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The most popular Services mentioned in /r/DistroHopping:
MX Linux
DistroWatch
Manjaro Linux
Solus
Korora Project
Debian
BunsenLabs
KDE neon
openSUSE
EndeavourOS
Linux Lite
Kubuntu
antiX
Fedora
Zenwalk Linux
The most popular VPNs mentioned in /r/DistroHopping:
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MX Linux! (It uses sysvinit.) And no, nothing I do suffers from systemd's absence.
more info here:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/systemd/
I cannot recommend MX more highly...100% backward compatible with Debian, all those nice repos, excellent community. Very nice set of distro-unique tools, nothing fancy, very stable. Debian, improved. What could be better?
I recommend Manjaro.
- Easy acess to AUR (Arch User Repository), Flatpaks and Snaps
- Good-looking (they have several DEs to choose)
- It ships with LTS kernel, but you can install the latest one if you want.
- I found it to be stable, and I didn't experienced any issues with it. But I can't be sure about that, because I've been using it for only 4 months.
- Don't have to use the terminal for almost nothing, everything can be done in programs already included.
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>Deepin in another, which looks cool but is becoming annoying to deal with
Manjaro has the deepin DE, if you want to use it.
Then you're looking for one of these: LFS, Gentoo, Arch. But what you described is not really "coding". You're talking about configuring your distro and occasionally writing some scripts to automate things. It has nothing to do with software development.
For maximum compatibility with your work-related stuff, staying on Debian/Ubuntu based distros is probably most hassle free.
Albeit there are plenty of good choices, Pop OS might be for you for the following reasons:
- Uses GNOME which has a similar UI to macOS with a top panel and a dock, although the dock is on the left sometimes by default.
- They backport newer kernels etc into their LTS (long term support) version.
- Ubuntu-based so it'll have plenty of software available.
- Has an auto-tiling extension similar to how tiling window managers behave by default that many people find useful.
It also has NVIDIA drivers baked into the .iso, albeit installing them is usually one or two clicks away anyway so don't personally consider that a key selling point.
Other ubuntu derivative that would probably work for macOS users would be elementary OS, however the latest stable version is still based on ubuntu 18.04 meaning it'll have old software.
Distros with relatively up-to-date programs with little maintenance:
- Fedora (you will need rpmfusion for codecs)
- Ubuntu
- OpenSuse
Before you choose any of these or others, I would suggest visiting distrowatch and in the distros that you are interested checking some package versions. For example for Fedora, the page is http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora and in the section titled "Table Notes and Explanations" select "All tracked packages" and refresh. Then do the same with other distros and compare which packages are more important for you to have up to date. In my little research it seems that Fedora Rawhide (rolling release) and OpenSuse tumbleweed (also rolling release) are the most up to date. However, for stability I would prefer Fedora 22 or OpenSuse 13.2.
Tried Nix OS? I only recommend it because I really want to try it but I don't have time right now to learn as different a system as they seemingly have.
If not Nix, it's time to go in the other direction and install Slackware. It meets none of your criteria, so it'll be the most "new" to you.
Octopi
http://octopiproject.wordpress.com/screenshots
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/octopi/
Command to install it (assuming you ticked the box for AUR support on install):
> yaourt octopi --noconfirm
CentOS great to use for a server.
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Tiny Core great to tinker with.
​
If you want a real Linux distro Desktop to actually use, then your looking for MX.
​
Manjaro. It's Arch based (can access the AUR) and utilizes pacman (obviously). I've been using it for almost a year now on my old Thinkpad x61t with 3GB ram. Very happy with the XFCE variant as it also uses very little RAM. I would suggest taking a serious look at it.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ You want hardcore? Go hardcore. haha
And in answer to your question, Arch. Obviously. Because we're superior. And because you want to test the linux-ideapad kernel in the AUR.
And, yknow, because of every reason in the thread as well. You will learn all about how linux works without having to compile everything and take 3 days to build it.
And, all due respect to Slackers, but that's not hardcore. Slack works out of the box, and it's a great ready to run desktop. Not as easy as Ubuntu but....a hell of a lot easier to install than arch and gentoo.
Since Alpine is already mentioned, I would like to add Slackware, which has quite a big user base and pretty good documentation (although a little bit scattered around the internet). It checks all your requirements and adresses your concern with voids maturity.
Another choice would be crux, but it has the same problems you pointed out for void. It is however the more mature distribution, since it's been around since 2002.
Solus is nice. I used it for one year. They just use a different package manager call eopkg.
https://getsol.us/articles/package-management/basics/en/
Works great, they have a great community. I do like their DE call Budgie and a sidebar call Raven.
It's nice, give it a spin.
You don't need to change distro. You can have all the DE on manjaro you may possibly want. There are community managed DE for manjaro, and you can find budgie as well. At the end of the day, stick with what you're familiar with. And try different DE to see which one suits you the best.
https://manjaro.org/download/#Community
You can also try manjaro xfce if you are looking for lightweight DE.
