Debian testing doesn’t get security updates. Stable and Sid both do, testing only gets them when packages are synced over from Sid.
(Or at least, that used to be the case…)
What about PopOS? Their setup is very good.
Sorry, I’ve never dealt with this before, except to watch a video on YouTube. Maybe it’s good.
Opensuse or Fedora? What are your experiences with both?
They are very similar IMO. Except GNOME is default in Fedora, and KDE is default in OpenSUSE, Both use dnf. I just like the green better I think. I also generally just don’t like GNOME, and I can’t say I’ve tried the Fedora KDE edition. . .
Fedora32 is rock solid gets updates daily I use the Gnome version But am told all versions are really solid as for being fixed well it will have the latest software through out its life, no need to reinstall just upgrade, Fedora is a testing bed for R/H so always cutting edge Fedora is where most innovations start with Linux Op systems
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My personal preference between those two is Fedora. Opensuse has the same feel as suse from 20 years ago.
- You need to use the root password everywhere including when you use sudo
- If you change the theme it can be a pain because some apps are running as root
- Leap is ~18 months between releases so it gets stale.
- Tumbleweed is rolling and gets constant updates. Since opensuse is more liberal than Arch with what is installed by default, TW gets a lot of updates
- I don’t entirely know why but I have never had an opensuse install that didn’t eventually end up fighting dependency problems.
That being said, it works just fine and the above concerns probably aren’t things that would bother many people.
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I’d consider Debian stable for your needs.
If there’s something I’m starting to notice, especially from this thread, is that more and more distros or are going to a rolling release model. I think the stigma of them being unsettled after in the past. Even Ubuntu had a rolling release that is now available. I mean, almost 50 posts and I think we’ve accidentally named more rolling releases than snapshot in general already.
I tend to think at this point the opposite is true and snapshots tend to be more “unstable.”
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That may be little bit biased since we all use Arch 
But anyway, looking all over the internet - i think you’re right, rolling distros evolved and proven to be more and more stable through years, than it was ever before 
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I think that stability can mean a lot of different things but in most cases all the major Linux distros are very stable.
It is all about personal preferences and tolerances for things not being “right”. I think much of the perceived instability/stability comes from how long a distro waits before updating to new major versions of applications. Arch does this very quickly which means that you get to play with the latest stuff but it also means you are one of the earliest users of those applications and there is a greater chance of finding problems. There are other rolling release distros which are more conservative about when a new application version makes it into the repos. The same is true of static release distros. Think about Fedora from a few years ago where they were tossing in the latest bleeding edge stuff into each new release without enough testing. They used to always be unreliable in the early months of a new version.
I am not sure that being rolling or not is a good indicator of stability.
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I wouldn’t say that - generally they’re more stable, but being fixed you’ll mess up the system messing about trying to get some items of software when the repos sometimes have really outdated and old versions…
Also, using Timeshift - when a new Mint comes out, you just install and then restore your snap and you’ve a brand new refreshed system with nothing to touch up… with rolling, there are always minor tasks, from a MEGAsync rebuild to a fix for conky.
The more you add to your vanilla roller, the more there is to get crunched when it rolls 
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Stability (in the sense of working reliably) depends on a lot of things, like specific hardware, and user’s behaviour. In general, GNU/Linux is a very stable OS, and the difference in stability between distros is usually quite small. When it comes to distros and stability, all other things being the same, usually it is only the distros that contain a lot of bloat that are at all unstable (various flavours of Ubuntu, for example), or distros that use intrinsically unstable software, like Deepin desktop.
In regards to the whole fixed vs. rolling release, it would be logical to assume that fixed relase distros contain more stable software, but that’s not what my experience tells me. I don’t think the release cycle matters that much for stability. 
It seems to me that the biggest difference is that fixed release distros are easier to maintain between updates, but you may need to reinstall when there is a major version update, while on a rolling release distro, the user has to be a bit more mindful of what is updating, but in the long run the amount of maintenance required is about the same.
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I am in the middle of struggling with the idea of sticking with rolling release distros or dipping my toe in stable release distros. I was looking at Debian, either stable with the Backports Repo, but the idea of having to reinstall and having stagnant packages doesn’t sit right with me. The other thing I was considering is something like adopting Debian Sid - but I have seen many differing takes on the latter. Some say they use it as a quasi rolling release, some say it just should be done outside of a testing scope.
There are so many different philosophies and differences in opinion between distros, it’s hard to filter through the noise sometimes. You hear horror stories about nearly all distros, but I know that Manjaro wasn’t all that much trouble for me, despite the horror stories I hear about it all the time (save for issues I had with KDE 4).
I’m looking at OpenSuSE, Fedora, Debian, Endeavour obviously (or some other Arch install method, like Anarchy). OpenSuSE sounds promising, but I actually wasn’t a fan of how Yast looks, it feels a bit cluttered - on the whole it feels and looks a bit dated. Debian doesn’t have a real rolling release. Fedora…well, I still can’t really get my head around what manner of beast it really is. Endeavour and more pure Arch derivatives - I’m not sure when I will have time to set it up all properly (thinking of btrfs, etc.).
Oh well, that’s Linux for you. Good to know we have choices at least.
I do hope more distros adopt a rolling-release model, or at least will start to offer properly supported rolling-release versions.
Set your Arch / EOS up as you want and keep it simple, not too many AUR packages etc. Should be very stable, maybe more stable than upgrading point releases.
Then use another system as fallback option for the unlikely case your Arch / EOS breaks. Personally I’d like to try some BSD, maybe DragonFly BSD.
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Exactly, the more minimalist your system is, the easier it is to maintain and the more stable it will be.
Eschew bloat. 
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Let’s be honest here.
How many times have I had problems with Manjaro?
-
Once when Intel botched a wifi card driver
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another time when the atheros driver had issues
That’s it. I’ve been running it for like 3 years on 5 different computers.
Looking through to forum, it appears as though endeavor rarely has issues either.
What this boils down to is that there isn’t much to gain from a fixed release and people seem to have problems with those too sometimes.
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You hear horror stories about all distros and WINDOWS AND MAC too. No OS is guaranteed not to break (though Mac runs on specific hardware so I’m surprised it’s not near perfect). I’ve definitely had bad experiences with windows completely crashing and me having to wait cuz “oh no there is a forced update too”
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That’s the beauty of relatively simple (simple as in having fewer components, not necessarily in the sense of being easy to use) distros, like Arch (and Manjaro, being derived from Arch, and obviously EOS): whenever something breaks, it’s typically your fault and this is usually a very good clue to how to fix such an issue.
Whenever my Manjaro system broke, I knew exactly what I did to cause that (and I’m sure this will also be the case with EOS, too, when something breaks - I just haven’t used it long enough to experience any issues).
On a more complex (i.e. bloated) distros like Ubuntu, when stuff breaks, that seems to happen at random, and you rarely have a clue what caused it to break, so it’s a bit more difficult to fix it.
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In terms of Windows though, when that breaks, “enjoy reinstalling :)” Because they’ll never tell you try running sudo pacman -Syyu
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