"Must Try" distros and DEs?

Hey folks! I’m getting a fresh laptop for the first time in about a decade (Framework 16) in a couple of months and am looking forward to doing some low-level tinkering both on the OS and hardware. I’m planning to convert into a “cyberdeck” with quick-release hinges for the screen since I usually use an HMD, built-in breadboard, and other hardware hacking fun.

On the OS, I’m planning to try NixOS as a baremetal hypervisor (KVM/QEMU) and run my “primary” OSes in VMs with hardware passthrough. If perf is horrible, I’ll probably switch back to baremetal after a bit. But, I’m not likely going to be gaming on it so, I’m not likely to have much issue.

Once the hypervisor is working in a manner that I like, I should have an easy time backing up, rolling back, swapping out my “desktop” OS. I’ve been using Linux as my pretty much my only OS for over a decade (I use MacOS as a glorified SSH client for work). Most of my time has been on distros in the Debian or RHEL families (*buntu, Linux Mint, Crunchbang, CentOS, etc) and I pretty much live in the terminal these days.

With all of this said, I am coming to you folks for help. I would like you folks to share distros, desktop environments, window managers that you think I should give a try, or would like to inflict on me and what makes them noteworthy.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll get through suggestions, as my ADHD has been playing up lately, but I’ll give it an attempt. Seriously. If you want me to try Hannah Montana Linux, I’ll do it and report back on the experience.

EDIT: Thank you all for your fantastic suggestions. I’m going to start compiling them into a list this weekend.

mvirts,

Lol I vote for nixos on nixos 😹

makeasnek, (edited )
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

Every linux enthusiast should try Qubes at least once. The architecture is totally different, vastly more secure in many ways than most Linux distros. It’s definitely not for everybody, but if privacy and security rank high on your priority list it’s worth a look. It never ends up in Linux top ten lists for some reason, but it’s an incredible OS.

BlanK0,

If you are an advanced linux user then I would suggest giving a try to the following distros: arch, void, gentoo and (like you said in the post) nixOS.

The reason behind is that this distros are focused on the tinkering aspect of linux, the experience of setting up everything the way you want.

If you want to give a shot to WMs I would suggest i3, sway, dwm, dwl, river, bspwm, Qtile and hyperland (maybe focus more on the Wayland ones if you want to try the latest software).

Dehydrated,

I recommend you try Gentoo and DWM. You don’t have to use this setup forever, but at least try setting it up. Installing Gentoo, patching DWM and st, etc. is fun and it’s an interesting experience. If you want to use Wayland, check out dwl and the foot terminal emulator. Perhaps you’re actually gonna like Gentoo and stick with it, I think it’s a great distro. They also provide binaries for larger programs, so you don’t have to compile stuff like Firefox. But definitely try out custom kernels.

atomkarinca,

if you’re looking for an original distro, you should try void. it’s super lightweight. i used to keep away from gentoo because it was a source only distro, i would otherwise go fulltime on it, but now that it also has binary compatibility you should check that out, too.

as for wm, i love wayfire as a floating wm, and sway as a tiling wm.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Don’t know if it is a must-try, but LXQt has come a long way. The file browser is excellent. Everything is fast and snappy and very traditional (start button, system tray, etc.). Runner up I guess.

You can run Alpine as a desktop. The Edge branch. New software, got what you need, installs and updates fast.

nickwitha_k,

Alpine as a desktop? Now that’s weird and I’ll have to give that a go.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

It’s easy. After running setup-alpine and rebooting with a bar install there is built-in script setup-desktop that lets you install Gnome, Plasma or Xfce.

You can find install scripts like Alpine Suck around the web git.sr.ht/~bt/alpine-suck

Or check out the wiki for other inspiration wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Category:Desktop

If you use Edge, I would recommend subscribing to the user mailing list though, just in case.

iopq,

Apparently you can already try Cosmic on NixOS

Ramin_HAL9001,

Must try distros: Fedora, Mint, Void. But seriously, if you are using Nix to begin with, why use anything else? Nix is as good as it gets. If you really want to do a combo, I would recommend Fedora or Mint using Nix as just the package manager and not the hypervisor. All distros are basically the same nowadays.

