I’m going to be building a new computer soon for myself. (Going AMD for the first time, since intel microcode issue.)
I would say I’m an expert or advanced user, as been using pcs for 25 years and set up arch and slackware in the past. I have tried many distros and would like some feedback.
I mainly use my pc for gaming. I want something customizable, KDE ish, and without bloatware. A good wiki is a plus.
I think that i may end up with arch… is it better for gaming since it’s bleeding edge and isn’t steamos built off it?
Side question is distro chooser accurate?
So you have a lot of suggestions in this thread.
I have an unconventional one:
Red hat.
You can use it for free as long as you register on their website.
The benefit: lots of documentation, a significantly different way of thinking about things (it asks you to define a compliance posture out of the box lol) and a package manager that does a lot of things right.
You said yourself youve been in the game for a while. Why not try being agent smith instead of neo?
I use arch btw
I run Gentoo as my main distro, and have for a couple years now. It’s a pretty stable rolling release (IMO more stable than Arch), and since you’re already an advanced user, the experience should be pretty rewarding!
The wiki is great, and the installation handbook is top notch.
You get to control exactly what features each package is compiled with, so no bloat at all.
KDE 6 just landed too!
Thanks, I’m investigating Gentoo. It’s rolling release and custom built. Updated frequently is good and stability is good too, IMO.
Arch is pretty good, but it’s fairly easy to break it, if you don’t know what you’re doing. For gamers I recommend Bazzite. It’s an image-based fork of Fedora Atomic (Universal Blue). You can also try other ublue-based distros such as Aurora or Bluefin. Or Fedora Atomic flavors like Silverblue and Kinoite. In fact, you can easily switch between them without reinstalling your system. All it takes is one command, and ostree will do the magic.
Thanks for the links. I’ll read up on it.
OpenSuse Tumbleweed.
I like CachyOS
Since no one answered you here, I’ll say distrochooser.de isn’t bad at all. For the new linux user who is comfortable enough trying new things, I think its perfect. It does lose it’s usefulness if you’ve already tried all of the options it offers, but at that point you probably don’t need distrochooser anyway.
Awesome, thanks I appreciate the response. This makes sense.
i use a minimal arch with the zen kernel and hyprland for home, work and play. no kde/gnome. for me it’s just right. except screen sharing in teams or discord, which haunts me… now it works, now it doesn’t.
Vencord or equicord can sort that out tbh.
I use webcord and ferdium. But I also tried the official apps and even the web apps with Firefox, chromium or zen. Nope.
Aurora is cool, if you’re okay with using an immutable distro. It is Fedora Atomic-based with KDE on top, so it is stable, but relevant. All necessary drivers are set up out of the box, but less pre-installed apps than Bazzite.
In your situation, I would go for endeavourOS, since it is arch in easy mode (don’t need as much time as arch and works flawlessly on all my machines)
I’m already running endeavouros and thinking of going back to arch to remove the extra overlay.
I see 😄well, it makes sense if you think it is worth the time, and you are skilled enough to make the right decisions that endeavour would do for you😇 I for example love AUR but have no time dealing with Arch, that’s why endeavourOS
Because others already suggested Arch/ EndeavourOS, I’ll be suggesting something else: Bazzite.
It’s part of the image based (“immutable”) Fedora series and is basically Fedora Kinoite, with all drivers and codecs already set up for you, self managing, with many gaming tweaks included.
It’s rock solid and basically unbreakable, while also being extremely modern and updated. On Arch, even if it doesn’t break, you always get the newest stuff, which might not be as polished. On Fedora, it matures a few months, while still being very modern.
The main target group is “For Linux users who don’t want to use Linux”, meaning, it runs all your favourite stuff (KDE, etc.) without having to care for anything. It even updates itself automatically in the background without any interference.
If you prefer something with less “bloat” (a lot of optional tools and software to choose from, but nothing mandatory), then check out Aurora, which is basically the same, but without gaming stuff.
For more information, check out universal-blue.org
uBlue Bazzite. Nothing better than that.
Customizable is a broad term.
Yes I understand. I like to tinker and fiddle with dials and buttons so to speak. I want to be able to make my system do whatever I tell it. Change icons, buttons, widgets, as well as being able to remove/ avoid apps that I don’t use.
These are all configurable per-user, so no issue at all. SDDM themes are an exception, here you can use sddm2rpm or other methods. sddm2rpm is the most elegant, without changing much on the system.
You can also install rpm packages.
Go to discussion.fedoraproject.org if you need help. Use the tags #atomic-desktops #rpm-ostree and similar ones and you will get help quickly.
This is still fully possible on Immutable distros (which is why the name is misleading, but unfortunately is what stuck- “image-based” is a better description) and uBlue has a mechanism for it- since they’re delivered using OCI containers, it’s trivial to fork or derive from the project and add, remove or tweak whatever you need. There’s also BlueBuild which is YAML but that’s a third party project.
Fedora Silverblue (atomic GNOME) and Kinoite (atomic KDE) have been solid for both work and gaming. System maintenance is largely seamless and automatic once configured. I still use Arch daily, but only in the terminal (distrobox and containers).
Going AMD is so worth it too, I have zero regrets swapping my RTX 2080s for RX 6800 XTs. Secure boot, Wayland, no fuss updates. Couldn’t be happier.
You mentioned needing customization…not sure what you’re hoping for there, but the atomic distros allow for plenty of userspace tweaks. It’s the system-level stuff, like boot and greeter themes, that require a bit more work to implement. My time is too precious to fuss about that stuff these days.
Thanks for your response. I like to fiddle with things. I’m a bit of a tinkerer and like too customize various parts of my os. Basically more user space stuff. How it looks, buttons, themes, and whatnot. Also able to remove/avoid apps that I don’t use. Simple, but unique.
May I ask, why fedora for core system, but arch for distrobox?
I totally get it as I’m a tinkerer too, but these days I spend most of that energy on webdev, house projects, thrifting/restoring stuff, etc. If only there was more time in a day lol.
There’s plenty of freedom to tweak local themes with atomic distros, as your home dir itself is entirely mutable and can be changed to your liking.
As to why Fedora/Arch… I love Arch and have used it daily for almost 20 years. I was an Arch dev once upon a time (Judd/Aaron era), and I designed the logo and web branding in use today. The project means a lot to me.
The inherent benefits of atomic systems caught my attention a couple years ago, and Fedora’s implementation won me over.
My hope is that Arch eventually (and officially) adopts a similar approach as these image-based systems become mainstream, at which point I’ll happily be the first in line for testing!
I also made a very similar comment, but with uBlue (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin) instead.
They are still pretty vanilla, but include a big list of QoL stuff added in, like staged updates, Distrobox, a huge list gaming tweaks in Bazzite, and much more.
It’s basically stock Atomic made right!
I’ve used them for a year now, and they’re fantastic!
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic. Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
I still haven’t taken any of the uBlue images for a spin, but I sincerely appreciate what they’re doing and Jorge has been the perfect champion for the project.
I like to use upstream as much as possible. Partly to minimize breakage and complexity, but also for the increased security and overall focus of resources on a given project. That said, I have no doubt they’re awesome builds and have helped win a lot of folks over to this way of computing!
Thanks for the kind words! <3
I don’t have anywhere near your experience, but the key points (customizable, no bloat, good wiki) all scream Arch, as you predicted 🙂
Understood
I just installed NixOS and the repeatability of it is pretty neat. I like the idea of having one file that sets up 90% of any pc going forward. Not sure how often I’ll use it, but feels neat.
Interesting, the coders use it at my work for easier rolling out the setup. I didn’t think about using it as a gaming pc.
