Hey folks! I'm getting a fresh laptop for the first time in about a decade (Framework 16) in a couple of months and am looking forward to doing some low-level tinkering both on the OS and hardware. I'm planning to convert into a "cyberdeck" with quick-release hinges for the screen since I usually use an HMD, built-in breadboard, and other hardware hacking fun.
On the OS, I'm planning to try NixOS as a baremetal hypervisor (KVM/QEMU) and run my "primary" OSes in VMs with hardware passthrough. If perf is horrible, I'll probably switch back to baremetal after a bit. But, I'm not likely going to be gaming on it so, I'm not likely to have much issue.
Once the hypervisor is working in a manner that I like, I should have an easy time backing up, rolling back, swapping out my "desktop" OS. I've been using Linux as my pretty much my only OS for over a decade (I use MacOS as a glorified SSH client for work). Most of my time has been on distros in the Debian or RHEL families (*buntu, Linux Mint, Crunchbang, CentOS, etc) and I pretty much live in the terminal these days.
With all of this said, I am coming to you folks for help. I would like you folks to share distros, desktop environments, window managers that you think I should give a try, or would like to inflict on me and what makes them noteworthy.
I can't guarantee that I'll get through suggestions, as my ADHD has been playing up lately, but I'll give it an attempt. Seriously. If you want me to try Hannah Montana Linux, I'll do it and report back on the experience.
EDIT: Thank you all for your fantastic suggestions. I'm going to start compiling them into a list this weekend.
Hyprland DE is the new hotness
just steer clear from the community https://drewdevault.com/2023/09/17/Hyprland-toxicity.html
...or the dev https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/111363547103465966
Yikes. What is it about Hyperland that attracts these kinds of people?
from what I've read it's rather the lack of moderation (due to the dev's views) that doesn't reject them. similar situation to the Nazi bar.
It's like Arch, but x10. People think Arch > Any other distro, Wayland > Xorg, Hyprland > any other DE, Rust > C, etc
Yeah, I've been wanting to try Hyprland but have been holding off for that exact reason.
Currently on i3, maybe I'll give sway a go.
If you're a tinkerer it's kind of addicting. I thought I'd give it a try just to see what it was like, and ended up staying up all night customizing it, and now about a month later I don't really want to go back to KDE (been using KDE for almost 20 years)
Agreed, it really makes me excited to use my PC.
That's one that I've been that I've been meaning to give a shot.
Hyprland would look so sick on a cyberdeck