Is it just me, or are all major distros starting to feel very similar?
Posted by Omar_Eldahan@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 204 comments
To be fair, I'm quite new in using Linux. However after using a few distros before landing on Fedora, I've noticed that over the past few years, the differences between the distros have gone from pretty significant to vanishingly small. Consider the following points:
- Ubuntu: Is (if I understand correctly) moving towards supporting the latest kernels rather than just the LTS bringing it somewhat closer to Fedora in terms of supporting the cutting edge. Aside from Snap, telemetry and other proprietary stuff, is there anything that really makes Ubuntu stand out?
- Fedora: the cutting edge distro, has been incredibly stable and hasn't been making any huge shakeups or changes. It's move to only support Wayland comes during a time when X11 is barely just a shambling corpse that has waaaay outlived its purpose. Even Fedora's focus on only FOSS is easily addressed through the RPM Fusion repositories.
- Arch: the bleeding edge rolling distro, sometimes now gets new versions and updates of software later than Fedora (see: KDE Plasma 6). Also, it's no longer the incredibly difficult and super complex distro it once was and has become far more mainstream and user friendly.
- Pop!_OS: is basically Ubuntu with all of the crappy stuff removed. The main differentiating factor, Cosmic DE, is already available for most distros.
- Debian: old reliable, is very stable as always...but so are all of the other distros. It's easier to differentiate based on stability when everything is breaking all the time, but right now everything is so much more stable that Debian's rock solid stability is starting to feel more and more in line with all the rest
- Linux Mint: Is just old Ubuntu (Cinnamon is available as a DE for most other distros, so I'm not sure what the main differentiation is here).
- Linux Mint DE: Is just Debian with Cinnamon...I guess?
- etc. etc. etc.
In short, all of the cutting edge distros that used to be very unstable, are now quite stable in most use cases, and most of the stable distros are adopting more modern technology, and so its feels like their all starting to converge.
Now, I know that there are some distros that buck this trend. Off the top of my head, I can think of Gentoo, NixOS, and Void, but in many cases these are more niche distros for specific use cases. All of the really big distros feel like they are starting to converge and going from Ubuntu to Pop!_OS to Linux Mint to Debian to Fedora never really feels too much different (besides having to use dnf instead of apt). This is especially true since all these distros can install the same DEs
I might be oversimplifying and I'm sure that there's all more differences under the hood for many of these, but from a user experience perspective, they're becoming almost indistinguishable. Also, I may be wrong, and I'm sure that the good people of the Linux community will not shy away from telling me if that is the case, but I was wondering if people were starting to feel the same way.
nixgang@reddit
Not sure what your point is, you're basically claiming that many distros are similar except those that aren't.
That said, after systemd there are fewer moving parts that differentiate distros, maybe that's what you're observing?
ChronicallySilly@reddit
> after systemd there are fewer moving parts that differentiate distros
Curious to understand this, could you elaborate on what moving parts? It's still never really been clear to me what systemd is besides a replacement for grub, and afaik grub was just a "bootloader" aka select which OS to load from your drive on startup. I'm not seeing how that's necessarily related to differences in distros, would like to learn more
UdPropheticCatgirl@reddit
Systemd is not just a bootloader… it’s primary goal initially wasn’t to have a bootloader, it just happens to have one now.
Basically after your bootloader finishes it’s job there is still bunch of work left to do, something has to come in spawn a main process and from that main process spawn all the other necessary system processes, services and/or daemons, we used to do this through some arcane jenga tower of rc scripts and smaller init programs specific to each distro, eventually people tried to unify this process, this lead to creation of OpenRC and systemd (and also stuff like runit, if you are criminaly insane that is), systemd just happened to provide better set of trade offs for big servers and desktops so all of the popular distros for those use-cases started using it, OpenRC still lives on in some environments (containers with distros like alpine and some single purpose devices with stuff like gentoo) but a desktop linux user will probably not encounter it.
seventhbrokage@reddit
Not the person you're replying to, but systemd isn't just " a replacement for grub" at all. Its primary function is to manage all of the system services that run on your machine, from your network manager, to your your login manager, and can also act as your bootloader with systemdboot if configured to do so. It's one of the biggest core systems on most distros after the kernel itself. Some of the more niche distros use something different, like runit on Void. I think what they're getting at is that anything using systemd is going to be basically the exact same system under the hood for the most part because of how integral systemd is, so you're really only choosing a package manager and an update philosophy when you choose your distro. Maybe a few changes here and there, like Arch using the
wheelgroup for sudo users where Debian uses thesudogroup, etc.ChronicallySilly@reddit
Ah thank you, I do remember hearing some controversy about how systemd "tries to do too much" compared to grub, that makes more sense now. I appreciate the info!
Enthusedchameleon@reddit
You either misheard or misremembered, people usually talk about systemd doing too much for an init system - a good example of a hypothetical criticism would be "an init system shouldn't manage your boot devices" so saying systemd should not have made systemdboot, and let grub do ots thing.
But just as a quick explainer - systemd was made to init the system (be the first process, so being a parent to every other process) and therefore manage deamons and services (so background processes less visible for the user and lower level constantly running software), AFAIK this was mostly done with scripts (there were managers and monitors etc., but literally no standard). Systemd, since it was starting, managing and monitoring processes (so already doing more than the scripts people were used to) also created a messaging interface - so if you made a deamon or service that "spoke" systemd you could ibterface with other deamons and services.
Most distro maintainers found it useful and moved toward adoption. Since then many other projects spawned from systemd, for managing networking, boot, and many other things. Some are widely adopted and some are not but AFAIK none are mandatory, you can make whatever alternative you want plumb up with the systemd init.
Detractors of systemd say it is worse than what came before because of complexity in configuring (instead of basically editing a script) still, those are a minority, often loud but a minority nonetheless.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
The controversy is more that they think it does more than what they think something marked as an init system should do, but it was never that in the first place. It was meant to act as an entire base layer for linux.
yngseneca@reddit
Systemd-boot replaces grub, but it's not generally included by default like the rest of systemd is. So there's generally not any overlap between grub and systemd. If you have a simple boot situation I really do prefer systemd-boot though. So much simpler then grub.
linux_rox@reddit
Grub is just a bootloader, it sits on top of systemd. Systemd, for the most part, just runs services and daemons. It’s the intermediate between grub and the file system you use.
nixgang@reddit
The short version is that systemd's core function is to init and manage services on a linux machine, much like windows service control manager and macos' launchd. Before systemd the service management landscape was much more fragmented and every distribution was characterized not just by their package manager but their implementation of the "init-system". The general move to systemd was a major event in the linux world that I suggest you read up on. A widespread introduction to this is given by Benno Rice in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo
A breif historical walk through is given in this wp-article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Init
And of course the wp-article on systemd itself is pretty comprehensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd
Systemd is one of the most intriguing, inflamed and important topics in linux so I'd strongly encourage a curious linux user such as yourself to read up on this.
ChronicallySilly@reddit
Interesting I do remember lots of controversy surrounding it but I was still very new to Linux at the time and it didn't really make a lot of sense to me then. Will definitely read up on it more to get a better understanding - I appreciate the info and links, thank you!
Omar_Eldahan@reddit (OP)
Not exactly, I'm noticing that all of the biggest distros with the most usage share seem to becoming more and ore similar. All of the others that aren't similar are incredibly niche and only have a comparatively tiny user base. The point being that, for the majority of Linux desktop users, the experience is going to be very very similar which I'm not sure was true only a few years ago.
But yeah, things like systemd and flatpaks are definitely making things more standardized and contributing to this.
sCeege@reddit
Yeah I’m also confused, what was different about the state of mainstream distros a few years ago?
PaintDrinkingPete@reddit
In many cases, the differences aren't (and were never really meant to be) about a difference in "desktop user experience"...
In many cases, the differences lie in the approach to support, lifecycle, and stability. In others, the differences are more about intended users/audiences...i.e. is the user of the distribution more concerned with features, stability, or security?
