Hi all, Relatively long time Linux user (2017 to be precise), and about two 3rds of that time has been on Arch and its derivatives. Been running Endeavour OS for at least 2.5 years now. It’s a solid distro until it’s not. I’d go for months without a single issue then an update comes out of nowhere and just ruins everything to either no return, or just causes me to chase after a fix for hours, and sometimes days. I’m kinda getting tired of this trend of sudden and uncalled for issues. It’s like a hammer drops on you without you seeing it. I wish they were smaller issues, no, they’re always major. Most of the time I’d just reinstall, and I hate that. It’s so much work for me. I set things the way I like them and then they’re ruined, and the hunt begins. I have been wanting to switch for a long time, and I honestly have even been looking into some of those immutable distros (that’s how much I don’t want to be fixing my system. I’m tired, I just want to use my system to get work done). I was also told that Nobara is really good (is it? Never tried it). My only hold back — and it’s probably silly to some of you— is the AUR. I love it. It’s the most convenient thing ever, and possibly the main reason why I have stuck with Arch and its kids. Everything is there. So, what do y’all recommend? I was once told by some kind soul to use an immutable distro and setup “distrobox” on it if I wanted the AUR. I’ve never tried this “distrobox” thing (I can research it, no problem). I also game here and there and would like to squeeze as much performance as I can out of my PC (all AMD, BTW, and I only play single player games). So, I don’t know what to do. I need y’all’s suggestions, please. I’ll aggregate all of the suggestions and go through them and (hopefully) come up with something good for my sanity. Please suggest anything you think fits my situation. I don’t care, I will 100% appreciate every single suggestion and look into it. I’m planning to take it slow on the switch, and do a lot of research before switching. Unless my system shits the bed more than now then I don’t know. I currently can’t upgrade my system, as I wouldn’t be able to log in after the update. It just fails to log in. I had to restore a 10 days old snapshot to be able to get back into my damn desktop. I have already copied my whole home directory into another drive I have on my PC, so if shit hits the fan, I’ll at least have my data. Help a tired brother out, please <3. Thank you so much in advance.

  • 18107@aussie.zone
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    24 minutes ago

    I’ve been distro hopping for years. After each time trying a few distros, I always find myself coming back to Linux Mint (cinnamon desktop environment). It has everything I need, and just works beautifully out of the box. It might not be flashy or have the latest cutting edge features, but it’s stable.

    I’m currently running the Debian edition of Mint (LMDE), and wishing I was back on standard Mint. Nothing major, but a few minor persistent issues that never happened on Mint.

    I did try NixOS (immutable OS), but it didn’t seem to have support for all the apps I wanted. I gave up fairly quickly, so you’ll probably have more success.

  • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz
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    2 hours ago

    Debian. I’ve had installations which went trough several major version upgrades, I’ve worked with ‘set and forget’ setups where someone originally installed Debian and I get my hands on it 3-5 years later to upgrade it and it just works. Sure, it might not be as fancy as some alternatives and some things may need manual tweaking here and there, but the thing just works and even on rare occasion something breaks you’ll still have options to fix it assuming you’re comfortable with plain old terminal.

  • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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    50 minutes ago

    Mint. It’s not sexy. But it always just works. Never had an update break anything. I’ve got an Nvidia card, which ppl said was notorious for not working with Linux, it just works. The installer just reached out and grabbed the appropriate drivers, so easy. Have yet to have a steam game not work.

    10/10 would recommend for anyone.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    First to answer your main question if I were you I would try NixOS, because it’s declarative so it’s essentially impossible to break, i.e. if it breaks for whatever reason a fresh reinstall will get you back to exactly where you were.

    That being said, I know it’s anecdotal but I have been using Arch for (holy crap) 15 years, and I’ve never experienced an update breaking my system. I find that most of the time people complain about Arch breaking with an update they’re either not using Arch (but Manjaro, Endeavor, etc) and rely heavily on AUR which one should specifically not do, much less on Arch derivatives. The AUR is great, but there’s a reason those packages are not on the main repos, don’t use any system critical stuff from them and you should be golden. Also try to figure out why stuff broke when it did, you’ll learn a lot about what you’re doing wrong on your setup because most people would have just updated without any issues. Otherwise it really doesn’t matter which distro you choose, mangling a distro with manual installations to the point where an upgrade breaks them can be done on most of them, and going for a fully immutable one will be very annoying if you’re so interested in poking at the system.

  • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
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    1 hour ago

    I used Fedora, and am now leaving for the exact reason you’re leaving Arch (plus IMO bad repos). Switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed a few months ago and am having a much better experience than with Fedora :D; I use the PC for programming, audio recording and mixing, document stuff, etc. (No gaming though).

    Nobara is good but does break regularly, FYI… If you’re a “power-user” I wouldn’t recommend it as a daily driver.

