Help me pick a distro!

[marcosmoutta]

EDIT: I have decided to go with opensuse using xfce. Thanks to everyone who helped me. It's not too bad. Just wish the search bar searched for files instead of just apps.

 

I've been daily driving linux since 2013. I've tried ubuntu, debian, mint, puppylinux, all those kubuntu lubuntu xubuntu anomalies, and so much more.

It sucks ass. And I'm not gonna sit here and pretend it doesn't, I just use it because it sucks less ass than windows 8 onwards. I keep having to go back to windows 7 when I need reliability because it just works. And after seeing the latest video on the main Linus channel, I feel VINDICATED.

My requirements for a distro are:

1-Stability. I currently have ubuntu installed and even it has this stupid little bug that prevents me from opening tabs from the tray if I don't triple click them. Every distro I try has bugs. Which is ok, but I seek a lesser amount.

2-Package manager. I never learned how to compile programs or manually install them because I don't want to. It's hard. I want to know what distro has the best, most well mantained gui based program installer. Sometimes I need to use software like paint.net and when I realize there's no linux version, I have to go looking for alternatives on the program downloader store thing. More than half of the programs doesn't even open, and the ones that do are awful.

3-Not many updates. All updates do is break things. So far, it has always gone like: I install a distro, get some programs running, and as soon as the updates start it begins to break things.

So, is there a distro that fits these requirements?

Edited November 17, 2021 by marcosmoutta
I resolved my issue

[Vishera]

Maybe openSUSE Leap will fit your requirements.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, marcosmoutta said:

NO BUGS ALLOWED.

No operating system fits this criterion.

33 minutes ago, marcosmoutta said:

I want to know what distro has the best, most well mantained gui based program installer.

There's no objective way to measure this, however OpenSUSE is a pretty good option as mentioned.

34 minutes ago, marcosmoutta said:

3-Not many updates. All updates do is break things. So far, it has always gone like: I install a distro, get some programs running, and as soon as the updates start it begins to break things.

Updates are required to keep your system secure. Server-oriented distributions (like OpenSUSE or Debian) rarely offer a feature upgrade for the packages in their repositories but they still have security updates. You can always choose not to install these updates, but I don't recommend it.

[flindeberg]

1 hour ago, marcosmoutta said:

My requirements for a distro are:

1-Stability.

2-Package manager.

3-Not many updates.

This sounds like a job for Fedora Silverblue (or Kinoite). Have a look at https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/ and https://kinoite.fedoraproject.org/. They are essentially the same project in terms of using rpm-ostree to create an immutable package manager, except that Silverblue uses Gnome and Kinoite uses KDE.

[marcosmoutta]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

No operating system fits this criterion.

I've been using Windows 7 for as long as I've been using linux and I SWEAR, I have NEVER seen ANY bugs. Am I lucky? Or biased maybe? I thought service pack 1 made it bug free

[marcosmoutta]

4 hours ago, Vishera said:

Maybe openSUSE Leap will fit your requirements.

Gnome, KDE or Xfce? (also, perhaps this question is silly and I don't have to choose given how it defaults to gnome? idk if it defaults to gnome)

[Vishera]

9 minutes ago, marcosmoutta said:

Gnome, KDE or Xfce? (also, perhaps this question is silly and I don't have to choose given how it defaults to gnome? idk if it defaults to gnome)

I prefer XFCE but KDE is good as well.

[10leej]

You sound like a good candidate for Debian stable or openSUSE leap.

6 hours ago, marcosmoutta said:

Gnome, KDE or Xfce? (also, perhaps this question is silly and I don't have to choose given how it defaults to gnome? idk if it defaults to gnome)

Use whatever you like.

 

6 hours ago, marcosmoutta said:

I've been using Windows 7 for as long as I've been using linux and I SWEAR, I have NEVER seen ANY bugs. Am I lucky? Or biased maybe? I thought service pack 1 made it bug free

You got really lucky.

 

9 hours ago, flindeberg said:

This sounds like a job for Fedora Silverblue (or Kinoite). Have a look at https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/ and https://kinoite.fedoraproject.org/. They are essentially the same project in terms of using rpm-ostree to create an immutable package manager, except that Silverblue uses Gnome and Kinoite uses KDE.

Flatpaks still have their limitstions and OP didnt want to deal eith an aggressive update schedule. Thus a fedora distro wont meet his/her criteria, even if its immutable.

Though downstream to Rhel, CentOS Stream, Alma, or Rocky could be an option.

