yala

Last year, this piece was written on it. And, based on an extremely small sample size (N=1), the takeaway was basically that the 1% lows (and the 0.1% lows) do seem to benefit on some games.

But, there are so many factors at play, it's pretty hard to back up any claim of performance increase (or decrease). However, if you've got the time and you want to play around, then please feel free to benchmark the 1% lows (and 0.1% lows) of the games you play on different distros and come to your own conclusions.

Small nitpick; layering is technically only a thing on Fedora Atomic. Not all immutable distros subscribe to it.

I'm glad to be proven wrong.

Thank you for being more optimistic than I am.

I honestly suspect the main issue is related to either the opinionatedness of Ubuntu compared to Debian or the absence of Snap. Why do you think that Distrobox will help them with their choice?

I'm afraid that you won't get an answer from OP. Based on the last couple of days, and OP's many posts, we've noted that OP has only rarely answered questions. I don't think it will be different this time.

So, while I can't read their intentions, I will provide my thoughts.

OP is a newb. And has asked this community many different (but somehow related) questions.

OP was on Xubuntu, but experienced a problem. After they saw that the solution involved more steps than they're willing to take, they instead opted to switch distros. After prompting the community for some input and inspiration, they decided to go for Debian with Xfce. However, they've experienced a bunch of things since that have made them second-guess their choice; Xubuntu was perhaps better at some things AND Linux Mint Xfce was actually the popular pick in their earlier community prompt.

So, in order to resolve their second-guessing, they intend to put them all to the test simultaneously though multi-boot before finalizing their decision.

Windows ->

Fedora Kinoite: A relatively mature atomic/immutable distro combined with excellent security standards and that resembles Windows' workflow. Unfortunately, it broke almost immediately. Though, to be fair, it was a known issue with the ISO back then. As a newb, however, I couldn't be bothered with it. ->

Fedora Silverblue: Well..., I didn't have much of a choice 😜. Or I had to forego Fedora Atomic altogether. However, I actually really enjoyed GNOME's workflow. I used this as my main system for about year. Until I found a related project... ->

Arch: The memes got me 😅. In all honesty, though, it was mostly curiosity. Still, I didn't intend to throw away my working Silverblue installation for the sake of quenching my thirst for experiencing Arch. So, as dual boot, I tried to install it. This was pre archinstall, so it took a couple of tries before I booted into GNOME. However, I guess I did mess up something as I don't recall ever booting back into that system 😅. So, what if I want Arch, but don't want to spend more time with the installation... ->

EndeavourOS: Yup. I actually enjoyed it. I also took the opportunity to install another DE; KDE. Tried out the hardened kernel. Was able to make Davinci Resolve work, which just caused a lot of trouble on Silverblue. Access to AUR. It was cool, really. And, for some time, I was actually pondering to dismiss Silverblue altogether in favor of EndeavourOS. But, I started to miss the 'stability' that I was used to from Silverblue. Though, I don't exactly recall if it was the fault of being based on Arch, or rather linked/attributed to KDE instead. Regardless, I noticed that (over time) I spend more and more time on Silverblue. At some point, booting into EndeavourOS didn't work any more. It had broken. I did engage in some troubleshooting efforts, but to no avail... ->

Zorin OS lite: On backup laptop; the poor thing couldn't run Windows but (even today) it's still kicking on Linux ->

Nobara: So, I guess I did miss some of the functionality provided by EndeavourOS; running Davinci Resolve being the primary one. But, I didn't want to pass out of the opportunity to try something else. Back then, Nobara was released relatively recently and was received very positively by the community. And had even a special guide/tutorial to make Davinci Resolve work on AMD devices. Nobara was cool. But, it didn't feel very special. I actually enjoyed EndeavourOS a lot more. It was mostly utilized for Davinci Resolve and for gaming if Silverblue wasn't fit for the job (for whatever reason). Unfortunately, even this one broke at some point 😅. I could still boot into it. But, the system just didn't do what it's supposed to do. I tried troubleshooting. But, once again, to no avail. ->

