Looking for my perfect daily driver distro

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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Apologies if this is a bit long-winded, I just want to make sure I cover everything.

I’ve been wanting to move from Windows to Linux as a daily driver for a while now, but have always found excuses not to. Like a lot of people, the recent developments in gaming on Linux seems to be the push I needed. I do have some Linux experience (Ubuntu/Xubuntu about 10 years ago, installed Mint but never really used it, a fair bit of recent Raspbian stuff), but I’m looking to find my one true distro for daily use. I’ve noticed in a few of Wendell’s recent videos that he’s been using Fedora, and from my brief research it seems like it might be a good fit (very up to date, aimed at developers, lots of docs), so it’s currently installing it on Virtualbox so I can try it out. The only thing that really worries me is that it’s RPM based, vs the DEB that I’m used to. Is yum better/worse than apt? Are programs often in both formats, or just one or the other?

My uses cases will be mostly coding, gaming, CAD (for 3D printing, usually Autodesk Inventor with Cura, which I believe doesn’t work under Wine) and consuming media (Plex, Twitch, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix - do I need non-free codecs?). I’ll probably run Windows in a VM for the programs that don’t play nicely in Linux. I’m looking to move from Virtualbox to something like KVM/Boxes in the future, are there certain distro’s that play better with this? Is there a better solution I don’t know about? I’d also like to eventually have a RAIDZ array, so having ZFS support built in or easily installed is a plus. Integrated Google Drive/Dropbox would also be good, as I use those for work (planning to move my personal stuff onto Nextcloud soon).

I like the look of Gnome. It has its issues, but I’ve literally just watched an old video with Wendell talking about Gnome Extensions that I didn’t know were a thing, so I’ll have to look into that. I’m willing to look into other environments if you think there are some real benefits (just not KDE, not really a fan of it aesthetically). Being so used to Windows, I’d like to keep some of its convenience features, like Super + typing to search, Super + arrows to snap windows, etc, stuff that I noticed was missing from Pixel. Not critical, but I’d also like a LTS or, preferably, rolling release so I don’t have to reinstall so often (unless I can stay up to date and supported without reinstalling, then it doesn’t matter - the easier it is to stay on the slightly-bloodied-but-tested edge, the better).

What would your suggestions be? Is there a particular distro that perfectly suits what I want, or would I need to roll my own (a very much in the future project)?

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The best advice I can give is try any distro that interests you.

If you are a gamer and want to move away from windows entirely, with something like passthrough, it seems most folks here recommend Fedora. I have not used it or done passthrough, so I cannot speak intelligently here.

It seems you have a bit of experience with Debian based distros, maybe try some of thos and see how they work for you needs. Ubuntu and Debian are certainly good choices here.

I do not use Linux for a daily driver, but I use it for my server. Ubuntu is performing outstandingly well for me in this role.

If I had hardware that supported passthrough, I would be using Fedora.

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Opensuse.

They recently added aliases for their package manager for those familiar with Debian. So you could do ‘apt get’ to your hearts content.

It’s super stable.

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Whoops. I was wrong. It has an alias for ‘aptitude’ not ‘apt get’.

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Up until recently, I had some stability issues with GPU passthrough on Fedora 28, but that seems to be resolved now. In fairness to Fedora, I had hardware/driver problems (Ryzen incompatibilities, Radeon reset bug, Nvidia Code 43 errors.) But lately (knock on wood) GPU passthrough has been very stable on Fedora 28 for me.

Although VMs are wonderful things, I would discourage the notion of one workstation to rule them all. You’ll either need a dedicated monitor or a KVM switch to toggle between environments, and if you do anything resource instensive with your workstation or in one of your VMs, it could potentially drag the rest down. And if you have a hardware failure, you could suddenly find yourself without any resources at all. I guess my point is to diversify to reduce your risk; perhaps have a VM server with redundancy and a few different distros and a Windows 10 VM for the Windows-only software, plus a separate Fedora (or whatever) workstation.

Fedora has a lot to like but there are a few gotchas. For a bleeding edge distro, its surprisingly stable and provides access to a number of interesting technologies (Vulkan, DXVK, very recent kernels, etc.) But it only offers a few months (18?) of support before you have to upgrade or reinstall. My understanding is that the upgrade process has greatly improved, but my install is so customized that I’m afraid when support for F28 goes away that I’m going to have to rebuild from scratch.

