would recommend linking the phrase “a fuckload of distros” to DistroWatch – give newcomers a heads-up on just how deep that particular rabbit hole goes …
I don’t agree with avoiding stable distros. In the case of Debian for example stable gets priority on security patches. Just subscribe to the security mailing list and have auto updates on.
Also download any disto or bleeding edge container and scan it and you’ll have vulnerabilities in some library. The ecosystem is always moving. The question is how exposed are you.
Use a firewall, secure your browser and whitelist sites you trust to run JS. Stick to repos. Scan downloaded files via virus total or open In a vm. Dont install what you dont need.
You are far more likely to get compromised in a site breach than to get hacked. The browser is the main attack vector that you need to secure.
Also dont run servers if you dont know what you are doing. Use a non networked VM to practice.
Dont blindly paste commands and be sure to read the source before you compile and run some random program.
if you decide on Gnome, keep in mind there are two main paths to follow – stock Gnome (“as the developers intended”) and Gnome with extensions (ie. addons or plugins or mods) – extensions can do everything from minor aesthetic tweaks (Blur My Shell, Rounded Corners, Remove Rounded Corners) right on up to completely changing the behavior of the window manager (PaperWM, Pop Shell) – which side of that particular divide you end up on is purely personal preference
I use my laptop for work all day every (week)day. It runs EndeavourOS and I haven’t had any problems - if anything I’ve encountered fewer annoyances than with any other distro I’ve tried to date (Pop, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, Debian). I don’t use Btrfs but I do use Timeshift as well as Syncthing to back up files to a file server at home.
I haven’t felt the desire to install Arch, and TBH I’m not sure what the benefit might be because I’d just configure it to be basically the same as EOS anyway.
I don’t think you understand how zealous C&C fans are. Some of us have entire XP machines with CRT monitors just to play the game in its purest form. We’re about as culty as Linux.
But it’s also not just one program, it’s all the c&c games, their map editors, mod loaders, and any modding tools. World builder is just an example.
You can already get it working under Linux, running a Windows VM. I remember doing that for Homeworld, it’s basically the emulator approach. A VM is ok if it isn’t too demanding graphically.
I don’t know if you should, but you can. I use Artix for my only computer (also used for uni). It never killed itself. I did once, which was my fault. But I just fixed it.
but depending on who you ask Arch is either the most stable distro they’ve ever used or bricked their pc ten seconds into the install process
This very funny, and true. Arch is almost as stable as its user :)
Here’s another vote for EndeavourOS if you need it. I run BTRFS and timeshift-autosnap, but I’ve never needed to use it. Like the other poster said, I’ve had minor annoyances and brief package conflicts, but nothing critical has ever gone awry.
I don’t need any of the advanced tools, I just want a cleaner interface for the tools that already exist. The only thing I’m able to do is make header pics for my posts. The 2.x UI is really, really old now. The time for a refresh was a few years back, but I do understand the limitations of a small team. Like others have said, I’ll likely run both and migrate to 3.x when it’s stable. Though, I do like the idea of non-destructive editing :)
Krita has been adding photo manipulation tools faster than GIMP is fixing their UX/UI, so at this point I think Krita will be the first to become the most viable FOSS alternative to Photoshop.
Laptop is fine as a tinkering device, but if you have something critical it’s best not to trust a rolling release. I would recommend Fedora Silverblue or something else immutable that automatically updates and does not have a lot of incompatibility issues.
Arch is not something to be relying on consistently. You can make it stable, but then one day you will do a yay -Syu and all of a sudden your critical machine is offline pending troubleshooting that is not required with more stable distros.
EOS is the best out of the box Arch experience I’ve had, it makes it a lot more user friendly than just the base, and it can be customized just as much as the base. When I was running Arch I was running EOS and it was good for what I needed, although I have had it basically brick itself with an update. I am currently running Fedora Silverblue on my laptop and it’s been very stable.
Arch should be fine for university stuff. The main problem with Arch is not Arch itself, but all the software it tracks being very fresh. You’ll be pulling updates as they come down the line, and that may result in temporary bugs or day-to-day workflow changes - caused by the software developers themselves. I don’t think an Arch system is unusually unstable or prone to breaking, but last year they did brick everyone’s GRUB loaders by pushing an update too early (post-mortem here). It’s up to you, but if you want to err on the side of system/software stability I would go for Mint/OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Debian.
I don’t have any practical experience with EndeavourOS but TMK it’s just preconfigured Arch and it uses the default repos, so that sounds good to me. Vanilla Arch is not inherently better or worse, it’s just a more minimal starting point.
Definitely the transition from QT5 to QT6. It Looks identical, but has better wayland support and performance.
There are also a few new and hot features which I can’t recount at the moment (it’s 4:30 in the morning), but the pointieststick blog should have the droids you’re searching for
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