    There’s also Void Linux, which hasn’t ever broken on me due to an update, but is still a lot of work, due to its nature. It’s actually quite stable though, and you might enjoy it, since it’s quite similar to Arch and has very large repos.

    I can’t say much about immutable distros, as the only one I’ve used is bazzite, which was kinda horrible (broke constantly).

    Well, I hope that helped. Good luck!

  • lime!@feddit.nu
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    2 hours ago

    i’m trying out Aeon at the moment. it’s from the opensuse people.

    it auto-updates, it snapshots itself so any failed update will just silently revert, and it does flatpaks or distrobox only.

    if you’re okay with gnome, try it.

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    3 hours ago

    Wow, what a wall of text. I’m sorry but I’m sure I skimmed some parts.

    Look. The bulk of the replies you’re going to get will be like “this is my favourite distro and here’s how it works for you” not “this is the best distro for your criteria.” It’s important to understand the deep level of bias you’re going to get.

    But your cause is a noble one. I use a particular style of distro because it can be trusted to install well, back out well, do both safely, and allow validation at every stage. I think it’s a good candidate, and it’s already been mentioned as a really great ‘set it and forget it’ distro.

    Good luck.

  • zarenki@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    I stopped using Arch a long time ago for this same reason. Either Fedora (or derivatives like Nobara) or an atomic/immutable distro (like Bazzite, Silverblue, Kinoite) is probably the way to go.

    I used to feel like Ubuntu was a good option for this, but it no longer is: too often they try to push undesirable changes that need manual tweaking to fix after release upgrades. Debian Stable is generally good for low-maintenance use but doesn’t keep up as well with newer hardware or newer updates to video drivers and mesa, which makes it suboptimal for typical gaming use. Debian Testing can be prone to break things in updates (in my experience, worse than Arch does).

    I saw another comment recommend Rocky/RHEL, but note that their kernel doesn’t support btrfs. Since you mentioned a root snapshot, I expect you probably use it.

  • enumerator4829@sh.itjust.works
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    4 hours ago

    Look, this is the reason people pay RedHat money. Go install Rocky Linux, turn on all the automatic updates and ignore it for the next five years.

    On the enthusiast side, NixOS seems to be working fine if you want newer versions of software or larger repos.

  • warmaster@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Look. I’ve been there. I started my Linux journey with Arch based distros, then distrohopped a lot, and finally found the best for me, and what I personally consider the best either for normal users or those that don’t want to do any maintenance.

    It’s the Universal Blue family of distros: Bazzite (gaming / KDE / gnome) Aurora (standard / development / KDE) Bluefin (standard / development / gnome)

    Set it and forget about it. It just freaking works. For GUI apps install from the Discover app store (which uses Flatpak), for cli apps use Homebrew (brew install whatever). If you can’t find something, open Distrobox (already included) create an Arch container, install whatever you want from the AUR, and use it like you’re used to. It works like freaking magic.

    If somehow you manage to brick your installation, when you reboot you’ll be able to boot to a past snapshot.

    You just can’t fail with this. It’s the best of the best IMHO.

  • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
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    4 hours ago

    My favorite distros are Gentoo and Debian.

    I can say with confidence that Linux Mint is what you’re looking for.

  • kork349d@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    Could some of the instability issues you have on arch could come from what you are installing from AUR?

    I use AUR for a few things and it is a great resource but the packages are maintained by users and can cause issues.

    I update those packages carefully, remove them if I am no longer using them and reconsider which ones i actually need installed in the first place.

    While doing this I have only had a handful of issues pop up while updating and usually there is a recent thread describing the issue and how to fix it after a quick search.

  • node815@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    I came from Arch to Fedora as well but using Universal Blue’s images. In my case, Aurora (KDE), and daughter’s Bluefin (Gnome). They update in the background and only install when you reboot. So far, most of the newer software releases such as web browsers or the desktop environment fall within a day or two for being installed which is a nice alternative. The big plus I see on these too is they are immutable so if something installs or breaks, you just boot into the previous version from Grub and go from there.

    Additionally, OpenSuse MicroOS has options for whatever environment you are used to such as Gnome or KDE, this is immutable as well. I view all of these as “Set and Forget”.

    • Lem453@lemmy.ca
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      4 hours ago

      I didnt even remember which os I had until I read this and remembered it was aurora

  • Matt@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    Try blendOS. It’s basically Arch but immutable. And SteamOS also exists.

    • jamesbunagna@discuss.online
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      3 hours ago

      It has been some time since I gave this a proper look. Do you use this yourself? If so, would you be so kind to share some of your experiences?

        • jamesbunagna@discuss.online
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          1 hour ago

          Sorry, I was referring to BlendOS if that wasn’t clear*.

          However, if you did understand my intentions right away, then I’d regard it an oversimplification to ‘equate’ their respective experiences. Regardless, I do appreciate your input! Thank you.