this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
27 points (88.6% liked)

Linux

51914 readers
851 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
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
27
Looking for a "set it and forget it" distro (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 hours ago by DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hi all, Relatively long time Linux user (2017 to be precise), and about two 3rds of that time has been on Arch and its derivatives. Been running Endeavour OS for at least 2.5 years now. It's a solid distro until it's not. I'd go for months without a single issue then an update comes out of nowhere and just ruins everything to either no return, or just causes me to chase after a fix for hours, and sometimes days. I'm kinda getting tired of this trend of sudden and uncalled for issues. It's like a hammer drops on you without you seeing it. I wish they were smaller issues, no, they're always major. Most of the time I'd just reinstall, and I hate that. It's so much work for me. I set things the way I like them and then they're ruined, and the hunt begins. I have been wanting to switch for a long time, and I honestly have even been looking into some of those immutable distros (that's how much I don't want to be fixing my system. I'm tired, I just want to use my system to get work done). I was also told that Nobara is really good (is it? Never tried it). My only hold back — and it's probably silly to some of you— is the AUR. I love it. It's the most convenient thing ever, and possibly the main reason why I have stuck with Arch and its kids. Everything is there. So, what do y'all recommend? I was once told by some kind soul to use an immutable distro and setup "distrobox" on it if I wanted the AUR. I've never tried this "distrobox" thing (I can research it, no problem). I also game here and there and would like to squeeze as much performance as I can out of my PC (all AMD, BTW, and I only play single player games). So, I don't know what to do. I need y'all's suggestions, please. I'll aggregate all of the suggestions and go through them and (hopefully) come up with something good for my sanity. Please suggest anything you think fits my situation. I don't care, I will 100% appreciate every single suggestion and look into it. I'm planning to take it slow on the switch, and do a lot of research before switching. Unless my system shits the bed more than now then I don't know. I currently can't upgrade my system, as I wouldn't be able to log in after the update. It just fails to log in. I had to restore a 10 days old snapshot to be able to get back into my damn desktop. I have already copied my whole home directory into another drive I have on my PC, so if shit hits the fan, I'll at least have my data. Help a tired brother out, please <3. Thank you so much in advance.

all 37 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] yoevli@lemmy.world 15 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Fedora Workstation has been really good in my experience. The available software is shockingly up to date and I haven't run into much breakage of any kind in the year or so I've been using it across 2 systems (despite my best efforts every few months when the urge to tinker hits me). I do occasionally run into issues caused by the default SELinux policies, but they're not especially difficult to work around if you're comfortable using the terminal.

I do share your sentiment about the AUR - I definitely miss it at times. That said, Flatpaks and the fact that pre-built RPMs are so commonplace have both softened the blow a lot.

[–] MXX53@programming.dev 4 points 4 hours ago

Came from Arch and OpenSuse. Fedora has been such a great switch. As I’ve gotten older and became a dad, my computer time at home is limited and I don’t have endless evenings to troubleshoot shit. Fedora has been stable for me for the last 4 years. I use the KDE spin.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you. I've run Fedora for a long while, too. Albeit, it was a while ago (not sure how good it is now), but I've never had any luck with its kde version. It was always broken (for me at least). Also, hunting for apps was kind of a big issue. Then come copr repos. But I guess we have a good case with flatpaks now. Even thought I couldn't use them before due to storage constraints, but now, that's not an issue. So, I'll keep Fedora in mind. I appreciate you

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago

It's currently the most simple to use and "just works" option.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 hours ago

Wow, what a wall of text. I'm sorry but I'm sure I skimmed some parts.

Look. The bulk of the replies you're going to get will be like "this is my favourite distro and here's how it works for you" not "this is the best distro for your criteria." It's important to understand the deep level of bias you're going to get.

But your cause is a noble one. I use a particular style of distro because it can be trusted to install well, back out well, do both safely, and allow validation at every stage. I think it's a good candidate, and it's already been mentioned as a really great 'set it and forget it' distro.

Good luck.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 8 points 33 minutes ago

Debian. I've had installations which went trough several major version upgrades, I've worked with 'set and forget' setups where someone originally installed Debian and I get my hands on it 3-5 years later to upgrade it and it just works. Sure, it might not be as fancy as some alternatives and some things may need manual tweaking here and there, but the thing just works and even on rare occasion something breaks you'll still have options to fix it assuming you're comfortable with plain old terminal.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago

Look. I've been there. I started my Linux journey with Arch based distros, then distrohopped a lot, and finally found the best for me, and what I personally consider the best either for normal users or those that don't want to do any maintenance.

