Could we add "Distrochooser" to the sidebar? by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

While I get why distrochooser.de is romanticized, in its current iteration it's simply not very good and anyone that is somewhat well-versed in how different distros operate and how Distrochooser works, will tell you the same. At best, it provides some orientation into what some of the more common distros are. But it fails to answer some fundamental questions in the process; like:

  • What is the relation between a distro and its derivative and (more importantly) how does that matter to a user?
  • How exactly does a distribution's chosen release model affect software and updates? And while we're into that, what's even the difference between the "stable" used when talking about point release distros that opt to freeze packages over longer periods of time vs the "stable" that's brought up in conversations regarding update concerns and how they might break software (I'm honestly not even sure if the one(s) responsible for writing the parts of Distrochooser even know(s) themselves)^[1]^.

There are a lot of other fundamental questions that are involved in the decision for picking a distro that would have made a lot more sense than the ones found on Distrochooser. E.g. Do you use an Nvidia GPU and want this to cause no issues in the process of installation and is this your biggest concern? If yes: then just use Pop!_OS. Otherwise, move on to the other questions etc. I think the fact that a flowchart isn't used for some uses and that ultimately priorities aren't brought up to finalize the decision are the two biggest issues that Distrochooser has in its current iteration.

And we haven't even gone over the many distros that despite having little to no user base are still included in the results, while (more recent) 'staples' like Garuda and Nobara are clearly left out for reasons most likely related to the maintainers not being able to keep up with the Linux landscape. Which, to be fair, is quite hard; so I don't blame them. I, in fact, applaud them for their continued contributions and hope that some day it will become something that we can proudly present to others for their first orientation.

Allow me to end this with a question to OP:

  • Do you feel the same way about excellent websites like DistroWatch.com and DistroSea?^[2]^
    • If yes; Why didn't you make a similar post for either of the two instead?
    • If no; Why not?
  1. Sure, there is some overlap in what they mean and how they're used, but it's a very important distinction; otherwise openSUSE's stable rolling release designation for their Tumbleweed wouldn't make any sense.
  2. If anything, I think these two actually make more sense to be included.
12
Solene'% : NovaCustom NV41 laptop review (dataswamp.org)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/privacyguides@lemmy.one
2 comments fedilink

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated in any way to any of the parties involved in this review. I just enjoy reading Solène's writings in general and found myself to be especially in fond of this specific article. I share this in the hopes that others might somehow benefit from this as well!

The relevance of the review for this specific community would be that NovaCustom produces excellent laptops to be used with Linux (and other open source operating systems). Furthermore, in the review the reviewer installs a bunch of different distros and tests how they work on the device. Perhaps most importantly; Qubes OS -which is endorsed by Privacy Guides- has this specific device on their Certified hardware page. Which already is very commendable, however it's extra special when one realizes it's the only laptop with a modern CPU on the list.

25
Solene'% : NovaCustom NV41 laptop review (dataswamp.org)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
13 comments fedilink

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated in any way to any of the parties involved in this review. I just enjoy reading Solène's writings in general and found myself to be especially in fond of this specific article. I share this in the hopes that others might somehow benefit from this as well!

The relevance of the review for this specific community would be that NovaCustom produces excellent laptops to be used with Linux (and other open source operating systems). Furthermore, in the review the reviewer installs a bunch of distros and tests how they work on the device.

7
Looking for input regarding finding an IDE (spoilers: involves Emacs and Vim) (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/neovim@programming.dev
17 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/9648279

I would like to premise this with the following:

  • The best approach is probably just testing out each and every editor that interests me until I've found what works best for me.
    • However, I wonder to what degree a test as such would be representative when the likes of Emacs and (Neo)Vim are considered; both of which are known for being a life time learning process.
  • I don't literally expect Emacs or (Neo)Vim to be drop-in replacements for any IDE. Some of the most basic IDE-functions are absent by default and some (perhaps more advanced) functionality might simply not be attainable at all.
  • I am not interested in anything that remotely resembles a flame war. The community at Lemmy has so far been very kind to me; let's keep it that way 😜.

Motivation

I've had experiences with Atom, VS Code and some of Jetbrains' IDEs like Pycharm and Rider. While I've been generally content with all of them, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever I'm forced to switch IDEs because their lifetimes and/or lack of extensibility doesn't allow me to responsibly continue using them. As such, I'm interested in a long time investment that will grow as I will. Both Emacs and (Neo)Vim have passed the test of time and I honestly don't think they'll cease to exist in the upcoming decades, that's why I would love to start using either one of them.