[Sauron]

7 hours ago, marcosmoutta said:

I've been using Windows 7 for as long as I've been using linux and I SWEAR, I have NEVER seen ANY bugs. Am I lucky? Or biased maybe?

Likely both, because there are extensive lists of known Windows 7 bugs.

7 hours ago, marcosmoutta said:

I thought service pack 1 made it bug free

It improved a lot of things but that doesn't mean there are no bugs left. Almost all programs include some bugs, especially programs as large as an operating system.

[maplepants]

Everyone's already pointed out to you that no OS is without bugs.

 

However, if you want to minimize the number of bugs you encounter, it's a good idea to go with something that has tighter hardware and software integration. Why does Windows work so well on Intel CPUs, because Microsoft and Intel put a huge amount of money into making sure that it does. It's the same reason Ubuntu and RHEL run like a dream on Xeons. 

 

For home users, if you want that tight software and hardware integration the best linux desktop you can get is the Raspberry Pi 400. 

 

I know "just buy a new computer" is kind of an annoying answer to the question "which distro should I run", but the Pi is cheap and the desktop experience is absolutely top notch. Unless you workload is extremely GPU intensive, the Pi can do basically anything your current desktop can do. And even though they're cheap, they age extremely well. I still run important parts of my home automation and self hosted setup on the same Raspberry Pi 2 I've been using for 6 years.

 

 If you're looking to game beyond emulated NHL98, here's what you do. Buy yourself a Raspberry Pi 4 or 400 to use as your main daily driver machine. Then put Win10 on whatever you want to use for gaming. Welcome to your new computing life.

[ECor]

I understand your frustrations.  I've been trying to switch to Linux utilizing several distros.  So far Linux Mint seems to be the most stable out of all of them, for me.  It's a static/LTS (Long Term Support) model so it doesn't generally support new technologies as a rolling release model out of the box.  I have used Linux Mint 17 (Dual Boot) years ago.  I also have used LM 19 on my NUC Gen 7 but upgraded it to LM 20 without any issues with either release.  Seems pretty stable and it's been running for months without reboot as of right now.  LM 17 didn't work without a ton of issues and even after hours of research, just couldn't get it to work error free.

 

Now my current setup with the two most used computers.

 

The easy one is the laptop.  I have a framework mid tier DIY.  The only issue was the wifi card, upgrading to a newer kernel fixed that but only after researching the issue, lucking out that the framework forums provided the information for the fix.  Last night I tried Fedora with the Cinnamon desktop and it was a disaster.  I tried the default GNOME with Fedora and I hated the GUI, it was terrible for my tastes.  I also tried to install Manjaro latest release and the live USB image refused to boot.  Tried downloading the images multiple times and using multiple usb sticks.  Just flat out refused to work.  I reinstalled LM 20.2 and got it back up in no time.

 

The hard one is my desktop.  It has a Nvidia 2080 Super and that has been a problem until the recent Nvidia driver was released and installed.  The screen would just go blank after several hours and a reboot needed to be done.  I can sometime get the terminal to work using the key combo of Ctrl+Alt+F2 but the GUI still wouldn't work with using Ctrl+Alt+F7.  However it seems to have resolved itself after that driver was updated.  You will find the Nvidia driver is a sore point for Linux users.  If you have one of those GPUs, good luck.

 

Coming from the Windows 7 GUI, The Cinnamon desktop would probably be the most familiar.  I chose LM distro because it was based on Ubuntu that seemed to have more support compared to the others, especially from Valve at the time, but I hated the GUIs they offered and I am not looking to spend hours of frustration trying to install one of the other GUIs they didn't offer.  So far the NUC is without any issues at all.  The laptop is working perfectly and the issues with the desktop seemed to resolved itself.  There will be times with the CLI/Terminal will need to be utilize but I am doing a little more hardcore things than what you are doing going by your statements.   Really, for your situation, it really depends on your hardware.  

 

I know someone recommended Fedora earlier in this thread.  I actually got my first taste of Linux with Fedora Core before they were renamed to just Fedora.  I tried using Fedora around ten years ago and it was an easy install and it ran pretty solid on my laptop at the time.  I love the GUI at the time and I would probably be using it now on this laptop except, well, already said why earlier. 

 

If you are able to find a distro that works for you based on your desires, just a rule of thumb. Don't upgrade the OS to a later release if it is working for you.  Shouldn't be a problem since you are still using Windows 7 and you already have that mindset. I strongly suggest that once support for security and bug patches are over, you try a later release that is supported.  

