Planning on moving over from Windows 10 to Linux for my Personal Work Station. Can't decide which OS I should switch to.
Planning on moving over from Windows 10 to Linux for my Personal Work Station. Can't decide which OS I should switch to.
Windows has been a thorn in my side for years. But ever since I started moved to Linux on my Laptop and swapping my professional software to a cross platform alternative, I've been dreaming on removing it from my SSD.
And as soon as I finish my last few projects, I can transition. (I want to do it now).
Trouble is which I danced my way across multiple amazing distros, I can't decide which one to land on since the one software I want to test, Davinci Resolve doesn't work on my Intel Powered Laptop. (curse you intel implementation of OpenCL).
So the opinions of those of you who've used Davinci Resolve, Unity/Godot, and/or FreeCAD. I want it to be stable with minimal down time on hardware with a AMD Ryzen 5 1600x and a RTX 3050. Here's the OS's I am looking at.
CentOS (alt Fedora)
- Pro: Recommended by Davinci Resolve for the OS, has good package manager GUI that separates Applications and System Software (DNF Dragon), Good support for multiple Desktop Environments I like. Game Support is excellent and about a few months behind arch.
- Con: When I last installed Fedora my OS Drives BTFS file system died a horrific and brutal death, losing all of my data. Can't have that. And I personally do not like DNF and how slow it makes updating and browsing packages.
Debain (alt Linux Mint DE)
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Pro: The most stable OS I've used, with a wide range of software support both officially in the distros package manager, or from developers own website. I am most familiar with this OS and APT
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Cons: Ancient packages which may cause issues with Davinci Resolve and Video Games. An over reliance on the terminal to fix simple problems (though this can be said for most linux distros). I personally don't like APT and how it manages the software.
EndevourOS (alt Manjaro)
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Pro: The most up to date OS, great for games with the AUR giving support for a lot of software which isn't available on other distros.
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Cons: Manjaro has died on me once, and is a hassle to setup right and keep up. EndevourOS has no Package Manager GUI, and is over reliant on the Terminal. Can't use pacman in a terminal the commands are confusing.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
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Pro: Like Fedora but doesn't use DNF, good game support
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Cons: Software isn't as well supported.
Edit: from the sounds of thing, and the advice from everyone. I think what I’ll do is an install order while testing distros (either in distro box or on a spare ssd) in the following order.
Debain/Mint DE -> OpenSUSE -> EndevourOS -> CentOS
This list is mostly due to stability and support for nvidia drivers.
Mint is the typical way to get a more up-to-date Debian and if you have something against Ubuntu. This community is pretty anti-Canonical so they'll never recommend Ubuntu...
I've been scared by Ubuntu. Back in the day (10-20 years ago) it worked well its kind of fallen down. I blame snaps.
Oh I don’t like Ubuntu, but unlike this community it's more an in general distaste for the OS than anything specific.
Mint might do ya then if you want to remain in the .deb system. I ran it for a while and was happy with it. I'm on popos now but it's based on Ubuntu lts only so it's not quite as up to date at times.
I think Mint is your best choice. Mint is not Ubuntu, even if the underlying base is based on Ubuntu. It doesn't have snaps for example, and a lot of the ubuntu fluff and slowness has been cut out. For example, Mint Cinnamon uses 1.2 GB of RAM on a clean boot, but it uses 1.9 GB on Ubuntu-Cinnamon. It's a cleaner system.
I'd go with Ubuntu lts or Ubuntu neon (lts+latest KDE)
I used Ubuntu happily for many years and found nothing that suited me better.
However, with them pushing more and more updates in my face that I can only install if I register an account, I will try to switch to Endeavour on my main system soon.
Between the snaps crisis and the ads in the terminal ubuntu seems to be doing its best to scare off regular users.
Manjaro should not even be considered in the modern distro landscape, the story of manjaro is just a series of incompetent mistakes.
While I have my own personal gripes with it, it’s has one of the most robust GUI configurations I’ve seen in any Linux distos. As someone who doesn’t want downtime having a gui for things like Kernel config and systemd, Manjaro has its perks.
Doesn’t outweigh breaking my build for touching AUR, but ther is a reason I consider it.
Sorry, but, no. Pretty much any distro can do all of that perfectly well, the fedoras of the world, the mints of the world, but they don't break constantly.
I have given manjaro to 3 people and used it myself for many years, i got sick of it because the team is incredibly incompetent and just breaks things all the time, i've switched to arch and all of these problems have gone away.
let me give you an example of a design flaw that has caused strife for every single person I have given manjaro, how the kernel is handled.
Manjaro does not let you sudo pacman -S linux, instead, you get linux with the version number as the package, this means for the standard user, your kernel will become outdated, unless you think to go out of your way to update it. This has broken every system of every normal person I have given manjaro at some point, and then i've had to go through GREAT lengths to resolve the issue for them, all of which I had to do from a terminal. Updating the kernel should be the default of any sane distro, and I have never encountered another distro that made this such a hassle by default.
https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
You can read this for other examples of how incompetent the team is, i'm sorry but there's just no usecase for manjaro, if you want a GUI, you should simply use something other than arch, like fedora. I see no advantages to manjaro over arch personally, but if you desperately need a GUI, just use something else instead of trying desperately to hack arch into something that it simply is not.
