Why do you use a specific Linux Distro as a Daily Driver !

incedis

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Since droping win 11 a couple of weeks back, I have been distro hopping in the hope of finding a Disrto as my daily driver !
My needs are very much simple and it has been like that for some years. I am a trader by trade. Not a geek nor an IT guy but can get around with clear howtos without too much difficulties.
High on the list has been and is security (trader by trade).
  1. Full drive encryption with Hibernation/Hybrid Sleep.
  2. Functional. I use KDE for functionality. Others DE work fine but not as functional as KDE.
  3. Base install need to be separate from the DE and user base software. Base install need to be top notch and possiblity with piece of software to help make my rig more functional, resilient, and compatible. Love the GUI but learnt that on Linux you have to get your hands dirty with terminal :)
  4. Possibility of minimal install and then adapte user software to your liking.
  5. Extremely up to date kernel drivers since my rig is less than 6 months old. Basically rolling release. I moved to Linux because of Win 11. Never intended to do so in the first place so my rig was not adapted to Linux.
  6. No Corporate Distro. ie: Fedora, Suse. I am sorry but I have turned extremely biased against corporate with all the pain I have gone through with Windows. Same for user software. Only Open Source if I can help it.
I have tried, OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Fedora 36 Workstation/Xfce, Vanilla Arch/Derivative (Garuda, Arco, EndeavorOS), Ubuntu, PopOS, MX Linux.

Only one distro allowed me to have a full disk encryption without any bugs. Fedora 36. Unfortunately Fedora did not respond to all my needs and mostly never like the fact you have no separation between the user base and user software. I know that you can uninstall afterwards but too cumbersome.. Plus corporate distro.. va de retro satanas !!

Anyone guess what distro I am now using as my daily driver ? Could change since the Linux eco system is extremely dynamic ..
 


You're doing exactly what is usually recommended for new Linux users to do: trying out a number of them to find what best suits your needs. And you seem to be doing an excellent job of that!

But only you can find your best solution. Your needs are different from most of our needs. Most of us don't have a computer less than 6 months old, with the driver and compatibility issues that can bring.

Just remember that there is no perfect distro. Only you can determine which of your needs may have to accept some compromise. You've already mentioned full disk encryption, but hibernation/sleep can often be a problem too. I don't use either, so I'm no help there.

I agree with your idea about "corporate" distros, but on the other hand, those distros have the most developers and the most users reporting bugs... bugs that often get fixed. They are proven and stable... usually. It's another compromise that you may have to accept.

Good luck!
 
Unfortunately Fedora did not respond to all my needs and mostly never like the fact you have no separation between the user base and user software.
I'm not understanding what you are meaning by this, can you elaborate?

I recently moved from Arch to Fedora because it's bleeding edge enough for me, I work with RHEL systems, I wanted to try out Btrfs and because I really don't care for the Arch way installation anymore. And I can get all the same software through either rpmfusion and Flatpaks.

I'm guessing EndeavorOS or Manjaro?
 
mostly never like the fact you have no separation between the user base and user software. I know that you can uninstall afterwards but too cumbersome.. Plus corporate distro

If you do a netinstall instead of a WorkStation install. You can pick the specific packages during install.

Functional. I use KDE for functionality. Others DE work fine but not as functional as KDE.

To each his own. I find MATE more functional.
 
I've done my share of distro-hopping over the years, and have switched over periodically, based on my needs at the time. I'm comfortable with RHEL-based and Debian-based distros. I currently use Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE5).

Let me address some items on your list:
1. Can't really speak to encryption. I have it on a couple of devices/partitions containing sensitive data, but stay away for the most-part, because it adds heartburn when data recovery is an issue. But ... I've never had a problem with LUKS encryption.
1a. Hibernation has been a commonly known issue with Linux, so combining it with encryption might be disastrous.
2. Yeah, KDE would be considered the king of DE functionality. But that doesn't make it better than any other. I use Connamon, but find myself using a minimal set of it's tools for daily work. I keybind certain apps, hide my toolbars and other display clutter, and otherwise enjoy a rather minimalist experience. But, the Cinnamon functionality is available should I need it. Same with Gnome and many other DEs.
3. So ... you're looking for a secure, stable OS? How about Debian?
4. I think Peppermint might tick this box. Linux Mint as well, depending on your needs. Linux Mint doesn't have a "minimal install" box to ticket, but the selection of software it installs by default isn't very heavy.
5. Fedora is a testing ground for the newest kernels and other software. I think Fedora 36 has the newest 5.17 kernel.
6. Fedora isn't corporate. It's community based, upstream to RHEL. Ubuntu is corporate. Linux Mint's main distro is based on Ubuntu (which is based on Debian) without all the corp stuff. Linux Mint Debian Edition is based directly off of Debian.

