TheModerateTankie [any]

I like the universal blue distros. If your laptop specs aren’t great I would recommend Zirconium, as it’s a Niri-based atomic distro and runs great on my 10yo laptop. Bluefin is gnome based, Aurora is the KDE-based equivalent. Bazzite has both KDE and Gnome variants, and is similar to either of them but with more game tools steam installed at the system level. I am biased towards these distros because they’ve been the best linux user experience I’ve ever had for day to day use.

Between linux distros on the same kernel and a similar DE setup the difference in performance between them is within the margin of error. If it’s greater than that then something is broken with the setup. You’ll likely get worse performance and hardware compatibility on debian or mint, just because they run older kernels by default. You can get newer kernels backported to debian if you add the right repositories, but I don’t think it’s recommended.

I run the desktop version of bazzite and can not say enough good things about it. It’s been more stable than debian for me and the “immutible” distros i’ve been on have been such a good and trouble-free experience that I don’t want to touch traditional distros anymore. It has all the codecs and a bunch of extra hardware support enabled by default, a bunch of scripts to easily set up things, and a bunch of QoL improvements set up on install. Having to open up flatseal every now and then to grant permissions to a flatpak is so much less trouble than what I’ve experienced on traditional distros where updates can straight up break shit and randomly send you on a troubleshooting goose chase. I don’t understand how anyone finds that normal and acceptable. You can get local AI set up pretty easily with the right flatpaks (alpaca) or certain appimages.

If not being able to mess with system level stuff, or the niche quirks of an immutable distro are a dealbreaker, or you want to jump around on different DEs and not mess with a VM: Fedora is good, generally stable and decently updated packages. Mint generally stable but might have slightly older packages. CachyOS for an arch based option that’s highly regarded, because it has a lot of useful options, but with rolling release distros the risk of updates causing an issue slightly higher than usual. I’ve also heard nothing but good things about OpenSuse Tumbleweed which is also rolling release but reportedly very stable.

Oh, I see. From the bug reports posted, it looks like the -dx image is based on the bazzite deck 44 image for some reason, which isn’t out of testing yet. If that’s deliberate it’s an odd choice. The new deck 44 image should be updated to stable soon.

edit: Further reading indicates it’s based on the deck image so that they don’t have to maintain two different dx versions.

Is it not letting you rebase to stable?

rpm-ostree rebase ostree-unverified-registry:ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite:stable

Currently what I’m using and I’m never going back to a regular distro.

I’m using a regular stable distro, running as a small server on a spare machine, and had an update break my docker containers. What a drag.

According to this post, once these projects move to bootc, they are going to get rid of layering and allow you to just dnf install what you need.

Recent discussions upstream has consolidated around doing things the Ublue way. Pulling a base image from an upstream registry and using containerfiles to define a system locally. No custom scripts and unit files. No GitHub. Just writing custom changes to a containerfile and having them automatically apply on reboot. Running dnf install @virtualization would add the following line to the containerfile in the background:​

RUN dnf install -y @virtualization

The powerful thing about build time container image layers like this is that you can do deep customizations like switching out the kernel, changing the login manager, use your own custom boot screen, or redistribute your build by pushing it to a public/private container registry or as the Ublue team shown use container based ci/cd workflows for automated vulnerability scanning against public databases like NVD and CVE.

Seems like it will get rid of a lot of pain points.

This seems pretty similar to what universal blue releases are doing, which is cool. Basically fedora atomic, but using new bootc tooling so a small team can more easily manage a project like this. The custom gui for config options and the addition of SWAI seem neat.

The custom app center thing seems kind of redundant because there are quite a few app stores out there already, but I think the intention is to use that to curate and steer people towards native gnome apps and discourage kde apps so the UI is consistent. You should be able to “unlock” the ability to use kde apps, but by default it keeps you in the gnome ecosystem.

If this proves to be stable, it would be a good option for new users or people who don’t want to dive into messing with the system layer. Like Bazzite, Bluefin, or Aurora. It will also have the same benefits/limitations as those.

Looks interesting! I know a lot of people hate the idea of the fedora atomic model, and there are a few issues that need worked out for certain use cases, but i’ve been on Bluefin for a year and it’s been a great experience overall.

