Mastodawn

Do you stick to the same linux distro across your devices?

https://slrpnk.net/post/35084396

Do you stick to the same linux distro across your devices? - SLRPNK

Hej lemmings! Quick question for you all: do you stick with the same distro across your PC, laptop, and server, or do you pick different ones based on the device and what you’re doing? For me, I’ve been mixing and matching depending on the use case, but I’m starting to think it’d be nice to just have one distro (or at least one family like Fedora or Debian) running everywhere. That way I wouldn’t get confused about default settings or constantly have to look up flags for different package managers. Right now my setup is: * Gaming rig: CachyOS * Laptop: AuroraOS * NAS: Unraid * Various project servers: DietPi, Debian, Alpine etc… I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases, but I’m a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it’d take to migrate everything over. Am I the only one who feels like having “one distro to rule them all” would be nice? How do you guys handle your setups? All ears! 😊

The machines I use regularly are all some form of ArchLinux (currently mostly CachyOS). Machines I use rarely I stick to LTS distros with few updates. Machines I don’t maintain myself I try to stick to immutable distros that just update themselves every once in a while (less chance of breakage).

Servers are all Debian. Family member’s laptops are all Debian. I used Debian on laptops for 20 years, but when Steam Deck switched to Arch, I switched my laptop to Arch to force me to learn it. I have a file with notes of differences between Debian and Arch. Next time I buy a new laptop, I will probably go back to Debian.

Rioting Pacifist Mar 9

Same but a ubuntu-derivative instead of Arch.

I don’t want to think about my server, but I do sometimes want the latest and greatest app on my laptop.

Servers are debian, desktop debian. Why swap when you found the best already? 😁

I guess technically steam deck is not on debian, but I didn’t choose it so it doesn’t really count.

chunkystyles Mar 10

I would use Debian for servers, except that the version of Podman (at least on Debian 12) was old enough that it couldn’t do quadlets. So I went with Fedora.

smiletolerantly Mar 9

Yes. Everything is NixOS. Because it’s perfect for everything.

And it’s very handy for this, I have the same config for all my devices (desktop, laptop and server). Enabling and disabling different modules depending on the host it’s deployed to.

smiletolerantly Mar 9

Yep, exactly.

To be fair, if you use Debian, Arch, Fedora,… long enough, you also know how to tweak your machine for every purpose. In Nix, it’s just somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you have to know how to tweak your system to achieve… anything, and then it’s the same tweaking mechanics for every other purpose as well.

Same here, except the steam deck.

smiletolerantly Mar 9

My Steam Deck also runs NixOS.

Because this way I can much more comfortably configure it, plus everything game related I automated through nix for my Desktop (e.g. mod installs, reShade config,…) immediately and without any extra steps also applies to the Steam Deck.

github.com/Jovian-Experiments/Jovian-NixOS

panda_abyss Mar 9

What is the learning/on-boarding curve for this?

I ask because my home folder has a giant just file I use to script everything. I feel like I’m 80% there to just migrating.

smiletolerantly Mar 9

It’s a very steep curve to start, with some additional minor steep parts along the way, but it’s not a long curve. Once you got the core concepts and the basic language constructs, you’ve learned most of what you’ll ever need.

Two nice resources: search.nixos.org is super handy, and you can search GitHub with language:nix and a search term to get tons of examples from other people.

Oh, and nix and just is actually a pretty common combo!

StellarExtract Mar 10

Nice, I’ll have to remember that GitHub trick. The main thing I’ve found lacking so far is config examples.

StellarExtract Mar 10

I’d say that if you’re an experienced developer, the learning curve is probably overstated, at least based on my limited experience. I’m still a relatively new user, but I’m feeling pretty comfortable with it so far.

Martineski Mar 10

Hitting obscure issues with limited documentation and barely any forum discussions on it in search results is killing me though. But at the same time NixOS makes a lot of things incredibly easy and offloads having to remember any changes so it’s worth all the effort for me.