Salix just came out with it's live edition of XFCE. It's a Slackware-based distro, but one that has a nice XFCE desktop and some extra tools to make setting up easier.
I have an 11.6" laptop with a Pentium CPU and I run Slackware with Openbox and Tint2 (so basically like ArchBang, which you may also want to look at). It ends up being something like having a Chromebook, but with all the XFCE apps.
Get used to backing up your data, so you don't lose it due to hardware failure. But I used to have several OSes installed to the same hard drive and use one /home partition for all of them a long time ago. This is a very bad idea (sharing dot files across several operating systems at the same time) nowadays though.
If you are able to shrink your current OS'es / filesystem with a new OS installer, or something like https://www.system-rescue.org/ to make room for the new OS, there is nothing stopping you from brute-force converting the Ubuntu partition into a /home partition. But I'm not going to explain how to do that because I would expect massive problems for any user account brought over this way due to problems with dot file conflicts with existing directories.
A much better idea would be to shrink the Ubuntu filesystem as above, then after you install your new OS, mount the old Ubuntu filesystem somewhere like /mnt, then run
- cp -r /mnt/home/youroldusername ~/old
- If your UID is different between the previous and current OS installation, you would then need to: chown -R yourNewUid ~/old
But either way. Back. Up. Your. Data. Everyone who has not done this has come to regret it eventually.
If you want ubuntu with less crap on it, just get Debian.
If you want pretty, get Elementary.
If you are an advanced user that knows how to troubleshoot and like getting your hands dirty try Arch or Gentoo with your favorite window manager.
Or just read about stuff and try out some distro's until you're happy
Edit: typo
I'd go with Manjaro. It's rolling release and based on Arch, but the devs hold updates back just long enough to test them. So in my experience you get less breakage than with straight Arch or Antergos. Of course, if you're the kind of person who can wait and watch how the upgrades are working out, then Arch and Antergos are pretty much the same as Manjaro. Also, you can download other desktop environments pretty easily with these.
You might also want to look at KaOS if you're interested in KDE. I used it for a few weeks and really liked it, but I've been using XFCe or Fluxbox or Openbox for a long time now, so the switch to KDE is always jarring for me.
I will mention Netrunner, which I really liked. However, they seem to have switched from a Manjaro-Arch base to Debian testing base. Can't remember which version I used.
If you are thinking about Gentoo. Then you must try out Sabayon it's base on Gentoo. I used it for 6 months and love it. It was the only Linux distro I install that everything work right out of the box.
Try out MX, I like how they setup Xfce. If you don't like the side panel you can move it to where you want it. But for some reason I like how all the defaults fit for my preferences.
​
Fedora markets itself as being "Created for developers" - https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/
That doesn't make it the best choice for development. But the fact that development is a primary objective and Fedora is all about the latest and greatest in the Linux ecosystem, it is actually a go-to for development purposes. Although the release model is essentially 'fixed', the core packages (and thus software libraries) do receive version updates throughout the support period.
In simpler words, Fedora is "Apple" of Linux distribution. It brings innovation. It is a top contributor (it's RedHat actually but we know these two guys along with CentOS are considered one these days) to Open Source world. So, if people who are contributing so much to open source are doing it on Fedora, that means it is indeed a very relevant platform to develop and build stuff upon.
To be honest, I'm not saying other distributions can not be used to develop stuff. But that's not their primary objective. So using a distribution that showcase itself for the very purpose of development makes more sense to me than choosing a distribution who's primary purpose is not development.
Debian net install might be what you want. Of course, if you like Arch you'll probably want to go with Debian testing to get newer packages.
That is unfortunate. Adobe Connect would almost certainly work well in a virtual machine, though. It's inconvenient and doesn't truly grant you freedom from Windows, but its an option to consider. If you'd like to give that a shot, I would recommend VirtualBox. You can also get a ready-to-run VM image directly from Microsoft.
That hardware is plenty to run basically any modern distribution. It might suffer a bit compiling, so I would avoid Gentoo.
It's good you've already spent a bit of time with a RedHat-based (Fedora) and a Debian-based (Ubuntu) distribution to get diversity of experience. Ubuntu dominates in the cloud, and RedHat dominates in corporate. Both are worth knowing.
If you want to learn Linux a bit more, I suggest taking a day to install http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
An unstable distribution can be a good learning experience because it will teach you to fix problems. You might like to try a rolling distribution like Arch.
Statis is active on distro watch.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=exherbo
1 year ago reddit thoughts
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/357rkz/exherbo_the_first_gnulinux_distribution_to_gain/
I've never tried it but there is info out there, I just couldn't find anything recent but that it is an active distro.
Edit, I don't know how to spell
How about MX Linux? http://www.mepiscommunity.org/mx
It is a close downstream distro from antiX (systemd-free fork of Debian Stable aimed at older hardware), but they add more hardware support, the XFCE desktop, a repository that includes non-free stuff like Chrome and Steam, plus they add their own custom apps and polish to make it more beginner friendly.
