Hello everyone, I need help to decide on a Linux Distribution to settle and finally stop distro hopping. I have quite some experience with Linux(1year Mint, a quarter year Arch, nixos, debian, manjaro, fedora, suse tumbleweed and kalpa…)I have been experimenting for now almost 3 years. Now I finally want to setlle but I just don’t know where. I like Nix’s shell but don’t like installing everything in five steps(with git because my brain can stand neither the dirty tree warning nor leaving out on the git push) and I don’t need the reproducibility. I like rolling so I don’t need to reinstall or do any major update, but even more appealing is low maintenance and stability in the sense of nothing unexpectedly breaking. I’ll use the computer as an daily driver mostly for programming & 3d design, university related work, streaming and also some gaming. Thank you for your answers. #linux #distrohopping. EDIT: I don’t want to have a company behind my distribution. And my specs: Nvidia RTX 4070, Amd Radeon 7 7840HS, 16GB of RAM
Conclusion: Thanks a lot for all of that feedback, I decided to go for Debian 13 Stable and might check out MX once.
The final conclusion :P: I will now install LMDE and either try to install KDE Plasma or just stick with Cinnamon. Its not as uncustomizable after all. And the flashbacks I got during the installation from me first stepping into Linux… …definetly the rabbit hole I should have fallen into, even though I can now never live a normal life again :/.
I’d recommend LMDE over Ubuntu Mint. There isn’t much point to ubuntu mint anymore to be honest
I disagree. As someone who is running both Debian-Testing and ubuntu-Mint, there is a difference between the two, especially in support of some hardware and some pre-configurations that come handy in some “difficult” machines. Ubuntu has special workarounds for a lot of things, you see. Debian does not. Debian doesn’t even boot on my DELL Xeon workstation, for example. Ubuntu does. And that’s my main issue with LMDE, being based on Debian. Also, LMDE doesn’t have the nvidia driver panel, to make it easier for people with nvidias. If Debian was to create these workarounds for various machines, then sure, why not. LMDE would be just fine.
I guess they’re very similar overall. The main advantage I see for Mint/Ubuntu over LMDE/Debian is hardware and driver support. On Ubuntu you get much more recent versions for the kernel, Mesa, Nvidia drivers, … from the HWE stack.
I’d say that if you’re using such up to date hardware that you need the latest kernels and drivers, you probably don’t need the handholding of mint, so you might want to prefer fedora or arch or smth, and not Mint/Ubuntu.
I don’t think people with new hardware are typically more technically competent… I think it depends more on the use case and how much money people are willing to spend. I think there are a lot of gamers that are quite new to Linux. But, e.g., right now Debian stable doesn’t support the Nvidia 50 series at all (released in January 2025).
Nvidia has a debain repository you put in your apt and get drivers from. I am using it now with a 5060.
It’s exactly like windows for the nvidia repo, you get your drivers from the hardware manufacturer.
That’s the fine details of personal situation and preference. I think we have a disagreement on perspective, and I’m glad you pointed out that specific detail, so that others reading our discussion can make a well informed decision.
I still disagree, but not because of a technical level, from my perspective, it’s still roughly the same, we just see “most recent hardware” as being applicable to different people.
And I hope you can feel that you can agree with the idea that it’s a social disagreement and not a technical one.
Really?
Bias : I use debian for my own machine.
I have two machines on Mint I am responsible for; one craptop with LMDE and one tower for my Mrs with Ubuntu Mint.
I hate fucking about with the tower more than the craptop. The laptop is just as easy to use and was just as easy to install and everything. The only thing I needed to do was to replace cinnamon with XFCE in an attempt to make it run faster since the craptop has like 2gb ram.
Doesn’t Mint just configures Cinnamon as default DE and leaves the rest alone, working from the stable branch? That’s my understanding.
I also run Debian. One desktop and three laptops. I run Mate, normally. The best compromise between useability and DE resource use. But I’ve used XFCE and LXDE.
You do you but…
god I hate Mate. The fucking config preferences never worked properly across “profiles/saves/whatever” for me.
I like LXQT most. I tried out basically every DE under the sun in a VM (and KDE and Gnome on bare metal. Gnome as part of Nyarch to rescue my wife’s old tower and to see wtf it was like. It crashed and fucked up. Not sure if it was due to Ny or arch, but obv not a good fit)
Yes, even Sugar. Please do not try Sugar.
I worked with seriously hardware constricted machines for years and users on a learning curve.
KDE did not make my fancy when I tried it, when first moving from Windows, 20 years ago. Not then, not now. I know it has evolved a great deal but I can’t justify commiting so much hardware resources for the DE alone. And the obcession with the K’s are a bit of a pet peeve. I’m aware I’m getting some packages from it now and then and I have to eventually try it again but tomorrow is not the eve of such day.
I used Gnome until Gnome ceased to be Gnome and reinvented itself under that smartphone aspect. Mate forked and maintained that simple approachable look and feel.
XFCE is good but I missed the dual panel on the file explorer and eventually moved from it. It also tended to force me to mannually configure sound settings, keyboard hotkeys and other small things that otherwise were readily available.
I spent some time with Bunsen Labs installed on a machine and I enjoyed the look and feel. Conky was the jewel for me. But I had other users on that machine that didn’t adapt.
A short stint on Enlightenment. Not my cup of tea. Deepin was a disappointment. And I couldn’t motivate myself to manually configure a tile manager. I want a computer, not another hobby.
I used LXQT for some time but I felt it lacking. Very light and very fast but… Cinnamon is a nope for me, personally, but I have set it up for others and people enjoyed it, even more when coming from Windows.
But isn’t this the beauty of Linux? There is an option for everyone. Like you very well put it: you do you.
Yep. I fucking hate current gnome but I’m glad it exists for someone who is into it, and that they are marching to the beat of their own drum. I just don’t want to hear it. I literally made a post on this.
I am curious to find out more about Bunsen Labs.
It’s very worth the try.