Furthermore, Vi(m) keybindings seem to be somewhat ubiquitous and almost any IDE offers some support. As such, improving my Vi(m)-game should only net-positive my productivity (at least eventually). Also, fluency will benefit me whenever I'm remote accessing any random server as they will always have Vi(m) installed. Thankfully, this doesn't force me to use Vi(m) (or Neovim) just yet, because Emacs offers with Evil perhaps the single best Vi(m) implementation; outside of native Vi(m)*.

My setup:

  • I'm on a custom image of uBlue using their startingpoint as template. For those unaware; an oversimplification would be that it is Fedora Silverblue with some extras.
  • As such, I would like to have my developer environments local and have used Distrobox to that extent using steps similar to the ones outlined over here. But I'm not married to that specific way of utilizing local containers. So please feel free to recommend me something that's at least as good.
  • If I go for Emacs, then I will definitely rely on Evil.
  • If possible, I would like to use it for C#, Python and Rust. Furthermore, I engage in editing Bash scripts, Dockerfiles, Linux config files, texts written in Latex and/or Markdown and other files written in Nix or JSON. As both are very extensible, I don't expect any issues, but I might be wrong.

Questions:

  • First of all, does it make sense for me to only consider these two?
  • Can the split between Vim and Neovim be interpreted as the first schism and as such be a forebode for what's yet to come?
  • Google Trends suggests that Neo(Vim) is ever-popular. On the other hand; not only is Emacs relatively less popular, but its popularity seems to be slightly declining. Should this worry me regarding their long-time future? Especially considering that a thriving community is literally the lifeline for both of them.
  • For those that have used both extensively, which one do you prefer (if any) and why?
  • While I understand that the power of both of them lies primarily in how one can literally make them behave however suits their workflow best. Therefore, the use of premade configs and/or starter kits/distributions should (ideally) only be used either temporary or as a starting point. However, at this point, they provide a decent showcase of what each 'platform' has to offer. So:
46
Looking for input regarding finding an IDE (spoilers: involves Emacs and Vim) (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
71 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/9648279

I would like to premise this with the following:

  • The best approach is probably just testing out each and every editor that interests me until I've found what works best for me.
    • However, I wonder to what degree a test as such would be representative when the likes of Emacs and (Neo)Vim are considered; both of which are known for being a life time learning process.
  • I don't literally expect Emacs or (Neo)Vim to be drop-in replacements for any IDE. Some of the most basic IDE-functions are absent by default and some (perhaps more advanced) functionality might simply not be attainable at all.
  • I am not interested in anything that remotely resembles a flame war. The community at Lemmy has so far been very kind to me; let's keep it that way 😜.

Motivation

I've had experiences with Atom, VS Code and some of Jetbrains' IDEs like Pycharm and Rider. While I've been generally content with all of them, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever I'm forced to switch IDEs because their lifetimes and/or lack of extensibility doesn't allow me to responsibly continue using them. As such, I'm interested in a long time investment that will grow as I will. Both Emacs and (Neo)Vim have passed the test of time and I honestly don't think they'll cease to exist in the upcoming decades, that's why I would love to start using either one of them.

Furthermore, Vi(m) keybindings seem to be somewhat ubiquitous and almost any IDE offers some support. As such, improving my Vi(m)-game should only net-positive my productivity (at least eventually). Also, fluency will benefit me whenever I'm remote accessing any random server as they will always have Vi(m) installed. Thankfully, this doesn't force me to use Vi(m) (or Neovim) just yet, because Emacs offers with Evil perhaps the single best Vi(m) implementation; outside of native Vi(m)*.

My setup:

  • I'm on a custom image of uBlue using their startingpoint as template. For those unaware; an oversimplification would be that it is Fedora Silverblue with some extras.
  • As such, I would like to have my developer environments local and have used Distrobox to that extent using steps similar to the ones outlined over here. But I'm not married to that specific way of utilizing local containers. So please feel free to recommend me something that's at least as good.
  • If I go for Emacs, then I will definitely rely on Evil.
  • If possible, I would like to use it for C#, Python and Rust. Furthermore, I engage in editing Bash scripts, Dockerfiles, Linux config files, texts written in Latex and/or Markdown and other files written in Nix or JSON. As both are very extensible, I don't expect any issues, but I might be wrong.

