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.
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.
I can’t speak for the desktop side, but for my server it’s been running without interruption for years. About once per week I do something stupid and use all available memory, but it hasn’t crashed once. It just runs a bit slow until I free up some RAM, then Docker comes back to life once I free up some disk space. I definitely recommend it for anyone who wants a server OS that just works.
I was actually thinking of that. How’s testing and unstable, are they good, too?
They are the opposite of “set it and forget it”.
Probably the most maintenance-heavy distros out there.
They’re like Arch, if the Arch maintainers didn’t care about keeping the system working.
Damn. Lol. Ok then, will let that go
They are excactly what the name implies. Testing is generally pretty good, but it’s still testing. And unstable is also what the name implies. People, myself included back in the day, run both as daily drivers, but if you want rock stable distribution installing unstable revision might not be the best choise.