Those who use forks of forks/lesser-known distros: are you worried they’ll become abandonware?
Posted by OrangeKitty21@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 173 comments
This might be just me. However I tend to stick to the “main” distros like debian/arch because I’m worried that their forks could at any point become abandonware, stop receiving updates, and then you get left in the dark. What do you guys think of this?
A--E@reddit
Since I'm maintaining it myself - no worries.
dme4bama@reddit
If it gets to that point you can take over the project with enough know how.
gordonmessmer@reddit
If you've been watching the increasingly frequent attacks in the "supply chain", the thing you should be worried about is not that your distribution will be abandoned or discontinued, per se. It's that adversaries will join the project and maintain it until the trustworthy people move on, and then exploit the user base.
The sustainability of the project is absolutely a security concern!
BashfulMelon@reddit
Users are distrohopping and giving new people root access to their PC every week, and nobody even talks about the security practices of the distros they're hopping to. I can only make sense of this as thrill-seeking behavior, and the thought of an adversary exploiting their rinky-dink flavor-of-the-week distro must be a very exciting feature to them.
donnysaysvacuum@reddit
Using a distro is not giving someone root access to your PC.
BashfulMelon@reddit
Yeah you're right. It's just giving them the ability to push arbitrary code over the internet which will run on your computer at the highest permission level.
randomBugHunter@reddit
lol wat
StillNewspaper4799@reddit
Installing a distro on your PC is about as much access as you can give someone.
It's not just allowing them to run code on your machine. It's literally using their code to run your machine.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
yes it is. they can manipulate the packages to do whatever they want. including opening up an ssh reverse tunnel or any number of command and control techniques.
StillNewspaper4799@reddit
I agree that it's a genuine concern.
But the tone of your post reads "I want to make fun of other people to feel better about myself". That is an assumption on my part. But "I want to make fun of people because I know best" is not much better, and very hard to disentangle from our need to feel better about ourselves.
It's why I dislike internet discussion and particularly reddit so much. The attitude of "I know best and therefore have a right to undermine and make fun of others" is more often than not a type of entitlement in my opinion. Even assuming you do know best (which is very often not the case although I do agree with you here), how much do you trust others that you think they won't emulate this behaviour? And how much do you trust others that they'll only do it when they're certain they know best? How much do you trust that they *can* know best?
At the end of the day we all put our trust in our distros. Trust is not a flaw, it's integral, a fundamental part of human society. That's why we punish people who break it. Or should. Trusting too freely can be a bad idea and naive, and we should absolutely acknowledge that and point it out. But I think, like many other things, when our answer to something is "we should just force this behaviour/attitude/belief and make fun of people who don't agree" we can make things worse. See vaccination, US politics, modern division etc etc. It has its place, there are nasty people out there who should not be tolerated. But the more we behave this way the more normal it becomes, and I for one have very little belief that people, on average, know what's best for me or anyone else, or that they are honest enough to only enforce behaviours for the common good rather than their own benefit.
Perhaps in a world of adults it would work. In a world where everyone only used genuine necessity as a reason for it. But in our competitive world of insecurity it's just not the answer we need, and I think it just makes things worse. Ultimately the contradiction in these sort of beliefs is that you end up doing what you criticise others for.
Alright I said my bit. And to be fair I've simply seen a lot of this on reddit and you're just the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, not a particularly egregious example.
And for all that said, I do genuinely agree that it's a concern.
hauntlunar@reddit
it's like you can read my very soul
BeatTheBet@reddit
This right here is the correct answer, no need to look further.
After having done some distrohopping in the past... nowadays I'd simply be running RedHat if it was a tiny bit more suitable (out of the box) for home computing. But I go as close to that as possible. No more "hype of the week" running on my devices.
Overlord0994@reddit
What’s as close to red hat as possible?
LameBMX@reddit
I think a coral hat, or a chestnut hat would both be pretty close to red hat, without stepping into just being red with a weird name.
Overlord0994@reddit
Very original
fearless-fossa@reddit
Alma and Rocky Linux; Fedora if you want something suitable for desktop usage.
000MIIX@reddit
Fedora
Indolent_Bard@reddit
Examples of that happening?
gordonmessmer@reddit
I think the first one that will come to mind for a lot of users is the XZ-utils attack.