Must try desktop environments: Xfce, Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE Plasma

nickwitha_k, (edited )

I’ve never really Fedora or Void. Will definitely try those.

Of your DEs, I think KDE is the only one that I’ve not used significantly. I need to fix that. I think MATE deserves a place there too.

ETA: As for why not just Nix or Nix as a package manager? I’ve become accustomed to being in VMs all of the time and really like the way that doing so impacts how I interact with a system and extra capabilities provided.

dis_honestfamiliar,

Try those but also wanted to say enlightenment. I don’t even know if it still exists. If it does, give a try.

Pacmanlives,

Why do you say Nix is good as it gets? I am an old graybeard mostly( SuSe, Debian and FreeBSD)

Ramin_HAL9001, (edited )

In short: Nix tracks all installable software and dependencies using a Merkel tree data structure to ensure fully reproducible builds of software. This Merkel tree also provides properties similar to that of a C.O.W. filesystem where you can snapshot and rollback system software build configurations in O(1) time, it just rewrites a fixed number of symbolic links to the root of the desired Merkel tree. In my opinion, it is the most technologically advanced package manager currently in existence.

Every input that goes into building a piece of software on Nix OS (or in the Nix package manager in general) is hashed and placed into a database on the system. These hash IDs become dependencies for everything they are used to build. By tracing the chain of hash IDs you can guarantee that every single bit that goes into the build of the system software is accounted for. If two separate computers with the same ISA are running the same tree of packages verifiable by their hash IDs, you are guaranteed that both computers are running the exact same software. All dynamic libraries, shared libraries, executable files, and even the config files in the package database refer only to other files in the database.

When you use Nix OS, not just the package manager, the C compiler, boot loader, and kernel are themselves build inputs. You can even roll back to a snapshot of a working system from the bootloader menu if you accidentally break your system (as long as the package database is not corrupted).

Finally, the system itself is both built and configured using a declarative programming language. So you install software by declaring that it should exist, and the package manager computes precisely which dependencies must be installed to realize what it is you have declared in the system configuration files. Making a change to what is installed requires simply altering the lines of code in the system configuration file. You can also use these configuration files to easily construct Docker images or Flatpacks.

tkk13909,

I’m really looking forward to Plasma 6 and Cinnamon just had a pretty good release do there’s a couple for you :)

nickwitha_k,

I am so glad that Cinnamon has been going strong. It made Gnome 3 a lot less painful.

Kidplayer_666,

Hopefully by the time OP gets his laptop, the wayland session will be almost complete

nickwitha_k,

They’ve got time. Shipment isn’t due until Q2.

const_void,

What Plasma 6 features are you looking forward to?

tkk13909,

There’s not really anything specific but it’ll be the first time I experience a full plasma upgrade since I started using Linux in 2022. From what I’ve seen of it, the interface is going to be a lot cleaner though so I guess I’m looking forward to that.

noorbeast,

What is your actual personal use case, all you mention is a terminal, which every distro will support, likely with many different choices as to terminal options?

nickwitha_k,

Beyond the usual browsing I’ll mainly be doing tinkering with hardware, gateware, firmware, CAD, art, projects that I may or may not finish, and the like. It’s going to be my “everything but playing video games” machine.

just_another_person, (edited )

I’m assuming you’re running a Ryzen 7040 series then. No kernel support for the FPGA yet.

Also, Linux is great for gaming. Not sure why you’d limit yourself there.

nickwitha_k,

I’m assuming you’re running a Ryzen 7040 series then. No kernel support for the FPGA yet.

Honestly, I wasn’t aware that they had included a fabric. That’s really awesome, whether it is supported yet or not. I have a couple of dev boards and intend to build a board with a previous gen Xilinx chip that can fit in the expansion bay.

Also, Linux is great for gaming. Not sure why you’d limit yourself there.