Manjaro takes the good things about arch, the KISS philosophy, throws that in the trash, adds nothing of value and breaks shit. Endeavoros is the same thing but better in every way, and arch even has an installer now.
Furthermore, if you're in need of a GUI, you're probably going to hate when manjaro finally does break and you're dropped in a terminal with no experience whatsoever, which will inevitably happen.
You always take your chances when using AUR because it's basically completely unsupervised and anybody can put anything in there. What AUR packages were you trying to use?
Arch-based distros are not usually recommended to beginners for a reason. Manjaro tries to be more stable but you have to work within its proposed safety limits (use its helpers, stay on a LTS kernel, stay on the stable branch etc.) And AUR will always be AUR.
The hate is not justified IMHO. I've used Manjaro for 5 years now and never had any problems. It just works.
You have no idea what you're talking about. It's one of the better distros out there and it's popular for a reason. I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner but that's another story.
Don't pick a distro, pick a desktop environment. Look up KDE Plasma, gnome, cinnamon, xfce, etc. Then pick the largest most stable distro that uses that environment.
I've given this advice in the past too. I'm probably sticking with Cinnamon, which is why Mint is in the options.
Yeah I would say you might as well just go with mint then. Debian based distros are popular for a reason.
EndeavourOS is really probably the best overall option though, as you have the best software availability, but if you're not comfortable using the terminal, I might avoid it. (Although I will say that package management with yay is super easy, just
yay [packagename]to search and install interactively. Also to update your system just aliasyay -Syuto "update" if you have trouble remembering the right flags. I'd really recommend learning to use the terminal regardless of distro, though.)
Do not use Manjaro. It is a known trap. What you can do is install pamac, which is what Manjaro uses for GUI package management. It's been a hot minute since I've used Arch, so here's a tutorial:
https://itsfoss.com/install-pamac-arch-linux/
Alternatively you could look at Garuda, which is a solid Arch distro. You'll either love or hate the theme, but that's easy to change. It also comes with an interactive kernel by default (most distros use a regular kernel build, which works better for servers).
Whatever you do, please please please not Ubuntu. It's the lowest common denominator. Emphasis on "lowest". It was good in the past, but Canonical have really lost the plot.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by Manjaro being "a known trap"?
Edit: See my reply for some sources I found.
I feel like I should throw in a good word for Fedora. I run a combination of dnf and flatpak, and have a grand time, and am doing an IT diploma program aimed very solidly at Windows under Fedora. I've used Ubuntu, Mint, and Manjaro, and landed on Fedora for my desktop experience.
Don't use Fedora with Nvidia. Fedora also isn't suitable for any production machine.
I'm no big gamer, but my gaming laptop is a Ryzen with RTX3060, and I dual boot it (Fedora and Windows 10.) I used the rpmfusion Nvidia drivers, no issue, and I get slightly better frame rates and a bit better 3D mark scores in Fedora than Windows. It's been that way since 37 or 36, I think. Palworld, Monster Hunter World and Rise, Genshin Impact (I know, I know), Borderlands, EDF 5, all work great, along with some retro stuff like City Of Heroes and EQ99. So, I guess I'd like to know why I shouldn't use Fedora with Nvidia? Also, when you say production machine, do you mean like a server? I'm a student.
I mean EndeavorOS can install the same gui package manager as Manjaro has, pamac.
Game support usually comes from using packages you need and those packages being up to date to support latest changes like fixes.Am a long time EndeavourOs user, quite happy, it allows everything i need and pacman never broke on me.. cant say the same about apt, when using non-standard repositories (for some up to date packages)
And the AUR is awesome. Has many packages not found in the normal repositories, just some have to be compiled which can take a bit of time, but i dont have to fiddle with it.EndeavourOS has been rock solid for me as well!
I should point out that openSUSE also uses btrfs. I feel I should also point out that that neither it or Fedora has to be installed on btrfs.
I use Fedora Kinoite myself
You'll have the die-hard "XX is the best distros" and the "distros are irrelevant, choose a DE" answers here. The reality is that it will all boil down to your hardware, use case and willingness to tinker, in that same order.
For example, I love PopOS for laptops with Nvidia cards, only because I am used to the Cosmic version of Gnome PopOS has used all these years (looking forward to the proper Cosmic DE once its out), but for PC (regardless of GPU) I'd rather use Fedora KDE (customized to a Gnome feel) because I find it easy to customize to a very granular degree, and I feel Fedora has the best mix of cutting edge + stability.
As you can see, there's a whole lot of "I" in my comment. That's the beauty of Linux, whatever you end up sticking with, you get to make it as YOURS as you want it to be.