But we see the same thing happening in various programming library registries (pypi, npm, ruby gems), browser extensions, etc.
https://www.fastruby.io/blog/hidden-dangers-in-your-gemfile.html
https://thehackernews.com/2025/10/npm-pypi-and-rubygems-packages-found.html
https://medium.com/@zerOiQ/browser-extensions-are-the-new-malware-dropper-590266076cf4
Indolent_Bard@reddit
Wasn't that xz thing going to affect ALL distros?
BeatTheBet@reddit
You are missing the point being made here. When you install a distro, ANY distro, you are "by design" trusting root priviledges to the maintainers/packagers of that distro.
If I as a malicious maintainer push a maliciously crafted core package to run malware, it's done. I just need to ask you to update and that's it, your machine is pawned.
The question then becomes, "What distributions do you trust the Maintainers of with root access?". Obviously answers may vary from person to person, but probably (surely) installing and using normally (online presence, banking, whatever) a distro that poped up of nowhere 2 weeks ago and has 50 users might not be the brightest of ideas.
tl;dr : Produce your threat model, and act accordingly.
gordonmessmer@reddit
I think you're missing the point.
Human maintainers do not last forever. They will eventually leave a project, one way or another. All projects will pass into new hands someday.
If a project has a very small maintainer team, it's much easier for an adversary to capture the project and exploit its user base. If a project has a large, diverse team, then it's harder for an adversary to gain enough control, or too little oversight, to exploit the user base.
It doesn't really matter if the project is a library or a distribution. The threat of takeover is the same.
ludonarrator@reddit
Most responses seem to be around, "changing distro isn't a problem, takes an hour or two." While true, the question is more around whether that risk is worth it, and for me it isn't: why waste time getting used to something if there's a significant risk of becoming abandonware? Another point: most of these forks of forks shouldn't have been distros in the first place: they are simply "mods" of existing distros - extra packages and modified default configs, that's it.
JonBot5000@reddit
This is why having an official SteamOS for general hardware is so important. It would take all the FUD out migrating to Linux from Windows.
Distro options seem to be use one of the big upstream distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, or Arch which can require a ton of extra configuration to make games and video work properly, or use a gamer distro like Nobara, Bazzite, or Cachy that seem to work great on first boot but are maintained by some dudes in a garage somewhere. Who's to tell when any of those ventures could just decide to shut down?
I had finally decided to run Bazzite on my laptop but a few months later they stopped supporting their ASUS image and wanted me to rebase to generic and then layer on all the extra drivers and software. That seemed like a pain to setup and maintain so I went to Cachy which has been good for a while now but still required some extra crap to get the ASUS drivers and app installed. On the about page the founder looks like he's 12. There's a cat on there in charge of testing. None of this inspires confidence.
It would be so reassuring to every gamer looking to ditch Windows if we had a legit, supported, processional gaming distro backed by a professional gaming company (Valve).
ForeverHuman1354@reddit
there is nothing special about steam os tho its just an arch linux clone with different skin
nelmaloc@reddit
SteamOS is an immutable distro with A/B updates. It's more than just a skin.
JonBot5000@reddit
Except SteamOS is backed by a trusted billion-dollar gaming software company and Arch is ultimately just another open-source community.
I'm not trying to diminish the amazing work of the open-source community, nor am I saying that we should just trust all corporate initiatives. The point is that more people would be willing to try Linux if they knew the OS was made and supported by the gaming company they've trusted for decades instead of having to decide on and trust one of the many Linux communities they've never heard of.
Excellent-Copy-2688@reddit
windows is backed by a trillion dollar company and is hot garbage
StillNewspaper4799@reddit
Is there any evidence to back up that feeling? Not being confrontational, we all have our opinions. But I'd be interested in seeing any data that might exist.
Plenty of small distros that aren't around today for any number of reasons. Caring about the user experience is great but it's not a guarantee of success or longevity. You seem to be contrasting corporation-backed software as "out of the control of users", which I think is true. But it's also largely true for any given user of linux. Most users don't contribute or have any say over the distro they use, and if they do they're usually only a small part of a large team. Even if "quality" is a metric a distro could change priorities, as a single person you may want something the community decides they don't want.
Don't get me wrong I think software made by people and for people is great. But I'm not sure it has a huge impact on this aspect, especially for smaller distros. Corporate backing can at the very least be a source of trust or belief. SteamOS may not be around forever but I expect it to be around for as long as it benefits Steam. And that's a _relatively_ predictable and knowable quantity.
My guts says you're probably right when it comes to larger and more established distros. If I got in a time machine a travelled 10 years into the future I'd still expect Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu to still be around, and to still be more-or-less what they are today.
But for smaller or more experimental ones I wouldn't see community involvement and control as any kind of guarantee.