Outside of security patches there probably won’t be the latest version of apps available, so the software you use can be out of date and you will have to wiat for new features that have been implemented. Flatpak mostly solves this for gui user-level apps, but it’s not set up by default and can require tinkering with permissions to fix some issues.

If you have new hardware it might not work well with the kernel that comes installed, but you can enable backports and get a newer one.

Practically half the linux exo-system is built on top of debian, so you can get a different distro built on debian but with better default experience or custom guis for certain tasks like managing drivers, so people you can save time and not have to dive into terminal commands following how-to guides for various things.

I really like Bazzite and the universal blue project (Bluefin and Aurora) in general. It is the fastest way to get a stable, usable linux installation with a bunch of QoL tweaks without having to follow a “here’s top 10 things to do” guide after install. Starting from a stable install is the best way to get used to linux, imo. If you are coming from windows or a mac and the system borks itself or throws up wierd errors during installation or an update, or you have to follow a bunch of guides inputting commands you are unfamiliar with to get basic funcionality working, you aren’t going to trust the system enough to switch over to full time. A stable, well functioning system upon install is essential for new users.

It is very possible to do development work, however you will most likely need to be familiar, or willing to become familiar with, a containerized work flow. This is probably a good practice to get into regardless of distro you use. Bluefin/Aurora are specifically is targetted towards developers.

As far as packages go, you use bazaar for flatpak/gui apps, brew for CLI apps, distrobox for any random program from a different distro you might need, and podman for docker images. Layering is a last resort and should be reserved for apps that need to interact on a system level, most often VPNs with custom installers and some password managers.

Flatpak will be set up on install with decent defaults, so permission issues are less of an issue. Distrobox is also set up and easy to dive into if needed. Setting it up this way seperates user apps and system apps and makes the install much less prone to breaking un updates. It also updates in the system and flatpaks/brew apps in background without bothering the user, you just need to restart the machine every once in a while to upgrade to the next version, although this behavior can be modified with a simple terminal command.

Relying on flatpaks/brew means those apps will be up to date and you don’t have to wait sometimes months for the distro to get an upgrade, which can happen with non-rolling release distros. Since they are all fedora based, the system will be fairly up to date while not bleeding edge like a rolling release distro, so it is rare to experience kernel regressions or those types of issues.

The default file system is btrfs with seperate system and home partitions, and it’s set up to be able to roll back to a previous version from the grub menu if an update causes a problem. This is possible with other distros, but can take quite a bit of effort. I’ve done it in debian before and it was not intuitive, and if something went wrong after following the guide I followed, I would have no idea how to fix it and would just have to nuke the isntall and start over.

The main difference between the universal blue releases is that Bazzite has steam installed at the system level, and has Gnome, KDE, or KDE plus Steam Bigpicture modes available. Bluefin is Gnome focused, and Aurora is KDE focused, but steam is only available as a flatpak. It is easy to swtich between each release with a simple terminal command and there is almost no risk to your user files when you do so. It just swaps out the system layer and leaves your user partition alone.

This set up will not be limiting or cause problems unless you are wanting to explore different window managers or desktop environments outside of KDE or Gnome, or have an obscure device that the bazzite maintaners haven’t installed support for, or have to use a vpn with a custom installer that needs system access, or use a password manager that isn’t configured well in flatpak.

As far as I understand it, the immutable fedora-based distros want as much as possible to be installed at the user level. Layering things onto the system should be reserved for things that need system level access to work properly, like maybe a driver or something like that, which might not have been included.

It’s a better practice for stability and security.

The universal blue distros are the fastest I’ve been able to have a usable computer up and running and doing what I want it to do. They are fantastic.

There are no official cosmic variants anymore, but there are things like Origami that you can rebase to, if you want to try. Can’t vouch for their stability, but it’s an option. If support is dropped you can rebase back to regular bazzite. Rebasing is easy and pretty safe, it basically acts like an update and switches out the system files, but you should back up your config files just in case the different DE’s don’t play nice with each others config settings. From what ublue developers have said this can cause problems or annoyances.

Or you could develop your own derivitive with bluebuild or something. I’m not sure how involved that requires you to be, but it’s probably easier than learning nixos.

Anything with docker set up OOTB, like Flatcar Linux

And a good docker container like: WG-Easy

You can make gnome more or less like mac with a few extensions, which works well in my experience. Extensions like apps menu, places indicator and dash to dock (or dash to panel) are useful.

