My observations about Rolling releases.

kc1di

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Over the last several months I've been trying out rolling releases. This is not a total review and your mileage may vary.
I'll just rank them in order of my preferences and make a few comments. All them were tried with KDE/Plasma desktop where it was available.

1. OpenSuSE tumbleweed. This one is just complete and fully up to date. Have had no problems with updates and no breaking
2. PCLinuxOS - Solid, breaks sometimes but not often. Major packages are updated quickly - But base stay the same.
3. Manjaro - full rolling release base of Arch. Broke on my hardware on about the 4 update but was fixed quickley.
4. Arch proper - Worked fine update was fast and often. setup can be a pain and I don't recommend it for New users.
5. EndeavourOS - Arch based command line is the primary means of package install and updates.

These are the five I've tried and it's strictly only my opinions. But that is the way I would rate them.
If you have observations about any of these or others let us know.
 


A few more to try:
  • Nutyx - OK, has Flatpak support but feels incomplete in places
  • OpenMandriva "ROME" - although this is generally buggy, especially their KDE desktop
  • Slackel - based on Slackware "current", some people might not like LXDE or somewhat less than that
  • Void Linux - keeps being lauded but not really taken seriously
PCLinuxOS, ugh, I have only cried toward this one. Their MATE is the ugliest operating system I have ever tried, with boldface all over the place. Looks like an early version of Ubuntu. Their XFCE version has a buggy keyboard shortcuts manager, refused to let me deassign those for workspaces. I don't need freggin 12 workspaces!

EndeavourOS was better last year. This year they are just becoming ordinary trying to please anybody and everybody. Because their MATE had an issue with Marco compositor, or some other mundane reason it was taking ages before it would show me the desktop after log-in, I replaced it with Manjaro MATE which I had intended to do anyway.

I don't know why people keep having problems with Manjaro. It must be a few things done such as the mind-boggling dependency assignments to Pamac and other things, and the ISO's for "official" versions are updated straight away while those like MATE are left to trail behind. But this is probably the best rolling-release distro I've ever had. I have it with KDE also, probably at its best with that D.E.

Sorry that I write my opinions on somebody else's thread. Originally it was a suggestion to check out a few more rolling-release distros if possible. EDIT: some stupid typos.
 
Over the last several months I've been trying out rolling releases. This is not a total review and your mileage may vary.
I'll just rank them in order of my preferences and make a few comments. All them were tried with KDE/Plasma desktop where it was available.

1. OpenSuSE tumbleweed. This one is just complete and fully up to date. Have had no problems with updates and no breaking
2. PCLinuxOS - Solid, breaks sometimes but not often. Major packages are updated quickly - But base stay the same.
3. Manjaro - full rolling release base of Arch. Broke on my hardware on about the 4 update but was fixed quickley.
4. Arch proper - Worked fine update was fast and often. setup can be a pain and I don't recommend it for New users.
5. EndeavourOS - Arch based command line is the primary means of package install and updates.

These are the five I've tried and it's strictly only my opinions. But that is the way I would rate them.
If you have observations about any of these or others let us know.
Very helpful post!

What's the average size of the updates on PCLinux OS?
 
Very helpful post!

What's the average size of the updates on PCLinux OS?
It varies, I updated almost every day. so they were not too large.
 
It varies, I updated almost every day. so they were not too large.
Good info. thanks!
I've tried Manjaro and OpenSUSE and liked them both.:)

When time permits I'd like to give EndeavourOS a spin.
 
If you have observations about any of these or others let us know.
Siduction ... very seducing. Not a flicker of an issue for my relatively common usage. It's based on debian unstable but with excellent development and stewardship that basically irons out the wrinkles in the debian version. It uses debian repositories, but I found all the magic in the extra repositories it uses and recommends.
 
I've just started trying Rhino Linux https://rhinolinux.org/

It's touted as an Ubuntu-based rolling release. Strangely, when I changed it to LXQt it had Debian wallpaper.
Lubuntu adds their wallpapers/backgrounds via lubuntu-artwork (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lubuntu-artwork) thus if you were using LXQt only packages and didn't include the Lubuntu configurations; I'd expect Debian wallpapers. FYI: This can be experienced too with other flavor desktops too.

Later edit: I'll add a reason if helpful.. Ubuntu packagers are told (a high 'aim') to keep the 'deltas' or differences as small as possible to 'upstream' (wherever that is, Debian for a large portion of our repositories, but some can be from upstream projects (LXQt here) on github too (esp. if Debian freezes are an issue)) ... By not changing upstream wallpapers there is no 'delta' or diff created, thus the wallpaper that Ubuntu uses is stored elsewhere rather frequently...
 
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I guess with OpenSUSE have to avoid PPA's like QB64 Phoenix Edition. Because it will request libraries installed which then the packaging system says conflict with other libraries and then offers to break dependencies. Which is just sick, and "Leap" (in the form of Gecko Linux "STATIC") was unusable because of it.

Otherwise I would like to try again with this distro on top of my dislike for YaST Software. But at this time I don't have any room left for further installations LOL.
 

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