JonBot5000@reddit
The only thing I actually disagree with what you said is that I think Win2K is actually peak Windows.
None of that changes the fact that having a SteamOS for general hardware would do a lot to take a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty out of the decision for gamers looking to migrate to Linux today.
Existing-Tough-6517@reddit
I feel like I lose more than a day just reading about different options then at least a day fucking about with it. An hour or two is probably bullshit.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
Nope - it's not. It's true - couple hours, maybe three, tops. Especially if you keep to the same desktop environment then it's beyond dirt easy. Between distros things can be a bit different, but if it's just a desktop computer being set up, that's minimal time. Servers take longer, naturally... depending on complexity... even those don't take all that long if you know what you are doing...
wintersdark@reddit
Yeah this has heavy overtones of "this is what the situation is like for me specifically" and you're either blissfully unaware that you are not The Average User, or your looking to humble-brag/insult people.
Installing a distro on a new computer and getting to a usable state? Sure, quick and easy, even if you're (relatively) inexperienced.
However, research what new distro you should use, and install it onto an existing system? Unless you've set things up rather carefully to support that in your current distro install, AND you have lots of experience doing this, no. It's going to be a big job and one that is fraught with peril for your normal user, with real risk of data loss or breaking needed functionality.
I say this, because your response here is either ignorant and unintentionally harmful, or deliberate assholery. Either way, you're doing real harm, and you're specifically a part of what keeps people away from Linux overall.
Because this is normally a task that people do struggle with - both the choice which can be decidedly non-trivial, and the actual action. They don't need you belittling their efforts at either.
frostysauce@reddit
Ding ding ding ding ding!
wintersdark@reddit
I shouldn't let it bother me, but this is a huge pet peeve of mine. It's why I'm responding to him at all.
"I am the glorious, great Linux admin, lord of all he sees. Those peasants who lack my breadth of knowledge, experience, or simple amazing greatness must struggle and suffer!"
From its earliest days Linux has had a lot of very neckbeardy users with this sort of attitude and it's always been harmful, always pushed users away.
It's great and fun if your OS is your hobby, but it's unrealistic and frankly crazy to expect it to be everyone's hobby. For most people, it's just a layer between the hardware tool they have and the software tool they want to use to actually do what they want or need, and time spent fussing with getting the OS to work properly is time wasted that could have been spent more productively elsewhere.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
Expertise comes with experience, and neither comes quickly or with ease. I feel most hard core GNU/Linux users like to switch things up, and enjoy installing and configuring, at least I do, but I'm a dinosaur and challenges do not daunt me...
wintersdark@reddit
Sure, and that's my point.
Not everyone wants or needs that expertise, and posts like the ones above come across insulting those who do not have it. That hurts Linux as a whole, and it helps exactly nobody.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
There's no shame in being a Windows person. There no shame in using Windows. Windows is just fine, it is something all its own that lots of people love and there's nothing at all wrong with that. It is a choice, and clearly theirs to make. What I do not understand is this, if someone likes how things are done in Windows,and yet grumbles because GNU/Linux does not do things the way that Windows does, then why on God's green earth do they want to use GNU/Linux in the first place? Why don't they lobby for change with Microsoft to change or improve whatever they don't like about Windows?
At first blush, many GNU/Linux distros that aim to lure Windows users away look extremely enticing, but they give a false impression. It's that old adage, beauty is only skin deep - there's a lot of complicated stuff going on under that GNU/Linux eye candy...
wintersdark@reddit
What the hell are you talking about? Who mentioned windows?
Choosing to use Linux does not, in fact, mean choosing to be an asshole.
I'm saying, telling people " is super easy and just takes two hours" when that realistically takes an average user far, far longer - and runs the risk of catastrophic data loss - hurts the community as a whole.
You could say, "for an experienced user who's done this a few times before, and set their system up with it in mind, this task will likely only take two hours." Sure.
But that didn't happen here.
And worse, the actual situation?
There are two groups listening: experienced users who will get the task done in that time, but as experienced users who will, they already know it. Literally everyone reading that who doesn't know how long it will take are people for whom it will take longer, likely much longer, and who have a good probability of breaking things.
So why say it? The only people who don't know are the people it will hurt. It's essentially deliberate disinformation intended to mislead newer users.
