What new OS* have you tried this year?

*or distribution

Having been a (GNU-)Linux user since 2006 (desktop only), I have done what many Linux users have also done: hop around from one thing to another.

That all stopped a few years ago when I decided that I would just stick with Debian. I was happy and comfortable. It worked. I used Stable, Testing, Unstable… no issues.

That is until about 4 months ago I was cleaning and found an older laptop and decided to try something different on it: Alpine Linux.

I even wrote about it on my blog. It was such a nice installation and process that I decided to put it on my main personal laptop.

Since April I have been using Alpine and I must say I am pleased. Differences from one Linux to the next aren’t much to write about. With Alpine however, I finally experienced another part of Linux that I hadn’t had the opportunity to enjoy: the community.

Package requesting? Easy. Asking for help? No shame. Patience and help provided? Excellent.

None of those comments are to disparage other OS communities. It is simply that I had only ever used popular distros (Debian- and Arch-based) so I never needed to ask for help. Either way, I am still using Alpine.

So, just to repeat the titular question: what have you tried out this year? What are your impressions?

storksforlegs, (edited )
@storksforlegs@beehaw.org avatar

I tried PopOS finally after many glowing reviews… and it was beautiful, snappy and had lots of unique features. But while it was very friendly, I had trouble finding my way around. I think still aimed at linux users who are a little more knowledgable. (Not me.)

Ultimately I am too basic and went back to Mint.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Interesting. I haven’t used Pop, but I had always been under the impression that it was meant to be as easy as Mint.

storksforlegs,
@storksforlegs@beehaw.org avatar

Oh I think it is! You should definitely give it a try, I think it’s just me. I tend to do pretty poorly with OS that aren’t extremely windows-like.

Nicbudd,

That’s a very valid opinion. I started out with Kubuntu, and after a bit of distro hopping I’m on Pop!_OS now for my laptop and desktop. I love it, but I doubt I would’ve at the start of my journey

ssm,

PostmarketOS with phosh (sxmo is good too, no native dvorak support though ;_;) on my pinephone. Found it was the most usable out of Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, and Mobian.

InFerNo,

Hmm, I was just about to nuke my danctnix install and try some of that latest ubuntu touch. It felt the most like a phone when i tried it a couple years ago, it just had a bare selection of apps and couldn’t run any x11 application to supplement the gap. I haven’t tried plasma mobile.

chahk,

Tried Windows 11. Ran back to Win 10 a few days later.

Kerb, (edited )
@Kerb@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

i normally wouldn’t consider distributions to be a diffrent OS , but i think fedora silverblue has been diffrent enough to be worth a mention.

immutable distros seem like a rather drastic change, but it hasn’t been as jaring as i would have expected.

my biggest takeaway sofar has been, that flatpacks aren’t as bad & slow as i thought.

the only issue i encountered with them has been the terminal in vscode,
which (understandably) starts in the flatpack env.
i found a workarround that immediatly enters my toolbox, but unfortunatly, that broke just now.

im still unsure about the tradeoffs that immutable distros bring, (imo thats hard to judge)
but so far nothing has steered me away from it.

if i where to stop using immutable distros,
id surely continue to rely on tool/distro boxes and flatpacks

LeFantome,

I do not think of distros as a different OS either. Even Windows has different versions with different features and defaults.

If you are going to say GNU / Linux though, they cannot all be GNU. Chimera is Linux but not GNU. Even Alpine is MUSL instead of Glibc and Busybox instead of GNU Core Utils. So, Alpine is not very GNU either. But it is still Linux.

Personally, I think this illustrates the problem with trying to pretend that Linux is a GNU OS. Especially if you admit that very little GPL software ( starting with the kernel ) is GNU either. Most Linux installs are dominated by MIT licensed software but even the majority of the GPL stuff is not GNU.

Aio,

Here are the Linux distros i have tried this year and my opinions on them:

Arch: I liked it and im sticking with it on my laptop, it is great on such a medium power machine. But the updates suck if you do not have a reliable internet connection.

Mint: I love it and im going to stay with mint for a long time on my main PC i think.

Fedora: Nice installer but a pain to work with.

Tails: A nice idea and pretty easy to install but way too painful for daily driving.

Slax: Did not work.

kkaosninja,
@kkaosninja@beehaw.org avatar

Have EndeavourOS installed on a secondary disk and loving it so far.

LeFantome,

EndevourOS is for people that value Arch and the AUR but also have other uses for their time. It is my primary OS on multiple machines.

