this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Hi all, Relatively long time Linux user (2017 to be precise), and about two 3rds of that time has been on Arch and its derivatives.

Been running Endeavour OS for at least 2.5 years now. It's a solid distro until it's not. I'd go for months without a single issue then an update comes out of nowhere and just ruins everything to either no return, or just causes me to chase after a fix for hours, and sometimes days. I'm kinda getting tired of this trend of sudden and uncalled for issues.

It's like a hammer drops on you without you seeing it. I wish they were smaller issues, no, they're always major. Most of the time I'd just reinstall, and I hate that. It's so much work for me.

I set things the way I like them and then they're ruined, and the hunt begins. I have been wanting to switch for a long time, and I honestly have even been looking into some of those immutable distros (that's how much I don't want to be fixing my system.

I'm tired, I just want to use my system to get work done). I was also told that Nobara is really good (is it? Never tried it). My only hold back — and it's probably silly to some of you— is the AUR. I love it.

It's the most convenient thing ever, and possibly the main reason why I have stuck with Arch and its kids. Everything is there.

So, what do y'all recommend? I was once told by some kind soul to use an immutable distro and setup "distrobox" on it if I wanted the AUR.

I've never tried this "distrobox" thing (I can research it, no problem). I also game here and there and would like to squeeze as much performance as I can out of my PC (all AMD, BTW, and I only play single player games).

So, I don't know what to do. I need y'all's suggestions, please. I'll aggregate all of the suggestions and go through them and (hopefully) come up with something good for my sanity. Please suggest anything you think fits my situation. I don't care, I will 100% appreciate every single suggestion and look into it.

I'm planning to take it slow on the switch, and do a lot of research before switching. Unless my system shits the bed more than now then I don't know. I currently can't upgrade my system, as I wouldn't be able to log in after the update. It just fails to log in.

I had to restore a 10 days old snapshot to be able to get back into my damn desktop. I have already copied my whole home directory into another drive I have on my PC, so if shit hits the fan, I'll at least have my data. Help a tired brother out, please <3. Thank you so much in advance.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

ubuntu LTS is like this for me, but i can't recommend snaps. use it if you plan on uninstalling it and using flatpaks instead. i had a brief stint with mint and fedora and they seem good too.

in general, regardless of distro, i wait for the .1 releases after a big update, doing this has saved my ass before.

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[–] cepelinas@sopuli.xyz 1 points 19 hours ago

Bazzite, I use it as my daily driver, distro box allows using the aur easily, it is really simple to use.

[–] yoevli@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Fedora Workstation has been really good in my experience. The available software is shockingly up to date and I haven't run into much breakage of any kind in the year or so I've been using it across 2 systems (despite my best efforts every few months when the urge to tinker hits me). I do occasionally run into issues caused by the default SELinux policies, but they're not especially difficult to work around if you're comfortable using the terminal.

I do share your sentiment about the AUR - I definitely miss it at times. That said, Flatpaks and the fact that pre-built RPMs are so commonplace have both softened the blow a lot.

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[–] ctrl_alt_esc@lemmy.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

I recommend void. It's rock solid, "stable rolling release", no systemd, amazing package manager. The installation is a bit more "advanced", but I guess coming from Arch that should not be a problem for you.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I've been distro hopping for years. After each time trying a few distros, I always find myself coming back to Linux Mint (cinnamon desktop environment). It has everything I need, and just works beautifully out of the box. It might not be flashy or have the latest cutting edge features, but it's stable.

I'm currently running the Debian edition of Mint (LMDE), and wishing I was back on standard Mint. Nothing major, but a few minor persistent issues that never happened on Mint.

I did try NixOS (immutable OS), but it didn't seem to have support for all the apps I wanted. I gave up fairly quickly, so you'll probably have more success.

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I was thinking of switching from Mint to LMDE because why not go straight to the source right? Can you share what minor issues you’ve had with LMDE?

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[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I want to use mint, but they don't have plasma. I know I can install it, but I'm not sure about the support and updates and all that.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Installing Plasma should be as simple as "apt install kde-plasma-desktop", then log out and select plasma from the login screen. I've tried other DEs but not Plasma, so I can't say for certain it will work.

You can always try distros in a VM almost completely risk free. It won't tell you everything, but it's an easy way to get first impressions without losing your main OS.

Edit: This forum thread says you can install and use Plasma, but it's not a great experience. Mint will probably not be the right option for you then.

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[–] hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

distrobox will give you access to the AUR and should be installable on any distro but the immutable/atomic approach might be worth looking into. I've been running bazzite on my personal machine and bluefin on my work machine for about a year now and it's been great. the only snag is learning the order of operations for installing things without a reboot.

I am just one data point but both distros have been rock solid for me and half the time I don't even realize updates had been run unless I see a new feature or something like that.

good luck on your journey!

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[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (5 children)

First to answer your main question if I were you I would try NixOS, because it's declarative so it's essentially impossible to break, i.e. if it breaks for whatever reason a fresh reinstall will get you back to exactly where you were.

That being said, I know it's anecdotal but I have been using Arch for (holy crap) 15 years, and I've never experienced an update breaking my system. I find that most of the time people complain about Arch breaking with an update they're either not using Arch (but Manjaro, Endeavor, etc) and rely heavily on AUR which one should specifically not do, much less on Arch derivatives. The AUR is great, but there's a reason those packages are not on the main repos, don't use any system critical stuff from them and you should be golden. Also try to figure out why stuff broke when it did, you'll learn a lot about what you're doing wrong on your setup because most people would have just updated without any issues. Otherwise it really doesn't matter which distro you choose, mangling a distro with manual installations to the point where an upgrade breaks them can be done on most of them, and going for a fully immutable one will be very annoying if you're so interested in poking at the system.