Questions:

  • First of all, does it make sense for me to only consider these two?
  • Can the split between Vim and Neovim be interpreted as the first schism and as such be a forebode for what's yet to come?
  • Google Trends suggests that Neo(Vim) is ever-popular. On the other hand; not only is Emacs relatively less popular, but its popularity seems to be slightly declining. Should this worry me regarding their long-time future? Especially considering that a thriving community is literally the lifeline for both of them.
  • For those that have used both extensively, which one do you prefer (if any) and why?
  • While I understand that the power of both of them lies primarily in how one can literally make them behave however suits their workflow best. Therefore, the use of premade configs and/or starter kits/distributions should (ideally) only be used either temporary or as a starting point. However, at this point, they provide a decent showcase of what each 'platform' has to offer. So:
31
Looking for input regarding finding an IDE (spoilers: involves Emacs and Vim) (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/programming@programming.dev
38 comments fedilink

I would like to premise this with the following:

  • The best approach is probably just testing out each and every editor that interests me until I've found what works best for me.
    • However, I wonder to what degree a test as such would be representative when the likes of Emacs and (Neo)Vim are considered; both of which are known for being a life time learning process.
  • I don't literally expect Emacs or (Neo)Vim to be drop-in replacements for any IDE. Some of the most basic IDE-functions are absent by default and some (perhaps more advanced) functionality might simply not be attainable at all.
  • I am not interested in anything that remotely resembles a flame war. The community at Lemmy has so far been very kind to me; let's keep it that way 😜.

Motivation

I've had experiences with Atom, VS Code and some of Jetbrains' IDEs like Pycharm and Rider. While I've been generally content with all of them, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever I'm forced to switch IDEs because their lifetimes and/or lack of extensibility doesn't allow me to responsibly continue using them. As such, I'm interested in a long time investment that will grow as I will. Both Emacs and (Neo)Vim have passed the test of time and I honestly don't think they'll cease to exist in the upcoming decades, that's why I would love to start using either one of them.

Furthermore, Vi(m) keybindings seem to be somewhat ubiquitous and almost any IDE offers some support. As such, improving my Vi(m)-game should only net-positive my productivity (at least eventually). Also, fluency will benefit me whenever I'm remote accessing any random server as they will always have Vi(m) installed. Thankfully, this doesn't force me to use Vi(m) (or Neovim) just yet, because Emacs offers with Evil perhaps the single best Vi(m) implementation; outside of native Vi(m)*.

My setup:

  • I'm on a custom image of uBlue using their startingpoint as template. For those unaware; an oversimplification would be that it is Fedora Silverblue with some extras.
  • As such, I would like to have my developer environments local and have used Distrobox to that extent using steps similar to the ones outlined over here. But I'm not married to that specific way of utilizing local containers. So please feel free to recommend me something that's at least as good.
  • If I go for Emacs, then I will definitely rely on Evil.
  • If possible, I would like to use it for C#, Python and Rust. Furthermore, I engage in editing Bash scripts, Dockerfiles, Linux config files, texts written in Latex and/or Markdown and other files written in Nix or JSON. As both are very extensible, I don't expect any issues, but I might be wrong.

Questions:

  • First of all, does it make sense for me to only consider these two?
  • Can the split between Vim and Neovim be interpreted as the first schism and as such be a forebode for what's yet to come?
  • Google Trends suggests that Neo(Vim) is ever-popular. On the other hand; not only is Emacs relatively less popular, but its popularity seems to be slightly declining. Should this worry me regarding their long-time future? Especially considering that a thriving community is literally the lifeline for both of them.
  • For those that have used both extensively, which one do you prefer (if any) and why?
  • While I understand that the power of both of them lies primarily in how one can literally make them behave however suits their workflow best. Therefore, the use of premade configs and/or starter kits/distributions should (ideally) only be used either temporary or as a starting point. However, at this point, they provide a decent showcase of what each 'platform' has to offer. So:
Should I give Arch a shot? by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Last year I upgraded to an Inspiron 15 7510 with i7-11800H and RTX3050. Since purchasing this laptop I’ve used Manjaro, Debian 11, Pop OS, Void Linux, Fedora Silverblue (37 & 38) and now Debian 12.