uBlue; Silverblue image: Through all that was previously mentioned, I had stability in Fedora Silverblue. It was reliable. I could trust it. Well..., most of the time 😅. Decisions related to mesa or video acceleration in browsers definitely felt more like misses rather than hits. I can't blame Fedora as they're legally restricted. But, shouldn't we be able to do better? Enter uBlue. It seemed like some black magic shenanigans. The earlier issues would have never occurred (nor did they occur) on uBlue. This 'managed' aspect of uBlue was clearly, at least for me, the reason to consider it over regular Silverblue. And so, I parted with regular Silverblue and started using the Silverblue image provided by uBlue. Not long after, I even had my own (hardened) custom image. But, eventually (to be more precise; about half a year after switching to uBlue), keeping up with hardening took up too much effort for me to bear. But, thankfully, I had already found the perfect solution... ->

secureblue (based on the Silverblue image): This was Silverblue hardened by someone that actually knows their shit. And, thankfully, I didn't have to maintain this myself. I used this for a couple of months until the next best thing... ->

secureblue (based on the Bluefin image): Currently on this for I think half a year now. It has just been a lovely experience through and through. Everything I could have asked is provided.

So I have a two monitor setup, and I really dislike how gnome only lets you have the bar on the primary screen unless you install a plugin that is very outdated and I cannot get working on the latest version of gnome or use dash to dock, and I am not a fan of the dock style…

I believe both Dash to Panel and V-Shell are capable of resolving this issue in a way that should suit your needs IF you wish to continue using GNOME.

For grannies, I like to go with Endless OS. Curiously, it combines aspects of the two most named distros under this post; based on Debian and utilizing OSTree (like Fedora Atomic does).

It's often overlooked (for some reason), but actually combines the best of both worlds:

• Over two years of support (since release), while Fedora Atomic only offers 13 months of support since release
• Automatic updates are enabled by default and updates are applied atomically in the background, while Debian(-based) are not capable of atomic updates
• Does not even offer installing software through apt and doesn't even have it's own rpm-ostree counterpart. Instead, it goes all-in on Flatpak.

The only thing that might give something like Fedora Atomic an edge would be by installing any of the opinionated uBlue images (like Aurora/Bazzite/Bluefin etc.) that just apply and ship fixes for you (without requiring you to do anything for it) and that are even capable of automatically applying updates to major releases for you in the background. This is basically just hands-off mode.

I just wanted to offer some nuance to the table. After everything has been learned, enabling some (otherwise complex and obscure) features can be accomplished by a single line in your NixOS config. Like, this efficiency can not and should not be ignored.

You can find some of my thoughts on Fedora Atomic in another comment found under this post. Spoiler alert; for a lot of people, it's what they seek from NixOS but (by contrast) with excellent delivery. I won't ignore that it doesn't have some of the more insane/interesting functionalities that NixOS provides. But, some just want atomicity, reproducibility and (some) declarativity; and Fedora Atomic does deliver on those without requiring you to go into the deep and learn an entire new language that's only used for managing your distro 😅.

I agree that Fedora Atomic, especially if you consume it through uBlue, provides (somehow) even less headache with only a fraction of the investment.

I say this as a very happy user of Fedora Atomic; who has (almost) exclusively been using Fedora Atomic on all of their systems (read: 1 laptop) for over two years.

I would argue that NixOS absolutely is the OS you get if your time is worthless

Hard disagree. Does it require you to climb through heaps of trash documentation? Absolutely. But, if you persevere, you got yourself a rock solid system that will even make Debian Stable jealous; all while requiring no maintenance.

1. Better documentation has been made available since relatively recently.

Why does your brother use NixOS in the first place?

Don't get me wrong; I think NixOS is a very interesting project with a very bright future. It probably wouldn't be an exaggeration if I said that NixOS has single-handedly inspired the current immutable revolution. However, it's also a distro that wants you to learn and digest its ways before it will return the favor.

But, based on my reading/understanding of your comment, your brother doesn't strike me as a seasoned Linux user. Am I right? Btw, NixOS is hard unbeknownst of how many experiences you got with other distros. However, I would simply never recommend a new user to use (Gentoo, Guix System or) NixOS. There are definitely outliers, but they would have to find it themselves then.