Arch derived distros require more carefully maintenance than most other base distros (RHEL and Debian), but are also great to actually learn Linux more deeply. RHEL derived distros, IMO, are a better balance between "it just works" and "I can make this happen", and Debian based are the easiest to maintain, mainly because it tends to be what the most popular distros out there are based on, which makes for a much larger community for when we hit a brick wall (when, not if).
Bottom line is that I believe you would be better off going the route you mentioned, and going through the pitfalls of each until you find that sweet spot.
And of course, once you're on that road, come and ask anything you want, most of us are always happy to help if we can.
Oh I knew I cast a wide net when I posted here. Wasn't looking for which distros were best, but rather common pitfalls in this communities zeitgeist, as well as the 1 or two users who actually use the software I am using and any issues that they came across.
For example Fedora was high on my list of potentials before it was pointed out that it has issues with Nvidia's drivers. As I am looking for minimal down time/setup it dropped on my list.
I also heard from someone who is using it on Arch which means I have a fallback if my distros of choice fails.
It sounds like you and JJLinux are on the same page. Their advice about hardware, use case, and willingness to tinker is spot on. I might argue that the Davinci Resolve (Studio) use case make these considerations even more important.
I have been using Davinci Resolve on Linux since DR 15 and know the pain you are going through. Although it looks like you have your solution, I would just like to post what works for me and suggest resources just in case it might help. I know the less painful (to me) route of getting it working in a reasonably reliable fashion.
These are the distros that currently work for me for use in professional situations:
Laptop with Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU - Pop OS
Pros - Can install Pop OS version with working Nvidia drivers, Battery life is generally better (still not good when Nvidia GPU in use)
Cons - Updates may involve more work (there is probably a better way to update that I haven't tried) - I used the Daniel Tufvesson method of install originally on Ubuntu and later on Pop OS - https://www.danieltufvesson.com/makeresolvedeb. Not even sure if I'm doing updates in the easiest way. I have just been redoing the process. It might have changed lately.
The journey with the laptop was dual boot, Ubuntu, Pop. Would not recommend Ubuntu. The usual drivers, audio, and install issues (to be fair I think they are fixed?)
Desktop with Intel CPU and AMD GPU - Endeavour OS
Pros - Can install directly from Aur
Cons - AMD drivers work for everything but DR out of the box. Drivers take some fiddling with AMD but using Archwiki on DR makes it way easier - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DaVinci_Resolve. It may not apply to Endeavour but I had conflicts when I installed Blender along side Davinci in Garuda.
The journey with the desktop was Manjaro (nvidia), Garuda (nvidia and then AMD), to Endeavour. Generally won't recommend Manjaro - it worked OK for me but required fixing. Garuda worked (Zen Kernel) until Blender install + OS update (dependencies), was always looking at either Garuda (works well with Aur install of DR and games) or Endeavour. Endeavour OS works...it feels less bloated and open to tinkering. It does need a bit more tinkering, but Pamac and research on arch wiki will help a lot.
There are more pros and cons but these are the ones that helped me to make a choice.
Sorry for wall of text when you may already have the best solution. I have not tried any of those methods that others have suggested so maybe post how it goes! I definitely would be interested in your experience.
So the opinions of those of you who’ve used Davinci Resolve, Unity/Godot, and/or FreeCAD
Search for those packages in distro repos, and check if they're available through some alternative pm like flatpak. If you need them fresh, and there's no alternative, you can discard centos and debian. If there are, I'd suggest MX (debian).
An over reliance on the terminal to fix simple problems
The closer you're to the bleeding edge, the more you'll need to use the terminal to fix simple problems. For me, debian and mint never crashed or failed to boot, arch on the hand...
That’s my two cents using mint. Though getting some software like xpadneo required me to build from source.
It's all tradeoffs. Debian would require you to occasionally follow clear installation instructions or use an additional PM. Arch would let you install it directly, but require you to occasionally debug your system. I'm using MX + Nix, and could install it directly, but setting it up is quite difficult comparatively.
If xpadneo can work on distrobox, that will probably be the easiest solution overall. The system will be stable, but you can use arch for specific tasks.
Debain (alt Linux Mint DE) Pro: The most stable OS I’ve used, with a wide range of software support both officially in the distros package manager, or from developers own website. I am most familiar with this OS and APT Cons: Ancient packages which may cause issues with Davinci Resolve and Video Games
I don't use Davinci Resolve but I do play videogames, I build my own desktop for it and I use Linux MX (Debian), it's rock solid.
"Ancient packages" are not a problem with backports, there are also flatpacks if some backports are not enough for you, or DEB packages directly from software developers (I manually install a couple of those).
The only games you will have problems with are those implementing invasive DRM, but that's not a "Debian" problem, Linux in general doesn't support that kind of DRM (not yet at least), tho I personally don't mind since I think DRM is stupid and I've always tried to avoid it.
That was my consensus with software like Lutris and adding Wine’s packages
Yeah Lutris has fantastic scripts that do everything for you, also the Steam store is really good even if you don't buy from them, checking that a game is verified for Steam Deck is a guarantee it will work on any other Linux PC.