 

 

EDIT

I just figured out one of the problems with the desktop with no solution.  I went to turn down the volume on my speakers and accidentally hit the power button on my monitor.  I powered up it up again and still had a blank screen.  I did the usual key combo that got me back into the terminal and back to the GUI to no avail.  I turned off the power features to turn off the monitor awhile back.  This is rather frustration.   My laptop and NUC doesn't have this issue.  The weird part is that I have a laptop with a Nvidia dedicated GPU from awhile ago that still runs Windows that when I ran LM 17 and 19 never had this problem.  The only difference is that it will switch to the intel graphics while there wasn't a demand for graphics.  So I guess I can chalk this up to the Nvidia drivers yet again.  One of the things I did was disabled the screen turn off and that fixed things after the driver update because was happening prior after.    The journey goes on.  

[dragonfly43]

On 11/15/2021 at 7:33 PM, ECor said:

 

If you are able to find a distro that works for you based on your desires, just a rule of thumb. Don't upgrade the OS to a later release if it is working for you.

You can lock the package(s). I usually lock the driver packages.

[marcosmoutta]

On 11/15/2021 at 9:33 PM, ECor said:

I understand your frustrations.  I've been trying to switch to Linux utilizing several distros.  So far Linux Mint seems to be the most stable out of all of them, for me.  It's a static/LTS (Long Term Support) model so it doesn't generally support new technologies as a rolling release model out of the box.  I have used Linux Mint 17 (Dual Boot) years ago.  I also have used LM 19 on my NUC Gen 7 but upgraded it to LM 20 without any issues with either release.  Seems pretty stable and it's been running for months without reboot as of right now.  LM 17 didn't work without a ton of issues and even after hours of research, just couldn't get it to work error free.

 

Now my current setup with the two most used computers.

 

The easy one is the laptop.  I have a framework mid tier DIY.  The only issue was the wifi card, upgrading to a newer kernel fixed that but only after researching the issue, lucking out that the framework forums provided the information for the fix.  Last night I tried Fedora with the Cinnamon desktop and it was a disaster.  I tried the default GNOME with Fedora and I hated the GUI, it was terrible for my tastes.  I also tried to install Manjaro latest release and the live USB image refused to boot.  Tried downloading the images multiple times and using multiple usb sticks.  Just flat out refused to work.  I reinstalled LM 20.2 and got it back up in no time.

 

The hard one is my desktop.  It has a Nvidia 2080 Super and that has been a problem until the recent Nvidia driver was released and installed.  The screen would just go blank after several hours and a reboot needed to be done.  I can sometime get the terminal to work using the key combo of Ctrl+Alt+F2 but the GUI still wouldn't work with using Ctrl+Alt+F7.  However it seems to have resolved itself after that driver was updated.  You will find the Nvidia driver is a sore point for Linux users.  If you have one of those GPUs, good luck.

 

Coming from the Windows 7 GUI, The Cinnamon desktop would probably be the most familiar.  I chose LM distro because it was based on Ubuntu that seemed to have more support compared to the others, especially from Valve at the time, but I hated the GUIs they offered and I am not looking to spend hours of frustration trying to install one of the other GUIs they didn't offer.  So far the NUC is without any issues at all.  The laptop is working perfectly and the issues with the desktop seemed to resolved itself.  There will be times with the CLI/Terminal will need to be utilize but I am doing a little more hardcore things than what you are doing going by your statements.   Really, for your situation, it really depends on your hardware.  

 

I know someone recommended Fedora earlier in this thread.  I actually got my first taste of Linux with Fedora Core before they were renamed to just Fedora.  I tried using Fedora around ten years ago and it was an easy install and it ran pretty solid on my laptop at the time.  I love the GUI at the time and I would probably be using it now on this laptop except, well, already said why earlier. 

 

If you are able to find a distro that works for you based on your desires, just a rule of thumb. Don't upgrade the OS to a later release if it is working for you.  Shouldn't be a problem since you are still using Windows 7 and you already have that mindset. I strongly suggest that once support for security and bug patches are over, you try a later release that is supported.  

