Windows has been a thorn in my side for years. But ever since I started moved to Linux on my Laptop and swapping my professional software to a cross platform alternative, I’ve been dreaming on removing it from my SSD.
And as soon as I finish my last few projects, I can transition. (I want to do it now).
Trouble is which I danced my way across multiple amazing distros, I can’t decide which one to land on since the one software I want to test, Davinci Resolve doesn’t work on my Intel Powered Laptop. (curse you intel implementation of OpenCL).
So the opinions of those of you who’ve used Davinci Resolve, Unity/Godot, and/or FreeCAD. I want it to be stable with minimal down time on hardware with a AMD Ryzen 5 1600x and a RTX 3050. Here’s the OS’s I am looking at.
CentOS (alt Fedora)
- Pro: Recommended by Davinci Resolve for the OS, has good package manager GUI that separates Applications and System Software (DNF Dragon), Good support for multiple Desktop Environments I like. Game Support is excellent and about a few months behind arch.
- Con: When I last installed Fedora my OS Drives BTFS file system died a horrific and brutal death, losing all of my data. Can’t have that. And I personally do not like DNF and how slow it makes updating and browsing packages.
Debain (alt Linux Mint DE)
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Pro: The most stable OS I’ve used, with a wide range of software support both officially in the distros package manager, or from developers own website. I am most familiar with this OS and APT
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Cons: Ancient packages which may cause issues with Davinci Resolve and Video Games. An over reliance on the terminal to fix simple problems (though this can be said for most linux distros). I personally don’t like APT and how it manages the software.
EndevourOS (alt Manjaro)
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Pro: The most up to date OS, great for games with the AUR giving support for a lot of software which isn’t available on other distros.
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Cons: Manjaro has died on me once, and is a hassle to setup right and keep up. EndevourOS has no Package Manager GUI, and is over reliant on the Terminal. Can’t use pacman in a terminal the commands are confusing.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
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Pro: Like Fedora but doesn’t use DNF, good game support
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Cons: Software isn’t as well supported.
Edit: from the sounds of thing, and the advice from everyone. I think what I’ll do is an install order while testing distros (either in distro box or on a spare ssd) in the following order.
Debain/Mint DE -> OpenSUSE -> EndevourOS -> CentOS
This list is mostly due to stability and support for nvidia drivers.
Mint is the typical way to get a more up-to-date Debian and if you have something against Ubuntu. This community is pretty anti-Canonical so they’ll never recommend Ubuntu…
Oh I don’t like Ubuntu, but unlike this community it’s more an in general distaste for the OS than anything specific.
I think Mint is your best choice. Mint is not Ubuntu, even if the underlying base is based on Ubuntu. It doesn’t have snaps for example, and a lot of the ubuntu fluff and slowness has been cut out. For example, Mint Cinnamon uses 1.2 GB of RAM on a clean boot, but it uses 1.9 GB on Ubuntu-Cinnamon. It’s a cleaner system.
Mint might do ya then if you want to remain in the .deb system. I ran it for a while and was happy with it. I’m on popos now but it’s based on Ubuntu lts only so it’s not quite as up to date at times.
Manjaro should not even be considered in the modern distro landscape, the story of manjaro is just a series of incompetent mistakes.
While I have my own personal gripes with it, it’s has one of the most robust GUI configurations I’ve seen in any Linux distos. As someone who doesn’t want downtime having a gui for things like Kernel config and systemd, Manjaro has its perks.
Doesn’t outweigh breaking my build for touching AUR, but ther is a reason I consider it.
Sorry, but, no. Pretty much any distro can do all of that perfectly well, the fedoras of the world, the mints of the world, but they don’t break constantly.
I have given manjaro to 3 people and used it myself for many years, i got sick of it because the team is incredibly incompetent and just breaks things all the time, i’ve switched to arch and all of these problems have gone away.
let me give you an example of a design flaw that has caused strife for every single person I have given manjaro, how the kernel is handled.
Manjaro does not let you sudo pacman -S linux, instead, you get linux with the version number as the package, this means for the standard user, your kernel will become outdated, unless you think to go out of your way to update it. This has broken every system of every normal person I have given manjaro at some point, and then i’ve had to go through GREAT lengths to resolve the issue for them, all of which I had to do from a terminal. Updating the kernel should be the default of any sane distro, and I have never encountered another distro that made this such a hassle by default.
https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
You can read this for other examples of how incompetent the team is, i’m sorry but there’s just no usecase for manjaro, if you want a GUI, you should simply use something other than arch, like fedora. I see no advantages to manjaro over arch personally, but if you desperately need a GUI, just use something else instead of trying desperately to hack arch into something that it simply is not.
Manjaro takes the good things about arch, the KISS philosophy, throws that in the trash, adds nothing of value and breaks shit. Endeavoros is the same thing but better in every way, and arch even has an installer now.
