it as the KDE version, but it is only KDE/plasma 5.14.5 (current Debian buster version.)

5.14? And this is why I love Arch. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes
33

In the past decade Iā€™ve personally had more problems with regular debian based upgrades (pure Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Mint LMDE, ā€¦) than with my rolling arch systems. The major upgrades sometimes donā€™t seem to like the way I tinker with the systems.
So, about two years ago I converted all systems (partner, kids) in my sphere to arch based. I even went so far to automate the updating on my wifeā€™s (Antergos) Arch. She hasnā€™t actually run a manual update ever; just gets notified that an update has occurred. She knows how to boot into the last working btrfs-snapshot and restore it with Timeshift if the need arises. I honestly only had to lay hands on that machine twice; not counting the conversion from Antergos to Arch.

Iā€™m never going back to a non-rolling-release distribution :grin:

2 Likes
34

I canā€™t go back to a debian-based distros. The whole PPA system is a cluster-fudge. It will make you appreciate AUR as soon as you do a major upgrade to the distro. You have to go through all the PPAā€™s manually to see it they still work with the new version to either remove them, or add a new updated PPA. Talk about :exploding_head:

4 Likes
35

Iā€™d almost go back to Windows. I hate PPAs.

3 Likes
36

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unofficial_user_repositories

:shushing_face:

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

4 Likes
37

Ahhā€¦Fedora?

  • Is a fixed release that updates every 6 months with fresh packages.
  • Uses dnf
  • Currently has kde 5.18
  • Not only does it support multiple DEs but it is one of the better distros at doing DE swaps safely
5 Likes
38

I have not read every post, but why not go debian testing ? It is rolling, pretty stable, boaringā€¦

:chair:

39

If you want rolling but stable, Solus is a good option. It is definitely easy to use.

The only downside is that it uses a less common package manager so unless you get elaborate you are stuck with what is in the repos. That being said, the repo coverage is pretty decent. There are definitely things that arenā€™t in it though.

1 Like
40

I always have an installation stick with the latest Mint ISO for ā€œemergenciesā€, because:Mint always runs ā€¦

2 Likes