throwawayish

While I get why distrochooser.de is romanticized, in its current iteration it's simply not very good and anyone that is somewhat well-versed in how different distros operate and how Distrochooser works, will tell you the same. At best, it provides some orientation into what some of the more common distros are. But it fails to answer some fundamental questions in the process; like:

What is the relation between a distro and its derivative and (more importantly) how does that matter to a user?
How exactly does a distribution's chosen release model affect software and updates? And while we're into that, what's even the difference between the "stable" used when talking about point release distros that opt to freeze packages over longer periods of time vs the "stable" that's brought up in conversations regarding update concerns and how they might break software (I'm honestly not even sure if the one(s) responsible for writing the parts of Distrochooser even know(s) themselves)^[1].

There are a lot of other fundamental questions that are involved in the decision for picking a distro that would have made a lot more sense than the ones found on Distrochooser. E.g. Do you use an Nvidia GPU and want this to cause no issues in the process of installation and is this your biggest concern? If yes: then just use Pop!_OS. Otherwise, move on to the other questions etc. I think the fact that a flowchart isn't used for some uses and that ultimately priorities aren't brought up to finalize the decision are the two biggest issues that Distrochooser has in its current iteration.

And we haven't even gone over the many distros that despite having little to no user base are still included in the results, while (more recent) 'staples' like Garuda and Nobara are clearly left out for reasons most likely related to the maintainers not being able to keep up with the Linux landscape. Which, to be fair, is quite hard; so I don't blame them. I, in fact, applaud them for their continued contributions and hope that some day it will become something that we can proudly present to others for their first orientation.

Allow me to end this with a question to OP:

Do you feel the same way about excellent websites like DistroWatch.com and DistroSea?^[2]
- If yes; Why didn't you make a similar post for either of the two instead?
- If no; Why not?

Sure, there is some overlap in what they mean and how they're used, but it's a very important distinction; otherwise openSUSE's stable rolling release designation for their Tumbleweed wouldn't make any sense.
If anything, I think these two actually make more sense to be included.

OP, my request/suggestion would be the following:

In order for us to better help you consider the following:

Inform us on your hardware specs. You could even rely on the software found on linux-hardware.org for a (so-called) probe.
Inform us on which distros you've tried. If possible, for each one of them list the following:
- What exactly didn't work?
- Did you try any troubleshooting?

On a more general note, you shouldn't feel the need to switch distros even if other distros might offer more convenient solutions.

Story time

When I was new to Linux, I wanted to rely on the Chromium browser for cloud gaming through Nvidia GeForce NOW's web platform. For some reason, I just wasn't able to get this to work on Fedora. Somehow, while still being mostly a newbie, I stumbled upon Distrobox and decided to give it a go in hopes of allowing me to overcome the earlier challenge by benefiting of the ArchWiki and the AUR through an Arch distrobox. And voila; -without too much effort- it just worked. More recently, after I've become slightly more knowledgeable on Linux, I just rely on a flatpak to get the same work done.

Moral of the story would be that there are a lot of different ways that enable one to overcome challenges like these. And unless you feel the need to go with a system that's (mostly) managed for you (à la uBlue)^[1], you will face issues every now and then. And the only way to deal with them would be to either setup^[2] (GRUB-)Btrfs+Timeshift/Snapper (or similar solutions) such that it automatically snapshots a working state that you might rollback to whenever something unfortunate befalls your system or to simply become ever so better equipped in troubleshooting them yourself.

But therefore demands from you to engage with the system in a specific (mostly unique) way.
Or rely on a distro that sets it up for you.

Good to see more laptops being release with Dasharo/Coreboot.

Can't agree more. I hope that Framework will soon follow suit.

