My gaming PC is on Win 11 because it’s recent and I’m lazy and it’s convenient. My laptop runs Win 10 so it’ll be Linux I guess. Not really looking forward to finding a distro and reinstalling and whatnot but what can you do. It’s been a good few years since I last had a Linux box so I’m pretty rusty and not up to date on the recent best distros.
For gaming, people often recommend Pop!_OS, Bazzite, or Zorin, but you can use whatever you want if you are a tinkerer. I use Debian and have a great time gaming.
Outside of gaming and if Windows software compatibility isn’t really something you’re worried about, you can use any distro you want.
You can try some of them out using a web browser with DistroSea if you feel like it, though they don’t have every distro because that would be nuts.
I’ve been on Kubuntu for a while, but snaps are starting to bug me. When I build a new PC, I’m in the market for a new distro. Do you have a solid recommendation for a KDE-based distro that doesn’t have a Windows-esque update step during shutdown and restart?
To choose your distro you must first decide whether you want a a stable distribution (debian) or a bleeding edge one (arch). Then you have to decide whether you want it to be a rolling release (tumbleweed) or a fixed point release distribution (fedora).
There’s a lot more that could be said about each of these distros, but they all have KDE sessions.
Snaps are a pest and Ubuntu is more or less a failed experiment. I had way less trouble installing and maintaining a couple of plain vanilla Debian hosts than Ubuntu machines for years. The killer argument for Ubuntu was easiness of installation. Nowadays a standard Debian install is a matter of a few clicks. Sure a custom install like encrypted LVM over several partitions is still a demanding task even for an ecperienced user - but at least it is possible.
Does Debian have the same update woes I ran into with Fedora? Or if there was a way to tweak that in Fedora, I couldn’t find the option, and it was several years ago besides.
No. Debian updates tend to be interruption free. Apt/dpkg is a lot more consistent than RPM and deals very nicely with dependencies in both directions.
I’m not familiar enough with KDE to know what you mean by a Windows-esque update step, but if you can explain further I’ll see if I can find something for you.
Alternatively, someone else might pop in with some options.
I sampled Fedora a few years back, but, much like Windows, when it installs updates for certain core components, on shutdown and boot-up, it will have a “Please wait while we install updates” screen. Meanwhile, in Kubuntu, it installs everything in the background while I’m using my computer normally, and the change takes place on next restart, when I’m good and ready, with no additional time waiting at that update screen.
Hmm, I suppose the big difference between Fedora and Kubuntu is that Fedora is a fixed point release distro (similar to rolling release but less frequent) that applies updates only on restart, so it’s possible that it needs a moment to ensure that everything is compatible.
It’s certainly a weird choice to kidnap your desktop, so I don’t blame you for being annoyed. If that’s causing this, then you might want to try a stable release distro. This is part of why I like Debian, because it doesn’t change very quickly and updates are unlikely to need special care to ensure stability. Debian also doesn’t have the issue you’re talking about, it updates right away in the background.
Kubuntu is Ubuntu-based (duh) so if you like how it behaves, you could try Debian (which Ubuntu is based on) or try another flavour of Ubuntu. Pop!_OS and Zorin are both Ubuntu-based and should definitely be on DistroSea.
I’m using Fedora workstation (Gnome) and the updates are done while turning off the computer.
Next time I start it, it starts without having to apply or download anything.
The only thing which could be improved is that you still have to go to the software center to download updates, but you can apply them whenever you want.
I used to use UbuntuStudio back when I was playing around with music recording and production ages ago because it ran the real-time kernel which was important for JACK I think. Last time though was just Mint.
Well, Mint is still one of the top recommendations for new users. It gets support for the newest hardware at a bit of a delay, so if you wanted to follow suit with your new gaming PC, it might not be as great of a choice for that for now, but for your laptop, that’s what I’d recommend, if you’re not looking to experiment.
Well, that was kind of a general statement. Mint is boring. That’s what it’s good at. That’s why it’s loved and why it’s recommended for new users. Specifically, it’s similar to Windows in many ways. It’s somewhat more customizable, but that’s about it.
