What is the point of higher level distros?

[Gat Pelsinger]

I started with Debian and moved on to Arch. These are the 2 most popular base level distros (aside from Fedora which I am going to try), meaning a lot of other distros are built upon them. I have tried Pop OS and Manjaro (and others years ago), and personally I don't see a point in using higher level distros. Pop is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian, so it is a really high level distro, and Manjaro is based on Arch. I personally felt higher level distros having a negative impact. Boot was really slow and the OS was very heavy to run. Of course that is to be expected, but what I should also expect are the features. And aside from the GUI based package managers, what really is the point to use the higher level distros? Tbh, I didn't spend a lot of time with them so I am probably missing some stuff but do let me know.

 

And for those people who had problems with Linux, I had no problems with base level distros (probably because I don't have high-end extensive hardware but at least I can say from the software side). I mean we all know how Pop OS went for Linus. I know he is a guy who is scared of the terminal but that is what these higher level distros are about and they sometimes can fail. And for me, I hate the Pop OS GUI. And also hate any other distro which comes with Gnome as the default DE (people who like Gnome really need help, like really).

 

People say Linux Mint is stable. So is vanilla Debian, because Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. I personally see this is a false statement that new Linux users need to use Mint or Pop. They should just go with Debian with a nice DE like KDE or XFCE and everything just works. People say that Pop is good for managing Nvidia drivers, but honestly, how much of a hassle is it to sudo apt the Nvidia driver? 

 

I am not stating anything, this is a post on a forum, not a blog. I just want to know if my perception is correct or am I wrong? I mean surely there has to be justification of all these distros that exist.

[WereCat]

56 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

(people who like Gnome really need help, like really).

 

More often than not GNOME tends to work way better for me than KDE especially on a laptop when I use trackpad. It's much better and more thought out experience than KDE (in my opinion).

 

 

Pop OS for example does something you'd need a ton of plugins for to get it working. Very good tiling window manager out of the box with a propper tiling function that is monitor and worskpace agnostic. Even KDE Plasma 6 can't come close to that with it's features right now and that's comparing it to a GNOME 42 based distro... Obviously Cosmic DE will be something interesting to see once it's ready but we are not there yet.

Also big feature of PopOS is that you have option of NVIDIA or AMD/Intel support out of the box without hassle. They are now working also on hybrid graphics for Cosmic DE so that it will work with everything as well.

 

For other distros... it really comes down to what it includes by default. Some people want bare OS where they have to install and setup and tweak everything by themselves. I couldn't care less, imo it's just a waste of time. Just get the distro that has the most stuff you want already included and work from that. It's not like you can't remove the extra stuff that's of no use to you.

 

I'm not very well versed in Linux btw... I'm just noob user but I have been using it for a while and do have at least some experience. Just looking at this from my point of view.

[Eigenvektor]

Not sure "higher level" really fits here. I think the primary reason many distros exist it because they have different goals. At the same time starting your own distro from scratch is hard, so why not use another one as a base. A distro based on top of another distro doesn't really imply anything about how stable it is, how performant it is and so on. It really depends on what the goal of its maintainers is.

 

For example Debian is mostly geared towards stability, which is great for servers, but on desktop has the drawback that a lot of stuff tends to be quite old. So it may not provide the features you want, e.g. latest GPU drivers and so on.

 

So you get something like Ubuntu, which sits on top of the unstable branch of Debian (i.e. Sid), so it has a lot of newer stuff. But they add stability fixes of their own, to turn it into a distro people can actually use as a daily driver. In return Debian should benefit, because software gets tested by more people before it moves down into their more stable branches (unstable > testing > stable)

 

Arch on the other hand is bleeding edge and doesn't have a graphical installer, so not necessarily the easiest distro to get into. So you get something like Manjaro which adds a slight delay to updates to go from bleeding edge to cutting edge, while adding some nice features like a graphical installer, a desktop with certain plugins pre-applied and so on.