Then, there's also the "philosophical" differences, such as with Debian or Fedora, where only fully FOSS packages are included in the primary repositories, or Ubuntu or Mint, where users may have options to use proprietary packages without additional configuration.
Exciting_Pop_9296@reddit
It makes sense to me. The mainstream user wants a good mix between stability and latest software. The distributions all meet roughly at the same mix, they just come from different sites (some get more stable, others start to focus more on up to date software)
_jaggg@reddit
It's always like that, especially if you use the same DE.
jr735@reddit
That's how it's always been. The only real difference between distributions is release cycle and package management. Most of the rest is only cosmetic. Part of Ubuntu's and Mint's package management involves making hardware recognition (usually) more reliable at install. The rest of what makes them new user friendly are mostly setup tweaks and fairly well featured desktops with sane defaults.
Your desktop environment is not your distribution, and your distribution isn't your desktop environment.
Omar_Eldahan@reddit (OP)
I'm surprised to hear you say this. Like I said, I'm pretty new to using Linux, but from what I've read and seen, distro hopping used to be a much bigger deal and have much more of an impact on the overall user experience. I could be wrong though since I didn't really experience any of that first hand However, I feel like even in the short time that I've used Linux I've felt even these small differences go away.
Even this would normally be a major point of differentiation, but just as a fun anecdote, I'm using Fedora on the Lenovo Legion 5 Slim which doesn't have any official drivers from Lenovo (I didn't realize I had to look that up before I bought it) and yet everything in the laptop works perfectly including the dedicated NVIDIA 4050 graphics card. I don't need to fall back on Ubuntu/Mint despite this being a textbook case for their strengths points. I don't know if this would have been true 2-3 years ago.
Individual_Face4530@reddit
15 years ago, the biggest difference between most distros was the package manager, what packages are up to date, and the DEs they ship with. Only thing that has really changed is docker/flatpaks/snaps being the packages nowadays for some distros.
Beyond that if you want a change you have Gentoo, slackware, LFS, and NixOS. Those will give you the most noticable difference beyond what arch does.
You also have custom kernels and specialty distros, but those are really just a normal distro with some special packages added, specific kernel settings/mods, and most others fluff removed.
Embedded and realtime os might feel a bit different as well.
UdPropheticCatgirl@reddit
Linux is not RTOS… Mainline kernels didn’t even have RTOS-like features until very recently, and even with those linux doesn’t make for that great of a realtime kernel . so yeah completely different operating system, which might or might not be POSIX-esque will feel very different.
DozyVan@reddit
Distribution hopping still hold value. While yes Ubuntu and fedora both operate quite similarly the speed of updates on something like fedora vs the rolling release like Ubuntu is quite solid.
With arch stuff like the AUR can be both quite interesting and useful.
Some Distributions have packages others don't. On fedora if you type sudo dnf install discord you will get discord. The same is not true for Ubuntu or debain. The differences between each Distribution is quite nuanced but it is there
KublaiKhanNum1@reddit
On Ubuntu:
snap install discord. This works on Fedora, Debian, openSUSE Leap, Redhat, Pop!_OS, and others supporting snap.
Lockywolf@reddit
Discord is not open source software. It could be mining bitcoin behind your back, or selling you IP as a VPN endpoint, and you will never know.
DozyVan@reddit
Ahh fair, forgot about snap when writing the example.
Still feel my overall point stands.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
But it's not even that simple anymore. YOu can use things like distrobox to get a pretty archish experience inside say a distro running debian as the host.
jr735@reddit
Distribution hopping is still a big deal, but it's done by those who don't yet realize that the differences are that small. You've just seen it before most do, how similar they really are. It would appear you're not hung up on desktops and appearances, so you realize that all that's going on "under the hood" is fairly similar.
The hardware seamlessness that Ubuntu and Mint have during an install are, to me, part of package management. Certain packages are available or made available during default installs, and that differs between Debian to Ubuntu and Mint. Debian is getting a little better, having nonfree firmware as a default option, now.
Some do hop distributions because they are wanting a completely different package management experience or fresher or more quickly updated software. If someone wants to try something immutable or rolling or wants to try something stable, have at it. Too many want to change just because of desktops. In some ways, that's fair if one doesn't have the experience to change out desktops or add another one (that can be daunting and has its pitfalls). However, a desktop is simply another set of software packages to be installed or not. :)
Master_Nineteenth@reddit
As a former distro hopper I'm well aware the differences are small. I did it because I was looking for the distribution that fit me best, because the differences are big enough for me to care. If I didn't start I'd still be on Linux mint and the cinnamon desktop today, which isn't bad just not my favorite. But my answer did end up far less complicated than I expected, Ubuntu with the Unity desktop. I also still try out other distributions, usually new ones that come out or ones that I haven't tried in a while.
jr735@reddit
I'm still on Mint (and Debian testing). I just use IceWM instead of Cinnamon. I didn't need to change distributions to change that.
BinkReddit@reddit
Agreed! If I didn't distro hop, I'd still be on Debian with dated packages that don't receive bug fixes!
jr735@reddit
That's release cycle.
StendallTheOne@reddit
Distro hopping it's a thing of people that doesn't have a long history with Linux yet. When you have a lot of experience you settle in on one distro and yiu usually don't change unless you become forced in some way.
When I was young on a fairly normal week I can have 3 or 4 different distros. Not only Linux but BSDs, QNX, Unix, and so on. When you get enough experience and know what all the distros have to offer you decide for the best for your use case and stay there. And instead of hop distros because X, Y or Z peculiarities, you just adapt your distro to what you want. And that's the power of Linux and in my opinion the best way to get the most from Linux.
Thunderstarer@reddit
I disagree. I tend to install different distros on different machines, and I think it's useful to maintain an awareness of different distributions' strengths and weaknesses, rather than trying to shoehorn them into roles for which they were not designed.
I use Gentoo on my personal laptop, but Fedora on the shared family desktop, and Debian on the home server. I could just use one distro for everything, but that'd make maintenance unnecessarily hard.
AlienOverlordXenu@reddit
That's because people get stuck on superficial details. Deep inside it's all the same thing, and you can turn one into another with some effort.
People see different default desktop environments, along with some branding (custom skins), take different package managers, or some tweaked settings and think this is an entirely new operating system. Whereas it's just a variation on a same thing.
blackcain@reddit
I think the experience of packages is a decent differentiator. Although that has become smaller. There was a time where I would not touch an rpm based distro with a 9' pole. Just really slow packaging i/o.
Now mostly decent or I've become older and IDGAF.
realityChemist@reddit
Agreed. Arch repos w/ AUR feels like a substantially different experience from Ubuntu with snaps or flatpaks, and though I haven't used it I imagine both feel very different from NixOS's whole thing. Repos, package management, and release philosophy are by far the biggest differentiators between distros, in my opinion.
BinkReddit@reddit
Drivers on Linux tend to be built into the kernel.
BigHeadTonyT@reddit
Wanna try distrohopping? Get Slackware, Gentoo, Artix. Get them all working like you want with a few apps you want and need. Set up something a bit more complex. Maybe a webserver. And some PHP website.
If you are sticking to the main 3 distros, Arch, Debian, Fedora, of course it will seem similar. As will anything based on them. Gotta color a bit outside the line. Call of Duty, Rainbox Six Siege, Battlefield, what is the difference? They are all shooters. Very similar. If all you do is playing shooters, racing sims will feel very different. Even has different controls, wheel and pedals. Try and play a shooter with wheel + pedals.
adamkex@reddit
That's oversimplied. Right now we have the immutables that are becoming popular.
Key-Cartographer5506@reddit
Which immutables if I may ask? I haven't encountered any yet is why I'm curious.
DGolden@reddit
e.g. Fedora SilverBlue is coming along https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/
TBH I'll probably keep trundling along on good ol' Debian personally for quite some time for my main desktop, been running it since Debian 2 on an Amiga, but the immutable stuff is getting at least academically interesting.
Kellerkind_Fritz@reddit
Woah, a fellow Linux/68k user! Hi!
DGolden@reddit
There are dozens of us! dozens! Actually looks like there were 1350 registered users by Nov 1998, probably some more who didn't bother registering (not sure I did actually).