Added: You want a Latest and Greatest distro that's also secure and stable. I think Fedora gets you as close to that as possible. It has a good reputation for all the above (but that doesn't make it perfect). Just install KDE on it.
 
I guess Fedora is the narrative of the day and I agree. I worked beautifully on my laptop. Plus, the only Distro that did not have issue with encryption linked to my external bluetooth keyboard (driver issue when typing the pwd for the disk encryption).
The point I disliked about Fedora is the tightness about the base you get with the DE (whether be kde/gnome etc..) to the base. Trying to explain, is the difficulties (technical) if you want to move away and try to install a software that is not in the repo(s). Its possible but you have to spend time and dive deep in the technicallity of the Fedora Linux eco system. To illustrate, I have specific need with the discrete graphic card (RX 6700 M). mesa-git and mpv-amd and radeon driver are not readily available on Fedora.
AUR/Chaotic AUR in Arch is as simple as one/two command line in the terminal. I guess its specific to my current laptop and if I had a more compatible laptop, the story would be different.
LinuxMint Cinamon which I tried worked very well. But the kernel was lagging.
I only want what is good for my rig. I have to admit that I am not really making a choice but rather a choice is made for me as far as compatibility, ease of use, resilience. I can get away with straight forwards howtos without much difficulties but I am not capable of solving issues when I do not have guidance. Fedora Documentation was lacking my needs or probably less readily available/thourough compared to Arch/Gentoo. Finally, I find Fedora elitiste. Going back to the fact that is upstream to RHEL. And I am sorry but still call this Corporate !!
I gave up on encryption. For drivers issue that caused me headache, the fact that I want to use hibernation, and also backing up Data is more of a pain when encryption is present. Also, it seems that my laptop is not as under pressure as it used to be when encryption was present.

PS: I guess I forgot to mentionne the elephant in the room. Flatpak vs Snapd vs Store.. For a non techy/geek what a weird thing !!! I guess that is why I moved to Arch based distro. Also, I do not have much needs for softwares. My workflow is very simple and straight forward .

BTW: I am using Garuda KDE lite -> Adapted to my needs. Love the extras they have develloped to make my life easier.
 
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and mostly never like the fact you have no separation between the user base and user software.
You still haven't explained what you mean by this in your latest reply, I'm still curious to know what you mean by this?
 
I have tried, OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Fedora 36 Workstation/Xfce, Vanilla Arch/Derivative (Garuda, Arco, EndeavorOS), Ubuntu, PopOS, MX Linux.
Try the netinstall/server .iso for some of those above; OpenSuse, Fedora, Debian(testing, yes it's stable enough if you know what to do), Ubuntu. Just install the basics, that means no X, reboot and install stuff as needed.
Possibility of minimal install and then adapte user software to your liking.
As for this, not sure on Fedora and/or OpenSuse since they use groups, that being said, suse's installer is the best you can find out there, so maybe you can install KDE with only the necessary; konsole, dolphin, partition manager, kde-cli-tools, kate, khotkeys, systemsettings, kio-extras(for doplhin), okular, gwenview, kwin-x11, sddm ... In Debian/Ubuntu you could use --no-recommends. What I'd do is run
Code:
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends plasma-desktop
then check what's on recommends, select, copy/paste to a file, and add whatever pkg I might want/need to install after that command.
 
I did/try. Guess did not do a good job
The point I disliked about Fedora is the tightness about the base you get with the DE (whether be kde/gnome etc..) to the base. Trying to explain, is the difficulties (technical) if you want to move away and try to install a software that is not in the repo(s). Its possible but you have to spend time and dive deep in the technicallity of the Fedora Linux eco system. To illustrate, I have specific need with the discrete graphic card (RX 6700 M). mesa-git and mpv-amd and radeon driver are not readily available on Fedora.
 
@Tolkem
Thanks, never tried the netinstaller. Will give it a try in a VM.. Thank you
What I liked about OpenSuse is, you download the whole thing and you do not need an internet cnx. My cnx is not that great..
 