FWIW, I've put some effort into explaining how a dual boot of Windows 10 and Fedora Atomic (read Silverblue/Kinoite/Sericea etc) can be achieved. While it's far from exhaustive, it should be fine as long as your specific installation of Fedora Atomic doesn't require special attention (which happens sometimes with owners of an Nvidia GPU*). After Fedora Atomic is successfully installed, proceed with following the instructions found on the following parts of uBlue's documentation: here, here and finally pick whichever uBlue image you'd like to install from this list; specific instructions are found directly underneath the text boxes for each individual image, but ensure you're installing the one with the correct Fedora version (37/38/39/stable/latest etc (which are accessed via tabs)). If you can't decide on which version you'd like to install, then just go for 39.

Thank you OP for that, but... why should we prefer this over uBlue's work on streamlining this process?

I think I got you now. I won't change my ways; /s is just way too convenient for me to give up on 😅. I guess I'm weak... Regardless, I think you've at least given me some food for thought. So thank you for that!

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences! I'm afraid it might not be very relevant as it's a device that's at least 6 years old by now 😅 (at least according to this source. Regardless, user experiences are valuable. And I'm glad to hear that the device has been working flawlessly for you so far 😊.

Love the down vote, also. Makes me feel like this is reddit all over again. Lmao. Down vote for sharing an opinion of what’s been the best Linux on laptop experience I’ve ever had.

Haters gonna hate, I guess. Don't worry too much about it. The thread you're in (so the one starting with my first reply under this post) also is the most controversial under this post. So I wouldn't be surprised if some folks just down voted indiscriminately for... some reason...

They said they don’t game.

GPUs aren't exclusive to gaming (as you should know).

Why GPU?

OP mentioned the intent to do video editing on the device. Unfortunately, the amount of good video editors on Linux is currently limited to just Davinci Resolve(; sure, the likes of Kdenlive (etc) exists, but none of them are very suitable for professional usage^[1]). While I'm thankful that Davinci Resolve works on Linux, it's -according to their own documentation- simply not possible to make use of it without a dedicated GPU (at least on Linux). Thus, warranting the need for a dedicated GPU.

That’s horrible for battery.

I'm aware that that's a concern. Thankfully, there are workarounds. And if all else fails, there's always the possibility to make use of eGPUs; which I've actually explicitly mentioned in my earlier reply for this exact reason (without mentioning explicitly for which reason it was mentioned*).

OP might not even need it for professional use, but I assumed they did*.

That's very valuable! Thank you for mentioning that! To make it even more relevant to OP, I would like to pose the following questions:

Which CPU?
Which GPU?
How has the battery life been? Consider both light and heavy use*

Thank you in advance!

Hmm..., so if I understand you correctly; using /s is lazy, so I should either not try to convey sarcasm in written text or make it more clear that it's sarcasm without saying that it's sarcasm? Perhaps a better question would be: how would you formulate that one sentence? Once again, I'm genuinely curious and I'm thankful that you took the effort to type that down.

Thank you for your reply! Much appreciated ☺️!

To clarify, they do jack shit to add major hardware support (etc).

Thanks! That's the clarification that I needed.

This seems like a disingenuous response.

My apologies if it seemed that way, that wasn't my intention.

Pop isn’t adding anything much to Linux

In absolute sense, to the kernel; sure.

it’s yet another Debian derivative by way of Ubuntu.

That's where we clearly differ. It offers (arguably) the easiest installation for Nvidia drivers (which is especially useful for new users). Furthermore, it has other neat functionality like a recovery partition; which is otherwise absent on any other Linux distro (at least that I'm aware off). I agree that these things mostly benefit the new user rather than the established one. Nonetheless, even if we're not the target audience, we shouldn't be dismissive of the work that others put into their platform.

Cosmic is cool and all, but it’s mostly just eye candy for GNOME at the end of the day.

How can it be for GNOME if it's its own Desktop Environment? Sure, it relies on GTK (like most other DEs). But it's a Rust-based DE, which is (AFAIK) unique and already commendable by itself. Again, I don't understand if you're just trying to be dismissive of other people's work or just being ignorant/misinformed.

System76 also seem to still be developing working with other people skills.

