In addition to EOS, which for me is always the main distro, as a secondary distro which would be the stable one (like Debian for example) best for home use, also for video games in addition to the other usual things (internet, watching movies, email, printing various documents etc.), in your opinion?
At the moment I have a PC with various HDDs, so I can afford to have various distros on it. The next PC (if you can buy it at decent prices but who knows given the trend) will probably be an assembled mini PC and therefore with more compact dimensions, where at most I will have 3 HDDs (1 NVMe, 1 SSD and 1 mechanical HDD as data storage) in the most “articulated” option.
So, in addition to EOS, I would like a second option that is a little more stable, at the distro level to be sure that if I have problems with one distro, I can temporarily use the PC in case of emergency with the other distro, and then solve any problems calmly.
At the moment on my current PC I have EOS, Garuda, Openmamba, Debian 12 with liquorix kernel (where more or less everything can be done), MX Linux and Makulu.
The last two are interchangeable if you want. In any case, the choice must be a distro that is detected by the EOS grub at system startup (for example, Opensuse or Solus are seen by updating the grub from the terminal but at system startup the eos grub does not show it, even with various types of os-prober, on the contrary the Opensuse grub sees EOS but gives an error saying that the kernel path is wrong and does not find it).
In short, in your opinion, what is the best stable secondary distro for home use (including gaming) to combine with EOS?
This is a personal opinion but for me that would be Fedora, although I recently switched back to Arch because I don’t like dual-booting but for the desktop Fedora is still my second choice for using it is a daily driver on the desktop.
It could be an option, you should see if the fedora grub also sees EOS or at least the arch based ones.
On the contrary, apart from some manual modification that I personally have not understood how to make to see Fedora when the EOS or arch based grub starts, it does not show it by default (even if maybe it sees it by updating from the terminal but when the grub starts Fedora is not shown).
Be pragmatic. Stick to one distro … if you want a more stable version, go the LTS kernel route on the secondary machine.
Even Linus Torvalds doesn’t bother to maintain different distros at home. In his family he dictates which distro he has to maintain for his other familiy members, including his wife’s machine.
In case the wife resists. Divorce is an option. Marriages are ending due to less trivial reasons, all the time. (just kidding, at least within the last three sentences.)
That’s so true!
My ex-partner and I parted ways after a heated discussion about mkinitcpio and dracut
Later, she hooked up with a guy who knew his dracut stuff
I think you have a good strategy with having a fallback static distro if your rolling distro fails. I have done this for years with Debian installed on an extra laptop. it has saved my bacon on 2 occaisons when I had important things to do and could not take the time to immediately sort out my eos box. Properly maintained, Arch based systems are great and do very well as daily drivers but sometimes sh!t happens. Not very often, but it does happen. An extra computer with your preferred fallback distro is an excellent insurance plan for those just in case events.
For this reason, on my current main machine I have various HDDs with various distros on them, in addition to EOS.
I’m also trying them in the gaming field. For now, the differences would perhaps only be seen by a more attentive user than me, or at an “instrumental” level with benchmarks, which vary a bit from distro to distro (even using perhaps the same kernel, for example I use EOS with a Zen kernel, and I also have Garuda, in terms of fps on a Zen kernel Garuda is slightly better, but simply, I think, that it is built as an OS around that kernel, or in any case optimized).
But basically, just playing, you don’t notice any big differences.
In my next PC, which will be an assembled mini PC, for this reason I want to have 2 separate SSDs to have two separate distros, so that I can always have a usable PC.
For Debian with a LiquoriX kernel, I have to say that I’m quite happy with it. The 13 should also be released soon, so it’s a bit more up to date.
I’m starting to prefer the native distros more than the derivatives (but eos is more of an Arch than a derivative with some customization and more software, and installation via calamares, but it’s basically Arch).
“Why multiboot between so many distros? Why even multiboot at all?”
Curiosity/exploring for me. Currently have 3 distros installed, Mint, Big Linux and back again on EOS.
Mint was my entry point to Linux and has been very stable thru the years.
EOS was a little unstable for me last year when I tried it but I was installing a lot of software and tweeking things all the time so probably partly my fault.