I can't speak from experience, but they've had app updates within the last month: http://www.pclinuxos.com/
Also by DistroWatch's page hit ranking ... they are still considered a top 20 distro.
However, it appears they haven't had a formal new release since 2014-12-24: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos
This is doable with Kubuntu too!
I've added the backports PPA and now I have both KDE Plasma and KDE frameworks upgraded to the latest version.
It's very easy to do it, as it's explained here:
https://kubuntu.org/news/plasma-5-23-available-for-kubuntu-21-10-impish-indri-in-backports-ppa/
> I really want to know if i can play games like heroes of might and magic 3, fallout 1, red alert 2, bassically 90's and even early 00's games on my laptop again.
If you like BSD the best thing to try would be Void, which has a desktop child distro now, called Project Trident. If you want a fully ready-to-go version of Slackware based on -current and running XFCE (with others available), there's Zenwalk. I haven't tried Project Trident , but I've had Zenwalk and Void running very smoothly on my 4th Gen i5 in the last 6 months. Do you have an SSD in that box? That's the best upgrade you can get if you're still running a hard drive.
If you want something that's especially stable, you may want to look into GeckoLinux, which is a quite good spin-off of openSUSE, but designed with the desktop user in mind. It offers a wide variety of desktops, including Gnome.
Solus is quite good, as it attempts to be as easy and simple to use as Ubuntu, but with a rolling release. It's a very slick distro, and the Budgie desktop is quite nice as well.
Apricity is based off Arch, so it can be unstable if you don't know what you're doing. It's a good distro though, so no harm in giving it a shot if you like the look/idea of it. :)
Fedora is a fine Distro, but each release is only supported for 6 months, requiring you to upgrade via DNF, which can be somewhat annoying if it fails.
Been there. Makes the light distro and destop all the more important. If AntiX doesn't scratch your it's CrunchBang++ might do it It's Openbox with Tint2, something I use a lot even on my main machine.
You can run whatever on that machine. My new favorite these days is Korora, based on Fedora. I recommend giving it a spin, it is very polished, easy to use and well-equipped with software from bsic installation.
You might give Korora a shot, as it's basically Fedora with a bunch of apps already installed for you and some theming done to make it easier. RPM Fusion is also already enabled, so you can download non-free software if you so desire.
Try out Korora it's base on Fedora.
Then try out Sabayon it's base on Gentoo.
That's all I do. I distro hop. In 11 years I try out 40 Linux distros.
Try out
OpenSUSE
PCLinuxOS
SliTaz
Puppy
If you really want to learn more about Linux. Get yourself a Raspberry Pi B+. Try out their ARM Linux Distros.
Linux is a blast. I won't use nothing else.
Now I got a kick using a tiling Window Manager. And just use many CLI Applications in the Terminal.
If you're not up for /u/al1pa's Debian recommendation, AntiX is a very light, Debian-based distro with a number of MX Linux tools and a good community. It runs on IceWM and doesn't use systemd, so it's a different take on Debian. I'm not an Ubuntu fan, but their Mate version seems snappier than their regular versions.
I don't know what you plan to write with, but I've been using FocusWriter recently. Better experience than the office suite word processors, though obviously not as many features.
AntiX. Lightweight, part of the MXLinux community, nice tools. Not the newest packages, however.
Void has newer packages and lots of unusual options (musl, runit, etc.).
If you can wait for 15.0 to go stable Slackware would also be good.
I'd run Openbox on whatever distro you use. There are lots of lightweight apps that go well with it, like Tint2, jgmenu, etc. Master the autostart file and you can have very fine-grained control over a nice-looking, lightweight system.
Nothing should be choppy. You got to correct that problem.
All your demanding software and tools. It's a simple installment to get all your wants and needs.
Alpine? It's used a lot in server based appliance so I imagine the hardening is pretty documented, and a lot of people recommend it so I think there's a fair user base. Very minimal, seems to fit all your criteria.
If you like something Arch based, but feel overwhelmed by the initial configuration I would recommended EndeavourOS. I have been using it for some time and even though it is a rolling distro I have never had anything break.
I distro hop to 41 Linux distros, over the past 12 years. Doesn't hurt to learn extra commands and how the rest of Linux distro works. Here is a cheat-sheet to get you going using a Fedora fork or any other Linux distro you like to stray too.
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=package-management
Install any Linux distro and just add the kde-full package.
Honestly, I like pacman better. Apt-get and pacman have very similar functionality, pacman just feels better in my opinion. I recommend you read this before you dive in (and be sure to bookmark the archlinux wiki homepage) . In a couple of hours pacman will feel just as natural as apt-get.
I don't know if you're going to find a frontend like aptitude you'll like for pacman though. I never did. I've always used the cli anyway.
I learn more about the terminal and the command lines. By just using a tiling window manager. I would suggest i3 for starters.
https://i3wm.org/ You'll spend so much time inside the terminal. You'll be wondering why is there a GUI anyway.
The only GUI application I use while in a tiling window manager is just my browser. Everything else is CLI applications. You'll find what you need after you start looking for it.