Sizousho,

Been messing around with it for the past few days. Getting some of the software that I use on Windows, it replacements for it, has been the only trouble. The rest is just fun learning. It’s a bit nicer to learn with than trying to get everything it has base than normal Arch.

TheOtherJake,

Fedora workstation. Had been on Silverblue for years, but got a machine with Nvidia and didn’t want the extra headaches of SB

Psythik,

Windows 11. Once you remove the ads and restore the old Taskbar/Start Menu, It’s a decent modern OS. AutoHDR is so good. I never have to worry about toggling it on/off, nor calibrating it for each and every game. Just set it once and forget it.

If you care about HDR, then there’s no better OS ATM.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

The only Windows computer I ever use is a company-managed work laptop. Every time I turn it on the wallpaper and start menu reset to whatever the admins decide. I did manage to change some aspects to make it more comfortable… Windows is actually pretty snappy.

averyminya,

Could I get some recommendations? I’m building a server with spare parts from an old gaming PC and I’m trying to decide the best OS for my use case.

Currently my gaming PC is Windows and it’s a bit ridiculous to have it be a VR PC and a Plex Server, but due to the WMR VR device it’ll be staying on Windows. However, the server I’m leaning towards Linux due to the sheer number of services I want the server to be running, I’ll be needing to set up docker and portainer to get it nicely organized. Plus it will just be easier to install each service.

Anyway, I’m asking for recs because I don’t want to learn windows server, I’m slightly familiar with DietPi OS (a very minimal GUI Raspbian-lite) and minimal other Linux distros like Mint and Ubuntu, but my server will be with an NVIDIA 1660 GPU which I know have some driver issues. Will that be the case for pretty much any non-Windows OS? If I want hardware transcoding with Plex will it be more difficult than it should be?

Tomahawk B450, GTX 1660, R5 3600 leaning towards Linux Mint for Plex, radicale, a lem/kbin/libre/piped server, and then of course just regular cloud backups for my phone.

Is there any OS that I’d be better off using that’s still mostly a simple regular experience?

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Will that be the case for pretty much any non-Windows OS? If I want hardware transcoding with Plex will it be more difficult than it should be? Is there any OS that I’d be better off using that’s still mostly a simple regular experience?

Sounds like questions for threads of their own…

Quite positive you will find something non-Windows that works smoothly.

averyminya,

Oh most definitely, this is just the third time I came across this thread and the actual build of the server came closer than I thought and I was already here :%

MiddledAgedGuy,

I like Debian for a server OS and in fact use it for plex as well. The astute observer might go through my posts and notice I don’t use Debian as a daily driver because of it’s relatively slow release cycle, but that’s part of what makes it a great server. It’s stable and well vetted. As you may be aware it’s what Raspbian is based off of, so you’ll have some familiarity too.

I agree with the other poster that your Nvidia hardware transcoding question might be better as it’s own post. But I’ll say what little I know and gleaned from a low effort search just now.

If you use the proprietary drivers, you’ll probably be fine? Aforementioned search tells me you need nvenc for that, which seems to be a part of their proprietary stuff. Be sure to install from the Debian repo, not the Nvidia website. Their drivers are problematic as you pointed out. I’ve personally had issues with them and wayland, but ymmv for your purposes.

averyminya,

Appreciate the response! I’ll probably go with Debian then since I don’t want to have to make major adjustments to my limited linux memory :D And yeah regarding the NVIDIA drivers, I did do some searching before commenting but a lot of what I found was “oh yeah it works great” and no “here’s how I got it” lol. Mostly just needed the direction of use OS not manufacturer since I knew Linux had some issues with NVIDIA but there’s little differences.

Thank you again! Just waiting on the CPU to make the switch and we will be rolling :D

MiddledAgedGuy,

Oh that wasn’t meant as any kind of call out to you searching or not. Just indicating that I didn’t put much effort into mine, so don’t treat it as any kind of knowledgeable response.

Sounds good, hope it all works out well!

averyminya,

Haha no worries at all none taken :)

pineapplelover,

GrapheneOS and Arch Linux. Both amazing. I’m staying indefinitely.

KindnessInfinity,

I gotta get into Arch someday. How’s your experience so far? Easy to use? (I’m sure it is, the wiki is very detailed) Glad to see you like GOS

curiousgoo,

I have hopped around using VMs in the past, however this year my HDD was dying (bad sectors after about 8-ish years of use), so got an SSD and decided to install Linux instead of cloning my Windows 10 Pro.