I didn't add which GPU I have but I saw you asking in other posts so: currently NVIDIA 4070 with proprietary drivers.
I've been using NVIDIA on my Linux desktop for over a decade, it always worked very well tho you have to install proprietary drivers (opensource ones are not good enough if you use software that requires performance), Linux MX has a script (menu item) to install them, very easy.
In all this time, only a couple of times I had serious problems with a kernel update (something that can happen with any distro), but Linux MX always keeps boot entries for the last 3 kernels so when it happened I just booted with a previous one and waited a few days for devs to fix it (no tinkering on my part required).
NVIDIA cards have problems on laptops, those I only buy Intel, but a dedicated card on desktop is good.
Another vote for Debian stable with backports and flatpaks. I don't really have an issue with outdated software, and I really like "apt", maybe because I'm so used to it as this point. I've been running mainly Debian for 12+ years now.
My second choice for personal use would be Arch Linux. I had very good experience with it back in the day and their wiki is fantastic. But I'm too comfortable with the simplicity and stability of Debian at this point.
At work I use Ubuntu because everyone else uses it. It's not too bad. I just ignore all the crap I don't like (like snaps).
I had the same apprehensions as you against using a CLI package manager, but I have to say it's grown on me. I used Debian based OSes for 5-10 years and I swore by Synaptic.
After only a short while with Endeavour though, I found that I was perfectly happy to run
sudo pacman -Ssto search for software — oryayfor the AUR. It's been my daily driver for a couple of years now.I would go with Fedora or Mint, both for their software support and stability. Personally I like Mint over Fedora, I think it has a larger selection of software packages but I could be wrong.
Btrfs is more stable nowadays, I wouldn't worry about that. And anyway you can choose XFS or Ext4 during installation while setting up your disk partitions.
If you are worried about a particular software package being too old, try installing FlatPaks instead, or use the Nix or Guix package managers which can co-exist easily with any other package manager.
I'm personally using Mint for this exact purpose. It just works and I don't have to think about it much.
I love Mint for the simplicity. My only complaint is the lack of Wayland support for cinnamon.
You sound like you'd be pretty capable, I personally use arch, less perceived limitations. Endeavour is the better choice between endeavour and manjaro.
MX if you just want a os with beautiful theming.
Either way good luck.
Mint or MX for a standard windows converter distro?
Web surfing and gaming.
Depends on the person, I didn't get on well with many distros, I like tinkering, arch afforded me that.
Some people are happy jumping in the deepend and having converter distros may alienate some new users.
MX might be slightly easier due to MX Tools. Otherwise it's a matter of taste: xfce vs cinnamon, thunar vs nemo, etc.
Both should work great, just take care to install packages like steam or lutris through flatpak. And if you're setting it up for someone else, install some pm frontend like discover or software centre, so that they can have unified updates through a gui.
Is there much different between MX and Debain Stable it’s built on?
Not sure to be honest, my experience with MX and Debian are limited, I like how MX looks, had no issues using in in the small amount of time I had used MX linux and I'm a sucker for good theming
Saner defaults for a desktop, useful gui tools to manage and maintain your system, better looking
Garuda is my arch distro of preference. Easy install and better default capabilities.
I’m just gonna say, go with something Debian based. MX Linux is very solid.
Wouldn't recommend it as its a little bit obscure and doesn't use systemd
It does use systemd, just not by default. One small change to GRUB and it’s done.
Also, it’s literally the most popular distro on Distrowatch, so I don’t know what you mean by obscure. More popular than Mint, even.
EndevourOS (alt Manjaro) Cons: Manjaro has died on me once, and is a hassle to setup right and keep up. EndevourOS has no Package Manager GUI, and is over reliant on the Terminal. Can’t use pacman in a terminal the commands are confusing.
I hear this and I highly recommend Bauh. Its a GUI package manager that supports Arch, AUR, Flatpak and Snaps. Will even automatically generate snapshots in Timeshift before you update. Super easy to use. I can't recommend it enough, I use it on all my desktops.
Is Buah better than pamac? It's got to be right? pamac looks great but actually sucks so bad I learned to use Pacman in the terminal.
I've used Pamac, and I did like it but had to move off Manjaro for other reasons. Bauh is leagues better. Pamac is really cluttered UI whereas bauh is just search and install. No frills, pure utility.
I use Bauh on my VM Endeavor install. Compared to using the terminal it's amazing, but it feels limited. For example I can't install multiple packages at once it I can with other distro's gui.
I was a happy Ubuntu user for more than a decade and I agree that it's a good beginners distro. I am now using Manjaro, which is also very good. In fact, Manjaro might even be more beginner friendly because it support Flatpak out of the box.
