For me it’s PeppermintOS.
I started my Linux adventure a few years ago, and haven’t owned a Windows PC since.
I currently use Arch on my main rig, and I wanted to install Linux on two old laptops that I found laying around in my house
I then remembered the first distro I ever used, which is PeppermintOS, and I was amazed at the latest updates they released.
They even have a mini ISO now to do a net-install with no bloat, with a Debian or Devuan base.
Sadly, I believe the founder passed away a few years ago, which is why I was really happy to see the continuation of this amazing project.
Whenever somebody recommends NixOS, I just want to spam the comments with Guix. I prefer configs I can understand, and I think lisp makes that easier. Other than syntax, the only thing I see is people complaining about the free-oftware-only. But the recently hyped distrobox solves that (together with the nonguix repo). Yet nobody recommends guix in all these “immutable” distro threads.
In my opinion Guix is the best mix of:
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Arch (rolling release),
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NixOS (“immutable”, atomic updates , rollback, reproducible, declarative configs)
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Gentoo (source code based, write your own package definitions for any source code you find),
with some lispy syntax.
I love Guix and want to see it get more recognition but I’ve never been able to get Distrobox working on Guix System, have you? I opened a discussion on the Distrobox GitHub but it was quickly closed.
This looks like a problem with the image. But I can try as soon as I am back home.
That’s what I thought but I’ve tried five or so images without success including the more mainstream ones like Fedora.
So far I had not much time, but I tried and failed with different errors when trying to pull an image regarding policy.json. do you use docker or podman?
I love the idea of guix, the syntax and docs seem much nicer, but the most important feature of NixOS for me is reproducability. If i’m installing all my software in distrobox, it is no longer reproducoble. Guix also seems to lack an alternative to Flakes.
the most important feature of NixOS for me is reproducibility
Reproducibility is a big topic for Guix developers and users as well, just have a look at how many times they talk about that: https://hpc.guix.info/blog/2022/07/is-reproducibility-practical/
Also correct me if I’m wrong but I think Guix goes further on reproducibility than Nix, because everything they package is from source, whereas my understanding is that a lot of Nix packages are built from binaries.
Guix does have great reproducability. The person I was replying to was recommending people use distrobox for software that isn’t packaged, I was saying that isn’t reproducible.
The very large majority of nixpkgs is built from source, but there are a few apps that can’t be built for whatever reason. This is still reproducible because it fetches a tagged version of the software and checks it against a hash.
Yes, that’s true. You lose reproducibility by using distrobox. But so far I did not need distrobox on my Guix laptop, the nonguix repo was enough. It was just a suggestion for somebody caring more about availability of packages than reproducibility to use Guix as the stable base and distrobox on top.
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Plain ol Debian
Linux Mint Debian Edition.
Like Peppermint this is a fantastic distro for anyone wanting to use Debian without the pain of self installing. Plus you always have the latest cinnamon.
It’s also good for anyone wanting to get away from Ubuntu all together.
I’d also like to get away from the stigma that mint is only a newbie distro. It’s not. It’s full fat Linux so pros can use it too, and should. It’s very reliable, fast and use friendly.
Above all, it’s true FOSS and LMDE is 100% community 💪
All of them, thanks a lot for all the Devs hard work, I’ve tried and loved so many distros that I can’t choose any of them but lately I have been using cachyos which is a clean and fast arch based distro.
EndeavorOS btw.
Arch. Some of its users take this distro for granted a lot of times but it only goes downhill from here once you start looking at other distros.
Tumbleweed. Solid, Automated QA testing.
Chimera Linux. Security-related compilation flags go brrr. No systemd.
Maybe we’ll see SerpentOS sometime before this decade ends but who knows.
On a side note. Aeon 1.0 if/when released, can’t wait to see how it all turns out. Especially if they manage to integrate BTRFS snapshots with systemd-boot entries.
Yeah using Arch (btw) cured me of my distro hopping. Although NixOS is looking tempting…
Hannah Montana Linux
I was a Arch Linux fan for at least 5 years. Tried all the main ones except gentoo. Kept coming back to Arch. But now I’m one week into using NixOS. I don’t think I’m ever going back. It has completely blown my mind, and fixes every minor thing I didn’t like about arch. Mainly how package dependencies work. I’m sure there will be a downside somewhere, but so far the only issue I’ve had is just trying to learn how to config everything.
TLDR: NixOS. I don’t know how I didn’t know about it till recently. Seems like it would be a lot more popular than it is.
Back when I was on NixOS, my main bugbear was that the Nix package language is pretty esoteric. I have some experience in packaging on Linux, so I thought I would be able to be able to put together at least a minimal package. No such luck. You how Haskell has a reputation for being difficult and full of burritos? It was like that, but the burritos were packages.
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I can’t say how popular it is amongst Linux users/fans, but Sparky is pretty cool. I had it on my shitty laptop for a while because I need a distro that worked with low ram and storage.
Also, not Linux based, but I’d love to see more work done on the Amiga based AROS. It’s hella niche, but I’d work on it if I had the knowhow and skills.
Maybe it has more recognition than I’m aware, but Fedora has been really good to me since 2018!
Bazzite, a gaming-oriented immutable distro with up to date Fedora packages and kernel, a lot of the kernel patches you’d want for gaming, automatic daily updates in the background, the option of installing the Nix package manager and Distrobox out of the box. They even have a Steam Deck version that works just like stock UI/UX wise but with all the added goodies.
Plus, on rpm-ostree/ublue-os as a whole, it just amazes me to no end you can basically look at deploying a distro as if it’s a git repo these days. Wanna try Gnome? Rebase to the corresponding image and reboot, your data is still there. Don’t like it? Quickly rollback or just pick the previous entry on GRUB. Incredible stuff, I’m sticking with those if I can help it for the foreseeable future.
I stopped looking at PepperMint when the founder passed away. It was a sad day.
Another sad day was when they could no longer keep using LXDE because it fell out of support. Very unfortunate
+1 for Peppermint. I installed it on a thumb drive and always carry it with me while travelling. This way I can boot it on the company laptop to safely steam video and browse social media while not touching the (encrypted) company disk.
Qubes OS
