I need to just pick a distro, install it on all my laptops, and become an expert on that one. Forget the rest!
I’ve got Void on my T420 (for writing), Mint on another T420 (hosting my music files) and an x380 yoga (with ubuntu studio controls for music production), NixOS on a T440p and a T430, and EndeavourOS on my T16. Previously I ran Arch and Debian on a couple machines, too.
Arch is really fun. I probably just enjoy giving in to my OCD tendancies, so that gets satisfied with my EndeavourOS install. That SHOULD be my final distro, the one that I use forever, eschewing all others.
But there are two problems:
- Too many updates. I fear leaving a laptop in the drawer for a few months and then it crashes when I update it.
- I’m getting nixpilled
Nix is obviously awesome. I love having that master config file. But the nix repos aren’t as robust, and there’s a learning curve to getting everything to work. So now I’m telling myself, “become an expert at nix and then you’ll finally find your home!”
But meanwhile Debian beckons. It’s so tempting to just go back to the safest, stablest distro with all the packages and all the documentation.
I know this is silly but it actually bugs me. Why can’t I just pick a distro?
Has anybody gone through this and then actually made the decisive move to stick to a distro? What compelled you to finally pick one?
I’ve had that issue with Arch in the past, on a couple of my laptops that I don’t use very often. Which is why I installed Nobara on them (gaming/multimedia-optimized Fedora). I update them every 2-3 months without any issues, and Nobara itself is rock solid like Debian, whilst still providing bleeding edge app versions like Arch.
Arch was great thanks to the AUR, but now that Flatpaks and containers have become so commonplace, I find myself using the AUR lesser and lesser.
My main Desktop is still on Arch (ArchLabs), but now that ArchLabs is no more, I might switch to Nobara on my Desktop as well.