A distro-hopper. *Noted*.

I need to reinstall soon since I’ve stuffed up my NVIDIA drivers trying to install CUDA and didn’t realise that they changed the default swap size to 1GB.

Prefers starting from scratch instead of fixing. *Noted*.

I use this laptop for everything - development in C/C++, dart/flutter, nodejs and sometimes PHP. I occasionally play games on it through Proton and sometimes need to re-encode videos using Handbrake. I need some amount of reliability since I also use this for University.

General-use and reliable. *Noted*.

I’ve previously been against trying Arch due to instability issues such as the recent GRUB thing.

Understandable, but not entirely justified.

But I have been reading about BTRFS and snapshots which make me think I can have an up to date system and reliability (by rebooting into a snapshot).

Fair.

What’s everyone’s perspective on this, is there anything major I should keep an eye on?

It is almost common knowledge at this point that this approach has serious merits. That's why we find it on a myriad of rolling release distros. From Manjaro to Garuda, from SpiralLinux to Siduction. Heck, even Nobara -which is not strictly a rolling release distro- has it. I wouldn't even use/recommend a rolling release distro if not for (GRUB-)Btrfs+Timeshift/Snapper. But, while by itself it is already very powerful. It still benefits a lot from testing. Which, when utilized by openSUSE in particular, manages to elevate their Tumbleweed to a very high standard. So much so, that it has rightfully earned to be named the stable rolling release distro. But not all distros are as rigorous in their testing... if at all...

Should also note I use GNOME, vscode, Firefox and will need MATLAB to be installed, if there is anything to do with those that is problematic on Arch?

Nah, that's absolutely fine. *Noted*.

Should I give Arch a shot?

So there are some glaring issues here:

  • You've set some parameters and asked us if Arch satisfies. Which it does, but so do a lot of other distros. Which seems to tell me that this will become yet another chapter of your distro-hopper-phase. Which -to be clear- happens to be totally fine. I'd even argue that it's preferable to do it sooner rather than later. Though the mindset of a distro-hopper might deter you from being satiated...
  • As previously alluded, Arch is yet another distro that satisfies your needs. You didn't mention what attracted you towards it, nor why you'd prefer it specifically over all the other available options.
  • Btrfs snapshots, while powerful, are not 100% fail-safe. Sure, nothing actually is as a random SSD crash might loom around the corner. And I'd be one of the first to tell you that using Btrfs snapshots to rollback to is an exponentially better experience than without. But we're still able to improve upon it (mathematically speaking) infinitely times, to be more precise; some systems allow us to decrease the complexity from uncountably infinite amount of states (which therefore become "unknown states") to countably infinite or (better yet) finite amount of states (which therefore actually become "known states"). The reduction of complexity that this offers and its implications to system reliability are far more impactful than the simple use of Btrfs snapshots.

Consider answering the following questions:

  • Are you a distro-hopper? Or did you have very legit reasons to switch distros? If so, would you mind telling us why you changed distros?
    • Would it be fair to assume that it boils down to "I messed up, but instead of repairing I will opt for reinstalling."
      • If so, is this something you want to work on (eventually) or doesn't it bother you at all?
  • Why Arch?
  • Would you like to setup Btrfs yourself? Or would you prefer your distro to do it for you? Or don't you actually mind regardless?
Any distros you reccomend with these requirements by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Notably openSUSE Tumbleweed is a distro that satisfies all requirements while not being named yet by others. Apart from it, only Arch and Fedora are worth mentioning as distros that also satisfy all requirements (as some others have already noted).

Anyone know what happened to the old BunsenLabs distro? by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

So they've had a major release last year in December. And their official website seems to be up. Though, I only had luck connecting to it through Tor 😅. It's still active according to Distrowatch. And, honestly, the reader reviews ain't that bad. I'd say give it a spin and consider reporting back on us 🙂.

How to replicate the "smart tv experience"? by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On the software-side of things; Kodi is cool. As for remote control, consider referring to Kodi's Wiki-page on the matter for options.

Btw, honestly your query is way too vague. If possible, please provide us with more info so that we can better help you 😉.

45
Asking for guidance on managing dotfiles in a declarative and 'immutable'(/read-only) way across multiple systems (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
23 comments fedilink

Incoming long post, please consider reading at least the following TL;DR before commenting.