Afraid I went full x86 PC-clone in 1999 though, mostly for uni degree coursework compat. At least I could still use Linux/x86.
Kellerkind_Fritz@reddit
I ended up using my A3000 with AmigaOS but Debian Potato (I think...) on a headless DEC Alpha.
I had a whole cross-machine setup so I could click a icon on AmiDock and it's spawn a shell over rsh on the Alpha or compile a project. The Alpha's disks where also NFS mounted on the Amiga.
I did my university stuff on it in LaTeX and C/C++, using Emacs20 on the Amiga and then compiling on the Alpha.
The whole OS setup i still have backups of on MO disks (yes really!) but my MO drive has long since failed, and finding a working one ain't easy, I'd really like to restore it in WinUAE sometime for curiosity.
pcs3rd@reddit
There's also Nix.
adamkex@reddit
Fedora https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/
Universal Blue (which is based on Fedora) https://universal-blue.org/
openSUSE Aeon https://aeondesktop.github.io/
If you are interested I recommend looking into Universal Blue
PsyOmega@reddit
whats the most user friendly? Like i messed around with fedora's but it was too much of a hastle to install anything that wasn't mainlined. I know the OS has to do some "weird stuff" behind the scenes to make that happen, which is fine, i just want it to stay behind the scenes and not impede me
Enthusedchameleon@reddit
Richard makes Aeon with a target of being as ready to use as possible. For it to be just "install -> use". But of course there are many limitations to this goal that makes it unachievable in the absolute sense.
Still, it currently is "install -> use". Get software in flatpack form, if it isn't possible, distrobox. If that isn't possible, as a last case scebario, just use "transactional update" as if a regular package manager (like apt or zypper etc). The hassle part is that I'd you must install with transactional update you have to restart to use whatever you changed, but fast boot times were absolutely a consideration for them making the distrodistro
I don't know what Fedora exposes from the behind the scenes that displeases you, so instead of a comparison I gave a description.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
bazzite and bluefin are certainly more user friendly than plain silverblue due to what they ship out of the box. I can't speak for aeon at all though.
I went with bluefin.
As far as whether something impedes you, it depends on what you wanna do. I"m a developer who for the most part just wants the base OS to stay out of the way, so it's great for me most of the time.
adamkex@reddit
I like universal blue aurora but the main drawback of immutables is that custom things are a bit more complicated. I don't know what your requirements are but maybe distrobox can solve your issues.
Aetohatir@reddit
NixOS is getting stronger.
NeverMindToday@reddit
And Leon's getting laaarger
hyperflare@reddit
Leon?
raket@reddit
It's an Airplane reference.
jr735@reddit
The difference with immutables, I distill down to package management (and even release cycle). They have a very different way of package management - no more, no less.
adamkex@reddit
That's still a very simplistic view on it. Saying that the only difference between Arch and Bazzite is the package management and release cycle is silly.
jr735@reddit
It's intentionally very simplistic. All else can be changed out. And yes, that is the essential difference between Arch and Bazzite. They have completely different package management systems and release structures. Aside from that, they can use identical file systems, coreutils, kernels, desktops, and applications.
The real problem people find with my minimalist assessment of distributions is that it makes the factions and tribalism look ridiculously stupid. I want a stable distribution that uses the apt package manager. There are several ways to do it, and I can make Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint work in that regard (and have over the years). I will have a preferred distribution, for various reasons, but the similarities are greater than the differences.
I don't like snap. That's package management. I'm familiar mostly with apt. Again, that's package management. Heck, even running Debian testing alongside Mint, for most of what I do, I can't tell the difference between either distribution, when I'm just working, and have the theming set up slightly differently so I know where I am. Even the difference between the unstable software releases of Debian versus the stability of Mint is quite transparent, unless I run across a glaring bug in one of them.
adamkex@reddit
They achieve the same goal but do it differently, this is why it's a distribution of Linux
jr735@reddit
Yes, different package management, specifically. One uses the nix package manager, and one uses other methods.
adamkex@reddit
It doesn't use Nix
Gugalcrom123@reddit
They don't make any sense for desktops. They're as useful as Android. Maybe VM appliances.
nixtracer@reddit
They don't make any sense for developer machines, but we are a bit of a special case!
Oricol@reddit
Bluefin has a developer focused iso. It's probably the most developer focused Linux distro out right now.
PDXPuma@reddit
They actually make a ton of sense for developer machines.
D0nt3v3nA5k@reddit
well, nixos is the perfect mix imo, it’s partly immutable and actually great for dev machines, nix flakes make development a lot easier
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
I'm' a developer and they've been a great help. But there are many kinds of developers.
Gugalcrom123@reddit
Maybe, but I don't know what's wrong with adding new software.
nixtracer@reddit
Nothing. Personally I like the way the Steam Deck does it: read-only by default, A/B and overwritten on upgrades, but /etc is preserved and whitelisted files carried through to the new /etc (the whitelist is itself whitelisted so you can add to it). You can flip the readonly off (reversibly) and do whatever you like, and automate reinstalling things on upgrade which you may have touched via NetworkManager notifier scripts.
adamkex@reddit
Rubbish. Having an OS that can (in theory) never break and updates seemlessly makes a lot of sense for the desktop.
jr735@reddit
I haven't broken a distribution in 21 years. Choose a stable distribution and don't dick around with oddball packages or wild, poorly thought out experiments, and you won't break things.
BinkReddit@reddit
While I run Linux on my production machine, ChromeOS does this very well.
ploqx@reddit
I game on an immutable distro. if something breaks and I want to game, I can just reboot into an earlier build.
realityChemist@reddit
Bazzite?
ploqx@reddit
NixOS
realityChemist@reddit
Nice! I've been curious about NixOS for a while but haven't had the spare mental energy to learn how it all works. Good to hear it's working well for gaming!
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
it kind of was when ubuntu's unity required gtk patches no one else wanted to ship.
jr735@reddit
Mint MATE also got a lot of new customers then, too.
Adventurous-Test-246@reddit
well those are all mostly old blood distros. There are those that dare to be differnt like postmarketOS.
Person012345@reddit
LM might just be "old ubuntu" but to many that is much preferable to new ubuntu and being directly at the whims of Canonical.
SharksFan4Lifee@reddit
As it should be, because it's all the same operating system, linux.
I use CachyOS with XFCE DE. Now let's say I dual boot that with MX Linux (which uses XFCE DE) by default. And let's say I set up XFCE on MX just like my set up on Cachy.
From a user POV, the day to day would be the same. MX Linux will have older packages and an older kernel (by default), but I can install a newer kernel on MX Linux very easily. Don't even need to use terminal, it can be done with a GUI in MX.
I won't have AUR by default on MX, but distrobox would solve that pretty easily. Although, frankly, I don't need AUR. But it's nice to have and very easy to use. And debian repos do have a ton of software. There is even makedeb formerly known as DUR, which is Debian's version of AUR.
Otherwise, package management is just as easy on both.
These are the basics that most users need to deal with on a day to day basis, and it's not very different.
RJsRX7@reddit
I mean, at least personally the majority of my time in *insert operating system* is devoted to doing stuff in applications, rather than doing stuff to the operating system itself.
The biggest differentiator at that point is the windowing system and task switching. So the desktop environment really has more impact than the rest of what makes a "distribution". The real gaps between distributions boil down to what they ship with and what system(s) they use to find "new" applications, so basically package management.
I dunno, there's only so much innovation to be had before you're reinventing the wheel for no compelling reason. I'm sure there's a laundry list of things where if I was a bit less stupid I'd probably do a slightly different way, but the fact we have scads of free operating systems, in the "it costs you $0.00" sense, that can be installed and expected to quite literally just work on a comical amount of hardware is impressive.
THEHIPP0@reddit
This seems a little bit contradicting.
sudogaeshi@reddit
Seriously?