So stick what you got. Or use a lighter Linux distro if you must. But, try out a tiling windows manager. You'll learn so fast. While all your time is spent inside a terminal. When you learn the ins and outs how to use a tiling windows manager. You can really be very productive. If you really give it a team effort.
This is where I would usually spread the good word of my favorite Debian based distro Crunchbang. However the maintainer announced a few days ago that he was stepping down. So that being said it would still serve you well for a little while but I will suggest my second favorite Ubuntu-mate.
Edit add: I have a laptop that has slightly lower specifications then what you're describing and Ubuntu-mate 14.04 flies on it.
I am going to echo what /u/UrAccountGotHacked wrote in their reply. Your question is extremely vague, has confused most users here, and needs greater elaboration.
It is ok if English is not your first language! We are all lifelong learners. If that is the case, then please make use of one the many free online translation services to roughly translate your question -- with greater elaboration -- from your native language into English.
If you are seeking an operating system which provides a "walled-garden" experience akin to what Apple offers, then you're out of luck, as that is fundamentally against the philosophy of most distribution development teams. The closest I can think of is elementaryOS, as they provide a number of very polished applications out of the box and it is immediately ready for everyday use (if a little polarizing on its UI and release cycle decisions).
If you are looking for seamless integration between a mobile phone and a desktop, then look into distributions offering KDE Plasma desktops. I recall the KDE team working on features to better integrate their desktop experience with Android devices.
Happy new year, u/dontgo2sleep!
I'm thinking of installing Fedora again. The main installation supports only FOSS out-of-the-box but there is extensive support for everything else if you look for a bit, like RPM Fusion.
People also recommend it for being the Redhat wanna-be developer go-to distro.
Also, I heard it's one of the best in implementing a clean Gnome look and feel.
Although it defaults to Wayland when you install it, you can change it to Xorg from the login screen.
Anyway, good luck! ^^
Manjaro Architect can help you accomplish exactly what you need. All except .deb files (but pacman/AUR is much more powerfult than that and you will love it)
PC-BASIC should work. I use it on Linux Mint to run a GW-Basic application that is menu-driven, no mouse. The "graphics" are text/ASCII characters only, calculation routines.
PC-BASIC is written in Python, and it is a BASIC interpreter. The target use seems to be to DOS and 32-bit games and applications, but it also can be used for creating and running GW-Basic applications. It installs by running Bash shell scripts, which I had to modify to get the Linux directories set up correctly for the Mint distribution.
http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/pcbasic/
The program that I use it for is HAMCALC, which I used for many years in Windows 95 through Windows XP. Here is some info on that program from its web site:
"A hard drive is required for the installation of HamCalc. Once installed it can be run in WINDOWS or MS-DOS. HamCalc is written in GWBASIC but does not require MS-DOS to run. GWBASIC.exe is a stand-alone file that runs in WINDOWS and MS-DOS operating systems.
it you're looking for a completely offline distro, you might take a look at bluestar-linux-deskpro - it seems to be depreciated now, but is still avaliable for download and it got tons of software preinstalled. take a look yourself
EDIT: it is based on arch and i remember it having a nice offline ncurse installer, simmilar to an architect one i believe?
I haven't had a need for Windows in years, and miss nothing. Apart from the odd broken Battleye or EasyAntiCheat game, most games work great on Linux if you have recent kernel/drivers/mesa, and you check protondb.com or lutris.net for compatibility info.
Second Void. If OP wants to try something different, I'd recommend Zenwalk. It's based on Slackware -current, so it runs SysV init, but has its own package manager and some other things to make life a bit easier than standard Slackware. The default desktop is XFCE, but it had a nice KDE implementation last time I tried it. It's a bit of an out-of-the-way distro, but since it's Slackware-based, there is a ton of third-party support out there. As much as I like both, I think OP might be a bit too picky for either.
Hmmm then maybe KDE Neon is the ticket? It's not rolling release at all, based on Ubuntu LTS with all the PPA annoyance that comes with, but you're guaranteed the latest KDE updates.
I'm pretty sure dropbox will only compile for x86.
There is a thread on dropboxes website to vote for arm support though.
>https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/358/linux-arm-support
Other than that I would go for arch arm. I am running it on my raspberrypi and it boots much less than <10 seconds.
Don't know about cosmicmod, but I can talk a bit about funtoo.
It's really more designed for servers than home use. You can of course install whatever you want, but only the debian LTS kernel is supported. The desktops supported are also limited, especially KDE. Wayland is completely unsupported ATM. It's 64-bit only, which could cause issue with gaming if you're into that. It only supports openrc, no systemd, which could be a plus or minus for you.
You can see a more detailed list of what's supported here
That being said, I was a longtime funtoo user before some of these things happened (I left when they stopped supporting plasma.) It's mostly gentoo with some additional tools, and a different philosophy. Funtoo recommends your make.conf is completely blank, and you instead use their tool which is kind of like a much more detailed eselect to set all your options.