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My personal recommendation for a Gaming Setup is still Ubuntu. I tried Fedora a couple of times and never had much luck with it. Might be my Nvidia Setup, i don’t know. Adding anything outside the official repositorys always broke stuff for me. It might also be that i’m only using Red Hat in a Server environment the rest of the day.

I’ll give Fedora another go once my Windows Installation gets nuked from it’s disk and that’s free. I’ll then use the KDE Spin, as Gnome is giving me some Problems.

Until then, my Kubuntu setup is solid and works. No Problems, all the newest stuff is either available pre packaged, in repos or can be compiled. That’s the plus you have with ubuntu. Every project that bothers to pre compile or package their stuff mostly does so for Debian based Distros.

If you’re feeling a little adventurous, i recommend Antergos or Manjaro. Both are Arch based without the installation process of Arch. I’ve run both for years on varying machines. If you want true cutting edge and the broadest selection of available stuff, AUR is hard to beat. Just keep an eye out for what you install.

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I wasn’t aware of that… could you specify how… why… that works exactly?
(it’s not the specified time limit that both surprises and annoys me, it’s the imposition of one in the first place)

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I was under the impression Fedora only supports the current release. So, 6 months later you are expected to upgrade. I could be wrong though.

EDIT: I stand corrected https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Release_Life_Cycle
It’s 13 Months. So, skip one release and have one month to update then.

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LOL, I was just looking at the same document.

The reason for the short support cycle is so that the Fedora team can focus on supporting new technologies rather than bugfixing old software for several years. If you want long term support, the logic is that you should be using something like Ubuntu LTS, Debian Stable or CentOS/RHEL. The focus on those distros is stability and long upgrade cycles.

I wish there was a distro that combined bleeding edge technologies with stability and easy maintenance/upgradeability.

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Thanks guys;

Still seems… err, what’s a non offensive way… ah yes, unintelligent to go that route, but to each their own, yeah :smile:

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Oh no, not at all. The Support Life-Cycle is basically only a concern for Server environments or high priority Workstations. No Problem on a home PC. With most distros you are updating regularly. Ubuntu has a 6 months cycle too and supports for 2 years. So not too different.

I wouldn’t worry about it. You just keep your System up to date through the build in tools and don’t follow crazy guides on how to “get a glimpse at the future” and you’re all good.

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What if you don’t want to update? :slight_smile:
What if you’re fine where you are and care only about keeping it so?
I have deadlines for family, friends, work, even hobbies; cannot see why i’d ever add one more, but…

p.s. i worry this might all be considered off topic (in which case my fault for asking in the first place, lol), but i ventured to ask as i assume it will be relevant to the OP as well; don’t shoot.

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I personally used Arch and KDE as my daily driver, because I’m an autist. I’m currently back to Windblows because I bought a new PC and still don’t have enough power to run Windblows in a VM (pentium g4560 feels bad man). Don’t let this fool you though. Fedora is a nice OS, using dnf is just like using apt (at least in my experience), just a little slower in my case for some reason, but it’s definitely usable (and having delta updates is a nice bonus if you don’t have a lot of bandwidth, I personally have no cap unlimited 1Gbps where I live).

Though since you have experience with Ubuntu, just try it again and see which flavor you prefer. If you don’t like the bloat that all the flavors come with by default, just use a server iso and install your preferred DE.

Sorry for the vague answer, but distros are just as subjective as DEs and OSes.

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That’s a very “Windows” way of thinking :wink:

It all depends on what you want. If your priority one is a stable system you don’t have to change anything about for the next 2 or so years, debian stable or even CentOS are viable options. Basically, install and forget.

If you want to game on Linux, you’ll have to go with something more “recent”. And this implies you update you package half way regularly and go to a new major release at least every two years.

But really, if you’re on Ubuntu, Fedora or any other of the “big” distros you basically never get a system braking update. In 8 or so years of Ubuntu i never had an update break my system. Updating under Linux really isn’t a big deal if you aren’t on a rolling distro that pushes updates without some testing.

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If you know how to read documentation (the initial installation process is done purely in console),
I would highly recommend Arch Linux.

It is a “rolling-release” distro, which mean that there are no silly numbered versions to deal with. There is only “current” and “not updated” versions for Arch and you can update it to latest any time you feel like it. And by using AUR system, you get a integrated way to access dev/beta versions of all kinds of software.

I use it at home as my primary OS for 2 years now and have been very satisfied.

P.S. if you are afraid of terminal, this might be useful: https://explainshell.com/explain?cmd=ls+-lt+|+head+-20

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Resign yourself to knowing that at least the first few installations will be temporary. Leverage live mode as much as possible to see where your tastes lead.