You can make kde more or less like mac by sorting through a very comprehensive configuration gui, which is great for people who want it but not necessarily new users.

Is it this issue? - https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/2344

Someone fixed a similar issue by setting their display color accuracy to “Prefer Efficency” instead of “Prefer Accuracy”

you can boot ostree:1 change the setting, run sudo ostree admin pin 1 then rebase back to testing (not reboot to ostree:0) that should hopefully work around it

The ublue releases (bazzite/bluefin/aurora) are tweaked to be set up and ready to go with minimal or no set up. You can switch between ublue and the normal fedora atomic distros, or even user customized variants, from what I understand. The root system will change, but anything installed under your user account will stay the same. The only problem that might occur between switching is that different desktop environments might overwrite some settings and cause problems that way. You would want a way to backup your config files just in case if you do a lot of switching.

This also means you can’t install multiple desktop environments side by side. Like if you wanted to choose between kde,gnome,xfce at the log in screen, it’s not possible under the atmoic distros. When i’ve done that on regular distros it would always result in a mess, and getting rid of a DE meant a lot of orphaned programs I didn’t want, so I avoid doing that, but this is a potential downside to the atomic distros. You would have to rebase and redownload stuff every time you switch DE.

Otherwise they are rock solid and basically designed to get you up and running as fast as possible, and be as stable as possible with seamless background updates. I’m running bluefin, and it’s the most user friendly and smooth experience on linux i’ve ever had.

I just switched to a ublue distro (bluefin) and think it’s great. These are designed from the ground up to be an “install it for a family member or friend and never have to touch it again” experience. They are based on Fedora. Bluefin has been the most trouble-free install of linux I’ve ever tried. I can’t say enough good things about it.

I would go with Aurora (essentially bluefin but with KDE instead of Gnome), unless they do a lot of gaming, in which case Bazzite-kde would probably work best (bazzite is more up-to-date which can mean more instability).

These are set up to use flatpak with a software center, so all gui apps can be installed from there and is similar to windows. It updates everything automatically in the background and only requires rebooting whenever you want to switch to the updated system. Also the immutable nature makes it hard to break, but if something does go wrong it makes it easy to roll back to the previous working install. There are also GTS versions of bluefin and aurora available, which are pinned to more stable releases so there’s even less chance of breakage.

Live USB installs aren’t stable yet so that might be an issue if you want to make sure hardware works before install, but you can install to a usb harddrive and boot off of that to check it out that way.

I’ve been running bluefin for about a week and I agree. One of the best things about these different distros is they install and configure a lot of things for you. Bluefin installs with flatpak, homebrew, distrobox, podman/docker, devcontainers configured and running on install, good peripheral support, good desktop tweaks, and sensible but easily removable default apps. Bazzite does something similar for gaming installs. It’s great. If there are common apps or configs that their users want they try to implement it and get it set up and running on install, if possible. The most friction free linux install I’ve ever had.

Eelco steps down

Is the fork still going to happen?

I’ve been looking for stuff to install and ran across this list, it’s pretty comprehensive. https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

Right now I only have jellyfin and pi-hole with unbound.

Pop or mint like everyone else suggests.

There are only a handful of major distros that are significantly different from each other (debian, fedora, opensuse, arch, nixos) that all other distros base themselves on. Apart from that, for the most part, the difference is basically what desktop environment they install by default, what apps get bundled, and maybe a few more tweaks here and there. It’s easy enough to change all of that regardless of what distro you end up on.

Pop and Mint are based on Ubuntu (which is based on Debian) and will probably have the most resources for support for new linux users. They come with default programs and custom software which makes the new user experience easier.

If you have a problem in either one of them, or want to do anything more complex than install software or tweak settings from a gui, and you can’t find what you are looking for in pop or mint forums, you will likely be able to find the solution in ubuntu forums, or even debian support groups. If you are using a computer that’s relatively new and wasn’t built with linux compatibility in mind, it’s not unlikely you will run into an issue that you’ll need to search out a fix for so it’s good to have those resources.

If the distro you choose doesn’t handle your monitors right, it might be a problem with the desktop environment you are using and it’s typically easy to install an alternative to try out before you nuke the whole thing to try again.