Didn't mean to sound stupid, it's just that different people use the same terms to mean different things.
These days the go-to answer to your question seems to be Arch and I can't argue against that, but if you want to go off the beaten path I see that Crux just released a new version.
Salix is Slackware-based but has some decent configuration tools, uses gslapt for packages and has a version of Sourcery for building additional packages.
I really like MX Linux as /u/Itookmyprozac suggested, but on that laptop I'd go even lighter. AntiX is a sister project of MX and offers lighter weight window manager options. If it were me, though, I'd install something like crunchbang++, which is Debian stable with OpenBox and Tint2 as a panel. If all you're doing is streaming video, you don't need a lot of bells and whistles.
Even though I used Arch for ca. nine months in the past (that was the time when Manjaro just started with their distro and Antergos was still named Cinnarch ^ ^ ), I am not sure if I'd really like to configure everything manually again (enabling init services, initial configuration of some services, etc.). Furthermore Arch has some updates breaking things (requiring manual interaction) from time to time, which is what I am currently trying to minimise. ;)
The same could be said about some other pure rolling release distributions ... Btw. I wouldn't consider Rawhide a usable (for general use) rolling release distribution, as it is an unstable development branch of Fedora, where breakages are to be expected (and happen frequently). The same also applies to Debian, even though generally breakages don't happen there as often as in Rawhide.
What's your issue concerning rolling releases with Tumbleweed or Solus? Their snapshot based rolling model?
I know, my current requirements are quite complex and that's why choosing another distribution is quite difficult for me. ;)
Both elementary and PopOS decided to go the flatpak route but it’s not intrusive like snap AFAIK. However, you might find elementary too slow to update.
Debian might also work but you’ll need to accept that packages will be older. However, I wouldn’t recommend testing or unstable unless you really know what you’re doing. Testing isn’t guaranteed to get timely security updates and unstable has the potential to break (but I’m sure some people happily use it as their daily driver).
I haven't used funtoo for a few years now, but it used to be my main distro, so I'll take a shot at this one.
The big thing that funtoo did, was to separate the portage tree into kind of mini overlays. The advantage is that you can use different branches for different categories. Each major category is a separate git repo, and you can pick which branch you want to use.
So, for example, if you set the gnome repo to 40, all the gnome packages would be the ones that are in the repo for gnome:40, if you picked gnome:35, all the packages in the gnome repo would be held at what's compatible with gnome-35. Or you could set the core repo to be held back to somethinig stable, while using the master branch for network tools. These categories and versions are all just made up for example, as I said, I haven't used it in years, so I don't know exactly what versions they have.
Because of the small base of maintainers they depend on a lot of automated tools for things like version bumps, and many packages aren't maintained. The main reason I stopped using it was because they didn't have anyone to maintain the Plasma repo anymore.
Looking at their site, it looks like quite a bit is different now as well, so I'll suggest you look at their Support Matrix to see what enivornments and desktops they support, and the bottom of This page will give you a more specific list of changes.
Enlightenment was the eye candy desktop back in the day. EFL was much simpler than GTK or Qt became, so now Tzen uses it as a base for their UI, but it's not just for mobile. The Enlightenment DE is still maintained, if under-used. Bodhi Linux is the only non-niche distro that really uses it though.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 695, 16 January 2017 Welcome to this year's 3rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
It is the third week of the month.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20170116
Next week it will be Issue 696. Let me guess here January 23 maybe? Which would be the fourth issue of the month.
The Distrowatch announcement always has a link to an iso. Here is the page with the link to the Slackware 14.2 announcement.
I know you've got specific plans for this box, but you probably want to take a look at slackbuilds.org just in case. Also, Slack comes with TWM, which you might want to look at.
I've only ever really used Cinnamon. I used Mate once and didn't like it all that much.
But you can check this out for customization/projects if you want!
http://developer.linuxmint.com/projects.html
And here's the Mint KDE News:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=1139
Debian Testing's an option ||| Opensuse Tumbleweeds an option ||| I've heard too many bad things about Manjaro, so not going there ||| Arch is probably going to end up being my choice at this point ||| I don't see the point of Antergros really ||| KaOS.....looks like a Chakra clone ||| mikelp1973 said he had problems with Sabayon so.....maybe? ||| Gentoo. I'd try it if i knew i could actually get it to work on my machine ||| Netrunner doesn't have much of a purpose, and it's rolling release is based on Manjaro. Yuck ||| Archbang is yet again just something i can set up in vanilla Arch ||| siduction? Couldn't i just use Debain testing? ||| Parabola's cool I guess. But i still have a few things that are non free i need sadly ||| Metamorphose? Debian testing yet again...... ||| Void is pretty intresting ||| Semplice....Debian testing ||| I'd actually consider using LinuxBBQ ||| Bridge is just a graphical installer for Arch ||| I might use Funtoo ||| Source Mage always seemed funny to me just because what it calls mundance things ||| Apricity. Just use Arch ||| Bluestar..................JUST USE ARCH ||| http://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=Desktop&origin=All&basedon=All&notbasedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=x86_64&package=All&rolling=Semi-Rolling&isosize=All&netinstall=All&status=Active
For Semi Rolling all we have iS Debian, PCLinuxOS, and Chakra
Edit: I just noticed that they forgot to include Slackware's rolling iso
I'll recommend the Debian based, Xfce version of AntiX called MX Linux. I'm still distro hopping a little, but this is currently my favorite Linux distro. The Xfce is sleek in design. It's also very responsive. Plus, it is so lightweight that it runs almost as well off of a USB stick (even USB 2) as it does off of HDD. It's MX installer offers two click installations of even non-open-source software like the Chrome browser and Steam. Plus it has a nice set of videos on how to set it up and use various features.