While this particular case is new to me, I can't say I'm surprised. FWIW, even Linux Torvalds himself needed to put effort in self-improving themselves in this department. Therefore, I don't quite understand why you felt the need to bring this up. FWIW, I never said or implied that System76 is some holy organization that can't do anything wrong. You made a vague statement with "The support that these vendors put in for Linux is miniscule" and I only intended to point out some of their continued contributions to 'Linux'. I could have named any other Linux-first vendor, but System76 seemed to be the most renowned and that's why I went with that one.

Tuxedo still haven’t as far as I’m aware released ITE829x Linux drivers (in an upstreamable form) for example; I had to reverse engineer the damned chip.

That's unfortunate. And I think that this short paragraph is the summary of your grievances with these Linux-first vendors. And if that's the case, then it's at least worth mentioning that I'm absolutely oblivious of the challenges that you might have faced in this regard.

This sentiment made me very curious into how much laptop vendors contribute to the Linux kernel in general^[1]. Unfortunately, there was not a lot that I could find. Perhaps I'm just very bad at looking into that kinda thing. Therefore, if you're aware of a (half-)decent way to somehow see how much effort is done by different laptop vendors in order to support hardware on Linux, then please feel free to notify me of that 😊.

Clevo hardware lacks a lot of the polish that you just quietly get from a major manufacturer.

I'd have to take your word on it as you're clearly more experienced in this regard. But would you be so kind to give an example of two comparable laptops at comparable price-points; one from Clevo and another from a major manufacturer, in which the lack of polish is clearly visible? Like, if I as an average consumer look at the review on the Schenker XMG Focus 16 found on Notebookcheck.net and compare that to the reviews of the laptops it's compared to in its verdict, then I don't notice anything significant. Note that I've mostly just skimped the reviews*.

Sorry, the 3060ti was conflating my desktop; it’s literally a 2060 which is far worse in terms of termals and power.

No problem. Thank you for clarifying!

I have this laptop. I look at the Linux offerings from these manufacturers. I contribute to them.

Thank you for your continued contributions 😊!

I’m not saying that it’s all bad

This wasn't clear in your first reply.

and you seem to be taking this as something of a personal attack.

My apologies if it came across like that, I certainly didn't intend that*. To perhaps better illustrate how I read your first reply, allow me to paste it down below:

My inner thoughts while reading your first reply

Please don’t

Alright, they're not in favor of it, which is totally fine. Let's see what they bring up.

tuxedo/system76/metabox/etc are all rebadged Clevo ODM designs.

False. (I pointed this out in my earlier reply.)

The support that these vendors put in for Linux is miniscule

Vague statement at best. But if support isn't specified as hardware support, then it's another false statement.

and the hardware is “fine” at best.

Another vague statement; but at least their alternative should be better, right?

I for one love my desktop 3700x and 3060ti mobile stuffed into a laptop chassis.

First time hearing this. Internet search didn't give me any pointers. All of their statements so far haven't been written with care, perhaps they've been smoking something. But I'll give them the benefit of doubt and ask them how this works.

No compromises were made on this hardware.

Alright, so they've somehow managed something incredible (if at all). I'm sure they'll tell us what this is and how this is not Clevo. (In retrospect, what did you actually mean with this statement?)

Conversely, Dell and Lenovo laptops tend to have very good Linux support and can be had relatively cheaply, especially if you get something that isn’t bleeding edge.

Okay, I guess that's to be expected. But I don't recall a great experience looking into their catalogue the last time. checks; yup, still lackluster at best (pointed to this in my earlier reply).

(Back to normal mode) So, to sum it up: I didn't like your alternatives and stated why. As to your criticism towards Linux-first vendors; 1 false statement, 1 vague statement, 1 false/vague statement. Furthermore, there was a vague description of a device which initially seemed custom at best, but in retrospect seems to be a Clevo after all 😅.

It’s fine to like these companies. I want them to succeed, but Clevo as an ODM tend to produce products that lack the polish of a comparable (say) Dell, and don’t achieve the same volume of sales as a major manufacturer to achieve lower costs through increased volume (etc) - the cost savings have to come from somewhere and often that’s the firmware, material design, and design quality.