TL;DR: Interested in finding the means to manage my dotfiles in a declarative, 'immutable'/read-only way and with automatic sync across two devices (and a fleet of container environments). The method shouldn't require the management of my packages.

First of all, I'm still relatively new to managing dotfiles. So far, git has been doing fine, but time has come to upgrade.

Goals: As I've moved from a non-declarative way of administrating my system to one in which some elements are declarative, it just feels appropriate to apply a touch of 'declarative-ness' to managing dotfiles as well.

Furthermore, as I've been using image-based ('immutable') distros for some time already, I want to explore the possibilities of managing dotfiles within that 'immutable' paradigm.

Specifics of my usage: The primary desire is to have it working on two systems simultaneously. If possible, changes to one should 'automatically' apply to the other and vice versa. Furthermore, the exact content of the managed dotfiles is not the same on both, so differentiation is a requirement. My container workloads can be handled by the likes of chezmoi and or yadm. Nonetheless, being able to manage their dotfiles as well is definitely a plus.

Options that I've explored and associated (potential) challenges:

  • Nix' Home Manager. From what I've gathered, this offers by default most of what I desire. However, I'm interested to know what the limitations are of managing dotfiles only as I'm not interested in installing any Nix packages. So it would have to manage the dotfiles of packages/software/whatever that weren't installed with Nix. ~~Furthermore, to my knowledge, Nix doesn't play nice with container environments; while this is not a hard requirement, I hope to be wrong on this.~~ EDIT: Could not find sources to back this up.

  • Guix with guix home. Unless I'm wrong, this is Guix' Home Manager. So it's met with similar challenges like those found in the previous paragraph. Furthermore, I'm interested to know if either of the two fares better than the other for my use case.

  • While chezmoi, yadm and other known dotfiles managers technically offer a solution, their respective solutions aren't declarative or 'immutable' by default. While I'm sure someone might be able to hack one of them to better fit my needs, I'm not sure if I'm personally willing to commit to that. EDIT: Apparently chezmoi is declarative. I currently wonder which other dotfiles managers I might have mistakenly dismissed for disregarding the possibility that they might be declarative. Furthermore, chezmoi seems to allow declarative control on the read-write permissions of files, which might allow restricting files to just read-only.

  • Old, trusty git. Probably furthest removed from what I desire by default, but perhaps someone knows how to make it fit regardless.

Please feel free to inform me if I've missed anything! Thanks in regards 🙂 !

EDIT: So far chezmoi has surprised me pleasantly with the possibilities it offers. But before committing, I would like to have some input from our residents that swear by Nix/Guix.

Update: It has been over 24 hours since the last time a comment was posted under this post. While I do hope to receive replies from at least two commenters eventually, I'm less optimistic on getting any replies from those that have significant experience with guix home. Though I'd love to be wrong on that.

For posterity's sake; first of all, this has been a great conversation and so I'd like to thank everyone that has contributed! Secondly, I've tried to spend a good portion of the last 24 hours to read up on the subjects that were touched upon and evaluate them accordingly. This has led to the following discoveries that might be worth sharing:

  • Ansible is a legitimately good piece of software that can be used for this purpose, even if chezmoi's author implies not to be a fan of this.
  • While Ansible applies configs 'convergent' (when done right), Nix' Home Manager is able to do so 'congruent' and does so effortlessly in the sense that -with the advent of flakes- one 'simply' does it the 'correct' way regardless (though checks and whatnot help elevate everyone to that level relatively easily). I'm not confident on how chezmoi fares compared to the other two. Refer to this article for more info on what 'convergent' and 'congruent' mean in this context. (TL;DR: "ansible will make changes to get it closer to a target state, whereas nix will reach the target state by constructing the target state again")
  • Due to the point raised in the previous bullet, (when mastered) Nix' Home Manager simply seems a far superior option compared to Ansible. Thus Ansible is dismissed in favor of Nix' Home Manager.
  • I've also come to appreciate how powerful of a tool chezmoi is. Nonetheless, I couldn't stop noticing how many people that have used chezmoi at some point in time eventually switched to Nix' Home Manager for salvation. With those that didn't stick to Nix' Home Manager being open that it was often related to not being able to get it to work *gulp*...
  • At this point it seems that Nix' Home Manager is the clear victor, but Guix' guix home hasn't been represented (yet). So that's what I intend to figure out before committing fully to either Nix' Home Manager or (perhaps) Guix' guix home.
  • As a final note, using any of the tools mentioned doesn't exclude the use of the other tools. Sometimes one tool just fares better in one particular task compared to the other. Thus, one should not be afraid to mix and match these to best fit their needs. As such; a setup in which Ansible, chezmoi and Nix' Home Manager are used together to manage the dotfiles is perfectly fine.