More comparitive info at:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antix
However, as to what constitutes "an aesthetically good distro" can be somewhat in the eye of the beholder. If MX Linux isn't it, could you perhaps link to a screenshot of the type of theme/aesthetics that you are shooting for?
Maybe PCLinuxOS or AntiX or MX15? I've never used PCLinux (semi-rolling) but it has a lot of users. I've only used AntiX (rolling release) and MX15 (Xfce version of AntiX) a little, but so far they seem like nice (and very light weight) distros.
List of Rolling Distros Ranked by Popularity (Page Hits)
List of Semi-Rolling Distros Ranked by Popularity (Page Hits)
I haven't used it, but VectorLinux Light Edition looks interesting and claims to be "usable on computers with only 64MB of RAM."
I look down the Linux distro's list real quick. Then quickly decide.
Been distro hopping for 12+ years. I have a system that can handy any and many of them at the same time.
Currently my primary Linux distro is;
Voyager X2 14.04.04 LTS Xfce
Your choice's are narrow. If you have a very poor or weak system to use. Then some of the heavy weights, you wouldn't be able to use.
Then there is preferences. My only preferences is it stable enough for me. Most if not all, I can get them stable enough to be useable for me.
This is the list I use.
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
There are 277 active Linux distro's to choose from. Choose wisely my friend.
Do you like Tiling or Stacking?
Tiling I say i3. The documentation is the greatest.
You already said you like fluxbox. But I always like pekwm as the best stacking one. Love how the middle wheel works in pekwm and the floating windows.
>because I've got RSI
Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)?
Why all these must have defaults? I never can understand that. OK you got your default repositories. You can add more you know.
Most if not all final Linux distros releases are stable. If it's on correct hardware and you set it up properly.
I believe you thought this out. manjoro+awesome isn't a bad choice.
Are your issues with Ubuntu/Canonical about Unity or more philosophical?
If not philosophical -
You could always do an Ubuntu Server install (which includes no DE), then add the DE/WM/etc of your choice.
I suggest this not because I think it's a better choice than the others you listed, but because it keeps you in an environment you are already comfortable in admin-wise, hits your points about support, and "just work", and allows you to not have to grapple with replacing Unity/KDE/LXDE/Gnome if you want to try something less mainstream and/or not covered by the other "flavors" of Ubuntu. (There's also a Mate version in the works if that's your cup of tea...)
If your issues are philosophical, this won't solve them, but otherwise I think it might be worth considering...
Edit: The next time I get the itch, I'm leaning towards Tanglu. IIRC they have a unique approach which is Debian based, and also provides access to fresh packages without having to run (only) Sid. I seem to remember that they pull from the various debian repos as needed to provide freshness + general stability, but it's been awhile since I looked at them.. http://tanglu.org
Give Zenwalk a try. Don't be put off by its Slackware roots, it's a fast, tidy system that has a nice package manager with dependency checking, etc.
Personally, I think you need to install something with XFCE, then install Openbox and a panel like tint2 or fbpanel. Properly set up, Openbox with a decent panel is just as usable as XFCE. You can start any XFCE services you need to run inside Openbox by putting them in the Openbox autostart file. You can use Compton/picom as a compositor, but with that machine you might not want to.
There are very good Openbox distros, but if you like XFCE, then you can have the same XFCE apps and services you're used to, but inside a lighter environment.
Update: I've gone with Antergos, dual booting. So far, pretty happy. I use pacaur (https://github.com/rmarquis/pacaur) for package management, which keeps the AUR packages in sync (as well as everything pacman does). Basically, I managed to get Arch with a painless installation process, it seems.
Thanks all for the suggestions!!
I haven't tried Garuda so far, but before switching note that dual boot is not officially supported by Garuda, so be prepared do do extra work yourself here.
Also it's said that running Garuda inside a VM could result in a bad experience, although I don't know what might be the Deal-breaker here.
>Maybe I could tweak KDE to be fast on my system but I guess I am just lazy
Most the time it's just as simple as updating your graphic card and you then have your speed.
Try out Netrunner. So far my favorite KDE DE distro.
> I'm curious to how you do that in windows with the custom menus.