I used manjaro when I first started, but have had mixed success since then. Some criticisms here about shipping broken userspace (at least with their mobile OS): https://drewdevault.com/2022/08/18/PINE64-let-us-down.html
But, ubuntu is great for beginners, and i've always had good success with debian, although I'd point beginners to find an installer with non-free firmware until you know what's going on
Pop_OS is a good choice for a gaming machine, it was perfect for like 4 years until I upgraded my 1080TI for a 7900XTX and the Mesa version was too old to run it at the time so I switched to Manjaro.
Personally I hate most Arch based distros with a burning passion. Like I have used arch wiki to install Arch at least 3 times after it had shit the bed during an update. Now if I need to open a terminal to install a distro I'm not installing it. I just wish the people maintaining Manjaro weren't so incompetent and also include common codecs (h264 and h265) in Mesa like every other distro.
Manjaro has also died on me in the past, because they fuck with the packages, EndeavorOs is rock solid and you will thank yourself when you can install stuff like spotify, discord, teamspeak with a single yay command
Choice of distro isn't as important anymore as it used to be in the past. There's containerization and distro-independent packaging like Flatpak or AppImage. Also, most somewhat popular distors can be made to run anything, even things packaged for other distros. Sure, you can make things easier for yourself choosing the right distro for the right use case, but that's unfortunately a process you need to go through yourself.
Generally, there's 3 main "lines" of popular Linux distros: RedHat/SuSE (counting them together because they use the same packaging format RPM), Debian/Ubuntu, and Arch. Fedora and OpenSuSE are derived from RedHat and SuSE respectively, Ubuntu is derived from Debian but also stands on its own feet nowadays (although both will always be very similar), Mint and Pop!OS are both derived from Ubuntu so will always be similar to Ubuntu and Debian as well), and Endeavour is derived from Arch.
I'd recommend using Fedora if you don't like to tinker much, otherwise use Arch or Debian. You can't go wrong with any of those three, they've been around forever and they are rock solid with either strong community backing or both strong community and company backing in the case of Fedora. Debian is, depending on edition, less up to date than the other two, but still a rock solid distro that can be made more current by using either the testing or unstable edition and/or by installing backports and community-made up to date packages. It's more work to keep it updated of course. Don't be misled by Debian's labels - Debian testing at least is as stable as any other distro.
Ubuntu is decent, just suffers from some questionable Canonical decisions which make it less popular among veterans. Still a great alternative to Debian, if you're hesitant about Debian because of its software version issues, but still want something very much alike Debian. It's more current than Debian, but not as current as a rolling or semi-rolling release distro such as Arch or Fedora.
OpenSuSE is probably similar in spirit and background to Fedora, but less popular overall, and that's a minus because you'll find less distro-specific help for it then. Still maybe a "hidden gem" - whenever I read about it, it's always positive.
Endeavour is an alternative to Arch, if pure Arch is too "hard" or too much work. It's probably the best "Easy Arch-based" distro out of all of them. Not counting some niche stuff like Arco etc.
Mint is generally also very solid and very easy, like Ubuntu, but probably better. If you want to go the Ubuntu route but don't like Ubuntu that much, check out Mint. It's one of the best newbie-friendly distros because it's very easy to use and has GUI programs for everything.
Pop!OS is another Ubuntu/Mint-like alternative, very current as well.
For gaming and new-ish hardware support, I'd say Arch, Fedora or Pop!OS (and more generally, rolling / semi-rolling release distros) are best suited.
Well that's about it for the most popular distros.
It doesn't matter that much, but I like Arch... it's a bit of a pain to install if you are new to Linux though. I find it more stable than Manjaro though.
Your decision probably should depend on if you like KDE or Gnome and if you want the latest software or something a bit more stable.
You could also try the live version first before you install it to make sure everything works as intended.
For the DE I’ve settled on Cinnamon. I like KDE plasma, but it’s missing features, gnome has everthing but I don’t like its interface.
If you are using this pc for work I'd guess you want the most stable system possible. Just pick Debian stable with backports, stick with the official repo + flatpak and you won't have it fail on you unexpectedly ever.
My issue with just choosing debain is I don’t know if I’m sacrificing Resolve compatibility by choosing it.
This is where Distrobox comes in. Simply spin up a tiny containerized Fedora, install Resolve. Everything else on your system can be rock solid Debian.
This gives you the best of both worlds.
Hm, I never used resolve so I wouldn't know about that. I guess you will have to try it out and see if it works fine or not, installing debian 12 doesn't take much time.
You can always use Docker and run it on a Rocky Linux image.
If you need DaVinci Resolve, just know that when you switch to Linux, you will lose the ability to read and render mp4 files. You will need to buy the full version to be able to do this on Linux.
I use my desktop primarily for video editing, 3D modeling, and a bit of gaming, and it's been running Pop!_OS since December with absolutely zero issues. The only annoyance has been the mp4 file thing in DaVinci.
Yeah, I bought Resolve Studio when I switched over from Vegas. I've been planning this move for a while.
Handbrake if u are still having issues
I’m using EndeavourOS and I use DaVinci Resolve. The only issue I’ve had is a strange bug in DaVinci 18.6.x where my footage will start flickering after a few minutes.