It's the Universal Blue family of distros: Bazzite (gaming / KDE / gnome) Aurora (standard / development / KDE) Bluefin (standard / development / gnome)

Set it and forget about it. It just freaking works. For GUI apps install from the Discover app store (which uses Flatpak), for cli apps use Homebrew (brew install whatever). If you can't find something, open Distrobox (already included) create an Arch container, install whatever you want from the AUR, and use it like you're used to. It works like freaking magic.

If somehow you manage to brick your installation, when you reboot you'll be able to boot to a past snapshot.

You just can't fail with this. It's the best of the best IMHO.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

Bazzite

[–] stephen@lemmy.today 8 points 4 hours ago

I use Bluefin myself, and it’s honestly been game changing. Using an immutable distro has been the greatest quality of life upgrade in my 15 years of using Linux.

Also, if you use distrobox (automatically installed with Bluefin, Aurora, Bazzite, etc.) you can even setup an Arch container and continue to use the AUR. I use Steam installed from within an Arch container and it doesn’t feel any different from a natively installed app. It also means I don’t have to use the Steam flatpak which I had a couple issues with.

[–] jamesbunagna@discuss.online 3 points 3 hours ago

OP, another vote for this one.

It addresses your concerns in a wonderful way:

  • Reliability; While it's far from unique in this regard, I'd argue that the uBlue distros are one of if not the most reliable desktop Linux experience that's currently out there. You know most of the drill already (read: built-in rollback functionality, clean base system). But, the uBlue project has some aces up on their sleeves that (to my knowledge) are pretty unique:
    • "Ninety (90) days of image archives allowing for flexible rollback options." The images are stored online, so they don't even take space on your device.
    • Shared community maintenance, i.e. even if upstream has a rare fuck-up, you can trust on uBlue's maintainers to deal with it without you even noticing. For a recent example of this, we got this.
  • Access to the AUR; while Distrobox can be installed on any distro, uBlue projects come with perks that make the whole experience better than it's found elsewhere. From quadlets that have been properly setup from the get-go so that you don't have to (additionally) maintain those distrobox containers, to even minor things like including Boxbuddy OOTB to make the transition as easy as they come.
  • Setup for Gaming; It goes without saying that Bazzite is excellent for gaming. It's gaming-ready OOTB and includes (almost^[1]^) all the performance tweaks you'd wish.
  • Setup and forget; I (almost^[2]^) don't know any other distro that better embodies this than Bazzite (and its other uBlue-relatives).

All in all, I think Bazzite is definitely worth a look. Consider installing it and setup to your heart's content. If -at any time during or after that process- you come across an insurmountable^[3]^ issue caused by its atomic/cloud-native/'immutable' nature, then you can check it off your list and look elsewhere.

  1. CachyOS is still superior in this regard by doing a better job at inching out (literally) every performance gain out there.
  2. Perhaps Endless OS does an even better job at this, but that would be a bad recommendation for all the other reasons.
  3. Before giving up, if you wouldn't have done it by then, at least consider contacting the community through their Discord server. They're very helpful. FWIW, Bazzite has pretty excellent documentation as well. (Even if it ain't as exhaustive as the even more impressive ArchWiki. Granted, it doesn't have to be as expansive.)
[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world -3 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Literally said they don't want immutable.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

You are confidentially incorrect. I suggest you actually take the time to read the post again.

I honestly have even been looking into some of those immutable distros (that's how much I don't want to be fixing my system.

[–] jamesbunagna@discuss.online 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Literally said they don’t want immutable.

At best, they might have implied it. (But I don't think they do.) Here are the (relevant) snippets:

I honestly have even been looking into some of those immutable distros (that’s how much I don’t want to be fixing my system. I’m tired, I just want to use my system to get work done)

I was once told by some kind soul to use an immutable distro and setup “distrobox” on it if I wanted the AUR.

[–] node815@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I came from Arch to Fedora as well but using Universal Blue's images. In my case, Aurora (KDE), and daughter's Bluefin (Gnome). They update in the background and only install when you reboot. So far, most of the newer software releases such as web browsers or the desktop environment fall within a day or two for being installed which is a nice alternative. The big plus I see on these too is they are immutable so if something installs or breaks, you just boot into the previous version from Grub and go from there.

Additionally, OpenSuse MicroOS has options for whatever environment you are used to such as Gnome or KDE, this is immutable as well. I view all of these as "Set and Forget".

[–] Lem453@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 hours ago

I didnt even remember which os I had until I read this and remembered it was aurora

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 hours ago

My favorite distros are Gentoo and Debian.

I can say with confidence that Linux Mint is what you're looking for.

[–] enumerator4829@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 hours ago

Look, this is the reason people pay RedHat money. Go install Rocky Linux, turn on all the automatic updates and ignore it for the next five years.