Agreed. I probably couldn't have said it better. But, this doesn't mean that Dell or Lenovo (or any other major manufacturer for that matter) themselves actually accomplish in making good products. Theoretically, they should be able to produce either better (and/)or cheaper devices. However, the fact of the matter is that this simply isn't the case (or at least not substantially/significantly). The Thinkpads sold today are just an excuse compared to the Thinkpads that were sold in the past. Similarly, Dell's XPS series shook the market in the past, but now they've stuck on a bad implementation of what Apple^[2] deemed unworthy (talking about touch instead real keys for function keys (etc)).

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure pretty soon (probs with Meteor Lake already) Dell's and Lenovo's Linux offerings (so talking strictly about a subset of their offerings, refer to my earlier reply for the links) will at least be considerable CPU-wise. But until then, if anyone is serious about using their laptop as a proper workstation with somewhat decent battery life^[3], then it's simply not worth to bother with Dell (like at all) or Lenovo (unless they're willing to pay a hefty price for it).

So just to be absolutely clear. I don't categorically dismiss Dell, Lenovo or any other major manufacturer for that matter. But for OP's requirements; currently, they seem to be (at best) very expensive.

These products are fine, don’t pretend that they’re perfect though, you’re doing them a disservice.

Alright, so I suppose this is a reaction to the following statements of mine:

"Another bold claim; one which only holds true if merely Apple’s finest go beyond “fine”."

"At which point, the “fine” hardware from the Linux-first vendor not only starts to be attractive but highly desirable by comparison."

I'm sure earlier paragraphs should have been sufficient to explain my thoughts on this. But just in case; they're not perfect. But -IMO- for OP's requirements, they're at the very least worth considering.

I, perhaps naively, think that contributions to the Linux kernel are most representative for hardware support. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Suffice to say, Apple actually had put thought into their design. Contrary to Dell's excuse of an implementation.
Reminder; OP explicitly wanted this.

Np fam. In retrospect, I agree with you that I should have done a better job at making it as clear as possible ☺️.

Hmm..., I think with the level of literacy (or just plain text skimping) we find on the internet, anything that helps in conveying the message is a clear win; especially if merely the use of just two characters enables one to achieve this.

Could you elaborate on what you dislike about it? I'm just genuinely curious*.

That’s a 40% price increase just to get your keyboard layout and a CPU upgrade

Fixed that for you*.

So what happens is that changing the keyboard language comes together with the CPU upgrade from Intel® Core® i3-1315U to Intel® Core® i7-1360P. That's what you pay for*. I agree with you that they might have done a better job at conveying what's happening. For whatever it's worth, I didn't immediately notice this myself. Therefore I tried to contact them in hopes of resolving the issue. They responded very quickly (like within a couple of minutes) and explained what was going on. Props to them for that!

tuxedo/system76/metabox/etc are all rebadged Clevo ODM designs.

Yup, clearly. /s

The support that these vendors put in for Linux is miniscule

Wow, that's a bold claim if anything. First time seeing a Pop!_OS-denier, I assume you also deny the existence of COSMIC? And these are just some of the work done done by System76 only.

the hardware is “fine” at best

Another bold claim; one which only holds true if merely Apple's finest go beyond "fine".

I for one love my desktop 3700x and 3060ti mobile stuffed into a laptop chassis. No compromises were made on this hardware.

Hmm..., very interesting! I'm totally oblivious of the existence of such a thing. If that is your benchmark, then I can actually understand what you meant with your earlier claim. Please feel free to enlighten me on how this works 😊.

Conversely, Dell and Lenovo laptops tend to have very good Linux support and can be had relatively cheaply, especially if you get something that isn’t bleeding edge.

