Mastodawn

Suggest me a Linux distro that...

- Doesn't use APT
- Has repos that are up to date
- Doesn't break unless you really go out of your way (is stable, and you used it for about a year without breaking)
- Doesn't require you to spend 1+ hour doing configurations/building stuff/etc (run and go)
- Is totally free (no license bs)

Erpel Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico I use EndeavourOS
it's an arch distro and it just works.

wonderfox_dev Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico hm. OpenSUSE? I hadn’t used it for a year but I heard it’s the stablest rolling release distribution

@enigmatico opensuse tumbleweed?

Evil Roda Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico I personally use Fedora, thought I'm not sure if they violate your last point. You can also look into OpenSUSE, which I haven't used extensively and haven't tested in years, but they do use RPM, so you can at least have a look see.

@evilroda OpenSUSE doesn't have a free license AFAIK. I used it in the past.

luna the doggie

@enigmatico @evilroda I looked it up and openSUSE seems to say something like "GPLv2 but also pretty please respect the US export restrictions because we're bound by them" IIUC

MarkAssPandi (tiny)Mar 2, 2025

@lunareclipse @enigmatico @evilroda can they even enforce that?
What are even export restrictions in the US, except like cryptography software which at this point isn't even viable to enforce (i think?)

@markasspandi @lunareclipse @evilroda Considering how things are going in the world right now, having to respect US restrictions in any form of shape, even if it cannot be enforced, is not in my agenda. Hence why I'm asking for an absolutely free license.

luna the doggie

@enigmatico @[email protected] @evilroda honestly that's totally fair, I've been moving everything away from US-based services myself, I kinda gave up on Linux distros because all of the ones that have some nonprofit behind them seem to be based in the US.

MarkAssPandi (tiny)Mar 2, 2025

@lunareclipse @enigmatico @evilroda Even if some distro tries to be as far away from US as possible
they most likely use Github which would make it depend on the US anyway
What I'm trying to say is we're cooked

neocat_googly_woozy

luna the doggie

@markasspandi @enigmatico @evilroda nah many big FOSS projects have their own GitLab instances

Evil Roda Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico I looked up the FSF's list of (rather rigid) reasons they don't endorse other distros, and they don't endorse Fedora because they do allow some nonfree firmware. Not a big fan of the FSF, but if you don't care about the nonfree firmware, Fedora'a good one.

Evil Roda Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico You also mentioned wanting containers, and while Fedora also has solutions for that (Silverblue et al), you might look into Solus. Haven't run it in years, but after the rough patch a few years ago, it seems to be a lot more actively maintained and they said previously they wanted to move forward in a containerized direction. No idea what their progress is on that, though.

@evilroda When I said "free" I meant a free license (i.e RedHat or OpenSUSE have a more restrictive license). I don't mind a couple proprietary packages because, honestly, if I want to run a computer with an AMD GPU and be able to play games, I'm going to run non-free stuff whether I want it or not.

I just don't want a company doing shady BS with my system by modifying the license to a more restrictive one or anything like that.

Evil Roda Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico Well, I'm all out of suggestions,but I hope you find what you're looking for!

@enigmatico
can I shill my favorite OS, void linux?
It's really stable in my experience.
> Void focuses on stability, rather than on being bleeding-edge. Install once, update routinely and safely.
If you really need to, you can use nix too in parallel to xbps.

[SUYA] ひみつ

blabcatverified

@Shark @enigmatico don't forget to include their logo

@enigmatico the problems you're dealing with (at least from what it looks like in other posts) are neatly solved with NixOS/nix, but it does take a bit of time to get your config right, so there's that

vxo Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico I'm not sure about the licensing but I've had good luck with Manjaro, which is also based on Arch. I had exactly one case of breakage but that was due to external factors (filesystem corruption as the power went down hard in a storm and I didn't have the machine on a UPS, so I'm giving that a pass.)

mittorn Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico android?

You want too much. Nobody will configure distro better for you than you can do it. And keeping distro stable, with repos up to date in all configurations is almost impossible.
Maybe arch would be good option if it supported partial updates (like gentoo preserved libs), but it does not, so you cannot skip some unwanted update when installing new apps.

@enigmatico maybe fedora? tess finds most EL based distros to be a good balance between not-horribly out of date packages while still being stable

RedPandaLiz Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico Fedora and EndeavourOS

furicle Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico sounds like #AlmaLinux to me

furicle Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico depending on your definition of up to date

luna the doggie

@enigmatico haven't tried fedora yet but it seems like it may check these boxes

Cyborus Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico the only thing that comes to mind is opensuse but i don't really know enough about it to directly suggest it

neofox_rainbow_256

🔜EF30 Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico Fedora

Jonathan Mar 2, 2025

@enigmatico the one and only Clear Linux

Home Clear Linux* Project | Clear Linux* Project

Idiot Hours Mar 3, 2025

I do like Arch tbh as much as I hate to say it . not a ton of breakage as long as you stick with kde/gnome, and it does have very up to date software.

Also a fan of Void and Alpine if you've not looked at those yet

Phantom Kitty (Trans)Mar 3, 2025

@enigmatico For my own understanding, why the no APT requirement? Most of the distros I have tried have been Ubuntu / Debian based, so use APT for updates and installs. I am too much of a Linux newbie to know why that could be a problem.

@enigmatico I would say EndeavourOS Xfce. Good looking (minimal love) and are very stable out of the box.

Diegovsky Mar 4, 2025

@enigmatico endevour os

@enigmatico I've used EndeavourOS for years but as with any arch based distro I would recommend updating frequently to avoid minor complications. With EOS welcome screen that's just one button away.