There are all kinds of subtle differences. Apparmor vs selinux, compile flags, dependencies, some locations for stuff, etc etc
It all adds up that they all feel very different to me
manobataibuvodu@reddit
The most interesting space is immutable distros. The king is obviously Silverblue. Them there's Aeon which has a bit different model and easier changes. And on the other aide there's plans to make GNOME OS a daily drivable distro as well with a bit different technology, which would not include package layering.
But IMO the biggest differences have always been between desktop environments, not distros. I'm waiting for a new Elementary release to try out Pantheon, seems like it would be interesting.
Mindless-Time849@reddit
Are you try guix already?
manobataibuvodu@reddit
Im thinking to set up my homeserver with nix or guix, but I haven't yet.
Mindless-Time849@reddit
Cool!!, for me is better guix so hope yo try one day guix :D
Mindless-Time849@reddit
I feel the same until I know Guix, for me is like nixos but I prefer guile also Guix dosent use systemd. Have all your configuration in a config file is pretty neat and different to most other distros, also If something breaks is so simple to get back to your previous configuration. I hope you give a try, you will found that a lot files are not in the same path as other mainstream distro:D
Similar_Sky_8439@reddit
Your experience is of the de not the os
Top-Classroom-6994@reddit
Slackware NixOS and Gentoo are still pretty different. So, if you want something different, you have 3 options. Slackware is different because it doesn't do automatic dependency resolving, Gentoo is different because you compile things for hours, and NixOS is different because you edit a config file for everything.
Mindless-Time849@reddit
Personally I prefer guix more than nixos
LiberalTugboat@reddit
Gentoo is providing compiled packages now.
LaVidaLeica@reddit
It gets even more interesting. Not wanting to deal with archinstall, I tossed EndeavourOS (which is essentially Arch) on a new build. Here I am months later, and I've added the CachyOS kernel and repos to it. It's basically three different distros in one! :p
Revolutionary-Yak371@reddit
Where is Solus, KaOS, NuTyX, Alpine, Void, PikaOS, Regata, Nobara, CachyOS, MiniOS Linux?
dbfuentes@reddit
add to the list https://chimera-linux.org/
tonibaldwin1@reddit
The one and only ❤️
silenceimpaired@reddit
New to me. Why pick it over the ocean of distro’s?
ryanmcgrath@reddit
IIRC, it's one of the closer to "GNU-free" or "GNU-avoidant" you can use at the moment.
FreeBSD tools, LLVM for builds, etc.
silenceimpaired@reddit
I’ve entered a foreign land where the speech is alien to me. :)
Why does GNU have the ‘ick’?
ryanmcgrath@reddit
It doesn't necessarily - the project even states somewhere on their site that it's not an ideological choice, simply technical.
silenceimpaired@reddit
I guess I’ll have to dig deeper. I don’t see an obvious reason it exists over Fedora or Debian.
q66_@reddit
the main general reason to use non-gnu tooling is that when you're making a cleanroom system and a suitable alternative exists, you can do away with decades of bad programming practices and in the process enable lots of novel toolchain hardening and so on, which in turn significantly helps with security
but "uses different tools" is not on its own a reason for existence of anything, because tools are just what makes using things possible
i don't think there is any single major reason, but there doesn't need to be, because individual reasons are useless in something as general as an operating system; it's a combo of a lot of things instead
more secure foundations, cleanroom packaging infrastructure that is transparent and minimizes work for maintainers and makes it easy to contribute, robust packaging that allows a lot of things to just work without being opaque to the user, low resource footprint and good performance, fast and robust package management that is convenient to use, actually provides guarantees that other distros without systemd don't (things like user services) while making an effort to do these things better than systemd does (and providing lower level interfaces for software that are better abstractions and help make things more portable) instead of pretending they are not needed and things were fine in 2010, and so on
it's impossible for an OS to have an obvious reason to exist
tonibaldwin1@reddit
Why pick anything over everything?
silenceimpaired@reddit
Because it’s the one and only? What is it only doing? And why is it the one for you?
or-na@reddit
/r/bedrocklinux take the favorite parts of all your favorite distros and mash em together
Omar_Eldahan@reddit (OP)
I mentioned a few of those in my post, but just as a case in point what is their total share of Linux workstation usage? Out of all of those that you mentioned, only OpenSuse has any kind of meaningful adoption. Also, is OpenSuse really that different? I know pretty much nothing about it, that's why I didn't include, but I wonder if it's that much different from Fedora, Ubuntu, et al.
KsiaN@reddit
What sets SUSE apart from other distro's for me is the sheer amount of automatic testing thats going on the in background.
While it def. can't possibly catch everything, it def. shows that a leading / bleeding edge rolling distro can have 10th of thousands of automatic tests done before rolling out new snapshots.
seventhbrokage@reddit
The main difference between OpenSUSE and the other distros you mentioned is effectively the same as the difference between Fedora and Ubuntu. It uses the zypper package manager and has a different perspective on updates (dependent on which version you use). Tumbleweed is a rolling release distro that tends to lag a bit behind both Arch and Fedora, while Leap has a point release model similar to Debian or Mint.
Revolutionary-Yak371@reddit
OpenSuse use RPM packages similar to Fedora, but not the same.
Ubuntu and Fedora has nothing similar, only look if you use Gnome or KDE.
Calculate and RedCore are based on Gentoo, they are totally different distros than others.
my-comp-tips@reddit
If you want to get away from it, then Kubuntu makes a nice change.
leelalu476@reddit
Release cycle, package manager, and pre setup cosmetics and configs, these have always been the only differences between distributions of Linux. They offer a pre setup Linux with tools for people whode rather not deal with tweaking but still having taste in style and choice in tooling matching theirs enough thats already done. Raely will they offer anything truly special unlike iimmutable distros, but it's fine.
FryBoyter@reddit
Arch is not bleeding edge, as the official package sources usually do not publish beta or even alpha versions, but only versions that are considered final by the respective developers.
When do you think Arch was incredibly difficult to install?
I've been using Arch since around 2010, when AIF (Arch Installation Framework) was a graphical interface for installation.
When the maintainer of AIF retired and there was no person to replace him, manual installation was introduced. The manual installation often consists of executing commands mentioned in the official instructions without making any changes. Yes, that was or is more effort or it is not incredibly difficult.
In 2021, archinstall became an official part of the iso file, making installation more convenient.
So Arch being incredibly difficult to install must have been before 2010. Or it's one of those silly myths that have grown up around Arch.
Arch was never complex in my opinion. You install a basic installation and expand it according to your own wishes. You install the programmes you want. These have their own dependencies like any other distribution. And they use the same configuration files. For me, Arch is therefore basically no more complex than, for example, the minimal installations offered by other distributions.
But to answer your question, Arch does offer some advantages in my opinion.
You can easily create your own packages using the PKGBUILD files. This often requires more effort with other distributions. Arch also offers most packages vanilla. In other words, as intended by the developers. This is also an advantage for me, as changes on the part of the distributions can also cause problems. AUR is another advantage, even if you have to take the platform with a grain of salt, because it can easily offer recipes for creating packages that are not available in the official package sources.
Omar_Eldahan@reddit (OP)
This is cool to know. Every time I hear someone talk about Arch it's always how difficult it is to set up and how it breaks every other week from an update or something gone wrong. Obviously those are exaggerations, but it's interesting to see what Arch has become. In this regard, would you then say that Arch isn't really so different from the more "beginner friendly" distros that everyone likes to recommend?
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
Hmm, I'm gonna push back a little on that guy's experience, because frankly there's too much of it lol. He's obviously very capable and experienced with dealing with Arch as a daily driver. I mean 14 years jeez. I've barely been using it for 14 months.
I think the issue with Arch is that it gets a reputation that kind of applies to the wrong thing. Sure the install process is not noob friendly, but it's easy enough to learn or follow, with this caveat: for an intermediate computer user who knows what devices your system might contain to work the way it does. A 'big boy lego' Windows gamer boi will probably actually have a rough time. A novice could mash their way through a windows install, maybe an Ubuntu install, but not an Arch one I reckon.