There are a couple of ways: 7stacks is a free 3rd party app that can do it. But there's no need to go to 3rd party apps as the taskbar itself natively has the capacity. Right click on the taskbar, select "Toolbars", select "Create New Toolbar...", you'll see a select folder dialog box. Select a folder that you want to be represented as a menu. The taskbar will now contain a separate quick-launch-bar like collection of icons for whatever was in that folder. Drag the dotted lines of the toolbar until the only thing left on the toolbar is two chevrons: ">>". Clicking on them will now bring up a menu of what ever was in that folder.
> Ubuntu and Linux Mint are easy to dual boot.
These seem to be the favored choices. Thanks! Will also look into XFCE.
Not at all! RPMs are easy to manage and make, especially in Fedora.
For example, installing packages is as simple as:
sudo dnf install <pkg> (where <pkg> could be a downloaded RPM or a package in a repository)
Removing packages is as simple as:
sudo dnf remove <pkg>
Searching for packages in repositories is simple:
sudo dnf search <pkg>
There's a bunch of other functionality you can take advantage of, which man dnf will tell you all about. Alternatively, you can choose to use the Yum Extender for DNF graphical UI if PackageKit powered Apper for KDE or GNOME software for GNOME isn't your thing. It can be installed with the following command:
sudo dnf install yumex-dnf
Fedora is a bit more ahead of the curve than Ubuntu, so you tend to see new features in Fedora releases shortly after they've been stabilized in the development tree.
If you'd like to have some of the stuff people commonly do up front done for you right from the gate (add RPM Fusion and Google Chrome repositories, etc.), then Korora Linux might be right for you. It takes care of most of the work people tend to do with Fedora boxes up front, and provides some additional customizations that are pretty nice. They don't take away your control like Ubuntu does, so you're certainly as free to do what you want.
https://kororaproject.org/
Awesome Fedora remix with Google Chrome in repos along with pre-installed flash and codecs.
super quick on my old P4 2.8Ghz 3GB ram.
Best daily driver I've ever used.
It's an Aussie distro.
Have you tried powertop? When you run it it reports on your usage, and has a section called tunables. Depending on the distro it can make quite a difference.
Configuring the fixes is done differently by different distros. For a Slackware-based distro all I had to do was copy the commands into rc.local and it ran them all at boot. With a systemd-based distro it uses a completely different scheme, of course.
I can not connect to this site at all. Every browser I try tells me there is no such site as https://distrotest.net. I can find it in search results but clicking it does nothing.
Is anyone else having an issue connecting?
Is there a status page or issue page that tracks this site?
I'd recommend Slitaz too, you could also try Bodhi, which can run with just 256Mb according to its system requirements.
You'll need a "light" browser too, something like Midori or Qupzilla will be better than FF or Chrome.
Parrot, Kali and some more distros are there that utilize Debian's "testing" branch. It is not a release branch and is solely a development branch. It means that Debian uses "testing" and "sid/unstable" for development purposes for its "stable" branch (which is not rolling and obviously has old packages). So using Parrot, Kali or other "testing" based distributions, you are still not using a release quality distribution. Arch and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed are the true rolling releases. They are intended for being used by end users.
But anyways, if you want to give it a shot, I would recommend "testing" based distributions over "sid/unstable" based distributions. SparkyLinux is totally what you would want to use in this case. It has also got KDE edition. Link: https://sparkylinux.org/download/rolling/
In your poll, I voted for elementary OS as it has a slick look and feel, but you could also consider BunsenLabs Linux, as the default Openbox desktop UI, as well as the Conky system monitor, will supply you with new learning experiences.
My 84-year-old mother uses Linux Mint on a small-form-factor PC that I handbuilt for her. Very stable and it does everything she needs.
If you're really keen on learning, might you consider one of the BSDs? A steep curve, but fun to experiment with on a secondary computer.
As someone who switched recently (couple of years ago) I would say that none of them work like Windows and that's a good thing :D. My recommendations:
Ubuntu or Pop!_OS if you need a stable machine and don't care for newest packages.
Manjaro - want something that's cutting edge or you run very new hardware.
Regolith linux - if you liked & used tiling in Win10. You can install it on any Ubuntu based distro as well!
Slackware will certainly let you run root. After a standard install that's the only account on the box, and you can launch a WM or DE as root without any warnings.
As for being a beautiful distro, it comes with what the upstream projects put out: standard KDE, XFCE, etc. KDE is pretty by default, the others less so, but you can make them pretty.
Salix allows you to enable the root account so you can do su instead of sudo (basically, you just run passwd for root and swap out gksu for another program). It's nicer looking and has some nice utilities to configure your install. They have different versions -- XFCE, Mate, etc.
>Ended up using Ubuntu because it was the only thing that worked with this Broadcom WiFi card
Which mean by default Ubuntu has the correct driver out of the box. And that's all it means. Meaning any Linux distro will work, you just have to install the correct driver for your Broadcom WiFi card. I always wired my laptop. Until I get the Wifi going. Then I go wireless. Just find out what driver Ubuntu is using. And just install the exact wifi driver in any other Linux distro.
