Edit: And in the end, it’s back to good old Fedora with Xfce. I guess I’m an old man, fixed in my ways. Haiku was interesting, but not nearly as stable as needed. OpenSuSE with Xfce was rough, it requires more polish.
I’ve been a Fedora Linux user for a million years by now, and I haven’t touched any other OS (outside of Windows 10 and 11 at work).
Lately I got a refurbished ThinkCentre from ca 2018 (7th generation Intel i5, 16GB RAM, Intel HD 630). The initial idea was to use it as a media PC but the small form factor ended up not being small enough for my living room.
Now I’m thinking of using it as a desktop PC for a while, to see if it can make my laptop be a portable machine again instead of always plugged, always on. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll use it as a home server.
Since this is all an experiment, I want to give a new OS a shot before I settle for the familiar Fedora.
OpenSuSE is the first on my list, but even from the LiveUSB I noticed that the software selection is more limited than I’m used to.
I’m thinking of giving HaikuOS a shot as well.
What else has been going on in the world of free OSes since 2007? What’s one that you are excited about?
Personally I am excited for immutable distributions, so my suggestion would be Fedora Silverblue or Kinoite. It may be a spin of Fedora, but it works completely differently than regular Fedora. I am using it as my daily driver for over a year already and I am quite happy with it (apart from reoccurring breakages caused by kernel updates, e. g. my AMD desktop currently does not work with kernel 6.4 or newer, but this doesn’t have anything to do with Silverblue).
There are other immutable distributions out there, e. g. Vanilla OS or openSUSE microOS, so if you really want to avoid Fedora, you could also choose trying out one of these. In the case of Vanilla OS I would wait until version 2 is out, because version 2 will be radically different from the first release.
Oh, that’s a great idea. The whole concept of immutable OSes passed me by - I’ve read the terms before at some point, but I have no idea how they work and which problems they solve. Definitely ideal candidates for my experiment.
You could also try Universal Blue and change images until you find something you like.
I use mint on my PC , for its stability , and since all ubuntu software are supported , it is pretty great software selection wise too !
OpenBSD
Linux is UNIX made by people who hate Windows.
FreeBSD is UNIX made by people who love UNIX.
Give FreeBSD a shot.
I’m sorry what
I’m not opposed to trying out FreeBSD but 1. Both aren’t Unix 2. Linux’s development has no more relation to Windows than BSD, I don’t see why you think FreeBSD loves Unix more. In fact you could fully say that macOS loves Unix more.Relax buddy, it’s just a very old joke.
FreeBSD absolutely is UNIX, it is descended from Berkeley Software Distribution, itself a descendant of UNIX 5.
But the joke isn’t so much about the lineage of these operating systems, rather their design philosophy.
If you’re looking for something to keep it as libre as possible, then Debian is a great choice. I know Fedora by default keeps it that way, though you can install non-free software/codecs/etc if you want. Debian is the same way. And since Debian is the foundation of some of the biggest distros out there, you’re pretty much always going to find packages for what you need. And if you go with Debian Testing or Unstable, you can get a bit more recent packages, and I’ve never found them to be really “unstable.” Wouldn’t run them on a server, but a desktop is totally fine.
I do like some of the suggestions here for FreeBSD or OpenBSD. If you were to go that route, I’d go with FreeBSD. Their documentation is stellar (though OpenBSD’s is as well), the man pages are fantastic and actually helpful, and between the ports and packages repos, you’ll generally find what you need. Plus things like ZFS, jails, etc. are great.
For true freedom and to challenge yourself, try OpenBSD. For something easier, try GhistBSD since it comes with a GUI desktop.
Plain debian testing with the desktop of your choice (I like xfce). Rolling release, slightly newer packages than ubuntu, very stable and reliable, as minimalist and light weight as you want (depends on installation method).
Did you check the opensuse community repos? Search here: https://software.opensuse.org/ - lots of stuff that isn’t included in the core / official.
Looking again, it seems like more packages are available for the Tumbleweed stream, compared to Leap. I was testing Leap.
Tumbleweed is generally the place to be. I think it is easier to target for packagers and is the basis for most of the interesting stuff going on in the distro. The immutable versions (now named Aeon and Kalpa) use something like a stripped down Tumbleweed at the core, with applications mostly containerized. Think tight rolling core that has strong automated tests and rather safe, with applications mostly isolated in Flatpak to prevent library conflicts and such.
MX23 would work great on this
Xubuntu. Ubuntu because most of the time, I just want a plug and play experience with a huge community. And XFCE because it’s lightweight and has all the tiling features I like.
I really enjoyed tinkering Arch, I learned a lot of stuff, but it’s too much effort for my usual laziness.