I tried going on Debian 11 testing, but there was some issue with the installer displaying any text (as you can imagine this makes it almost impossible to install the OS…) So I hopped to Fedora for a bit -till it broke while I was trying to figure out how to run Windows games, and then to PopOS.

I’m wondering to go to Debian 12 Testing, but need to figure out how I want to partition my SSD otherwise I am currently having to keep erasing everything which of course means I am having to copy data after each new install. This will work till such time that my HDD is alive.

Any suggestions?

nan,

Debian 12 is stable now. Testing doesn’t really have a version, it is rolling. What is currently testing will eventually become 13.

curiousgoo,

Yes, by testing I meant I would want to be on the “rolling” release cycle on Debian. Currently the packages are new, but with things like WINE/Proton they will become old pretty quickly I reckon

notptr,
@notptr@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I played with plan 9. It was pretty neat, and was able to setup a remote drawterm session.

sin_free_for_00_days,

I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t consider different Linux distros to be different OSes. I was expecting to read people trying out Haiku, ReactOS, Solaris, any of the *BSDs, or something I’ve never heard of.

rambaroo,

I mean even Solaris and the BSDs are just different flavors of Unix

cfx_4188,

… and Linux is not Unix. BSD and Solaris are, in my opinion, much better than any Linux. The problem is that BSD suffers from hardware incompatibility, and there are very few application programs for the current Solaris.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Good point. I should have worded my question differently.

ciko22i3,
@ciko22i3@sopuli.xyz avatar

If you want something obscure barely anyone heard about try eComStation. Unfortunately you’ll have to pirate it, but its really easy to find.

sin_free_for_00_days,

That’s a good find. I’d never heard of it. I always thought OS/2 was pretty great, although I only got to mess around with it a few decades again. Looking up eComStation led me to ArcaOS, which seems like a more updated eComStation. OS/2, Amiga, BeOS and NeXT should have been more popular.

LeFantome,

I think MorphOS is considered the up to date Amiga.

For BeOS, Haiku is pretty great.

ArcaOS is literally OS/2.

There is no modern NeXT OS but there is a recent DE effort if all you want is the user experience.

deksesuma,

If you’re not the pirating type, you can buy a license for ArcaOS to get something still supported.

It’s a bit pricey though.

ciko22i3,
@ciko22i3@sopuli.xyz avatar

it’s 130 bucks for a kinda useless, novelty OS.

LeFantome,

Wow, I am definitely getting old if OS/2 is “obscure”

LeFantome,

You are not the only one. Haiku is getting close to daily driver capability.

You cannot practically use it on real hardware yet but one to watch is SaerenityOS.

It is unfinished enough to be a pipe dream but RavynOS is cool.

I am not sure there is anything outside the POSIX space that is really usable as a desktop on current hardware.

LastOneStanding,

I remember how much I loved using Solaris in the 1990s in the computer lab at college. People still use Solaris? I never saw something as elegant and intuitive as Solaris in those old days.

MJBrune,

I messed around with Steam OS. Seems capable. It works for what it is. I haven’t used any Linux distro other than that for the last year since last year I tried Manjaro, Fedora, OpenSuse, and Linux Mint, but all failed to pass my basic tests, because I was using KDE, Nvidia, and Wayland, most failed to even boot into the live CD. Looking at you Fedora and OpenSuse! I’ve been using Linux since 2007 in some form or another. Had it as my daily driver at one point and gave up on it. Been waiting for it to finally mesh with the majority of my workflow.

JackbyDev,

8 have Nvidia and am looking into a Linux distro. I wasn’t aware KDE had problems. What desktop environments should I look for?

MJBrune,

It’s specifically wayland, kde, and nvidia as a combination. If you get a distro that still uses Xorg it should be fine. You could also use XFCE, Cinnamon, or if you don’t mind a new feel/learning curve gnome.

JackbyDev,

I used xubuntu on an old laptop so I’m at least somewhat familiar with XFCE. I was thinking about giving KDE a try but I’ll avoid it as my first pick. It will be less frustrating to get a GUI that works first then experiment later.

CaptainDogwater,

I’ve been using Pop_OS! for most of the year, but recently switched to kUbuntu to try out the latest KDE beta with tiling managers, among other reasons.

I’m thinking of trying out Blend OS for my next hop!

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