this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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As the title says, I've been using various flavours of Arch basically since I started with Linux. My very first Linux experience was with Ubuntu, but I quickly switched to Manjaro, then Endeavour, then plain Arch. Recently I've done some spring cleaning, reinstalling my OS's. I have a pretty decent laptop that I got for school a couple years ago (Lenovo Ideapad 3/AMD). Since I'm no longer in school, I decided to do something different with it.

So, I spent Thursday evening installing Debian 12 Gnome. I have to say, so far, it has been an absolute treat to use. This is the first time I've given Gnome a real chance, and now I see what all the hype is about. It's absolutely perfect for a laptop. The UI is very pleasing out of the box, the gestures work great on a trackpad, it's just so slick in a way KDE isn't (at least by default). The big thing though, is the peace of mind. Knowing that I'm on a fairly basic, extremely stable distro gives me confidence that I'll never be without my computer due to a botched update if, say, I take it on a trip. I'm fine with running the risks of a rolling distro at home where I can take an afternoon to troubleshoot, but being a laptop I just need it to be bulletproof. I also love the simplicity of apt compared to pacman. Don't get me wrong, pacman is fantastically powerful and slick once you're used to it, but apt is nice just for the fact that everything is in plain English.

I know this is sort of off topic, I just wanted to share a bit of my experience about the switch. I don't do much distro-hopping, so ended up being really pleasantly surprised.

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You also could give Fedora a try

[–] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I second this, but atomic/silverblue.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Atomic and Silverblue are not for the faint of heart

[–] bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I enjoy a challenge. I did briefly look at Fedora but picked Debian because of the history mainly (plus I at least had cursory experience with apt).

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago

dnf can be thought of as the fact version of apt. It has better checks to make sure you don't break anything and it keeps a history so you can roll back changes