I'm current using Linux Lite 2.4 Xfce. Give it a try if you like.
I have considered Puppy. It's a nice complete system for old PCs, but I excluded it from my choices for some reason. Maybe becaause it contained too much unneccessary stuff for me.
Anyway. I just got a confirmation that Alpine Linux runs of Pentium III CPU. It does not need any special instructions from a CPU, so it's perfect. And to all that it even uses musl instead of glibc. So with Alpine I go. If it fails, then I'll consider between Puppy, Slacware and Gentoo.
Thanks for remiding about the Puppy!
Also I think the blog was fake about exherbo:
Ok. this guy is a troll. He did not create Exherb...
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Preparing-for-Installation.html
Here is talka about encryption and whole bunch of other stuff. Looking more into it seems like an extremely unique thing, best thing I can say is explore the manual
I have had much, much better luck with Easy2Boot than with any of the methods discussed below. I have 9 iso's on my USB that I can boot to allowing me to switch distro's on demand. I also keep DBAN and some other utilities on there as well. I found out about it here on reddit in another thread someplace about a month ago...
I've only just gotten it installed, haven't gotten it set up so no real impression yet. Functional package managers sound too good to be true though so I definitely have high expectations of nix.
I have my ssd partitioned to death tho and frequently hop, currently have Arch, NixOS and Kubuntu (which I don't use and I'm gonna replace with FreeBSD and maybe a small encrypted OpenBSD partition some day)
This is a pretty cool way to try it out without to much of a hazzle: https://nixos.org/wiki/How_to_install_NixOS_from_Linux
It’s close, it has customization for the xfce desktop and has some default things installed from their repo like a helper utility and yay out of the box. It’s a spiritual successor to Antergos.
Definitely check out their website!
Downloads are a little hard to find you have to scroll to the bottom of this page
The latest release that comes with XFCE.
https://endeavouros.com/latest-release/
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Then you can install pamac (package manager) and akm (kernel manager) to make it more user friendly.
"MX Linux relies on the excellent upstream work by Linux® and the open-source community, deploying Xfce4, KDE and Fluxbox as Desktop Environment/Window Manager on top of a Debian Stable base. We draw from the core antiX system and include work and ideas used by Warren Woodford for his MEPIS project. Ongoing backports and outside additions to our repos serve to keep components current with developments."
MX with Xfce Default, it's base on Debian Stable.
MX actually made me stop distro hopping. It's a sign. I started using Linux over 16 years ago. And was using SimplyMepis. The developers from Mepis have now made MX, my currently Linux distro. It's like a made a complete circle with Linux. So I'm taking it as a sign and sticking with MX forever. I still have that distro hopping in my blood. So I'm going to fix that by using Virtualbox to try out other Linux distro's when I have a itch. MX will now be my primary OS forever.
Yes, choices. Just make the only one choice and stick to it forever. So your choice will only be one after your first choice.
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If you want me to choose for you. Then choose MX.
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>Fedora - not bad but lacks some apps I need
What apps? Linux is Linux, install the apps you need and missing here.
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>PureOS - light and fast but wifi doesn't work because it has no wifi firmware lol
Again Linux is Linux. Install/Add what your missing.
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>Do you have any suggestions guys?
Don't use GNOME. Use Xfce, try out MX.
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Ah. Well, they write that because they (the KDE Neon devs) don't test other software, but it will run just fine. To cite from the same faq > KDE neon sits on top of the Ubuntu core foundations, which means the majority of software built for Ubuntu core will work fine, even when not explicitly supported by the KDE neon team.
Crashes are usually related to the DE and not to the distro. Just stick with an Ubuntu-based distro when you already know Ubuntu. Gnome-based desktops are all very bad right now. I think that KDE neon User LTS Edition will solve almost all your issues: https://neon.kde.org/ It is rock-solid and Plasma 5.8 is ahead of any other Linux desktop. And it is so optimized that it boots extremely quick, quicker than any other flavor.
Sorry for the slow reply. I mostly agree with /u/ng362khXG1.
If you are really still hopping a lot (looks at subreddit) then I'm not sure there's a strong reason to go with the LTS. How much more than 9 months of support do you really need? In the worst case scenario you go with 19.04 now and upgrade (or fresh install) 2 ore times to land on 20.04 LTS.
I never had a problem using PPAs, and have really not been sure if the current snap/flatpak trend is really for users or developers, because it solves a problem I never felt I had - but not everyone's experience is the same, and snaps are definitely the up and comer IMO, so no matter what version you go with, it's probably worth looking into https://snapcraft.io/ for anything new you are looking for, instead of PPAs. I've been on a rolling release for so long that it isn't something I have had to deal with in a long time.
The big advantage to non-LTS releases is of course the newer stuff - and Canonical and Gnome have certainly been pushing Gnome shell forward quickly - not always the kinds of changes that are easily backported. So if that's appealing to you, then non-LTS. If you like most things not changing much, go LTS.
Good luck!