I shoot in SLOG3. The flickering looks like my colour grade flashing on and off for a frame or two. It will persist until I turn off all of my colour nodes, save and quit, open Resolve again, and turn on the nodes again.
I haven’t figured out what is causing it yet.
Did you install Resolve via AUR or from their installer? How was updating the software? Did you find the performance in fusion to be worse in Linux or in par to Windows?
I’ve installed it both ways. When installing via AUR you will need to download the zip from black magic. The AUR will look at your downloads folder and use the zip as the installer.
Updating is very similar to Windows. You’ll still need to download the new version as a zip and then install it again.
I don’t use fusion too often since my GPU is a little underpowered but I’ve not noticed any worse performance. If anything it’s been the same or better across the board.
I've tried Ubuntu and pop_OS but had problems with them. But I've just installed Mint Debian edition and it's been going great so far
You already know why you should pick Debian:
Pro: The most stable OS I’ve used
About your "ancient packages" that's an easy fix, just install all your software using Flatpak/Flathub and you'll get the latest software on your rock solid base system.
This Lemmy BBQ has been the most entertaining yet... First off, now that the drunk uncles are finally showing up and the conversation has meandered away from OP's original question, I would like to say thank you OP - I was stoked to find your retro-gaming youtube. So good man!
The next bit of entertainment are the aforementioned drunk uncles scrapping it out on the lawn mid-post. Who has the bitchin'est Camaro? Nevermind that for a moment. Did Uncle Vinnie and Uncle Scotty say their FIREBIRDS are the bitchin'est? Fuck those guys! Linus from the Linus Tuner Garage out on the coast at 138 Richmond and Main said he busted the shit out of the Firebird dashboard that one time. Nah man, that was a Civic, but whatever, Firebirds blow. Pontiac is a shitty company anyway. Um, aren't they all GM. Yeah, but Firebirds have that shitty design on the hood and crap aftermarket support.
Why don't we all just sit around the Grill. Pick your steak, have a beer...
And thank fuck we aren't using Windows 11
Yeah I didn’t expect the neighbour 3 doors down with their lifted pickup to show up. But it’s all fun, until someone mentions German cars and how unreliable they are when they start breaking down and how they’ve always been bad.
I got my answer eventually, but it’s sad the OpenSuse guys didn’t show. But that just shows how many people use their distro.
Also I am shocked anyone can find my channel, and happy you’ve enjoyed it. I made a video about ditching Windows and how 11 policies sucks, and would love to do more. But when I try the script becomes dull so I scrap it. Hoping there’s content when I eventually try this but Series 9 first.
I will check out the the Win 11 migration vid. Yeah, would definitely like to learn more about OpenSuse. Seems there is a lot of chatter about it on [email protected]
Perhaps will install it on something and tinker with it.
If you are using davinci on your system a lot, you can try their pre-packaged iso. They recommend rocky Linux nowadays and also provide an iso for it.
I wouldn't recommend any of those. Since you have Nvidia go with Linux Mint or Pop os as they both have good support for Nvidia.
Gotta throw my vote in for tumbleweed. Its IMO the best distro to get the latest packages while still maintaining stability. Their built in roll back feature is great.
Software not being well supported is kinda a sticking point. Though honestly its becoming less and less of an issue each day. Flatpaks are available for almost everything, distrobox covers the rest. I really haven't run into any situation that prevented me from doing what I wanted. I've been using it for a few years now across my desktop, laptop, and my computer at work. Suse is enterprise Linux after all, its still got great support
That’s why it’s on this list, but I’m more looking to see if Resolve has issue with it.
What software is not supported? I could find everything I needed working great in the community repos using http://software.opensuse.org/
If you are interested in something arch-based but like having guis for stuff, I highly recommend Garuda Linux. I've been using it for about a year on my everyday desktop for gaming and it's been great. I also have really liked fedora bazzite on my laptop for almost the same time period.
I'd stay away from manjaro, I wouldn't touch it again with a 10 foot pole. Every time I've tried to use it, it just breaks itself every 3-6 months. I know some people swear by it, but I just have to assume they either have extreme tier knowledge to prevent trouble before it starts, are so used to fixing problems they are blind to their time spent doing it, or they are just incredibly lucky.
I was once in the same boat. Here is what I did, put a second drive into my PC and separated my root and home partitions then kept hopping distros until I found the one that worked for me. That way, I didn't lose my important files while hopping. The distro I landed on was endeavour OS. I have been using it for 3 years now. Not suggesting that you should use it, because every distro works differently for different people depending on many factors. But try this and see if you find your own endeavour OS. Good luck :)
I’d like to do this, but honestly I don’t have the spare storage to let me do this on my desktop. So I’d be cracking it open to swap drives and that’ll be a hassle.
You actually don't need another drive. You can use the same drive and partition it, just make sure every time you install a new distro to choose "manual partitioning" and make sure you don't format the /home drive and format everything else. Then assign the existing /home (that has all of your data) as your /home for the new distro.