 

 

EDIT

I just figured out one of the problems with the desktop with no solution.  I went to turn down the volume on my speakers and accidentally hit the power button on my monitor.  I powered up it up again and still had a blank screen.  I did the usual key combo that got me back into the terminal and back to the GUI to no avail.  I turned off the power features to turn off the monitor awhile back.  This is rather frustration.   My laptop and NUC doesn't have this issue.  The weird part is that I have a laptop with a Nvidia dedicated GPU from awhile ago that still runs Windows that when I ran LM 17 and 19 never had this problem.  The only difference is that it will switch to the intel graphics while there wasn't a demand for graphics.  So I guess I can chalk this up to the Nvidia drivers yet again.  One of the things I did was disabled the screen turn off and that fixed things after the driver update because was happening prior after.    The journey goes on.  

Sorry for the gigantic quote, I'm on my mom's phone.

I gave mint a fair try and it was seriously flawed. It ended up corrupting and I installed something else. It was either 19 or 20, in fact, I think it updated from 19 to 20 while I was using it.

What GUI does cinnamon use? Many here recommended opensuse leap, imma give it a fair shot, but have to pick a gui and don't really know the difference between kde and xfce (I hate gnome tho)

[marcosmoutta]

On 11/15/2021 at 7:11 AM, maplepants said:

Everyone's already pointed out to you that no OS is without bugs.

 

However, if you want to minimize the number of bugs you encounter, it's a good idea to go with something that has tighter hardware and software integration. Why does Windows work so well on Intel CPUs, because Microsoft and Intel put a huge amount of money into making sure that it does. It's the same reason Ubuntu and RHEL run like a dream on Xeons. 

 

For home users, if you want that tight software and hardware integration the best linux desktop you can get is the Raspberry Pi 400. 

 

I know "just buy a new computer" is kind of an annoying answer to the question "which distro should I run", but the Pi is cheap and the desktop experience is absolutely top notch. Unless you workload is extremely GPU intensive, the Pi can do basically anything your current desktop can do. And even though they're cheap, they age extremely well. I still run important parts of my home automation and self hosted setup on the same Raspberry Pi 2 I've been using for 6 years.

 

 If you're looking to game beyond emulated NHL98, here's what you do. Buy yourself a Raspberry Pi 4 or 400 to use as your main daily driver machine. Then put Win10 on whatever you want to use for gaming. Welcome to your new computing life.

not cheap, the pi 400 (atari pi?) + shipping is over half minimum wage here . thanks but I'd rather just dual boot, I need the portability of a notebook computer and mine comes with windows 10 (acceptable for gaming if I heck it a lot)

I'll get the pi ST when it comes out tho

[maplepants]

11 minutes ago, marcosmoutta said:

not cheap, the pi 400 (atari pi?) + shipping is over half minimum wage here . thanks but I'd rather just dual boot, I need the portability of a notebook computer and mine comes with windows 10 (acceptable for gaming if I heck it a lot)

That's fair. If it's not cheap where you live, and you're looking for a laptop and not desktop solution then the raspberry pi isn't really an option. You can buy a laptop case for a Raspberry Pi but they're not meant to be amazing laptops, they're meant to be fun projects.

 

Then I'd recommend that you stick with with Windows 10 and use Linux via WSL. The Windows people where I work are all very impressed with it. Apparently it's a breeze to install, and then you get a nice Ubuntu terminal inside W10 with access to all of your files plus all the linux tools your heart desires. 

[marcosmoutta]

1 minute ago, maplepants said:

That's fair. If it's not cheap where you live, and you're looking for a laptop and not desktop solution then the raspberry pi isn't really an option. You can buy a laptop case for a Raspberry Pi but they're not meant to be amazing laptops, they're meant to be fun projects.

 

Then I'd recommend that you stick with with Windows 10 and use Linux via WSL. The Windows people where I work are all very impressed with it. Apparently it's a breeze to install, and then you get a nice Ubuntu terminal inside W10 with access to all of your files plus all the linux tools your heart desires. 

doesnt this mean I have to boot windows so I can use linux? 

I only use linux because it's faster, less buggy and doesnt force updates down my throat. booting windows first beats the point 

[maplepants]

13 minutes ago, marcosmoutta said:

doesnt this mean I have to boot windows so I can use linux? 

I only use linux because it's faster, less buggy and doesnt force updates down my throat. booting windows first beats the point 

It sure does, and if those are your goals then this won't work for you either. 

 

If this is your goal, then I'm going to agree with @Sauron's pick from earlier and say Debian's probably your best bet. Especially if you don't mind booting into Windows for gaming. Part of what makes my beloved Raspberry Pi OS so stable is that it's based on Debian (just with some tweaks for their exact hardware). So if you want a no frills desktop solution that'll stay out of your way as much as possible, Debian's a good pick. 