Furthermore, if you’re in need of a GUI, you’re probably going to hate when manjaro finally does break and you’re dropped in a terminal with no experience whatsoever, which will inevitably happen.
Updating the kernel should be the default of any sane distro, and I have never encountered another distro that made this such a hassle by default.
That’s because you’re trying to do things the Arch way. Manjaro is not Arch.
You have to stick to the stable branch and to LTS kernels. Which are installed by default btw so you don’t have to do anything special, just not go out of your way to ruin it.
LTS kernels are supported for many years and receive constant updates. Debian does a similar thing, it sticks with a certain LTS kernel versions. Manjaro does one better and offers all the LTS versions from 4.x to 6.x.
You can switch to a non LTS kernel on Manjaro but they become EOL periodically and you have to watch for that and switch manually. You can do that but yes, at that point you’re better off using Arch.
why would they not just use linux-lts then? that’s still insanity. and eventually the LTS versions get out of date and you have the exact same problem just later, there’s no need for this, just install both linux-lts and linux like arch does and it’ll get out of the way, and you can easily fall back to linux-lts if something goes wrong, it’s a much simpler system, versioning the packages completely defeats the purpose of updating your system. It’s so much simpler than what you’re describing and this is the distro that’s supposed to be easier to use?
just install both linux-lts and linux like arch does
It’s not Arch. It doesn’t do things the way Arch does. It caters to people who don’t ever want to think about what kernel version they run.
It’s so much simpler than what you’re describing and this is the distro that’s supposed to be easier to use?
Here’s what I consider simple. I install the distro. That’s it, I’m done. I don’t have to tinker with the kernel, or with drivers, or with anything. It just works.
And yes I realize that’s complete nonsense to an Arch user, to whom tinkering with this stuff is the whole point. Which is why I keep saying, Manjaro is not Arch, stop bashing your head against the wall, you’ll only hurt yourself and hate the experience.
It’s not Arch. It doesn’t do things the way Arch does. It caters to people who don’t ever want to think about what kernel version they run.
That is exactly why it should do what I said, on arch I never have to think about this, on manjaro, you have to manually switch it out for no real reason.
Here’s what I consider simple. I install the distro. That’s it, I’m done. I don’t have to tinker with the kernel, or with drivers, or with anything. It just works.
Then endeavoros is simple and manjaro is absolutely not. Manjaro fails to “just work” literally constantly. Remember when linus tried to use it and a steam update uninstalled his DE? shit like this constantly happens manjaro side. It’s a comedy of errors.
And yes I realize that’s complete nonsense to an Arch user, to whom tinkering with this stuff is the whole point. Which is why I keep saying, Manjaro is not Arch, stop bashing your head against the wall, you’ll only hurt yourself and hate the experience.
If you don’t want to tinker at all, use fedora, it’s exactly designed for your exact usecase. The problem isn’t that manjaro doesn’t do the things you’re saying, it’s that for everything you want, there is a significantly better choice than manjaro.
on arch I never have to think about this, on manjaro, you have to manually switch it out for no real reason.
You don’t have to switch anything. You get a LTS kernel when you install and can sit on it for many years. If you hit EOL on a LTS kernel it will switch it out for you. Manjaro currently ships a wide variety of LTS kernels that are under active support: 4.19, 5.4, 5.10, 5.15, 6.1 and 6.6.
use Fedora
But I don’t want to use Fedora. Manjaro is a much better experience out of the box, and it’s a much less opinionated distro.
I feel like I should throw in a good word for Fedora. I run a combination of dnf and flatpak, and have a grand time, and am doing an IT diploma program aimed very solidly at Windows under Fedora. I’ve used Ubuntu, Mint, and Manjaro, and landed on Fedora for my desktop experience.
Don’t use Fedora with Nvidia. Fedora also isn’t suitable for any production machine.
Fedora’s KDE spin from April forward makes this a nonissue. Plasma 6 makes Wayland and NVIDIA get along like on any other machine. Plus it’s been splendid since Fedora 35 for me.
Edit: I only use Fedora for work, so not too sure what you mean. I make detailed graphical images which are blown up sizably and have had zero issue. Also never have had a problem sharing with Apple or Windows folks (jah help them).
Don’t pick a distro, pick a desktop environment. Look up KDE Plasma, gnome, cinnamon, xfce, etc. Then pick the largest most stable distro that uses that environment.
It doesn’t matter that much, but I like Arch… it’s a bit of a pain to install if you are new to Linux though. I find it more stable than Manjaro though.
Your decision probably should depend on if you like KDE or Gnome and if you want the latest software or something a bit more stable.
You could also try the live version first before you install it to make sure everything works as intended.
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If you are using davinci on your system a lot, you can try their pre-packaged iso. They recommend rocky Linux nowadays and also provide an iso for it.