100% agreed. However, I already have a Steam Deck and console, so, it’s more that gaming is already covered by other devices than thinking the system is not capable. I’m intending to take advantage of the modularity to turn the laptop into a platform more physically spacialized for tinkering.

Pacmanlives,

Not quite your setup but I run Debian stable KDE with KVM.

I am also using distrobox to run applications in containers. It’s nice having arch/ubuntu/fedora/gentoo software running in a container and the application gets exposed to you stable environment. Another option is Bedrock Linux to look at

nickwitha_k,

That’s absolutely my thought. Having a rock solid system close to the metal that doesn’t really get touched is something that I’ve become used to from work. It gives a lot more insurance against having to do as many re-installs and maximizes compatibility.

pelotron,
@pelotron@midwest.social avatar

Hyprland DE is the new hotness

nickwitha_k,

That’s one that I’ve been that I’ve been meaning to give a shot.

Fizz,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

Hyprland would look so sick on a cyberdeck

Falcon,

It’s great but still really unstable. I’ll be sticking with Sway / DWM for a bit longer.

However, it looks promising.

kelvie,

If you’re a tinkerer it’s kind of addicting. I thought I’d give it a try just to see what it was like, and ended up staying up all night customizing it, and now about a month later I don’t really want to go back to KDE (been using KDE for almost 20 years)

pelotron,
@pelotron@midwest.social avatar

Agreed, it really makes me excited to use my PC.

noodlejetski, (edited )

just steer clear from the community drewdevault.com/2023/09/…/Hyprland-toxicity.html

…or the dev fosstodon.org/

TheGrandNagus,

“yes, I do believe that there could be arguments to sway my opinion towards genocide.”

Wow.

Aties,

Would you not consider genocide during a zombie apocalypse?

TheGrandNagus,

I genuinely don’t know whether this comment is a joke or not

umbrella,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

that means the joke is on point i hope?

TheButtonJustSpins,

This sounds like pro-zombie propaganda.

const_void,

Yikes. What is it about Hyperland that attracts these kinds of people?

noodlejetski, (edited )

from what I’ve read it’s rather the lack of moderation (due to the dev’s views) that doesn’t reject them. similar situation to the Nazi bar.

Cwilliams,

It’s like Arch, but x10. People think Arch > Any other distro, Wayland > Xorg, Hyprland > any other DE, Rust > C, etc

Hawk,

Yeah, I’ve been wanting to try Hyprland but have been holding off for that exact reason.

Currently on i3, maybe I’ll give sway a go.

bulwark,

While I don’t have much experience using nixos as a hypervisor I do have a few years experience using Proxmox on top of Debian. Managing multiple VMs and backups are very straightforward with Proxmox. As for your daily driver VM, the skies the limit, well mostly your HDD space is the limit. I’ve realized that after trying a ton of different distros the only real difference is the package manager and the preinstalled software.

nickwitha_k,

I love Proxmox, especially with CEPH as backing storage for VMs. I’ve never thought about it as a local hypervisor. Might be worth a try, if I don’t like NixOS.

TCB13,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

Proxmox is questionable nowadays, you should try LXD/Incus instead. Read more here: lemmy.world/comment/6507871

nickwitha_k,

I have meant to try out LXD for a while but it has dropped of my interest due to Canonical’s shenanigans. Incus being a community fork gives me more comfort in trying it. I wasn’t aware of Proxmox using hackery to make use of an ancient kernel, as seems the claim in that thread. If this is the case, I will indeed be migrating away.

TCB13,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah I get your thing with LXD and Canonical. I’ve been moving a ton of clusters to Incus because of the obvious reasons and I’m happy with it, obviously the fact that the original people who made LXD on Canonical are now working on Incus is a big plus.

Regarding the Proxmox kernel you can read this: pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_VE_Kernel but frankly if you search the web for “proxmox kernel bug” what you’ll find are tons of different issues on almost every version. Another thing that I really hate about Proxmox is the startup, the amount of daemons and scripts they run to make the thing work.

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