Cannot say for other programs you mentioned (although I'm sure they work fine as well) I'm using Godot on EndeavourOS and it is perfect. If your only concern is terminal, EndeavourOS has built-in scripts for updating your system. Also using an AUR helper would make your tasks easier, which "yay" is pre-installed. You can basically type "yay package_name" and it will guide you.
Imo go straight to archlinux. With Archinstall it is significantly less work than people say, I got mine working in less than an hour, with minimal issues. I was on Manjaro for a while and loved the experience, shame about the issues they have. EndeavourOS seems alright but i had issues with the live image (no wifi)
Mint DE. Enable backports or whatever if you want to. Get a newer kernel. I'm on 6.1
I think an important consideration is which desktop environment you want to use as you're more likely to get better graphics support with a distro that defaults to your favourite de.
I used to use Mint, but I recently switched to OpenSuSE as I have decided I prefer using KDE. I could install KDE in Mint but I had a few graphical glitches and annoyances with it's apps being designed for cinnamon/gtk. Meanwhile no issues with OpenSuSE. I also have an Nvidia card and AMD CPU.
The other thing to consider given your graphics needs is a more gaming focused distro. I use Nobara on my living room PC which I use for gaming; it's pretty good although that machine is an AMD iGPU. I have considered moving that to OpenSuSE for consistency with my desktop but I like it as it is tbh.
I tried Mamjaro in the recent past - it's nice but I didn't like the Arch packaging system. The AUR is good but I've found everything I want via other routes on other systems, and Mamjaro failed on me soon after I started using it. May have been coincidence buf I decided I couldn't use a system like that - I just didn't want to be problem solving so much on my daily driver.
I've also tried Fedora. I really didn't like that system - again it was the package management system and the BTRFS file system caused me endless issues.
I like OpenSuSE's Yast and Zypper package management tools. I also like the debian Apt package management system.
Last consideration: Debian systems have a lot of support available due to it being the base to lots of derivatives like Ubuntu and it's own derivatives like Mint etc. OpenSuSE has less of that generic support - it's there but it's not the same scale, ubiquitous support.
Maybe I've been extremely lucky, but I've had nothing but good experience with BTRFS. However I do see a lot of comments where something broke catastrophically. Is this one of those things where I can't feel the pain because it hasn't happened to me?
Difficult question to answer. For me the biggest issue with BTRFS was the unexpected behaviours as a user which were a headache to problem solve. I didn't have a catastrophic data loss but I did have issues with permissions and mounting which were opaque and at the root of errors I was getting with software I was installing and using (and I only got to the file system of the cause after a lot of head scratching and frustration). I'm don't think BTRFS is necessairly a bad filesystem, I just don't think it's a very user friendly one? However it may also be more to do with my own ignorance of the filesystem. That said, most guidance for end users when dealing with software is either around Ext4 or assume use of an Ext4 filesystem. It was quite difficult getting to the root of my BTRFS issues.
Fedora moving to it as default kind of makes sense as it's essentially a testing system for an enterprise system, but it wasn't much fun to deal with as a home user.
I use Opensuse leap. It works for me. If i cant find software i want i use the nix package manager
Use the AppImage for FreeCAD, it will probably have the best performance. You can try Flatpak if you want and compare but definitely not the snap.
Davinci Resolve will depend on the graphics drivers. If you have Nvidia you should be good to go, just pick a distro that has excellent integration with Nvidia drivers with zero fuss and tinkering.
Godot is Linux native software so I imagine it will work great on any distro, but keep in mind having recent enough packages for it.
Oh I just added the FreeCAD repos to my OS. Still working out AppImages and how to “install” them to my OS like an application rather then a portable exe.
Choose the OS you want and then use Distrobox to create a CentOS or Fedora environment for Resolve. It will see all the packages it likes.
Absolutely do not use Manjaro.
My favourite on your list is EndeavourOS. You can use pacseek to manage your packages if you really hate pacman ( though you should be use yay on EOS anyway ). If your really want a GUI, use yay to install pamac ( yay -S pamac or yay -S pamac-gtk probably — I cannot remember the package name and I am on my phone ).
If you like Debian, use Debian. The packages in Debian 12 are not old yet. Regardless, the package problem is solved by Distrobox.
I have debated using Debian as a base with access to Arch packages via distrobox myself. I may try VanillaOS for that. You would need to pick a different package source if you do not like the pacman commands.
What DE do you order? An alternative to Debian would be LMDE. That gives you the Debian stability and compatibility with some of the friendliness of Linux Mint and a more up-to-date desktop.
I dont get the "alt" do you want CentOS (which doesnt exist, but I think Stream is better anyways) or Fedora?
Run Davinci resolve in a container, no internet access maybe, fixed dependencies that dont update. Ublue has a container image that you can run with podman.