FaygoRedPop Mar 9

I love how this post doesn’t even pretend that anyone may use anything but Linux. Classic Lemmy.

I don’t see anyone here saying “actually I use BSD” so it seems to have been a safe assumption

hexagonwin Mar 9

i do use freebsd :) and occasionally win7/10…

usage goes like freebsd >>> linux > m$win

Pommes_für_dein_Balg Mar 9

Self-hosting on Windows Server is a pain I don’t need in my life.

Telodzrum Mar 9

Whoa, that’s completely untrue buddy.

Some people here use BSD-based systems.

teawrecks Mar 10

Alright, windows users, do you run the same version of windows on all your devices? Yes? Oh how surprising.

FaygoRedPop Mar 10

OoOOoOOOooooo sassy boy, over here.

no, i use archlinux on my main desktop as i use it daily and is my main workhorse. i have a laptop that rarely gets used at that has debian on. then i have a mini pc server with debian and a raspberry pi 4 with debian based raspberry pi os.

FlowerFan Mar 9

yes. Everything is Fedora Silverblue, except servers they are ubuntu on proxmox.

My hobby is gaming, linux is just a means to do that hobby, not a hobby itself.

Big_Boss_77 Mar 9

Your comment intrigues me… I need to switch, but I’m like you…gaming is my hobby, not OSes. You make it sound like it’s plug and play as far as gaming goes?

My server is Debian. My desktop and laptops are all Garuda Linux.

Servers: Ubuntu Jammy NUC: Mint xfce VMs: Kali, Mint, and a variety of others including WIndows & Mac.

I hear a lot of chatter about NixOS. Going to have to check it out.

Desktop - Ubuntu Cinnamon LTS (I game and edit video this is also currently my Frigate host)

Laptop - Ubuntu Budgie (It’s basically just a thin client to access my desktop when I want to sit in the livingroom)

Stepson’s Desktop - ChimeraOS (Because I don’t want to deal with anything in his room)

Server - TrueNAS (Been using it since the FreeNAS 9 Era)

Router - OpnSense (Been using that since before I started using FreeNAS)

Different distro’s suit different needs. Could I use a single one for everything, yeah with a lot of extra work I don’t want to deal with. I’m much more hardware oriented and can make software work tried switching to Linux for everything in the mid 2000’s but couldn’t do things reliably with it till lately.

pentastarm Mar 9

SteamOS on my steam deck. Bazzite on my laptop. And fedora on my home server that I’m still learning how to set up(I have immich running in a container, but that was just following an online tutorial. Still trying to understand docker better.)

I use arch btw (on everything).

So yes … my laptop, my home server and even my wife’s laptop.

What about your wifes boyfriends laptop

He uses Windows

partofthevoice Mar 9

Gentoo > Arch > Elementary

partofthevoice Mar 10

QubeOS, if you’re into that kinky stuff.

Debian on homeserver, centos on work servers, and mint on desktops

Evil_Shrubbery Mar 9

Proxmox with plethora of distros (preferably Debian), opnsense, openwrt, … but my desktop & laptop are both Tumbleweed.

(But I should try Bazzite myself at some point to understand if it’s really a distro to recommend to Windows refugees looking for gaming & not learning anything or not that much “Linux related” immediately. It wouldn’t be my guess, but the experiences I read here stayed with me for some reason.)

My laptop needs reliability to be fairly certain I’ll have everything working when I use it on poor internet, my desktop is always comnected to high bandwidth and has a decent cpu so I can spare a bit extra time and cycles on updating everything when something breaks

Different needs

I did like having the same thing going on on both for the couple months I used mint on both.

AstroLightz Mar 9

Everything but my server uses Arch (BTW). This is so I can have all devices have the same scripts for uniformity.

chronicledmonocle Mar 9

I use Debian on servers, because stable.