 

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

(people who like Gnome really need help, like really)

To each their own. Not a fan of vanilla Gnome with the huge title bars, but Manjaro happens to come pre-configured with the plugins I'd install anyway, and that just works for me. I tried KDE and on the one hand customization is nice, but I never managed to get a layout that quite works for me and then I always end up accidentally breaking it again by clicking in the wrong spot.

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Eigenvektor

 

I see, but by what all I saw, there is way more to it than just graphical installers. That's something I want to know. Because just adding a GUI installer doesn't hammer your boot time and make your OS much heavier. Like there is a lot of other things that are going on but honestly I can't even make them out.

 

[Gat Pelsinger]

Just now, WereCat said:

Also big feature of PopOS is that you have option of NVIDIA or AMD/Intel support out of the box without hassle.

How hard is it to sudo apt install the Nvidia driver? I mean sure I can see it being a great feature, especially that the live CD with a full desktop GUI exists, but regarding my other downsides...

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

How hard is it to sudo apt install the Nvidia driver? I mean sure I can see it being a great feature, especially that the live CD with a full desktop GUI exists, but regarding my other downsides...

My last experience with NVIDIA on Linux is like 4-6y ago so I can't really comment on that. But I remember it was a pain back then.

And the biggest issue is to actually get to the desktop without the driver rather than install it. If you are already versed in Linux it may not be a hurdle but if you're a new user you'll be left clueless.

[Alex Atkin UK]

30 minutes ago, WereCat said:

My last experience with NVIDIA on Linux is like 4-6y ago so I can't really comment on that. But I remember it was a pain back then.

And the biggest issue is to actually get to the desktop without the driver rather than install it. If you are already versed in Linux it may not be a hurdle but if you're a new user you'll be left clueless.

Using Fedora personally and used to this, and the occasional issue with it not compiling the module properly on a kernel update.

 

I also tend to have more issues with booting the live USB to a black screen with KDE than Gnome, which is annoying as I prefer KDE personally.  That said, should be fixed now they released the firmware and I wont be updating my GPU for a while.

 

The issue is NVIDIA took forever to release the firmware to make the open source driver work on the last two generations of GPUs.  With an iGPU you can work around it by using that until you can install the proprietary driver, but even that is obviously a bit tricky if you aren't familiar with the song and dance routine. 

Also Steam can be a bit hit and miss on Fedora, slightly better if you use the Flatpak.  But I rarely game on Linux other than Steam Deck, keep a Windows 11 box for that.

 

So yeah, I can totally see the point of PopOS.

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Because just adding a GUI installer doesn't hammer your boot time and make your OS much heavier. Like there is a lot of other things that are going on but honestly I can't even make them out.

Run a systemd analyze critical-chain. As you'd expect the distros like Ubuntu that take longer to boot just launch services for "just about everything a random user could want/need" by default. 

That's the price to pay for an OS to have most things anyone would want on a desktop OS there ready for them without needing manual install/configuration, because no random user wants to have to manually install/configure something. So if a distro aims for general adoption it just has to do that. Conversely the average user doesn't give 2 hoots about 20 second longer boot times.

 

That said it's often the stuff the user installs that slows down boot times. When I did a fresh Ubuntu install on my laptop it started in <5secs, insane. Now it's more like 10-15 once I have my stuff on.

 

No different from Windows.

[Sauron]

There's no such thing as a "higher level distro", what you're referring to are derivatives. The point of them varies but generally they spawn when a group of people like a given distribution, but want to change a few things. For example manjaro is for people who generally like using Arch, but prefer a less involved installation process and having some sensible defaults out of the box. Artix is mostly Arch but without systemd. And so on.

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

because Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian.

Ubuntu has almost nothing to do with Debian anymore, it's not just Debian with a nice installer. Mint is an effort to have either of those distros with an out of the box light and convenient desktop... maybe it's not to your taste but saying it has no reason to exist seems a little much.

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I mean we all know how Pop OS went for Linus. I know he is a guy who is scared of the terminal but that is what these higher level distros are about and they sometimes can fail.

Linus was trying to run non-native software through a compatibility layer, using a distribution that is not that widely used (mainly because it's designed by a manufacturers specifically for their hardware) and expecting it to magically work without a hitch. He said at the time that this just indicates Linux wasn't ready for mainstream gaming, and you know what? I agree - if you want to run windows games without issues then just use windows, duh. But I wouldn't blame that on Linux or pop_os... it's just an unrealistic expectation.