"dnf -C ..." may change your life!
you want debian and snaps/flatpacks/appimages/containers or whatever for the stuff that's not in backports or needs to be updated too frequently (yt-dlp).
when i left slackware i tried all the distros, and had all the complaints you have about debian. why should i have to deal with an out of date package when slackware let me convert rpms to tgzs and install them willy-nilly? turns out i can do that with debian just fine.
walk that road though, you gotta travel far to get home.
turns out i can do that with debian just fine.
Exactly, and unlike others Debian simply doesn't fail.
Maybe look into Garuda as an additional alternative to EndeavousOS and Manjaro. I'm using it on a gaming rog and haven't had any significant issues regarding stability.
sorry if i might repeat someones answer, i did not read everything.
it seems you want it for "work" that assumes that stability and maybe something like LTS is dort of the way to go. This also assumes older but stable packages. maybe better choose a distro that separates new features from bugfixes, this removes most of the hassle that comes with rolling release (like every single bugfix comes with two more new bugs, one removal/incompatible change of a feature that you relied on and at least one feature that cripples stability or performance whilst you cannot deactivate it... yet...)
likely there is at least some software you most likely want to update out of regular package repos, like i did for years with chromium, firefox and thunderbird using some shellscript that compared current version with latest remote to download and unpack it if needed.
however maybe some things NEED a newer system than you currently have, thus if you need such software, maybe consider to run something in VMs maybe using ssh and X11 forwarding (oh my, i still don't use/need wayland *haha)
as for me, i like to have some things shared anyway like my emails on an IMAP store accessible from my mobile devices and some files synced across devices using nextcloud. maybe think outside the box from the beginning. no arch-like OS gives you the stability that the already years-long-hung things like debian redhat/centos offer, but be aware that some OSes might suddenly change to rolling release (like centos i believe) or include rolling-release software made by third parties without respecting their own rules about unstable/testing/stable branches and thus might cripple their stability by such decisions. better stay up to date if what you update to really is what you want.
but for stability (like at work) there is nothing more practical than ancient packages that still get security fixes.
roundabout the last 15 years or more i only reinstalled my workstation or laptop for:
- hardware problems, mostly aged disk like ssd wearlevel down (while recovery from backup or direct syncing is not reinstalling right?)
- OS becomes EOL. thats it.
if you choose to run servers and services like imap and/or nextcloud, there is some gain in quickly switching the workstation without having to clone/copy everything but only place some configs there and you're done.
A multi-OS setup is more likely to cover "all" needs while tools like x2vnc exist and can be very handy then, i nearly forgot that i was working on two very different systems, when i had such a setup.
I would suggest to make recovery easy, maybe put everything on a raid1 and make sure you have on offsite and an offline backup with snapshots, so in case of something breaks you just need to replace hardware. thats the stability i want for the tools i work with at least.
if you want to use a rolling release OS for something work related i would suggest to make sure no one externally (their repo, package manager etc) could ever prevent you from reinstalling that exact version you had at that exact point in time (snapshots from repos install media etc). then put everything in something like ansible and try out that reapplying old snapshots is straight forward for you, then (and not earlier) i would suggest that those OSes are ok for something you consider to be as important as "work". i tried arch linux at a time when they already stopped supporting the old installer while the "new" installer wasn't yet ready at all for use, thus i never really got into longterm use of archlinux for something i rely on, bcause i could'nt even install the second machine with the then broken install procedure *haha
i believe one should consider to NOT tinker too much on the workstation. having to fix something you personally broke "before" beeing able to work on sth important is the opposite of awesome. better have a second machine instead, swappable harddrive or use VMs.
The exact OS is IMHO not important, i personally use devuan as it is not affected by some instability annoyances that are present in ubuntu and probably some more distros that use that same software. at work we monitor some of those bugs of that software. within ubuntu cause it creates extra hassle and we workaround those so its mostly just a buggy annoying thing visible in monitoring.
You can use my post as reference and guide: https://feddit.de/post/9087676
I would also recommend checking out Distrobox, especially for DaVinci Resolve. This decouples your programs from the host OS, which allows you to run DVR on any distro and get the newest software, containerised on Debian for example.
I personally am a huge fan of Fedora Atomic, especially uBlue. It's almost the same as regular Fedora, but way more reliable and with a new concept in mind. uBlue already has Distrobox pre-installed.
It's some work and will take some learning, but perhaps NixOS.
OP isn't comfortable using a package manager through the terminal, and you think they'll be fine to write code and use the terminal...
I think I missed that, but yeah that would make things a little bit difficult, although they could use the web search at search.nixos.org, but you are right, the terminal really could not be avoided.
My recommendation would be Fedora or CentOS if you want a stable workstation you won't have to reinstall. Debian is also a great choice. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is okay but I found it a little clunky compared to the others. Avoid EndevourOS and Manjaro like the plague.
I agree that Manjaro isn't the best choice but I have nothing bad to say about EndeavourOS. The way I see it is just as Arch with a graphical installer and a few minor QOL changes. The only thing that annoys me was that they consider bluetooth a security risk, so you have to install and enable it yourself, but that takes 5 minutes.