I use Fedora on desktops, because I game and I like having fixes for mesa, the kernel, and amdgpu for my latest gen AMD GPU. My laptop is for work, but it’s just easier having consistency.

statelesz Mar 9

Arch for Gaming/Desktop, Debian for Server/Proxmox/VPS.

Ubuntu for the main pc and Arch for the filthy weird frankenstein laptop from 2008. Just as god intended.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters LTS Long Term Support software version NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

[Thread #152 for this comm, first seen 9th Mar 2026, 16:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Decronym

El Perro Negro Mar 9

For me it depends on computer capability. 3 generations of laptop… Current: PopOS Older: MiniOS Oldest (32bit): AntiX

Oldest (32bit)

I still have a functional 32 bit laptop. It’s rather slow, but it does work

suicidaleggroll Mar 9

I didn’t use to, but I do now. Debian on everything

I’m all some Debian dereritive, whether it’s Q4OS or just Debian,

All normal PCs run CachyOS, includes gaming PCs, laptops and media PCs. All servers run some form of Debian (includes Proxmox) or a dedicated distro for their use (TRUE WAS, technically also Debian based).

verdigris Mar 9

I mix, my server and laptop are nixos but I use an arch variant on my desktop. Mostly I do this because of various pain points with nixos and gaming.

Any pain points in specific you could point out?

verdigris Mar 10

Any games that you can just run on Steam without issue will work fine, it’s when you have to start passing launch commands etc that things become more complicated. Most things are still possible but harder because you have to deal with the very unusual way Nixos stores its files. The specific thing that made me give up and go to CachyOS was trying to get gamescope working under wayland – every way I tried, I was having to compromise on what I actually wanted. Also VR has been easier to play with, though it’s still far from Windows parity.

Telodzrum Mar 9

Arch on user PCs and Debian on anything else. This is with the exception that our big server is on Proxmox and the NAS (as well as off-site backup) are on unRaid.

Tbh I still consider Proxmox as Debian, so you’re pretty much there ;).

Telodzrum Mar 9

I actually agree, I just broke it out for this discussion.

SayCyberOnceMore Mar 9

I’m kinda with you, with a slight change: raspberrys that can’t run Arch Linux on Arm run Raspberry Pi OS, so, almost Debian.

Everything else: Arch.

(Oh… and pfSense on FreeBSD… but let’s not muddy the water)

Telodzrum Mar 9

Oh, good call out. I’m also running OPNsense which is a BSD system.

I’ve converted everything to NixOS (Desktop, laptop, nas and 3d printer) only my router is still pfSense (and thus BSD). It just makes configuration and updating so much easier from one central configuration. And I don’t have to remember what and how I installed something. It’s just there in my flake.

How quick could you pick it up? And how does it handle one config for different devices (due to different hardware(fstab/cryptsetup differences), propietary/non-mainlined drivers?

I have been thinking about switching because I’d love a reproduciable system but fear it would take some of that flexibility I rely on (I’ve had some issues with ftstab/cryptsetup and initramfs customizations on the fedora atomic base of bazzite on my steamdeck).

I have to be honest and say it was a journey. Nix in itself isn’t really difficult I find. But everything together and finding the right documentation and figure out how NixOS comes together can be a bit daunting.

But a simple straight forward config is pretty doable. My advice is to start small and build up. You can reuse your old dotfiles and include them in the configuration directly, so you don’t have to convert everything to nix (right away). Also don’t scare away from using flakes, they are the way to go in my opinion.

You can define multiple hosts/systems in one configuration with each their own nixosSystem call.

OhVenus_Baby Mar 10

Best advice is can give you is to #DOCUMENT everything you do for what reason and how it works inside your config file. So you know what each code block does and how it executes making your entire config dummy proof also helps learn the syntax super fast!

morbidcactus Mar 9

I haven’t looked at Nix in detail but you got me interested for 3d printers in particular, already have my klipper config in git if an SD card fails on me, going to have to look at doing that for the os too.