But it also lacks a lot in the base image. It's quite bare bones. So if you don't know everything that you might need from a package standpoint you're going to spend quite a while just randomly coming across components you don't have during regular use... other distros are, let's say, a little more... *looks around*... bloated. *ducks*
I find when I run a fresh Fedora or Ubuntu (or Mint or even Bazzite this one time) install they've usually thought of a lot more quality of life content. Not just apps but supporting technologies behind the scenes... and language packs and whatnot.
When a new product launches (like Plasma 6 for instance) a distro like Arch will have a bunch of Nvidia users saying that Wayland is broken and there'll be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, eventually it'll be worked out that everyone has to add a line to a config file blah blah just don't forget to do it if you reinstall drivers or whatever.
Fedora included that config in its image (I think... or at least Plasma 6 and Wayland just worked for me in Fedora when it needed tinkering in Arch). I don't know for sure but I get the feeling that QA is... different with Arch.
It definitely feels more like 'raw' linux to me. (Even with KDE lol)
realityChemist@reddit
This is exactly why I switched to Endeavour on my last install. I don't want to be, like, needing to print out exam papers or something and realizing with 20 minutes til they're needed that I forgot to install and configure CUPS or something.
When I started out I really wanted to strip my OS back to only the bare minimum of things I actually needed. It's an attractive idea to know what every single bit of software running on your computer is and why you have it. In practice though I find that having a solid base that includes all the things I am likely to need is nice, even if there are some I don't end up requiring, and does not feel bloated at all. For me I think the feeling of bloat comes from having a bunch of user-space applications installed that you've never used and probably never will, and that's not an issue Endeavor has.
(I'm very happy with Endeavour, if you can't tell.)
Isogash@reddit
If you've been working with Linux for a while before, Arch is not hard.
If you've never used a terminal before and the closest you've gottan to installing an operating system is updating MacOS then Arch is a steep learning curve, especially if you use the manual process.
snapfreeze@reddit
Bro, be serious for a second.
balancedchaos@reddit
This just means you are getting further along in your Linux career.
Distros are essentially the same, with variations in package managers and package release times.
What makes sense to me is to start bare bones and build up to the level I need, so I prefer Debian and Arch. If you want more stuff pre-installed, Mint or Fedora or Ubuntu are fine choices.
QuickSilver010@reddit
There's also Bazzite and LFS
PotentialSimple4702@reddit
Well, most distros have similar ux, especially after systemdfication. But there are some differences that matters.
Ubuntu :
1- Has guides and certification for standards you didn't even heard of. Such as, DISA-STIG
2- Industry standard OS
3- Default OS of some GNU/Linux laptops
4- Provides paid support
5- Main developer of ufw, AppArmor, Launchpad, LightDM, Snaps etc.
Fedora:
1- Still follows strict free software standards
2- Main developer of Gnome DE, dnf package manager and flatpaks
3- Has different experimental approaches such as flatpaks and immutable systems
Debian :
1- Still follows strict Free software standards. One of the best free software advocates
2- Main developer of apt package manager
3- Supports most hardware as much as possible. Such as, a random Asus eeepc that can only run 32 bit operating systems.
4- Still keeps it simple, does not encourages snaps, does not encourages flatpaks, does not encourages immutable systems
Linux Mint / Mint Debian Edition :
1- Provides more accustomed user experience
2- Main Developer of Cinnamon DE
Arch:
1- If you consider AURs, has one of the largest repositories ever
2- Still keeps it simple, does not encourages snaps, does not encourages flatpaks, does not encourages immutable systems
3- Main developer of pacman package manager
Pop OS:
1- Default OS of System76 laptops
2- Main developer of Cosmic DE
maxipantschocolates@reddit
Well now it's really just DEs/WMs that make a difference to the user experience, otherwise IMO all distros are pretty similar
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
only so much, since you can install most DE on most of the general purpose distros and the DEs themselves (like KDE) are trying to do a better job at making it so the distros have to change them less.
theBlueProgrammer@reddit
That's just you.
GL4389@reddit
It's called distro maturity. Their teams realized which features do the users need and implemented them in their own distros. So they all have similar features in a way that most users like.
Desktop environment like kde, gnome, xfce etc also offer a standard experience across the distros.
As for LMDE, it is not just Debian with cinnamon. It is Mint based on Debian with ubuntu specific stuff removed. You get updates from mint servers, not Debian. I think it offers xfce desktop too. Not completely sure though.
N0NB@reddit
As I see it, Debian still differentiates itself by the number of architectures supported with each release. Besides having largely the same experience on a Raspberry Pi, Olimex MICRO, or an X86_64 desktop, building on these various architectures sometimes reveals bugs that improve the upstream packages. This is quite valuable to the entire FOSS ecosystem, IMO.
A few days ago I installed Debian 12.8 on a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 3 Thinkpad that I'd had for a few years primarily for some Win 10 Pro software I need to use once in a great while. I decided to upgrade the SSD to have ample room for Win 10 plus Debian and Arch and maybe one other in a multi-boot scenario. After fighting the Testing Netinst not displaying the Grub menu (a bug I've since discovered has already been reported) I tried the Stable installer and it worked perfectly. Once I confirmed everything was working in basic EFI mode, I enabled SecureBoot and there wasn't even one hiccup that required fixing. It all just worked. After changing to Testing (Trixie) the Grub bug is evident (worked around by selecting the console mode in
/etc/default/gruband runningupdate-grub) and I can add to the report on this bug which is my intent for using Testing on this hardware.With this same laptop I was experimenting with Arch on a USB SSD. Arch runs just fine on this hardware but I have much to learn if I am to make it play nice with SecureBoot, if ever.
What I miss most in Arch is the lack of a package management tool like Debian's
aptitudein its TUI mode. Granted, I've been usingaptitudesince I first learned of it in early 2001, however, while I can tease a lot of things out ofpacmanwith the help of the Arch Wiki and Web searches, it is so much easier inaptitude. Note this is not a slam against Arch but rather does represent a significant difference in the philosophies of the respective distributions.As I've never gravitated toward the RPM distributions I cannot comment on them.
10MinsForUsername@reddit
Huh, this was basically a similar conclusion to this: The Best Linux Distribution of 2023 was… The Linux Desktop
Modern Linux distributions are all using similar building blocks to each other nowadays.
RegulationOrange@reddit
It's easy to see this as a bad thing but de-fragmenting the Linux landscape is imho a good thing.
xte2@reddit
Distros you list are made with an '80s model, nowaday we could innovate with declarative distros, like NixOS or Guix System, the old model of treating packages, installers and file systems as separate entities to be managed manually is done, you can't get nothing new and exiting in this model.
ousee7Ai@reddit
Yeah, now there is coming quite differrent takes in the immutable space, but I guess that will converge in a few years perhaps-
KnowZeroX@reddit
Distros are just preconfigured defaults. So your observation isn't off.
That said, I will note one important thing when the use of "stable" is used. Stable is used in 2 ways, first is low failure rate due to not having bleeding edge or cutting edge untested stuff. The other is that the APIs don't change. So while a cutting edge or bleeding edge distro may feel stable, for anyone doing coding may find their stuff break. Of course with the existence of containers it becomes less of a problem for both LTS distros to run latest stuff and for latest distros to load up old stuff.
As we move to immutability is when you will have real convergence.
PS The reason why newer kernel is being pushed in places like LTS Ubuntu is because without it, you can't have latest hardware. When linux was used for servers or for loading up on old pcs, it didn't matter as much. But as Linux is now being offered on some new computers, you either use new kernel or hardware doesn't work.
EastSignificance9744@reddit
it's just that you're more experienced more c:
onefish2@reddit
It's all about the package manger and what packages are in their repos.
freistil90@reddit
Slackware is different, although there you have package- but not dependency management.
OverjoyedBanana@reddit
You are missing the whole point because you talk like a pure consummer. Distributions have different communities behind them with people having different visions about software and open source.
Debian is a true free software projet where devs take decisions. Same for gentoo but source based. Same for arch but recent software. Fedora are devs who think they're doing open source but are actually unpaid interns for RHEL. Ubuntu's Mike Shuttleworth pet project who pretends to be benevolent but secretly hopes to become RH.
