Hello, i am currently looking for a Linux distribution with these criteria:
-it should be more or less stable, comparable to Ubuntu with or without LTS // -it should not be related to IBM to any way (so no fedora/redhat) // -it should not feature snaps (no Ubuntu or KDE neon) // -KDE plasma should be installable manually (best case even installed by default) // -no DIY Distros //
I’ve been thinking about using an immutable distro, but if anyone can recommend something to me, I’d be very grateful //
Edit: I’m sorry for the bad formatting, for some reason it doesn’t register spaces
Sounds like Debian is your answer.
Just to clarity the relationship between Red Hat, IBM, and Fedora, Fedora is only sponsored by Red Hat. They make all their own decisions, and while they receive financial support from Red Hat and Red Hat owns the Fedora trademark, their decisions and development are independent of Red Hat (and by extension IBM), with the single exception that they cannot risk violating the law (i.e. copyright infringement), else it risks Red Hat legal trouble (and Fedora would risk losing their sponsorship as a result). Red Hat benefits from Fedora’s development by the community, given that Fedora is RHEL’s upstream, hence why it continues to sponsor Fedora. But it isn’t Red Hat that is in charge of Fedora’s development, it’s FESCo, which is entirely community elected, and does not stand for the interests of Red Hat, but rather for the interests of the community.
Eliminating Fedora from contention in that regard is essentially like eliminating Debian because you don’t like Canonical, who makes Ubuntu, a downstream of Debian. And yes, Canonical sponsors Debian, so it is essentially a 1:1 comparison.
Add on top of that the fact that IBM and Red Hat are major contributors to the Linux kernel, and you absolutely cannot avoid connections to them while using Linux. I mean, that’s quite frankly a ridiculous exclusion criteria in the context of Linux. If you’re looking to avoid an operating system OWNED by Red Hat or IBM, then Fedora should not be included in that list. Neither of them have any say or pull in the development of Fedora, which is a completely community-driven project (no, owning the trademark doesn’t change that fact; if Red Hat tried to take over, the Fedora community would simply fork the project, rebrand, and continue on their own). Besides, Red Hat has no interest in controlling Fedora, because it doesn’t benefit them. Their only interest is in enterprise applications, which is not a good use case for Fedora. The only operating systems Red Hat actually has any control over are RHEL, CentOS, and any derivatives of those operating systems like Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, and such (though Red Hat’s control over derivatives was only the result of those projects being downstream, not actual ownership).
So with that in mind, I’d recommend the Fedora KDE spin if you want a normal, stable, snap-free, no DIY required distro with KDE, or if you want the immutable version, Fedora Kinoite is what you’d be looking for. And Fedora has the major advantage over Debian-based distros of actually receiving package and kernel updates regularly, so you can stay up to date and enjoy new features, all while maintaining stability.
Fedora Kinoite is absolutely the best immutable distro fitting your criteria. Anything else will have a much smaller community and less support as a result. rpm-ostree has great documentation, and all of the Fedora Atomic Spins have a huge userbase available in case you ever have questions.
Opensuse Tumbleweed is pretty stable, even though it’s a rolling release
Stable as in reliable and not as in unchanging
I second opensuse, there is also a non-rolling release option, i think.
My tumbleweed has been exceptionally stable, updates without problem.
What does a DIY distro mean? Is typing
archinstallout of the question?With diy distro I meant arch, gentoo, and nixOS The distro is meant to run on a PC which is mainly used by non tech sawwy people. And even tho I will be doing all administration tasks on it, I would like it to be as easy to manage themselves as possible, so they become familiar with Linux more.
If it will be used by non-tech savvy people, why do you care about snap and IBM? Do the people care about that?
The distro is meant to run on a PC which is mainly used by non tech sawwy people. […], so they become familiar with Linux more.
In this case I always suggest trying out Linux Mint. It is not “too heavy” and not “too specific/niche”. It’s a good all-purpose distribution for desktops/laptops where basic maintenance can be performed by the user.
My mom and grandma are using Manjaro. With grandma I’m the only one doing the updates of course, but with mom she usually can do it herself just using
pamac-tray. If that fails a phonecall is usually sufficient. Once in a few years I have to come and do something by myselfAnd when that happens I work with a distro that just works, instead of some broken crap
EDIT: Xfce is very nice in such cases. It looks familiar for them while being manageable for me
What is broken with Mint? My kid has been using it since she was like 10.