I don't deny this. However, none of Dell's laptops with decent Linux support have an AMD CPU (or one of Intel's latest Meteor Lake CPUs). Thus, at least in terms of battery life, it's not desirable; with battery life being something that OP has explicitly mentioned. As for Lenovo, the Thinkpad-line (the one generally recommended for its Linux-support) with AMD CPUs starts at a very high price. At which point, the "fine" hardware from the Linux-first vendor not only starts to be attractive but highly desirable by comparison.

Ultimately, any discussion on this would boil down to cost vs convenience. As OP hasn't explicitly stated anything on this regard, it seems unproductive to delve into this further. However, strictly speaking, I have to agree with you that the Linux-first vendors are (in almost all cases) more expensive. Thank you for pointing that out for OP.

In case you're as bored as I am 😅.

Let's start with stating some facts from OP:

OP takes the effort to state six wishes/requirements without mentioning price.
OP implies to at least have considered the Framework laptop, for which the 16 inch variant -the one actually capable of video editing etc- is not a cheap device either.
OP states: "I don’t want to worry about" when talking about battery life. If anything, that sounds like one that would prefer convenience over cost.

Therefore, I assumed that OP wasn't cost-limited by any means (they didn't state it anyways).

Anyhow, allow me to illustrate how much OP might have to "pay more" for "inferior hardware":

Found this one on https://old.reddit.com/r/LaptopDeals, a site which you mentioned elsewhere under OP. Seems like a cool laptop, not gonna lie. It's just a random one I picked. Let's see what we can find on the other side:
Well look at that? Better CPU and better battery, just all around a great package (it even has a mechanical keyboard?!). Furthermore. better warranty terms and possible to extend to 5 years (compared to a measly 1 year for the other laptop). Yes, it's a significantly more expensive laptop. But, (for me) it's clearly the superior deal especially when the Linux support is considered. You're absolutely free to disagree though 😉.

My two cents; if you want to use Linux on it, then do yourself a favor and pick a laptop from a Linux-first vendor. So the likes of NovaCustom, Star Labs, System76, Tuxedo and others found on the link over here come to mind. Besides that, it's important that the device in question either has a dedicated GPU (or at least supports eGPUs). Furthermore, choose a device with relatively high battery capacity; they go up to ~99 Wh, so pick something that's at least relatively close to that number.

Feels like pointless recreating of everything that is allready available for years.

This seems to be either blatantly false or simply uninformed.

Sure, for years, there have been many different attempts to explore 'immutable'(/'atomic') distros. And while some concepts have become mainstays, like; atomic updates, some degree of immutability during runtime and to a lesser degree; reproducibility, declarative system management and reliance on (OCI) images. There remains a lot to explore still and differentiation in implementation (however minute) is important as it's not always clear what will and will not stick eventually.

As to your claim of Vanilla OS "pointlessly recreating what is already available for years", the only atomic distros that have been usable for years are Fedora Atomic, Guix System and NixOS. Both Guix System and NixOS are radically different from all the others and Fedora Atomic has only relatively^[1] recently^[2] started to do the things that actually resemble what Vanilla OS 2 Orchid envisions for their system.

"ABRoot is utility which provides full immutability and atomicity to a Linux system, by transacting between two root filesystems. Updates are performed using OCI images, to ensure that the system is always in a consistent state. It also allows for local atomic changes thanks to the integrated ABRoot package manager, which generates local OCI images with the user's changes, and then applies them on top of the system's default image."

(From ABRoot's page on Github)

This sounds a lot like what Fedora is trying to achieve with their ostree native containers.

Are there any technical differences between the two? Besides, of course, relying on tools with different names etc*. FWIW, it doesn't seem as if ABRoot (v2) allows one to pin multiple deployments, while this can be done relatively easily through the sudo ostree admin pin [-u] <index> command on Fedora Atomic.

throwawayish

@ throwawayish @lemmy.ml

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throwawayish

Could we add "Distrochooser" to the sidebar?

I'm so frustrated rn.

Solene'% : NovaCustom NV41 laptop review

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(Blog) Vanilla OS 2 Orchid Stable, some clarifications

(Blog) Vanilla OS 2 Orchid Stable, some clarifications