On the enthusiast side, NixOS seems to be working fine if you want newer versions of software or larger repos.

[–] Jode@midwest.social 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

OpenSUSE Leap is the way to go my dude. It's been formulated by pedantic Germans and you can't go wrong with YAST/zypper for package management.

[–] zarenki@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 hour ago

I stopped using Arch a long time ago for this same reason. Either Fedora (or derivatives like Nobara) or an atomic/immutable distro (like Bazzite, Silverblue, Kinoite) is probably the way to go.

I used to feel like Ubuntu was a good option for this, but it no longer is: too often they try to push undesirable changes that need manual tweaking to fix after release upgrades. Debian Stable is generally good for low-maintenance use but doesn't keep up as well with newer hardware or newer updates to video drivers and mesa, which makes it suboptimal for typical gaming use. Debian Testing can be prone to break things in updates (in my experience, worse than Arch does).

I saw another comment recommend Rocky/RHEL, but note that their kernel doesn't support btrfs. Since you mentioned a root snapshot, I expect you probably use it.

[–] peterg75@discuss.online 3 points 3 hours ago

I've been using Linux for more than a decade and distro hopped quite a bit. Mint used to be my happy place, but recently within the last 5 years or so I've been on Arch derivatives. Endeavour was never stable enough for my liking, but Manjaro has been great. I did have to go back to a snapshot once, fairly recently, but that was primary because I fecked it up and not due to an update.

You mentioned that you have tried several Arch-based distros, so I'm not sure if this includes Manjaro.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Fedora. Ubuntu lost the crown.

If you want AUR specifically then you can only use Arch. That's the Arch package manager, and every distro has its own. Fedora has DNF, Debian/Ubuntu has apt...etc

[–] dpflug@kbin.earth 3 points 1 hour ago

AUR isn't the Arch package manager. It's a user-contributed package definition repo.

[–] jbrains@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I never wanted a hobby, but rather an operating system. I've been using Pop! for over six years. I only had one stretch where I felt like I was chasing annoying bugs and I don't remember it clearly enough to remember how long it lasted.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I never wanted a hobby, but rather an operating system.
That's exactly how I'm starting to feel. I was a "distro-hopper" when I was new to it, but now I just want shit to work. The only thing stopping me from pop is the state of their distro at current time. It feels like it's been abondened or something. I know they're busy with cosmic, but that's what it looks like. Also, I'm a kde plasma only person. I just can't use anything else.

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago

OpenSuse Leap or even Tumbleweed. After getting the media codecs up and running, and remembering to set you firewall zone to "home", you're pretty golden.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 46 minutes ago (1 children)

i'm trying out Aeon at the moment. it's from the opensuse people.

it auto-updates, it snapshots itself so any failed update will just silently revert, and it does flatpaks or distrobox only.

if you're okay with gnome, try it.

[–] kork349d@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago

Could some of the instability issues you have on arch could come from what you are installing from AUR?

I use AUR for a few things and it is a great resource but the packages are maintained by users and can cause issues.

I update those packages carefully, remove them if I am no longer using them and reconsider which ones i actually need installed in the first place.

While doing this I have only had a handful of issues pop up while updating and usually there is a recent thread describing the issue and how to fix it after a quick search.

[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Garuda is about the same.

Arch base, preconfigured for btrfs snapshots on Pacman updates (and they provide a handy garuda-update wrapper to that), many niceties already done for you.

I've used the snapshot feature a couple times and only because the Nvidia drivers botched something horribly and I went back to the same snapshot a couple times.

And I use distrobox (rootless podman FTW) for some crap too. Like that time I needed WebEx at a moment's notice for a call (and they only provide a deb and rpm). Or spur of the moment dev environments when I don't wanna futz around with vscode devcontainers.

But with arch-based stuff, you gotta read the Pacman output. If you don't wanna, definitely reconsider immutable. Next time I can be bothered to reinstall, that's where I'm headed. Heck, you can start a distrobox with Arch and install all the AUR shit you please without a major worry.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Try blendOS. It's basically Arch but immutable. And SteamOS also exists.

[–] jamesbunagna@discuss.online 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It has been some time since I gave this a proper look. Do you use this yourself? If so, would you be so kind to share some of your experiences?

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 1 points 20 minutes ago (1 children)

I used Silverblue and tried HoloISO, but it's the same thing.

[–] jamesbunagna@discuss.online 1 points 10 minutes ago

Sorry, I was referring to BlendOS if that wasn't clear*.

However, if you did understand my intentions right away, then I'd regard it an oversimplification to 'equate' their respective experiences. Regardless, I do appreciate your input! Thank you.