this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml
 

Hi, I was here and asked about a few distros already, so here's a quick summary of my situation:

I'm thinking about what distro to put onto my new Laptop, which will be used for University, Work, and just general daily usage. I am currently using EndeavourOS on my main PC and have been decently satisfied, but I want to experiment more. I've already asked if Arch was fine for this situation, to which the answer was a general "Yes, but keep x in mind" and I've asked about NixOS, where the answer was generally a no.

I've been looking around a bit more, and now I'm kind of curious about Fedora, specifically the KDE spin (or i3, I haven't quite decided). It seems to be cutting edge, compared to Arch's (and by extension EndeavourOS's) bleeding edge, and I'm wondering what you all think of it. From what I can gather it has basically all traits which people used to enjoy in Ubuntu, before Canonical dropped the ball on that. While it's not rolling release, the stability improvements and user experience compared to something like Arch, or even a more comfortable fork like EndeavourOS, seem quite decent, but in your experience, does that make up for the lack of the AUR and reduced applicability of the Arch Wiki?

I'm curious to hear about your experiences and recommendations!

Edit: I feel like I need to clarify, I know about the difference between EndeavourOS and Arch, I mostly just brought it up as a note that I am somewhat familiar with arch-based systems, and as a question of if it'd be stupid to just go with raw Arch, as EndeavourOS is basically the same, but with a more comfortable installer. I should have specified that more clearly in the first place, my apologies.

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[–] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think you want something boring. Boring, in terms of "it just works", which is essential for school. You want to focus on learning, not troubleshooting.

I've been looking around a bit more, and now I'm kind of curious about Fedora, specifically the KDE spin (or i3, I haven't quite decided).

Use Fedora Atomic (immutable versions of Workstation/ KDE spin, etc.). Especially uBlue. It's a community edition on universal-blue.org, which features very vanilla images of Silverblue for example, but with some QoL-changes, many inofficial DEs/ TWMs, and much more.

The cool thing is, you can just rebase to whatever spin you like, e.g. KDE and i3 and don't need to decide. It's like a reinstall, without actually loosing data.

It's also extremely robust (barely breakable) and in general doesn't get in your way.

While it's not rolling release, the stability improvements and user experience compared to something like Arch, or even a more comfortable fork like EndeavourOS, seem quite decent

It's not only decent, it's great! Everything "just werks™" and it's very very reliable.
In terms of stability (update schedule) it's a great mix between very well tested, but not stale.
I wouldn't like to update daily like on Arch.

but in your experience, does that make up for the lack of the AUR?

The cool thing is, you don't loose anything.
I, for example, have an Arch container in Distrobox, and I use it all the time. I even have access to the AUR and all Arch packages on my image based Fedora install.
This gives me bleeding edge software, especially for the terminal, without risking breaking my host OS. Arch seems to be too high maintenance for me, and I'm not willing to spend my time troubleshooting.

[–] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Use openSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a rolling release distribution with ~~the best~~ a great KDE Plasma implementation.

Now, your specific question boils down to choosing between Arch and Fedora, since, arguably, Endeavour OS is actually Arch Linux. Now, as you're willing to use a Qt-based DE, specifically Plasma, I'd say none of your options are ideal. That's why I mentioned openSUSE Tumbleweed, but, for you, I'd say Arch Linux, however, you currently use Arch Linux, hence, you should just switch to the Plasma DE.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago

Opensuse, just as

  • Fedora
  • Ubuntu
  • Debian

has GNOME as their primary Desktop. I would not say "has the best KDE implementation" for any of those.

[–] ArmainAP@programming.dev 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I recently distro-hoped to Fedora Silverblue and I am quite pleased with it. This version has in immutable filesystem, thus you might want to look for another version of Fedora.

NixOS is big no go for me too, especially given that you can install the Nix package manager on any distro easily.

Arch Wiki is great and I often use it for non Arch distros well.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago

Nix even works on Fedora from ublue, using Fleek!

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago

Does EndeavorOS have automatic BTRFS snapshots? If not, I have no idea how to set those up so I would always use Fedora or Opensuse.

For stability I use Fedora kinoite from ublue.it

But the moment I need to run weird university stuff that comes in an install script, immutable is not great. On the other hand, mess like that should be isolated in a Distrobox anyways, which comes preinstalled in ublues fedora versions