Intelligent-Stone@reddit
Isn't that normal? I mean I'm not going to say they were always the same but now if distros want to be more popular, they must aim the human type that has most population, For example Fedora recently removed installation of NVIDIA drivers via GNOME Software because most people has secure boot enabled these days and if they try to install NVIDIA driver that easily their system might have gone unbootable. They removed the drivers from store so user can search internet on how to install and install it via CLI (ofc, taking care of secure boot too) but now with Fedora 41 they reverted this change because forcing someone to use terminal just because they have NVIDIA GPU is not a user friendly approach. Peoples like me can easily do these steps like generating a MOK key, importing the key into shim and then signing drivers with this key etc. but a normal user shouldn't mess with these. With Fedora 41 they also automated those steps (almost) and this is one distro that peoples might choose because it has NVIDIA drivers auto signed now, Ubuntu also doing it (was doing it for long time actually) and there's a similarity we found between two distro. Just because they must aim the same human group. If you're going to find differences of distros you must be an Linux expert (or some mid level Linux user), if they had too many differences between distros at regular user level they would lose users.
Cool-Game-Dev@reddit
While Arch may be more user friendly, its still not user friendly enough for %99.9 of computer users, some of which don't even know windows can be replaced.
Sinaaaa@reddit
It's Ubuntu under the hood, but they have removed some of most reviled things from Ubuntu, which is mostly snap related & they are behind their Gnome fork's development.
KenBalbari@reddit
Those pretty much all use systemd, so administration is basically the same, too. The major difference is the package managers.
ImaginAqua@reddit
More mainstream distros are definitely getting more and more similar, which isn't surprising given package management and update cycle are the biggest differences between distros; under the hood they've always all just been Linux.
Personally I see it as a good thing. It's an indication that things are becoming a bit more unified; Arch being relatively easy to use these days compared to the past is a good example of that. And more ease of use out of the box regardless of distro is absolutely necessary for Linux to survive in the mainstream and be worth it to the general public. Making that happen means it's inevitable that things will get a little more homogenized if all the major distros work towards that same "make it just work for people like Windows and Mac do" goal.
Ideally by the end of it, computer people will still have the freedom of choice and customizability Linux currently affords, while non-computer people will have the same "it just works and I don't have to think about which OS I'm using" experience they currently get with Windows.
apathyzeal@reddit
I wouldnt call Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch "stable" in the same way that, say, Debian or Alma and Rocky are, by any means.
zap117@reddit
Once you start getting comfortable and know a bit more about Linux the "to many different distros* illusion disappears, the main difference is package managers and how they post updates . The rest is just flair and pre configuration.
So cachy is just arch with some custom kernel and pre installed programs and some themes.
Same for ubuntu, its just Debian with some slight changes
And so on
UptownMusic@reddit
You are getting a clearer picture of reality, plus all of the distros have improved enormously in the last few years. As they improve, they iron out their weaknesses and learn from others, so they move towards each other. In an AMA here, I asked the head of the Fedora distro what were the use cases of Fedora and what were the use cases of Debian. He said the use cases are the same, he just wanted people to prefer the Fedora way of doing things. IMHO the main distinction is between distros that are focused on client installs (like Mint) and those that are both/either client and server (like Debian). Within those groups you have those that do more for you in the installs (like Ubuntu) and those that require you to do more on your own (like Debian).
sav-tech@reddit
From an end-user perspective, they're all quite similar.
The only differences that I have seen are the repository and package managers.
Their philosophy, do you want open source or backed by a community?
X Or Wayland?
Rolling Release? yay or nay?
I settled on Arch Linux for the wiki, the community and I just love yay (yet another yogurt, a Pacman wrapper and AUR Helper).
I'm sure there's more but from a novice tinkerer perspective these are my two cents!
Isogash@reddit
I understand your sentiment but I'd posit that it's mostly just an "expectations" thing on your end.
Major distros are commonly misunderstood as being intended for specific users or purposes. I think this expectation is further exacerbated by the fact that newer Linux users may have been previously exposed to "purpose-specific" distros for things like retro game emulation or media servers. You'll hear beginners ask "when should I use this distro?" quite a bit, as though it's meant to be used in a different use case.
The reality is that most major distros are aiming to fulfill entirely the same use case: to be a general purpose operating system that allows users to install whatever software they need and to do whatever they want with it. They aren't trying to fulfill some niche any more than they are just trying to do the same thing as each other, only "slightly better."
In the example distros you cite, the majority (Ubuntu, Pop and Mint) are Debian-based. Fedora and Arch will feel slightly different to others on the list, Fedora because you won't be using `apt-get` and Arch even moreso because its DIY philosophy and community are more "eccentric" by major distro standards. All of these distros are meant to be able to be used to do the same things though, so at the end of the day you probably shouldn't notice a functional difference between them.
In conclusion: major distros are not normally meant to offer a substantially different OS experience to each other, but they exist because someone needs to do the hard work of trying to solve the technical challenge of maintaining an OS distribution, and they each do it in their own (sometimes very opinionated) way that may have certain advantages but are often not that important in practice if you're just trying to do some work.
1EdFMMET3cfL@reddit
This is by design.
Linux communities on Reddit, moreso than any other Linux-related discussion groups, tend to overstate the differences between distros.
Once you have everything set up, the experience of using your computer should feel about the same, whether you're using Mint, Arch, Ubuntu, Hannah Montana Linux, Gentoo, whatever.
BEER__MEeee@reddit
Getting Arch to feel like Hannah Montana Linux ... I'd watch that YouTube tutorial. I wouldn't do it on my machine, but I'd smash that LIKE button.
Irverter@reddit
It's sort of similar to the Ship of Theseus.
If all these different things are made with the same parts, are they the same?
I would say that the non software parts adds to make them unique. Like the community and infrastructure behind a distro.
Go install Linux Mint and Ubuntu Cinnamon and tell me they're the same.
Same as before but with LMDE and Debian with Cinnamon.
wakko666@reddit
I've been using linux distros since the old boxed version of RHL5 that was sold at CompUSA in the late 90s.
You're neglecting to mention quite a few distros. Slackware is still around, for example. As is Gentoo. AlmaLinux is the successor of CentOS and deserves mention alongside RHEL (Fedora's main downstream).
Linux distros differentiate themselves in a few ways, but it's still the same kernel, same mostly-GNU toolchain, and same two or three major DEs.
Depending on how far you go into the details, you'll find more or less similarities just based on the perspective you've adopted. That isn't a reflection on the software as much as it's an indication of what details you are/aren't focused on.
Maybe the distinction between SELinux and AppArmor is something you care about. Maybe you see those LSM implementations as functionally equivalent. (They aren't.)
What matters is whether the distro you're using fits your particular use cases. The rest is just implementation details.
frank-sarno@reddit
I think this is a consequence of an open code base. It's similar to how languages evolve. Maybe two languages meet and become a creole and then evolve into their own language outright. Similarly with Linux there used to be lots of distinct projects that were specific to a distribution but their usefulness and general appeal meant they were made to work on other distributions.
Some things like package managers are a little more fundamental. I use RPM and DEB/APT most commonly depending on whatt I'm doing. RPMs are a necessity at work where we have to control everything about a deployment and need to know exact versions not just for one package but for an entire server. Yes, you can do similar things with APT (and I have done so) but it's not nearly as easy.
There are lots of innovations though. Just in the past year I've tested distributions that use a configuration management approach to the OS. This solved some pain points with regulatory requirements from our Compliance team. It's not yet ready for wide adoption but I could see that approach being adopted. Immutable builds are interesting concept and smooths out some pain with developer instances and testing processes., plus seems to have some great security tooling. I tested a container-based OS with apps all running as separate containers. This was primarily for security but also solved a problem with running multiple versions of applications (e.g. Python, Golang, node).
There are innovations but maybe not all are UI related so perhaps hidden from view.
blackcain@reddit
Hey don't forget our friends at opensuse, yo.