Just tried CachyOS and like it but also a little unstable, has crashed a couple times and wasn’t able to recover either time.
Big Linux has been my main OS since last summer and has been rock solid. I prefer the “arch” flavors of Linux now and Big Linux is top of the list but liked EOS so running it again now also.
It’s also nice having another OS to boot into in case of any issues with your daily driver.
Can easily access the “innards” of the OS’s from one or the other.
@Sermor
If you see my profile I have distro hopped like crazy for like a year til I was settled on Arch based. I like the idea of minimalism and rolling release (I mean install only once, not necessarily the latest software).
Nothing ever comes close to EndeavourOS, but as you asked, my distro hopping experience, I found that Debian based is generally the most stable (but I did not like any Ubuntu), so my final conclusion it is MX Linux.
It is so stable and very user friendly.
The have a wonderful set of their own apps and on top is this app that lets you take a snapshot of you currently installed system with options.
I really wish to see the same here.
But unfortunately I can’t tell about gaming. I don’t do it.
I agree. My primary PC has EndeavourOS installed, that’s it. I have a laptop for exploring other distros when the distro-hop itch needs scratched. Otherwise, a virtual machine will suffice.
Simple, to always have the PC operational in case you have problems with a distro.
Now, I don’t have any particular needs, and basically it’s better for me to reinstall the system than to waste time seeing if I can solve it, but sometimes I need to use the PC for important documents and it must be operational. At most, it can be solved later if possible. But with two OS, at least I have a second system that acts as a “parachute” in case the first one gives me problems (so much so that I can’t use the PC).
I tried MX Linux. I don’t mind it either and it has several good ideas, but on the gaming side, although you can easily install Steam and other platforms (Lutris, Heroic, etc.), at least for me the games don’t start, not even with Steam and the proton libraries applied. I couldn’t figure out why, even if I didn’t investigate very deeply I must say.
With Debian 12 and the liquorix kernel the games run fine, both with Steam and the proton libraries, and with other launchers like Lutris, without doing anything different from other distros like EOS.
I also tried Mint, but I noticed that in the multiboot system after a while the boot time gets much longer (if with the other distros I’m on the desktop in a maximum of 30 seconds with Mint it takes me at least a good minute, after a while).
I have to try the debian-based version of Mint, namely LMDE, to see if I encounter the same problem.
Well on my main PC, which is currently a classic PC, having various separate SSDs I can afford to have more distros to try them.
I try them both to see which distros see each other and start correctly when the bootloader starts without too many upheavals and user-side interventions (at most enabling the os-prober and updating the bootloader, in my case the grub), and to see among those distros that are detected correctly (at least by a bootloader) is more suitable for my needs and my daily use (internet, email, printing various documents, gaming, watching streaming stuff, in short nothing too technical).
Then personally, EOS is my main distro.
From a certain point of view I like the “rolling” model better, because I don’t have to worry about switching from one version to another (like switching from Fedora 41 to Fedora 42, these transitions are not always painless, and I would prefer to avoid them, perhaps opting for versions with a slower release like Debian). On the other hand, with the rolling model the next update of some package could create problems. As with everything there are pros and cons (and no, the Manjaro model does not solve the problem of rolling distros, if anything it only postpones it by a few months XD at least in my opinion)
I wonder @Sermor what if you tried MX Linux with the kernel that worked and see how it goes?
As I said I am not into gaming so I don’t have much to say.
LMDE is an amazing distro, a few yearss ago it was my main distro, bit not anymore as I am a KDE guy.
I tried MX Linux with both the default kernel and the liquorix kernel, the games did not run in both cases. Then again, I did not investigate thoroughly also because I am not that expert.
I also prefer KDE plasma as a desktop environment, but in the end even Cinnamon can be fine for me. I prefer it to GNOME vanilla, which I just can’t like.
Zorin OS is very outdated, they OS still relies on the bugged 6.8 kernel. I used to be a member there … but i have no desire to be there. The problems i read, system instability and so on. Only 1 moderator (Aravisian) is the one that solves the most. He is a linux expert, but if he would quite the forum. There is no one that can take over his knowledge.
@OP i would stick with endeavour using the mainline kernel + LTS kernel as backup.