I did/try. Guess did not do a good job
That's not separation between os software and user software. That's basically you not liking the extra stuff installed that you don't need. Most distributions have a server version where only the base os is installed after which you can install everything you want yourself. So Fedora as well.
 
semantic i guess.
what fits my needs for the moment is a command line to install a piece of software. Not having to go through hoops. Arch/AUR Chaotic answer those needs. Fedora not. I guess its a choice that I am making that fits me at a given time.
 
Thanks, never tried the netinstaller. Will give it a try in a VM.. Thank you
What I liked about OpenSuse is, you download the whole thing and you do not need an internet cnx. My cnx is not that great..
Yeah, that 4GiB DVD is good enough for an offline install. Neither is mine; in a "good" day (and in the middle of the night) I might get 500-600 kbps, otherwise the usual is 300-350 kbps (and sometimes lower that that), so yeah, doing a netinstall might take a while lol
 
Finally, I find Fedora elitiste. Going back to the fact that is upstream to RHEL. And I am sorry but still call this Corporate
Garuda is Arch-based and all Arch users are elitists and RHEL and Canonical use the kernel and other corporate companies(ie: Google) contribute to the kernel. So you are using an elitist and corporate distribution as well.
 
all Arch users are elitists
Did you mean "developers"? Hmmm ... tho, I'm not running arch ATM, I didn't find/consider myself "elitist" when I did (or do now for that matter) whatever it is you meant with that.
 
Going back to your original question

Why do you use a specific Linux Distro as a Daily Driver !

I don't have one daily driver, it all depends on which bit of kit I am using, and if I am away from home,
My desktop currently runs Mint, but I also have several external drives with various distributions on that I can run,
MY main laptop has Debian on one drive, and Parrot on the second drive [Parrot is mainly used when travelling for the extra bit of security]
My pocket net book [acer ZG5] currently runs Peppermint 10-32 respin,
My choices are made on what runs best on each individual bit of kit, which terminal emulator or desktop they have doesn't bother me as long as they function correctly.
 
Hmm... I'm not sure how to break it to you OP, but...

Linux, as in the kernel folks themselves - the Linux Foundation, is an incorporated entity - a 501(c)(6) to be exact. As is the FSF from which you get your GNU tools. EFF, while not Linux, also a corporation. Non-profits? Again, they're incorporated entities, which must of course fill the three mandatory positions for incorporation...

It kinda amuses me to when I see people who dislike corporations. Not only are they unavoidable, they're a varied bunch. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that linux.org is an entity held by a LLC. Many corporations are awesome and do great things.

I'll dig out one example link. Feel free to look the rest of the information up. Look on the right.

 
Did you mean "developers"? Hmmm ... tho, I'm not running arch ATM, I didn't find/consider myself "elitist" when I did (or do now for that matter) whatever it is you meant with that.
I was been sarcastic as in if you find Fedora Elitist it's kind of funny going to a distribution known for being elitist as well.

@KGIII Exactly my point about the reasoning of finding Fedora "corporate"
 
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Neither is mine; in a "good" day (and in the middle of the night) I might get 500-600 kbps, otherwise the usual is 300-350 kbps (and sometimes lower that that), so yeah, doing a netinstall might take a while lol

That is a good point. I admit I am spoiled here. But it is a consideration as to why someone might choose a specific distro over another one. I do have a question however...

When you download the "all in one" (everything on the DVD/iso image) distro. Isn't it just as big? In fact it seems like
the DVD would have a number of packages some people don't use.

I may be confused here, but I was thinking it was Debian that came on 7 or 8 DVD's. The good news... you get everything
you need. The bad new, you still have to download the iso's. I thought Knoppix was similar.

I suppose if I had a really slow internet connection, I would be a lot less inclined to go with a rolling release
(that updates itself frequently).
 
@KGIII Exactly my point about the reasoning of finding Fedora "corporate"

If you do some digging, even Arch may be incorporated. If they accept tax-free donations then I'm 90% certain they have to be incorporated to have that status - in the US, at least. I've never set up a NP or NFP but I have set up (or my legal council has, to be more accurate) corporations. They're great for tax purposes, but I don't want to digress too much today.

But, yeah... Even the Linux Foundation is an incorporated entity. Then so go, the GNU tools that make it functional... I suspect it's true on the BSD side as well. I just haven't looked into it on the BSD side.
 

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