E123Timay@reddit
To me at least, as someone who is also fairly new to Linux, there's enough changes in even the small stuff to make enough of a difference that I like one over the other. Pop keeps things more up to date than Ubuntu, plus cosmic is gonna be waaaaay better than gnome. Arch being rolling release makes things more buggy, at least in my experience and that's why I avoid it. Fedora is more similar to Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distros imo. The one thing I have found similar are commands.... basically the same across the board, just what you type is slightly different (pacman, apt, dnf, etc).
My favorites are pop, mint and Solus right now!
RiverMesa@reddit
They have become pretty convergent in practice, outside of the more ideologically niche or specialist use-case ones, but I broadly see it as a good thing (or at least, not a bad one).
Omar_Eldahan@reddit (OP)
Exactly. I don't really mean it as a bad thing, but it's just something interesting to observe how each of these different approaches and philosophies all kind of ended up more or less in the same place in the end. It's kind of cool to see.
rebbsitor@reddit
Distros are mostly just picking and choosing pieces to stick together. There's probably a few options for most things, but in the end they provide the same functionality. Like yum/dnf vs apt for package management. Someone might prefer one over the other, but at the end of the day both will install/remove packages and ultimately perform the same function.
Someone might prefer LXDE or GNOME or MATE or KDE. At the of the day they provide a way to manage your windows. And many distros offer multiple in their repositories.
If you really want to see difference like there was in the past with Linux, look at the BSDs. They haven't homogenized as much. Though they will also look a lot like Linux as they're also a UNIX derivative.
DFS_0019287@reddit
The major differences between distros relate to package management and system management (eg, systemd vs sysvinit) and lately to display server (X11 vs Wayland).
From an end-user perspective, all Linux distros have always been pretty similar.
LIParadise@reddit
well I mean aside from DE, it's also since the userland often boils down to glibc and systemd.
mooky1977@reddit
Aside from differing DEs with the obvious feel differences, the fact that they all feel similar is a good thing, is a sign of maturity and that there are no compromises or big surprises from one to another.
DividedContinuity@reddit
For a start. That's not what "stable" means in this context. Stable means "doesn't change very often", saying a rolling release distro is "stable" is an oxymoron.
You seem to be trying to say that bleeding edge distros are less prone to break these days. Are they? Power management is broken right now on 7000 series gpus on the current kernel. Most people simply don't notice the breaks.
Semantics aside, sure major distros are fairly similar. Always have been.
If you go off the more beaten track you can find the weird and wonderful.
mhkdepauw@reddit
Which kernel is that and how is it broken?
DividedContinuity@reddit
it appears to have broken in
6.10.8and its still broken in 6.11.9 on my system. As for how? knock yourself out, there is plenty to read.https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3618
mhkdepauw@reddit
Thanks, didn't find exactly what you were talking about it on my own.
Dejhavi@reddit
Yep,nowadays almost all Linux distros are similar but the novelty now are the "atomic" distros,more of the same but with "immutable" system:
ebits21@reddit
Fedora is moving to bootc and overlayfs for atomic distros which will be quite different.
Basically the distribution becomes a bootable docker container, overlayfs allows for overlay containers (without duplicating any data from the base image). So dnf will work in Silverblue and just add containers for your program over the base image (without the current space cost).
Super interesting! Stability + customization. Very attractive for enterprise too.
vaynefox@reddit
Maybe because you havent distro hop enough to see the different features and quirks of different distros (including distros that are based on the main distros and also spins), that's why it feels the same. Like Fedora has 2 versions, a "bleeding edge" version (rawhide) and a cutting edge (normal fedora). At the same time, each distros almost follows the same design philosophy that's why on the outside it might look the same....
LostVikingSpiderWire@reddit
Looks like you just googled some buz words about the distros 🤣💀
There are lots of new and exciting things going on, try Nix and also all the immutable distros.
Been running running one immutable for a year, super fun and stable.
The_Dayne@reddit
The goal is finding a DE you like, a file manager you understand, a terminal that you know your way around, and a package manager that has what you need.
This is all distro agnostic
BandicootSilver7123@reddit
Im using Ubuntu stock with no crappy stuff available from install just opted out of telemetry instead. What crappy stuff are you on about.
Lonely_Rip_131@reddit
Yea. They are generally going to be debian based or RHEL based, then you have the outliers like ARCH, SUSE, etc. This is likely due to the fact that debian is super stable and the support of its projects are vast, so vast several developers branched off of them to create another distro for a specific or more general use case. If you think they are all the same you likelly are installing them and using them in the same manner. You should certainly find differences among them all whether large or small.
Lonely_Rip_131@reddit
Keep on exploring. If you get bored branch out to something more unique.
Marasuchus@reddit
It is also a philosophical question and one of the use case. You won’t put a rolling release or some exotic distribution on a server that is supposed to run stable.Or a Full Desktop Distro on a IoT device, etc. There is also the question of how you feel about Redhat and Canonical or whether you generally identify more with the values of Debian, for example. So yes, the distributions are becoming more and more similar in terms of user experience, but this is particularly due to the DE on the desktop. I think that’s a great development, because it makes my workstation feel like my gamingpc, like my server, like my potato laptop, like my self-built weather station based on a Raspi, despite the different distributions.
De_Clan_C@reddit
I feel like it's a natural step for Linux users to distro hop a bit when they first start, but then once they learn more about Linux they start to notice things like how the gnu core utils are on every distro so on the backend the system runs very similarly, making them realize the DE is just a facade for gnu/Linux doing it's thing.
In my opinion there are really only three distros anyone should worry about, Debian, Fedora, and Arch. These are the three horseman of Linux where most other distros are based on them with them being good bases for slow moving "stable" updates, cutting edge updates, and Bleeding Edge Newest Software™ respectively.
I'm glad you've made it to this point in your Linux journey. A lot of people quit before they get anywhere close.
throwaway6560192@reddit
From what I recall it was one of the earliest to move to Wayland by default, even if it didn't cut support from it entirely. Same for other new tech like PipeWire.
SoulSkrix@reddit
All technology converges on good ideas amongst them. Happens outside of operating systems.
Expensive_Poop@reddit
If you want to try distro that unique:
puppylinux : single-user distro (only root), have different package manager for each flavor (but support main .pet and .sfs package)
Alpine: use musl instead glibc
chromeos / chromium os
android x86 / blissos
tinycore : linux for old hardware, using new kernel
slitaz : linux for old hardware, using really old kernel
gentoo : source-based os. Good if you have 100 similar PC and want to optimize each of them
postmarketos : if you want to convert your phone to be proper linux
daemonpenguin@reddit
It's definitely just you. Pretty sure this had to be written by a chat bot. No one who uses Linux would be this unfamiliar with the vast differences between the major distros.
Independent-Gear-711@reddit
My default mode always goes for Fedora and I don't have any particular reason to switch although i have used Mint, Arch, Kali, CentOs and finally sticked to Fedora I still think Fedora is a really good balance between stability and cutting edge software experience.
CaptainObvious110@reddit
Check out Solus
LargeAd3643@reddit
True. I decided on Fedora about a decade ago. Tried other distros since. Didn't see a reason to switch.
silenceimpaired@reddit
I had a kernel change that impacted my VMs and made me think I wouldn’t have a good experience on Fedora when I went to try it out but I wish I had hung around. It feels as polished as Windows and Mac (and that isn’t an insult in my book). I might return. Went to Debian since I live in VMs.
LargeAd3643@reddit
Yes Fedora is actually much more polished IMO. 0 bloat ware. Minimal configuration.
skuterpikk@reddit
Personally, I only need two distros: Fedora and Debian.
Throw in Ubuntu, or some deriviate like Pop/Mint, and you've covered the needs of the majority of people with just 3-4 distros.
balefyre@reddit
Always been this way. Pick a distro w/ a package manager you prefer and go about your life.
ficskala@reddit
I mean, it has been exactly like this for a very long time, i have a feeling that you might just be getting more comfortable with using linux in general, so it might feel like it's a recent change, even though it's not really
lKrauzer@reddit
Main thing Ubuntu has to offer is customization ootb, if you don't like stock GNOME, which is my case, but update rate is similar to Fedora, Arch is minimalist like no other distro, Debian is the upstream of Ubuntu, so both will differ from Fedora a little, for example they still use gnome-terminal on GNOME 47 instead of ptyxis, and lastly the filesystem, all Deb distros will still use EXT, the other ones will use BTRFS
silenceimpaired@reddit
Fedora is using BTRFS?
lKrauzer@reddit
Yes for quite some time now
_svnset@reddit
It has always been this way. you are just getting more knowledgeable in Linux that's all.
