Yeah I installed that one you’re thinking of.
Fedora KDE
The correct answer.
slackware ftw
Ahhh, the Sackcloth and Ashes, I remember it well!
So many config files…
TL;DR: Ubuntu + KDE Plasma (=Kubuntu) + X11 (Wayland fucks with my Firefox)
First thing to acknowledge about Linux is that you have 2 choices in front of you about how you want to configure your operating system:
Distro, and desktop environment.
A distro or distribution for short is the part of the operating system that runs programs, updates them, etc. A distro like Ubuntu will incorporate different code syntactically than another distro like Fedora, but will largely perform the same actions. For instance, to update all of your apps/programs in Ubuntu, you would run sudo apt-get update. To do the same thing in Fedora, you would run sudo dnf update. Other than that, different distros might be optimized for some things over others. Bazzite and SteamOS are distros that optimize for gaming, while Debian is optimized for long-term stability for things like servers.
Desktop environment (DE) on the other hand is all about what you see on your screen. It’s the visual portion of your operating system. In my opinion, the choice of DE for you comes down to what’s comfortable to use and/or what you grew up with previously. So if you grew up using Windows computers, then DEs like KDE Plasma or Cinnamon would work for you. If you grew up on Mac computers instead, Gnome would be your best choice.
For me, I got exposed to Linux with my Steam Deck, so I wanted to mirror the Deck’s Desktop Mode on my laptop. The Steam Deck uses Fedora as the distro and KDE Plasma as the DE. I changed the distro for my new Framework laptop to Ubuntu because I’m more familiar with that, having used Ubuntu computers in middle and high school and dabbling with Ubuntu virtual machines on Windows in the past. KDE Plasma is chill because it reminds me of Windows the most.
And of course, distro and DE aren’t the only choices you have on Linux… You have your display server engine like X11 or Wayland, and the seemingly limitless assortment of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives to your favorite apps/programs on Windows/Mac/Android/iOS.
Solid write up!! One correction though, steam deck uses their own version of arch for the distro, Bazzite is running Fedora under the hood though.
I like fedora because it uses Duke Nukem Forever as its package manager.
GentOwO gang!
Debian Stanle, everyone else lies.
That entirely depends on what you’re using it for. I personally use ZorinOS as my daily driver because it’s easy to use, based on Ubuntu, and I like the interface.
If you’re using the PC for gaming, go with Nobara. It’s based on Fedora and has built-in support for Nvidia.
Fedora. It’s the one Linus uses.
/thread
The one I’ve been thinking about is gentoo
I use Arch by the way
Gentoo, if you have time you can mold it into whatever you need. And if you do it right its rock solid. And if you dont have a shit ton of time use debian, its reliable, fast, and has a ton of support articles.
i have two moods:
stable (for a server): debian
rolling release (for gaming): arch
Pop OS. I don’t even like Mac OS but Pop just feels so good! I’ve used it on 3 different computers now without problems. Ubuntu tutorials usually work if you need to tweak something. Only downside is it’s a private company, but it’s released free and is well supported.
According to a survey of the Linux community, the best distro is always not the one that you picked.
Start out with Linux Mint, it’s a debian/ubuntu based distro which has massive support online and is less likely to break during an update, then when you get use to using linux you can make a more personal decision for which distro suits you best.
less likely to break during an update
In my experience, Ubuntu and Debian are by far the most likely to break during an upgrade
apt doesn’t even have rollbacks
Apt is one of the worst package managers I’ve used. Yum is also trash, dnf a bit better. But pacman is by far the best
I haven’t used pacman in ages and I don’t remember rolling back updates with it so I either never needed to or it was not possible at the time.
dnf did everything I needed it to so I wouldn’t know what to fault it for
You can very easily rollback updates from cache, and even rollback all your packages to a specific date in time.
It does get a bit iffy with AUR packages because you often compile them locally, so they would need to be recompiled from a specific commit.
Debian Stable breaks from updating? What?
Upgrading, like from Debian 12 to 13. It’s too complex, and if you install anything out of the ordinary (which you have to if you want packages from this decade), things get even more complicated.
I’ve used the same Arch installation for 14 years and only had issues when we switched to from sysvinit to systemd in 2012 because I didn’t read the news. Easily fixable though
I upgraded my machine from Debian 10 all the way to Debian 13 recently. Never had a problem.