 

Personally I wouldn't recommend pop_os over Ubuntu if you don't have a system76 system for a variety of reasons, but it doesn't mean pop_os has no reason to exist. On system76 hardware it's probably a very smooth experience.

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I am not stating anything, this is a post on a forum, not a blog. I just want to know if my perception is correct or am I wrong?

Perception isn't objective so it's never really right or wrong... but I will say you tend to have strong opinions about things you don't necessarily understand very well.

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

How hard is it to sudo apt install the Nvidia driver?

You also have to add the extra repository, and either way if the driver isn't present in the installer you might be stuck with a black screen before you even get started. That's increasingly rare because the foss drivers have gotten better, but it does happen at times.

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I see, but by what all I saw, there is way more to it than just graphical installers. That's something I want to know. Because just adding a GUI installer doesn't hammer your boot time and make your OS much heavier. Like there is a lot of other things that are going on but honestly I can't even make them out.

Yeah, there's more to these distributions than just taking debian or arch and adding a graphical installer... lots of preinstalled services that are enabled by default, for example. If you use arch, try counting how many systemd services you have enabled since first installation just to get a usable desktop...

[Ralphred]

4 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Like there is a lot of other things that are going on but honestly I can't even make them out.

The further away you go from the "root distro" the more choices are going to be pre-made for you by the maintainers of the downstream distro. If the choices they have made fit your use case then go fit, if they don't - move further upstream. The thing you need to be mindful of is knowing that these "pre-made" choices exist, and if/when they are/aren't suitable for your use case; unfortunately this knowledge comes only through experience.

Some of these "pre-made" choices need a deeper understanding to "choose differently" too, like whether you are going to slow the boot process by using an initrd and disk stored loadable drivers.

[wasab]

People don't like some xyz and so they fork it and change it to something they like. That's pretty much all the reasons. It is no different than painting your car a different color than the base model. You can also swap out the tires, change the windshield, engine, or whatnot. 

 

Also, customizing your PC. Swap out cpus, ram, ect from the base model. You get the idea. 

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Kilrah @Sauron

 

Yes I see that there are more services and stuff. I can already see that in front of my eyes. But honestly, what extra functionality do they provide? I mean I tried Debian and Arch with a DE (I only use i3wm) and my experience was quite similar to Pop/Mint/Ubuntu/Manjaro. I mean sure, you got some features like signing in into your google account in the OS, some nice GUI based package managers, easy updates, some OS related custom packages, and a bit of stuff that is pre-configured. Am I missing more or that's about it? Those still don't justify how heavy these distros are.

[Sauron]

7 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Yes I see that there are more services and stuff. I can already see that in front of my eyes. But honestly, what extra functionality do they provide? I mean I tried Debian and Arch with a DE (I only use i3wm) and my experience was quite similar to Pop/Mint/Ubuntu/Manjaro. I mean sure, you got some features like signing in into your google account in the OS, some nice GUI based package managers, easy updates, some OS related custom packages, and a bit of stuff that is pre-configured. Am I missing more or that's about it? Those still don't justify how heavy these distros are.

What do you expect me to give you? A full list of every service that comes preinstalled in Ubuntu and what they do?

systemctl list-units --type=service

just compare the two and look up what the extra services do. And it's certainly not the google account integration that is slowing down your boot, if it really is slow. I haven't used Ubuntu in a while but I don't remember it ever being particularly slow.

7 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

(I only use i3wm)

i3 is a window manager, not a desktop environment. It doesn't ship with applets, icon sets, animations, themes, settings menus, a login screen, launchers or anything of the sort, plus some preinstalled utilities and variety programs. DEs come with all of those and some extras for user choice, because they have to account for most users. Try pulling down the entire plasma metapackage and see if your system doesn't become just as "heavy" as manjaro.

[Gat Pelsinger]

16 hours ago, Sauron said:

i3 is a window manager

Yes I know that. That is why I said it.