It was always about upstream vs downstream behind the scenes, nothing else. I am on Fedora since I left Gentoo/Arch because it's upstream and devs and maintainers have an upstream mentality. That means configurations are often closer to what the devs had in mind, without forcing you to accept a very opinionated configuration setup of every tool (Ubuntu). My point of view is highly opinionated as for many people these things do not matter. Stability was only a real issue for beginners, the veterans are fighting more about what configuration is best for which target audience, hence why then distributions emerge.
Ok-Anywhere-9416@reddit
Yeah, but honestly some little differences are enough to make something look different.
If I look at the default installation of Ubuntu, Mint, Tumbleweed and Fedora, and then I start to tinker around and use them, I can have very different feelings. If I have an Nvidia gpu, even more.
Probably the most different thing I've tried is Chimera Linux (do not mistake it for ChimeraOS, they're different). Unfortunately there's so Nvidia driver for it, otherwise I would've tried it further. It's some GNU/Linux with BSD userland, stock GNOME, etc. etc..
pmanmunz@reddit
It's always been that way. I've been running linux pretty much exclusively since 2002. The longer you use linux, the more you see the underlying similarities, the kernel, the DEs and WMs, the command line, etc. With linux distros, the rivalries are so bitter because the differences are so small.
InsensitiveClown@reddit
Have you considered not changing distributions, but rather, change desktops and window managers? Try fluxbox, blackbox, E16, E17, KDE, Trinity, MATE, XFCE, CDE, FWWM, there are tons of options.
AmSoMad@reddit
Yes, it's been that way since mid-COVID.
Linux development absolutely exploded, it caught-up (and then some). Fedora is the new Ubuntu. EndeavorOS is the new Arch. OpenSUSE is... just dope.
It doesn't matter if I'm using Manjaro, Mint, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, POP!_OS, or Debian - as a programmer - it's virtually the same experience for me. I prefer GNOME for my DE, and I'm going to try out COSMIC DE when it comes out. But there isn't much more to it.
I'd never use "Nobara" or "Bazzite" when I could just... install Wine, Lutris, and ProtonDB myself. I know Nobara has some customized "gaming tweaks", but it's also maintained by a single developer, and now that Steam is revolutionizing Linux gaming, I'm not too worried.
It's kind of sad. You used to be able to sustain a business with a custom Linux-spin/distro. Now you're splitting hairs, trying to describe, define, or sensationalize any difference that makes you stand out. A lot of these distros are sustained by historical popularity alone.
However, with distros like Kali Linux (and even OpenSUSE), they're probably specialized-enough to remain relevant. If you're learning cybersecurity, it's silly to install Ubuntu, and then install all the Kali software and configurations. If you're a network administrator, there's enough reasons you might use OpenSUSE, over another distro. If you're trying to use Linux on garbage hardware, maybe Puppy Linux still makes sense.
But, by and large, the distros are converging on one another, and advancing rapidly. I basically just use Fedora now, because it gives me the best balance of my expectations, needs, and wants. Every time I distrohop, I'll spend 3 months on 'whatever distro', then switch back to Fedora because it's bulletproof.
gihutgishuiruv@reddit
I’d say even the mid-2010s, where many of the major distros started to converge on systemd.
Omar_Eldahan@reddit (OP)
Fedora is indeed the GOAT.
But yes, this is exactly what I've been noticing about the major distros.
Suspicious-Rock9011@reddit
Why you go to modify linux ? Linux it is a distaster of program by the start by when we apply power that became an esponential power of software
nevermille@reddit
There are more and more abstraction layers in linux to make things easier now. For example, why bother developing and maintaining an application store when you can just implement PackageKit for your package manager and give all the work to Gnome Apps/KDE Discover ? Same with systemd or pipewire or networkmanager. When there is a widespread tool doing a good work for what you need, reinventing the wheel just makes your distro harder to use.
TheTaurenCharr@reddit
Distributions mostly affect how convenient to have different piece of software, libraries etc. and how recent of a piece of software a user can get. Other than a few tweaks here and there, the impact is all about desktop environments or window managers.
However, one of the most important aspects of any given distribution is the technologies they make use of. An example of this would be the filesystem. Fedora and openSUSE make use of BTRFS while Ubuntu defaults to EXT4. So the difference would be mostly under the hood, but still somewhat affecting how one would use their computer.
Healthy_Try1553@reddit
Yes and no. I love Arch distributions the most. I'm using Endeavour OS right now.
At least Linux distributions are still wildly more varied and exciting than plain old Windows. So even if some Linux distributions are similar, they are still enough for mixed variety compared to Windows or Apple/Macintosh.
guiverc@reddit
For years I couldn't see the point of Ubuntu; as to me it was just an easier Debian install; and why wouldn't someone just install Debian. The first real Ubuntu I appreciated was Ubuntu 11.04 (ie. 2011-April); so until that point I didn't really differentiate between Debian & Ubuntu; and that was more than a decade ago.
I've used OpenSuSE, Fedora, of course Debian, Ubuntu and others; and to me they've always been GNU/Linux or the pretty much the same system, with different package managers with the largest difference being where & when they got their source code from upstream. I held that view twenty years ago, and it's not changed.
I'm using Ubuntu right now; twenty years ago I wouldn't have. Yeah Ubuntu was very new twenty years ago, but even if I consider only fifteen years back I hadn't yet seen anything in Ubuntu besides being an easier install of a Debian system. I maybe appreciate that more now I'm older, but my own view hasn't changed much.
seven-circles@reddit
NixOS is extremely different from everything else and is quite “major” nowadays
_AngryBadger_@reddit
Well at the end of the day as long as you're using Fedora you're sorted.
Rispido@reddit
I think, with just a few years of experience, there are three big reasons for that:
- The standard is rising, and that's great. Almost all distros have naturally set the same boxes to check in order to give the user a good experience. Even Arch is democratized by projects like EndeavourOS.
- For people starting in Linux the DE is the real difference. If all distros put in your hand the same DEs, there's almost no difference until you start to mess around. Specially with DEs like KDE Plasma or Cinnamon, tools that can delay for ages the need of touching the terminal.
- Most people just distro-hop inside the Debian-Ubuntu galaxy. They're just trying different brands of the same ice cream flavour. Big differences cannot be expected.
dbfuentes@reddit
with systemd absorbing more and more functions it is normal that most of them are similar to each other.
Holiday_Singer_4453@reddit
Package manager is the main difference between distros
doomcomes@reddit
I think once you're running the same programs and DE it gets harder to see the differences. A lot of the under the hood stuff getting more support now than it used to definitely contributes to the stability.
I think familiarity with linux has some play in it. Like, I might notice something a bit annoying about a Ubuntu base that I'm used to on a Debian (network manager stuff is one of these, although I'm not sure if it's always as clearly cut as distro/base/DE).
I haven't distro hopped in awhile, but I've tested a few to see some stuff and between Pop, Garuda, and Drauger I noticed some differences that leaned me towards Drauger. So, there's still a bit of what feels better for whatever reason for people, but more popular a distro gets the more support it's going to have for everything including people bringing things from other versions. I think that's been a thing for a long time though.
I'm likely overlooking or don't know a better way to explain or understand it, but I just attribute it towards more support and general consensus on what people want/need leading the trend towards similarities.
matsnake86@reddit
You are not wrong.
Is just a matter of sometimes different defaults and different package manager.
But in the end , the filesystem is the same, so is systemd and flatpak is becoming popular.
The new horizon for the linux desktop, however, seems to be moving towards immutable systems.
See the universablue project distros or Aeon Desktop (openSUSE).