[jde3]

On 11/14/2021 at 11:57 AM, marcosmoutta said:

I've been daily driving linux since 2013. I've tried ubuntu, debian, mint, puppylinux, all those kubuntu lubuntu xubuntu anomalies, and so much more.

It sucks ass.

I've been a Linux/Unix user since RedHat 4 back in the 90's.

 

You're right.. Linux does suck. 100% - Windows sucks more but Linux isn't good at all IMO.

 

For me I still like Unix and for my personal systems I use.

1. MacOS - It's Unix and It sucks, but it sucks less. It mostly works and you don't have to F with it unless you want to.

2. FreeBSD - Excellent server OS. On the desktop if you can customize it yourself and can live without games,. it's bearable.

3. Gentoo - Terrible system but it has the flexibility to fix a lot of it's problems. I tend to try to make the system as close as possible to FreeBSD.

 

If none are available (and I don't have the time for Gentoo) I'll just use some random Ubuntu spin and suffer because.. whatever. I work on these systems all day and I don't want to mess with them when I get home.

 

[WkdPaul]

- thread cleaned -

 

If you're unable, or unwilling to help, then please don't reply and move on.

[qlum]

On the matter of bugs and updates.Older / more outdated software on the linux side in general has more bugs. So going with a long term stable version may have less breakages but also does not fix old problems. My personal experience on the desktop is that rolling releases tend to offer the least day-to-day bugs, at least comparing arch to whatever Else I used, including Debian stable.

As for gui package managers, personally I do not like them, they offer an extra layer of abstraction and are too often a source of hard to diagnose problems.
Granted my knowledge stems from the early 00's here but to my knowledge it still holds true, Simply put not enough tech-savvy users fix them / report bugs in a usable manner.
Learning the basic commands is not hard, and I think the most worthwhile thing I have learned to do on Linux. Just makes it so much easier to figure out what went wrong.

That being said I can understand going command line can be quite a mental leap.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

On 11/14/2021 at 1:57 PM, marcosmoutta said:

2-Package manager. I never learned how to compile programs or manually install them because I don't want to. It's hard. I want to know what distro has the best, most well mantained gui based program installer. Sometimes I need to use software like paint.net and when I realize there's no linux version, I have to go looking for alternatives on the program downloader store thing. More than half of the programs doesn't even open, and the ones that do are awful.

 

Sounds like you want Pop!_OS

Though id just use APT.

Apt and knowing how to google things will both have more packages and should be faster

Ive used a couple GUI package managers but they always have weird, unfixable bugs. (though ive nto used Pop!, and people say almost all good things about it)

On 11/14/2021 at 1:57 PM, marcosmoutta said:

3-Not many updates. All updates do is break things. So far, it has always gone like: I install a distro, get some programs running, and as soon as the updates start it begins to break things.

 

Ive never had a distro break something with a update.

And you dont want less updates. Less updates is bad, it means the kernal gets updated less, it means the base packages get updated less, it means less security updates. Bad

On 11/14/2021 at 1:57 PM, marcosmoutta said:

1-Stability. I currently have ubuntu installed and even it has this stupid little bug that prevents me from opening tabs from the tray if I don't triple click them. Every distro I try has bugs, small or big. NO BUGS ALLOWED. Windows 7 can do it, so can the distro. Some bugs allowed. All OSs have bugs.

Theres a difference between bugs and stability. You can have a perfectly stable OS with a thousand bugs and 1 bug that leaves a OS that constantly crashes

there is no distro that can do what windows can do. theres just not. Even with wine and stuff like dxvk and whatever, no distro can succede in doing everything windows can do

 

 

 

 

It sounds a lot like linux just isnt for you 

[marcosmoutta]

3 hours ago, jde3 said:

For me I still like Unix and for my personal systems I use.

1. MacOS - It's Unix and It sucks, but it sucks less. It mostly works and you don't have to F with it unless you want to.

But like... I don't have a macintosh

[marcosmoutta]

55 minutes ago, qlum said:

Learning the basic commands is not hard, and I think the most worthwhile thing I have learned to do on Linux. Just makes it so much easier to figure out what went wrong.

That being said I can understand going command line can be quite a mental leap.

I'll gladly use the terminal if there's a way to make it have the same commands as DOS.

[jde3]

3 hours ago, marcosmoutta said:

But like... I don't have a macintosh

Yeah.. that is a problem.. if you're going to go Mac, you've got to deal with Apple.. that's part of the suck. - MacOS is pretty nice overall.. Apple BS is the worst part of the OS.