- no rolling-release: around once half a year you have to reinstall the system because it can’t update some core library to a more recent version. And it’s only the distro’s limitation because rolling releases have no issue with it
- you can’t just define a package of your own. So if a piece of software is not in packages, you need to compile and install it manually without packager managing it. It tends to break in the long term and when the software suddenly becomes packaged
- deb-hell: if you come to the idea to solve the first problem by compiling your own package, the packager will give you hell for that. And compiling your own deb with bumped up version is no easy task. Which means that when your version of the system goes out of life, you have to reinstall. Pray that you thought about this before and put /home and /etc on separate partitions
- package dependencies are too baked in or stability is too high priority. Even if your issue got resolved recently, it will take a long time for an updated package to appear. And you can’t roll your own in the meantime (see 2, or even worse 1)
Gotcha. The difficulty in upgrading OS versions was my major gripe. Not that this is unique to Mint I’m guessing.
Second was unavailability of newer versions (or any versions) of some software. At the time, one example was FreeCAD being a couple years behind the current version.
And in fact this second issue made the first issue worse. I could’ve run an LTS longer. But from day one certain packages were pretty far behind and those packages didn’t get major version upgrades until I switched to the next Mint release.
Or else I would have to point to another repo. So at one point I had a bunch of different repos. Then one might go down and break the update and upgrade process.
And if not that approach I would have to find some other way to install but I still want to keep it updated semi automatically which isn’t possible in some cases.
Idk. I may switch to a rolling release distro at some point. But for now Fedora runs newer versions of the kernel and presumably(?) other software, or at least it hasn’t been an issue, thus far.
Sorry, the closest i came up aren’t good solution but may help in your search :
- Vanilla OS 2 but its under Gnome DE and in beta phase. Maybe once it go out from beta it will supports other DE ? So around 6th month later or 1 year ?
But the problem is that their community is very small. If you want something stable, it’s better to look for bigger community so you can benefit from their support and user’s problems
There is fedora kinoite but you don’t want anything related to IBM.
- NixOS but i don’t know it. I’m affraid it will be a DIY distro at the beggining.
So the same OS from my steamdeck :
- Steam OS ? It’s an immutable OS based on Arch and support KDE by default. Full support of flatpaks. Only downside, i dunno if it supports other machines than the steamdeck. Nor if it uses the latest linux kernel. Maybe some variant ?
disable repositories, updates https://github.com/aarnt/octopi, https://ctlos.github.io/, https://endeavouros.com/.
OpenSUSE is good. If corporate scares you off, there’s OpenMandriva Lx or Mageia.
Debian as others are saying is a great choice
But I’ll still shill arch, I’ve literally never encountered a problem with it other than my first time installing manually being a learning experience. Not sure if it counts as a DIY distro bc you can definitely install with a script
OpenSuse seems like it would meet your needs. OpenSuse Kalpa might be one to look into since it’s immutable and features KDE Plasma
I read this as:
Looking for a Half-Life Linux distroLinux Mint is hands down the most stable linux distro out there and has been for years. zero tinkering needed. everything just runs no questions asked.
My only grief with Mint is the most recent update where they changed the software centee and now it’s slowed to a crawl. Why they would do this is anyones guess.
I’m recommending MX until such time that Mint sort their crap out - unfortunately I doubt they will, seeing as this change of software center was to resolve some other issues they (but not is end users) though they had.
MX is basically debian but with a lot of improvements. Sure it might have a bit of a learning curve for those primarily used to Ubuntu based systems, but it beats running any of the other Ubuntu distros by miles since they all struggle with the crap Ubuntu puts on top of Debian.
Manjaro is another great option if you don’t want to deal with debian based stuff, and KDE is the default DE with most stuff under reasonable control. You can also use all the Arch resources if you ever run into trouble so it’s a lot less of a headache than what I’ve experienced running OpenSUSE (i want to love OpenSUSE but I just can’t).
OpenSUSE TW
it should be more or less stable, comparable to Ubuntu with or without LTS It’s very stable and I’ve never had issues
it should not be related to IBM to any way (so no fedora/redhat) It’s supported no DIY Distros It’s developed by SUSE.
it should not feature snaps (no Ubuntu or KDE neon) It uses flatpaks
KDE plasma should be installable manually (best case even installed by default) OpenSUSE is one of the few distributions that uses KDE Plasma by default.
Isn’t TW the rolling-release variant?
Maybe I’m just scarred from years of IT, but I would avoid recommending any rolling release to someone if they specified “stability” and were likely fresh out of the Ubuntu/Green Ubuntu kiddie pool.
Just assume that they mean they want to set it up with minimal user interaction and then never, ever, ever have to change settings again.
Alpine Linux.
stable ✅
technically comparable to Ubuntu ✅
not related to IBM ✅
doesn’t feature snaps ✅
KDE plasma ✅
not DIY ✅WCGW
Two come to mind. Have fun distro hopping :)
-
https://distrowatch.com/spiral (Debian based)
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https://distrowatch.com/opensuse (Has a rolling release choice)
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When you start getting super specific about which distro you want, I think you should start looking towards a DIY distro.