[–] milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 1 points 20 hours ago

I would try NixOS, because it's declarative so it's essentially impossible to break

I have been using Arch for (holy crap) 15 years, and I've never experienced an update breaking my system

And for this reason I would naysay the people recommending Nixos. I used to use Arch, and had few major problems, but lots of times that required me to engage my brain - and not always when I wanted to. One of the reasons I left was wanting something I wouldn't have to suddenly deal with, or always keep an eye on the Arch news.

(The main reason I moved though was at that time no internet connection in the house for all those constant updates! And an Ubuntu repository in country for when I did have a slow net connection. Else I might have just stayed with Arch.)

Nix's declarative model is great in principle, but there's always things to go wrong in computers. If nothing else, you should always have your browser up to date for security, and up to date means updates - changes. Because Nix is aimed at technical folks, it's likely to have many hiccups that "just need a bit more learning curve then it'll be stable" - and that only occur for some people.

Even Mint has things that go wrong, that I can easily fix but worry me when I recommend it to Windows friends. (And I see you're after Plasma so Mint maybe not the best.)

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wow, what a wall of text. I'm sorry but I'm sure I skimmed some parts.

Look. The bulk of the replies you're going to get will be like "this is my favourite distro and here's how it works for you" not "this is the best distro for your criteria." It's important to understand the deep level of bias you're going to get.

But your cause is a noble one. I use a particular style of distro because it can be trusted to install well, back out well, do both safely, and allow validation at every stage. I think it's a good candidate, and it's already been mentioned as a really great 'set it and forget it' distro.

Good luck.

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[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Look. I've been there. I started my Linux journey with Arch based distros, then distrohopped a lot, and finally found the best for me, and what I personally consider the best either for normal users or those that don't want to do any maintenance.

It's the Universal Blue family of distros: Bazzite (gaming / KDE / gnome) Aurora (standard / development / KDE) Bluefin (standard / development / gnome)

Set it and forget about it. It just freaking works. For GUI apps install from the Discover app store (which uses Flatpak), for cli apps use Homebrew (brew install whatever). If you can't find something, open Distrobox (already included) create an Arch container, install whatever you want from the AUR, and use it like you're used to. It works like freaking magic.

If somehow you manage to brick your installation, when you reboot you'll be able to boot to a past snapshot.

You just can't fail with this. It's the best of the best IMHO.

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[–] MintyFresh@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Mint. It's not sexy. But it always just works. Never had an update break anything. I've got an Nvidia card, which ppl said was notorious for not working with Linux, it just works. The installer just reached out and grabbed the appropriate drivers, so easy. Have yet to have a steam game not work.

10/10 would recommend for anyone.

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[–] zarenki@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago

I stopped using Arch a long time ago for this same reason. Either Fedora (or derivatives like Nobara) or an atomic/immutable distro (like Bazzite, Silverblue, Kinoite) is probably the way to go.

I used to feel like Ubuntu was a good option for this, but it no longer is: too often they try to push undesirable changes that need manual tweaking to fix after release upgrades. Debian Stable is generally good for low-maintenance use but doesn't keep up as well with newer hardware or newer updates to video drivers and mesa, which makes it suboptimal for typical gaming use. Debian Testing can be prone to break things in updates (in my experience, worse than Arch does).

I saw another comment recommend Rocky/RHEL, but note that their kernel doesn't support btrfs. Since you mentioned a root snapshot, I expect you probably use it.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago (9 children)
[–] stephen@lemmy.today 11 points 1 day ago

I use Bluefin myself, and it’s honestly been game changing. Using an immutable distro has been the greatest quality of life upgrade in my 15 years of using Linux.

Also, if you use distrobox (automatically installed with Bluefin, Aurora, Bazzite, etc.) you can even setup an Arch container and continue to use the AUR. I use Steam installed from within an Arch container and it doesn’t feel any different from a natively installed app. It also means I don’t have to use the Steam flatpak which I had a couple issues with.

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[–] enumerator4829@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Look, this is the reason people pay RedHat money. Go install Rocky Linux, turn on all the automatic updates and ignore it for the next five years.

On the enthusiast side, NixOS seems to be working fine if you want newer versions of software or larger repos.

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[–] node815@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I came from Arch to Fedora as well but using Universal Blue's images. In my case, Aurora (KDE), and daughter's Bluefin (Gnome). They update in the background and only install when you reboot. So far, most of the newer software releases such as web browsers or the desktop environment fall within a day or two for being installed which is a nice alternative. The big plus I see on these too is they are immutable so if something installs or breaks, you just boot into the previous version from Grub and go from there.

Additionally, OpenSuse MicroOS has options for whatever environment you are used to such as Gnome or KDE, this is immutable as well. I view all of these as "Set and Forget".

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[–] ray1992xd@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago

Linux Mint. As an alternative: any kind of BSD is going to be pretty stable.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

i'm trying out Aeon at the moment. it's from the opensuse people.

it auto-updates, it snapshots itself so any failed update will just silently revert, and it does flatpaks or distrobox only.

if you're okay with gnome, try it.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk -2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Set it and forget it, eh?

Any distro you like, as long as you stop futzing with it.

Seriously... they're breaking because you change things. Linux machines stay up for years without issue. Stop breaking the install.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 0 points 17 hours ago

I don't really change many things on my system, but this is just a trend with endeavour os

[–] YeesterPLus@lemmy.zip -1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

use fedora. linus torvals uses it

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