Final update: (for the foreseeable future)

  • The question how Nix' Home Manager fares against Guix' guix home didn't matter in the end 😅, but this is related to how my system works. In case it wasn't clear yet, I daily drive Fedora Silverblue. And as it stands, I'm unaware of any method that enables one to install Guix on Fedora Silverblue without putting SELinux from enforcing to permissive. I don't want to forego SELinux' enforcing mode for Guix, especially when Nix can be installed without being forced to do that. As such, I'll start my (perhaps long overdue) journey into the wonderful world of Nix. I would like to once again thank everyone that has contributed! And also thank you for reading this :P !
What distro to choose in parallel to steamos by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

steamos is debian-based

This used to be the case until the launch of the Steam Deck, on which SteamOS (3) is actually based on Arch instead. However, SteamOS is a very special distro based on Arch due to 'immutability', how it achieves said 'immutability', the implications thereof, 'freezing' of packages, inability to install packages persistently without some hacking etc. So, SteamOS is not representative of how Arch works in general.

while popos is ubuntu-based

And Ubuntu is based on Debian.

is that the biggest part of how a distribution works, ie commands, etc.?

If we take your average (popular) distro, so the likes of Gentoo, NixOS etc are dismissed as they are very unique compared to the others, then arguably the most important differentiators would be: Model for updates, package manager and available packages. One might delve deeper into this and with the advent of stuff like Distrobox this becomes a lot more blurred, but traditionally speaking the aforementioned three things used to be the main differentiators. Beyond those, the end-user has the freedom to do whatever with their system. For example, Pop!_OS comes with GNOME + their own touches by default. However, the desktop mode of SteamOS comes with KDE. But you can install KDE on Pop!_OS and even customize it very closely to how it's done over at SteamOS. This is not a special quality of Pop!_OS, but of Linux in general.

Good ui/ux is important for me so i should maybe use nitrux or deepin

It's important to note that both of these are not unique in what they offer in terms of UI/UX. You can recreate 99% of it yourself, simply by installing the appropriate desktop environment; which constitutes most of the UI/UX. Nitrux has KDE as its desktop environment (with a touch of Maui), while deepin uses the Deepin desktop environment. Personally, I wouldn't recommend any desktop environment beyond Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE and Xfce. Don't be discouraged by this though, feel free to put Nitrux and deepin on a Live USB to get a feel for them. Regarding good UI/UX, your best bets are probs Kubuntu, Linux Mint, openSUSE and Pop!_OS. Honourable mention would be MX Linux, but I don't recommend systemd-less distros to newer users.

that are debian-based

Sure, Nitrux is based on Debian. But it's immutable, systemd-less and favors AppImages over Flatpak/Snap. It's a cool project, but I find it hard to recommend to a newer user. While deepin is less unique by comparison, it's far from a distro that's known for its polish. I'd argue it's mostly just eye-candy instead 😅.

or is it a bad idea to choose a less common distro for a amateur like me?

Bullseye! This isn't a hard rule though. I started venturing into Linux through a somewhat obscure distro as well 😅. But, at the time, I researched for about a week which distro to install and why. Afterwards I spent another week on how I should install it and what should be considered for install. And then I installed it, after which I spent almost two weeks getting the system to a working state. It still wasn't quite there yet, but after spending a month on it from start to finish I wanted to move on to something else 😅. I kept the install, don't get me wrong. And it became my daily-driver. After some time I even 'fell in love with it'. But like, I know that I can be stubborn about things like this and persevere where others might have preferred to hit their heads to the wall instead. So your mileage may vary...

Do you have any advice for me?