With you having used Linux twice before, you could consider something less Windows-like, less boring. I’ll be talking about the desktop environment (DE) rather than distro, because it has much more influence on this. You can use these DEs on various distros.
My personal favorite DE is KDE Plasma. The default-layout is also Windows-like, but it’s got all of the bells and whistles and options you could imagine. It’s kind of power-user heaven and almost like a toolbox to build whatever workflow you want.
The other big, popular DE is GNOME. It’s more macOS- and Android-like and focuses on a specific workflow. People who can get used to that workflow, then often really like it. The workflow itself is sometimes frustratingly uncustomizable, but it’s also fairly customizable when it comes to the details, typically by virtue of also having lots of features, which can then be customized.
Well, and I guess, I’ll throw in Xfce, too, since that’s likely what you used, back when you used Ubuntu Studio. (Ubuntu Studio uses KDE since the October 2020 release, but used Xfce before then.)
Xfce isn’t necessarily what modern beauty standards would get flustered by, but many folks like it for its simplicity and because it is perhaps even more boring than Mint (without being Windows-like). There’s a good chance that it still works a lot like back when you used it.
Perhaps also worth mentioning that Mint’s DE is called “Cinnamon”, although it’s developed by the Mint devs, so if you like that a lot, it’s typically worth sticking to Mint.
Wow, thank you for the extensive reply! I did used to use xfce back in the day, yes. Never had a problem with it, but those were maybe simpler times. Might look into KDE this time, why not.
I was really thinking less of the DE and more along the lines of if you had any recommendations that weren’t Ubuntu- or Debian-based, as that’s pretty much all I’ve used I think. But maybe that’s too much experimenting…
Yeah, I always hesitate to recommend distros. 😅
There’s tons out there and they all exist, because some smart person decided to put in lots of work, as the existing ones didn’t match what they wanted.
If we exclude Ubuntu/Debian-based, that narrows it down somewhat. The other major distros are:
Fedora: Rather much tied to the corporate side (Red Hat / IBM), tends to be rather up-to-date. Kind of has a focus on GNOME, but other “Spins” are available.
Arch: Community-driven, pretty much a DIY distro, so the initial setup is somewhat challenging. It’s really up-to-date, so much that it’s referred to as “bleeding edge” (rather than cutting edge), meaning you might get faulty updates from time to time. It’s also often loved by minimalists, because they can decide for each component, if they want to install it.
Well, and perhaps the most niche of these – which is what I’m on – openSUSE: Has the best integration of KDE (not by a huge margin, but still). I like it in particular, because of its snapshotting system. It automatically starts snapshotting your OS (not the user files) once per hour or whenever you make changes to the installed packages. If something breaks, you can boot into a previous snapshot from the bootloader and roll things back.
It’s the most “maximalist” mainstream distro, in that it preinstalls relatively much software. Personally, I think the other distros are a bit silly with their minimalist tendencies, but yeah, I’m biased. And well, downsides of openSUSE are that it is somewhat niche. You’ll find a helpful, tight-knit community, but it’s less likely that guides mention how to do things on openSUSE. Similarly, you’re less likely to find pre-packaged software for openSUSE. May have to compile from source more often, although SoS has a good amount of software, too.
As for whether a different distro is too much experimenting, if you do jump into it, you’ll understand why I talked about the desktop environment instead. 🙃
The DE makes a much bigger difference. Some people conflate distro and DE, because certain distros will have certain default DEs.
But if you used the same DE on two distros, honestly the main difference you’d notice is a different package manager. Where Ubuntu Studio and Mint use apt, openSUSE uses zypper, Fedora uses dnf and Arch uses pacman. They handle somewhat differently, but largely do the same things (i.e. install/update/remove packages).