Fedora probably stays as current as a distro can be without becoming a full rolling distro. Releases happen every 6 months. Each release is supported for about 13 months, i.e., until the release of the second subsequent version. (E.g., Fedora 28 is the current release, and Fedora 27 is supported until Fedora 29 is released, plus a few weeks.)

That said, you can use PPA’s to bump up Ubuntu’s kernel to the most current release or pre-release, and bump up Mesa to the most current release or a development version. In theory, that should benefit gaming. I haven’t had problems updating Ubuntu’s kernel, apart from Nvidia proprietary driver breakage sometimes (a perennial issue across Linux). Development versions of Mesa can be problematic.

Fedora pushes out new kernels for the lifetime of a release. They follow their own release numbering scheme. Ditto Ubuntu. Ubuntu applies some patches to the kernel, and I;m sure Fedora does, too, as well a some feature backporting.

You can visit [https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/28/Everything/x86_64/os/Packages/](Fedora’s repos) to see what packages are on offer. Ubuntu’s are at https://packages.ubuntu.com/. Except for version differences, both offer much the same.

An LTS release can mean you won’t need to reinstall for a few years. But, adding unofficial packages to get current features increases the risk you’ll need to reinstall because of breakage.

Fedora has a release update mechanism I’ve found works reliably.

In daily use, there’s no effective difference between a deb-based distro and an rpm-based distro. RPM’s and deb’s are both archive formats. Fedora uses dnf (yum is deprecated) where Ubuntu uses apt/apt-get. Apt has a few more GUI front-ends than dnf, which only has one. dnf may have more capabilities than apt, but I haven’t done the comparison. It does have a function history/rollback mechanism whereby you can rollback one of the last several transactions.)

Menus in most Linux desktops these days offer some kind of keystroke-driven search capability. What they actually search for varies. Gnome can be operated well via the keyboard. I’d argue the default Gnome workflow works better with a keyboard than a mouse. Many users add extensions to change that.

Gnome’s extensions are Javascript thingies. With a few exceptions, they are all unofficial and unsupported. Many popular extensions have been around for a long time and are well maintained by their developers. They often need to be updated for each new Gnome release, and that’s up to their developers.

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gnome is single threaded, so the moment an extension crashes your whole de crashes. unless you’re using GNOME for a basic bitch chromos like desktop, don’t use GNOME.

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TL;DR: Use Ubuntu.

The only thing that really worries me is that it’s RPM based, vs the DEB that I’m used to.

Don’t sweat it, I think that your choice in package management is really a personal one, not a thing of “objectively best” one.

Are programs often in both formats, or just one or the other?

I’ve seen a bit more deb packages around, but software usually comes in tarballs too, so there’s little practical difference.

are there certain distro’s that play better with this?

I think any popular distro will do for your use case, you’ll be fine.

so having ZFS support built in or easily installed is a plus

I’ve read here in the forums that ZFS in Ubuntu is the easiest thing, so that should be reassuring.

Integrated Google Drive/Dropbox would also be good

Ubuntu has those, really easy to configure. I think it also has Nextcloud, so everything should flow nicely.

About the looks, Ubuntu wins with Gnome. I’ve found it a little annoying at times but that’s because my laptop is a bit underpowered. Also, really easy to do basic config, it has snapping windows, Super to search, all that good stuff.

The only thing that Ubuntu has not is rolling-release, but the last LTS release is really new so it seems like a good time to jump in. Other distros that fit the rolling-release requirement are Debian Sid (I’ve been using it daily for ~6 months, only “broke” once and that was because of some AMD drivers, I just reinstalled and everything was perfect), but configuring it might be more tiresome, Arch and derivatives like Antergos and Manjaro, which have a really strong community so that’s a plus, and openSUSE Tumbleweed. I’ve heard good stuff about that last one but haven’t used it. Anyway, I don’t think you’ll miss a rolling-release distro :smile:.

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Thanks guys, some good suggestions. I’ll probably be looking at Fedora, Ubuntu et al. and Manjaro, at least to start off with. I just got a new job where they use RHEL sometimes (which I’ve only touched once or twice), so I’ll probably have to look into CentOS as well just so I know my way around.

Does that mean I can upgrade versions without having to reinstall (at least in most cases)? I’ve never really stuck with it long enough to need to find out. If so, then a LTS won’t really matter, I’d rather be closer to bleeding edge.

So do I. Maybe there should be a Level1 distro that does this? :wink:

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I would say that that describes Chrome OS and it’s chromium derivatives.