Hi, I’m looking for a distro for my laptop. My first distro was Pop!_OS, then I switched to Fedora, then Arch for a year and 2 months ago I switched to Fedora Silverblue, because I wanted to try immutable distro that relies on containers and flatpaks to be usefull. Silverblue is great but not so much for me, its not flexible enough.

I’m thinking of switching to Arch but maybe it’s time for something else. Maybe NixOS or Void, Gentoo probably not, I don’t have time for compiling everything. What do you recommend?

It must support full disk encryption, secure boot with signing with YOUR OWN KEYS, systemd (because of MullvadVPN), everything else I think can work on any distro (Gnome, podman, kvm, etc.).

  • raubarno@lemmy.ml
    24·
    9 months ago

    I’d recommend rather boring Debian. Archlinux as well if you want to dive deeper.

    EDIT: For Debian, you want Debian Testing.

  • Atemu@lemmy.ml
    16·
    9 months ago

    I’m thinking of switching to Arch but maybe it’s time for something else. Maybe NixOS or Void, Gentoo probably not, I don’t have time for compiling everything. What do you recommend?

    I’m a bit biased of course but you sound like you’d enjoy NixOS.

    NixOS is immutable but quite a bit more tinkerable than Silverblue. Not quite Arch or Void levels of tinkering but this topic is not as black and white as it may seem.

    secure boot with signing with YOUR OWN KEYS

    Not yet in upstream NixOS but: https://github.com/nix-community/lanzaboote

    systemd (because of MullvadVPN),

    Unrelated to evangelising you into NixOS but I’m curious: Why does a VPN proxy software have any hard dependency on a process manager?

    • chevy9294@monero.townOP
      4·
      9 months ago

      Why does a VPN proxy software have any hard dependency on a process manager?

      Probably because of killswitch. App installs a service that manages internet and vpn access, the app is just a GUI for communicating with that service.

  • al177@lemmy.sdf.org
    161·
    9 months ago

    Don’t sleep on OpenSuSE. It supports everything you’re looking for and has options for periodic and rolling release.

    • Emperor Palpapeen@mastodon.social
      21·
      9 months ago

      @zelifcam @chevy9294 I’ve become a fan. I’m not a coder or anything, and I have been able to navigate its package management easily enough. The manual could be made a bit simpler/clearer, but the system itself is not hard to manage.

      I’ve been meaning to figure out if I can set up the system and then generate a new configuration file based on what I installed using nix-env

      • StarkZarn@infosec.pubEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        That sort of configuration after the fact would be a fantastic addition, if not already in place.

  • Klaymore@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    9 months ago

    You want immutable distros but Silverblue wasn’t flexible enough? Why not try NixOS? It’s really nice.

    I’ve been using it for two years and I love being able to make changes to my config and having those changes apply to all my computers. It’s also basically unbreakable, if my computer explodes I can just reinstall NixOS with my config files and it will instantly be set up exactly how I want it.

  • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    9 months ago

    Plain old minimal arch to start is a great solution that’s not too painful to manage IMO. That is where I landed after not wanting to figure out how to make full compiles palatable.

  • astrsk@artemis.camp
    7·
    9 months ago

    The one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the more experience you have with Linux, the less you rely on preconfigured distributions. Find a stable minimal install and build up your own set of base packages, DE, configs, etc.

    Only you know your habits and needs and experience is how you narrow down the field.

    For me personally, I have found my groove in a minimal Debian install with a first run setup script or two that is repeatable and automatable so I can start with a known quantity for any applicable need I have.

  • BoofStroke@lemm.eeEnglish
    92·
    9 months ago

    I prefer doing useful things with my workstation vs playing with the OS itself, so mint cinnamon is my recommendation. Servers are ansible-managed alma. Professionally I’m a Linux systems architect and devops engineer.

  • fraydabson@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    I love arch. I want to switch to NixOS for my home server but I think I’ll be sticking with arch for my main I see no further reason to switch.

    • SunRed@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      9 months ago

      I learned that using nix on arch for the home directory in addition to pacman and the aur is quite an unbeatable combo that I prefer to having everything managed by nix. The problem with nix and nixos I see for one is that it leaves some performance on the table for reproducibility and that many packages are or cannot be packaged for nix. Additionally arch already is quite reproducible albeit not as much as nixos. Writing your own meta package with a simple pkgbuild to manage the system base seemed like a good substitute for me.