As you've correctly assessed, you are indeed lost 😅 . That's fine, I think almost all of us have been lost at some point in time. Uhmm..., but honestly, I think you're conflating two very distinct things. Pop!_OS is a general-use distro on which you can do whatever. And most distros that people talk about and engage with are similarly general-use distros. SteamOS, on the other hand, isn't quite like that. Sure, you may hack your way and achieve some things with it. But it's false to believe that you can find any distro that qualifies as SteamOS but on your laptop. Before giving you any recommendations, would you be so kind to answer the following:

  • Your post is written in a way that implies that you want to forego Pop!_OS for another distro that's more like SteamOS. Therefore my question would be:
    • What things from SteamOS did you prefer over Pop!_OS? Please be specific and elaborate*.
First proper look on Star Labs' upcoming StarFighter laptop by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago

If one can afford to pay the higher price, then Star Labs' (or System76' etc) laptops will offer far superior Linux support. Modern hardware from non-'Linux-first' vendors have shown causing troubles with 'deep sleep'. Issues like these can and have been resolved on Star Labs' (or System76' etc) devices. Furthermore, they don't only sell 'Linux-laptops', but they also contribute to the upstream of coreboot and other Linux projects. Thus, by buying their laptops, one is actively contributing to that cause.

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First proper look on Star Labs' upcoming StarFighter laptop (www.youtube.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by throwawayish@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
41 comments fedilink

The StarFighter is an exquisitely crafted, Linux-exclusive laptop that sets a new standard for privacy and performance. With its groundbreaking technology and sleek design, the StarFighter is the ultimate choice for discerning users who demand the very best.

Gaming laptop with good Linux support? by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago

As others have already (somewhat) alluded to; it's best to buy a laptop from a company that offers devices on which Linux users are first-class citizens. Therefore, any device that specifically fits your needs (hardware-wise) from either NovaCustom, Star Labs, System76, Tuxedo etc should fit the bill. Furthermore, it's worth noting that Nvidia GPUs have a known bad track record on Linux. The possibility exists that you won't even notice it on any of the devices sold by any of the aforementioned vendors. However, I'd argue it's still mindful to be cautious.

Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…

AMD has been doing very good for some time and the fact that the Steam Deck is powered by AMD is very telling of what the current status quo is. However, I don't think it's a hard requirement. Sure, going full-AMD has it's merits, but you should be fine regardless.

Secure distro for daily use by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 year ago

While technically not a Linux distro, Qubes OS is the gold standard. With the primary cons being that it's kinda hard on system requirements and it doesn't play nice with dedicated GPUs and thus software that would require it.

Honorable mentions would be Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite/Sericea, Kicksecure, openSUSE Aeon/Kalpa and Vanilla OS. Of course, regular Fedora and openSUSE Tumbleweed are still good even without being immutable. The aforementioned distros all have varying levels of hardening out of the box. While the offerings of Fedora and openSUSE have better defaults than most other distros, Kicksecure -which is made by the same team behind Whonix- is almost completely hardened from the get-go. Vanilla OS is in a major overhaul, so I refrain from making any strong judgements on it yet.

For whatever it's worth, a couple of years ago the (infamous) Madaidan (AKA security researcher on Kicksecure and Whonix) did recommend running minimalist distros like Alpine, Artix, Gentoo and Void for the sake of security. However, he did that recommendation on the basis of minimalism and zero-trust. However, that would require the system administrator (read: you) to actually know their shit. Which, unfortunately, is often times not the case as not everyone that's sensitive of their digital security proceeds to study cybersecurity. That's where the "honorable mentions" in the previous paragraph come into play; all of the distros that were mentioned within actually have shown to take security very seriously and acknowledge with the amount of heavy-lifting they do that they hold a sense of responsibility in that regard.

Im most interested in blendOS, because its based.

I once had an interaction with its primary developer and the dude was oblivious on which MAC was configured on his distro; spoiler-alert: none. It does a bunch of cool stuff, but I wouldn't call it secure (by default) by any stretch of the imagination.

Linux 6.5 Released With AMD P-State EPP Default, USB4 v2, MIDI 2.0 and More Hardware Bits by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

Hopefully bcachefs will be merged with 6.6.

What are some things you wish you had known when switching to Linux? by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago

Distrobox exists, so one is not bound to use a specific distro just because it packages some of the apps/binaries they require.

Systemd 254 - now with soft-reboot by throwawayish in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[-] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hard-reboots are no longer required on Silverblue when installing or upgrading packages (besides kernel) through rpm-ostree. Arguably one should only sparingly rely on rpm-ostree for installing packages. But it's great to have access to soft-reboot when setting up a new system.

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throwawayish

joined 1 year ago