Switch to debian and go outside
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Since I’m the NixOS guy, I recommend GUIX. 😉
I always wonder why GUIX seems to get left out vs NixOS
If NixOS isn't ready for mainstream work, GUIX is at least doubley so. It is SUPER white beard while IMO, even an idiot (👋🏼) can grasp NixOS.
NixOS isn't coming very naturally to me. Just can't quite grasp it.
If you want, here’s my config. Feel free to fork it.
https://github.com/harryprayiv/nix-config (you’ll have the most luck with the “plutus_vm” machine config output in my flake at first since the main output in my config is somewhat obscured by encryption).
I also have a Nix-Darwin config that I haven’t consolidated into my main one:
That looks sharp, thank you.
No problem. Real thanks goes to gvolpe who I forked my config from.
I've not used either, just look on as a curious spectator, I've yet to leave the more idiot proof distros of mint and fedora. What makes it so hard to deal with vs nix?
From what I hear, it's a much newer and less popular project, so I expect it to be even more difficult than nix was for me.
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I'd recommend rather boring Debian. Archlinux as well if you want to dive deeper.
EDIT: For Debian, you want Debian Testing.
Debian is only as boring as you want it to be.
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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?
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.
Can confirm NixOS is the shit. Can't imagine myself using anything else
Don't sleep on OpenSuSE. It supports everything you're looking for and has options for periodic and rolling release.
OpenSuse is great except for one (imho) zypper. When I do updates zyper has this huge section which is labeled "will not be upgraded". For me it's really distracting and makes reading which packages will be upgraded harder to parse visually at a glance
This is what I mean: https://superuser.com/questions/273424/am-i-using-zypper-correctly#361047
Guix !
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.
Since you're experienced with Linux already try a BSD for something new.
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.
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.
every distro is for experienced users, you can tranform arch in ubuntu and vice versa, but if you want sumething different try fedora silverblue, or other nonmutable distro, it's fun learning how to use it(it's what i'm doing with my laptop)
I don't know who downvotes this, but it's true, you can get your hands dirty with any distro.
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.
Arch is a good choice, Endeavour was my flavor of choice, but these days I use Linux Mint: Debian Edition, which works mostly fine for me (got one minor piece of software I can't get for it).
Seconded LMDE. Super stable, polished, and intuitive.
There are a few options. Like many have mentioned, Nix OS is a wonderful distro with it's own quirks.
If you are looking for something normal, consider Opensuse Tumbleweed and arch linux (or arch based distros like EndavourOS).
I'd recommend go back to arch. I use arch myself and have decided to stop distro hopping. I always end up regretting and come back to arch. The arch install script is quite good now, spares me hours of hunting down what packages to install for a working desktop and configuring of bootloader, etc, that I had to do before for installing arch.
Last time I tried something else was fedora. I liked the seamless experience, but I was annoyed by the very slow updates (why does it take soo long to refresh the repos?), and I missed the awesome wiki and package availability on arch.
I'm a long time arch with plasma user and recently tried arch with gnome and couldn't get into it, so decided to try something new so I switched to Fedora Kinoite and yes, updates are incredibly slow. I mean it's ridiculous really when compared to arch, but the distro seems solid ( curious how long I'll last before inevitably going back to arch).
Linux mint
Gentoo probably not, I don't have time for compiling everything
Just wanted to say I use gentoo and was going to recommend it. Compile times really shouldn't impact you that much as they're running in background and can be configured to not impact other processes. And compiles are very fast for most applications, it's only the few heavy ones that aren't.
The secure boot implementations in Debian and Fedora trust kernel/modules with keys signed by Microsoft. Everything that you listed you want to do, you can do on Arch and with AUR you probably won't need to compile 99.9% of programs.
Fedora 38
Whichever one works best for you.
Now that's an experienced user.
Vanilla OS 2 Orchid sounds very interesting, I think. It's in alpha now. Have a read about their package manager - it's kinda meta, allowing you to use other package managers in parallel.
Arch supports all of those.
NixOS does too, but I don't believe Void does.
Void, hands down, if you're halfway experienced. Nix is cool but complicated and quite unlike amy other system.
Except void doesn't have systemd, if you really need it, but it's easy to write your own runit routine.