I’m between distros and looking for a new daily driver for my laptop. What are people daily driving these days? Are there any new cool things to try?

I have been using linux mint recently. I have used nixos and arch in the past. Personally, linux mint uses flatpacks too much for my liking. Although, I might have a warped perspective after using arch. (the aur is crazy big)

  • Alex@feddit.ro
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    1 year ago

    After using NixOS, I don’t think I could go back to a regular distro. At the very least, maybe debian with the nix package manager

      • As someone who uses it as well:

        Yes it is. Especially if you use Gnome. Because you can set dconf settings right in your Config.

        It takes a while to remember to configure your User Account not in the normal Settings App but instead in the Config, but once you do it’s amazing.

        I reinstalled on my Laptop and i was back on my old Desktop with all my Programs, Extensions, Settings etc within 20 Minutes

        When i change a Setting on my Laptop, i use Git to synch the Config to my Desktop and all the changes i made to my Laptop are also on my Desktop.

        Also: no more accidentally breaking your system. I don’t have to type random Commands in my Terminal to try and fix something and then try ans revert them. I just add the Config. If it doesn’t work, i remove the Config again and it automatically reverts everything back as if nothing ever happened.

        It is trily amazing

        Now if only SELinux or Apparmor finally were supported.

          • Just know: it takes time and effort to learn. The Documentation is often not that good and you’ll go digging in blogs, Forums and Github Issues.

            All in all i’d say i’ve spent probably more Time learning Nixos than i’ve spent learning Linux. Which, admittedly wasn’t much as i started recently with fedora which has gotten really beginner-friendly, but still. I’d say i spent at least all in all 20 hours learning how to fix a fringe Problem in Nixos.

            Most of that time was wasted on useless fringe stuff you’d probably never want to do, but there’s also some rather normal stuff in there: i remember that my SWAP wasn’t decrypring correctly from LUKS, which wasn’t really bad or anything, it just annoyed me that it didn’t work, and i spent about 40 Minutes debugging that.

            For me it was totally worth it. I would do it again in a Heartbeat. However, if you have a full-time Job and a Family, maybe you should just get a Fedora Workstation Laptop. Or a Macbook even.