Obviously, there are more differences to the distros, like how quickly they update and some of the default configuration, like the snapshotting I raved about, but ultimately it’s still a Linux system with much of the same software running on both…
Thanks again for the rundown! Snapshotting like that is definitely cool, I can see why you enjoy it. I’m no stranger to having to nuke the system partition and reinstalling because I broke something so snapshots definitely sound like a convenient tool. Though I might be older and lazier now and less prone to do a bunch of weird things.
I know the memes of “Arch, btw” and have always been scared of it tbh. Maybe it isn’t so bad though? I’ve also heard people praise Bazzite, but I might lot end up doing much gaming on my laptop as I said.
Is the whole thing about real-time or low-latency kernel still a thing, or is that old news? Just in case I wanted to play around with JACK again.
My gaming PC is on Win 11 because it’s recent and I’m lazy and it’s convenient. My laptop runs Win 10 so it’ll be Linux I guess. Not really looking forward to finding a distro and reinstalling and whatnot but what can you do. It’s been a good few years since I last had a Linux box so I’m pretty rusty and not up to date on the recent best distros.
For gaming, people often recommend Pop!_OS, Bazzite, or Zorin, but you can use whatever you want if you are a tinkerer. I use Debian and have a great time gaming.
Outside of gaming and if Windows software compatibility isn’t really something you’re worried about, you can use any distro you want.
You can try some of them out using a web browser with DistroSea if you feel like it, though they don’t have every distro because that would be nuts.
I’ve been on Kubuntu for a while, but snaps are starting to bug me. When I build a new PC, I’m in the market for a new distro. Do you have a solid recommendation for a KDE-based distro that doesn’t have a Windows-esque update step during shutdown and restart?
To choose your distro you must first decide whether you want a a stable distribution (debian) or a bleeding edge one (arch). Then you have to decide whether you want it to be a rolling release (tumbleweed) or a fixed point release distribution (fedora).
There’s a lot more that could be said about each of these distros, but they all have KDE sessions.
The bleeding edge distro is called “unstable”, not “Arch”. /s
Snaps are a pest and Ubuntu is more or less a failed experiment. I had way less trouble installing and maintaining a couple of plain vanilla Debian hosts than Ubuntu machines for years. The killer argument for Ubuntu was easiness of installation. Nowadays a standard Debian install is a matter of a few clicks. Sure a custom install like encrypted LVM over several partitions is still a demanding task even for an ecperienced user - but at least it is possible.
Does Debian have the same update woes I ran into with Fedora? Or if there was a way to tweak that in Fedora, I couldn’t find the option, and it was several years ago besides.
You can update fedora through the terminal which skips the reboot part.
No. Debian updates tend to be interruption free. Apt/dpkg is a lot more consistent than RPM and deals very nicely with dependencies in both directions.
I’m not familiar enough with KDE to know what you mean by a Windows-esque update step, but if you can explain further I’ll see if I can find something for you.
Alternatively, someone else might pop in with some options.
I sampled Fedora a few years back, but, much like Windows, when it installs updates for certain core components, on shutdown and boot-up, it will have a “Please wait while we install updates” screen. Meanwhile, in Kubuntu, it installs everything in the background while I’m using my computer normally, and the change takes place on next restart, when I’m good and ready, with no additional time waiting at that update screen.
Hmm, I suppose the big difference between Fedora and Kubuntu is that Fedora is a fixed point release distro (similar to rolling release but less frequent) that applies updates only on restart, so it’s possible that it needs a moment to ensure that everything is compatible.
It’s certainly a weird choice to kidnap your desktop, so I don’t blame you for being annoyed. If that’s causing this, then you might want to try a stable release distro. This is part of why I like Debian, because it doesn’t change very quickly and updates are unlikely to need special care to ensure stability. Debian also doesn’t have the issue you’re talking about, it updates right away in the background.
Kubuntu is Ubuntu-based (duh) so if you like how it behaves, you could try Debian (which Ubuntu is based on) or try another flavour of Ubuntu. Pop!_OS and Zorin are both Ubuntu-based and should definitely be on DistroSea.
Thanks. That seems like a good jumping off point.
I’m using Fedora workstation (Gnome) and the updates are done while turning off the computer.
Next time I start it, it starts without having to apply or download anything.
The only thing which could be improved is that you still have to go to the software center to download updates, but you can apply them whenever you want.
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What distro did you use before?
I used to use UbuntuStudio back when I was playing around with music recording and production ages ago because it ran the real-time kernel which was important for JACK I think. Last time though was just Mint.
Well, Mint is still one of the top recommendations for new users. It gets support for the newest hardware at a bit of a delay, so if you wanted to follow suit with your new gaming PC, it might not be as great of a choice for that for now, but for your laptop, that’s what I’d recommend, if you’re not looking to experiment.
I’m probably not going to be doing much gaming on my laptop, if any. I could be persuaded to experiment if you have any other suggestions.
Well, that was kind of a general statement. Mint is boring. That’s what it’s good at. That’s why it’s loved and why it’s recommended for new users. Specifically, it’s similar to Windows in many ways. It’s somewhat more customizable, but that’s about it.
With you having used Linux twice before, you could consider something less Windows-like, less boring. I’ll be talking about the desktop environment (DE) rather than distro, because it has much more influence on this. You can use these DEs on various distros.
Xfce isn’t necessarily what modern beauty standards would get flustered by, but many folks like it for its simplicity and because it is perhaps even more boring than Mint (without being Windows-like). There’s a good chance that it still works a lot like back when you used it.
Perhaps also worth mentioning that Mint’s DE is called “Cinnamon”, although it’s developed by the Mint devs, so if you like that a lot, it’s typically worth sticking to Mint.
Wow, thank you for the extensive reply! I did used to use xfce back in the day, yes. Never had a problem with it, but those were maybe simpler times. Might look into KDE this time, why not.
I was really thinking less of the DE and more along the lines of if you had any recommendations that weren’t Ubuntu- or Debian-based, as that’s pretty much all I’ve used I think. But maybe that’s too much experimenting…
Yeah, I always hesitate to recommend distros. 😅
There’s tons out there and they all exist, because some smart person decided to put in lots of work, as the existing ones didn’t match what they wanted.
If we exclude Ubuntu/Debian-based, that narrows it down somewhat. The other major distros are:
It’s the most “maximalist” mainstream distro, in that it preinstalls relatively much software. Personally, I think the other distros are a bit silly with their minimalist tendencies, but yeah, I’m biased. And well, downsides of openSUSE are that it is somewhat niche. You’ll find a helpful, tight-knit community, but it’s less likely that guides mention how to do things on openSUSE. Similarly, you’re less likely to find pre-packaged software for openSUSE. May have to compile from source more often, although SoS has a good amount of software, too.
As for whether a different distro is too much experimenting, if you do jump into it, you’ll understand why I talked about the desktop environment instead. 🙃
The DE makes a much bigger difference. Some people conflate distro and DE, because certain distros will have certain default DEs.
But if you used the same DE on two distros, honestly the main difference you’d notice is a different package manager. Where Ubuntu Studio and Mint use
apt, openSUSE useszypper, Fedora usesdnfand Arch usespacman. They handle somewhat differently, but largely do the same things (i.e. install/update/remove packages).Obviously, there are more differences to the distros, like how quickly they update and some of the default configuration, like the snapshotting I raved about, but ultimately it’s still a Linux system with much of the same software running on both…
Thanks again for the rundown! Snapshotting like that is definitely cool, I can see why you enjoy it. I’m no stranger to having to nuke the system partition and reinstalling because I broke something so snapshots definitely sound like a convenient tool. Though I might be older and lazier now and less prone to do a bunch of weird things.
I know the memes of “Arch, btw” and have always been scared of it tbh. Maybe it isn’t so bad though? I’ve also heard people praise Bazzite, but I might lot end up doing much gaming on my laptop as I said.
Is the whole thing about real-time or low-latency kernel still a thing, or is that old news? Just in case I wanted to play around with JACK again.