What a great thing to do for the community as a whole.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
Who is saying that anyone adopting GNU/Linux is going to be able to immediately do what the rest (of us) can do, and with ease? With experience and time it becomes rather easy to distro hop or lobotomize our machines and install a new point release - and newcomers need to understand that GNU/Linux, for the most part, is dynamic. Things can change, and drastically, for better or worse, such as your distro of choice going south (andmaybe more than one).
You'll need to migrate - and that's just a fact of life for one reason or another with GNU/Linux. If anyone is thinking to install GNU/Linux and migrate to it once and that's the end of that *whew* done forever and always? That's not very likely going to be the case. Why candy coat it? And unless they choose a rolling release (which comes with its own particular hazards) then they will need to start from scratch with each point release. And don't tell me many distros have upgrade paths, we all know that has the potential to be just as fraught with pitfalls as upgrading to a new version of Windows. Maybe even worse under some circumstances. Especially if the user doesn't want to learn anything about GNU/Linux above and beyond comfortable GUI's and uses their machine for just surfing the web and email and watching streaming services.
I am a realist. Good intentions and happy thoughts aren't going to change the GNU/Linux world, no matter how much new adopters might think so. Things have changed because John Q. Public can easily install GNU/Linux and use it for basic tasks without much thought or care. Hooray! To me, that's not being a GNU/Linux user - that's just being a computer user.
I've just watched it go so poorly for GNU/Linux adopters who were coaxed down a yellow brick road by those with good intentions. Typically those who have used GNU/Linux for a year or so and thus consider themselves "experts". "Oh, it's really easy!" - yeah, not... but who knows. I am just a dinosaur with a ton of tragic (and ongoing) stories to tell...
wintersdark@reddit
Because Linux isn't some grand, old dark magic for the nerdiest of nerds anymore. It's as much an OS for the masses as Windows is, and that is inarguably its design intent both overall and for at least a good number of distros.
At this point, you have whole nations migrating to various flavours of penguin for their governmental operating systems, because they've realized that they cannot rely on US technology, that it's a national security risk.
But even from the old days, shitting on people who just want their OS the be a functional tool layer over their computer - it itself just a functional tool... You've always been the problem.
I understand, I do. I'm old, way too grey for what hair I still have, and this has always been a hobby for me, too.
It's not bad to just want your OS to work, be reliable, and get out of your way. Maybe you're really into any number of other things, and want to nerd out about them, not fight with distros. Maybe graphics, coding, writing, accounting, who the fuck knows what.
And this OP's question is very valid. If you just want your computer to work, for your work, that's a real danger.
It's not something that should be expected experience or knowledge. Changing distros is a big ask, a very deep core level action that your average user shouldn't need to do if they don't want to, full stop. But if they do need to, and they don't have that experience, it's probably going to be an all day business, assuming nothing goes wrong.
F3z345W6AY4FGowrGcHt@reddit
Are you suggesting it would be two hours for most people? Or just you?
I think it's a skill that people learn. Like phone reviewers who can switch between phones in a few mins compared to someone who replaces a phone every few years and they have to go back to their old phone every once in a while for a few days.
Same with computers. Switching from one OS you've been using for a while without thinking about keeping it easy to switch, could take a while. But someone who distro hops frequently will naturally keep their system in a state that makes it easy to do so.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
I think hard core GNU/Linux users just have a much better skill set to get things done, figure things out, and much more quickly than Windows users. My experience with Windows users is they want an instant fix, instant gratification, they lack the patience to learn anything new. They want to dive in and be an expert in less than an hour - and that's not happening in anyone's book. That's just my opinion, and experience with them. That's not all Windows users of course... but I'm less than optimistic about the average Windows user trying GNU/Linux and committing to it. Those who are technically inclined have a much better outcome if they are open minded and willing to learn something new, and look at it as a process that takes time... and not approach it like fast food...
Existing-Tough-6517@reddit
If I told you that your distro would discontinued and you had to pick something else in the next 30 days are you telling me you wouldn't spend more than 2 hours reading about different choices and more than 2 hours learning the ins and outs of the new distro? Let's be real.
DuendeInexistente@reddit
Yeah, installing a distro (Or doing a big update on one you haven't used in a few months, that's a thing too) is a day minimum for me. Realistically a day and change of intensive work and a week of fishing small things like settings I don't like and installing software.
Existing-Tough-6517@reddit
I have a habit of setting up things in a very non-reproducible way. my shell config has tons of things it expects to be installed for functions to actually work. I have installed some stuff via flatpaks, some via appimages just dropped in a dir some stuff unzipped to opt some manually compiled and shoved in /usr/local most config is in ~ but a minority is changes to /etc which I must merge manually because you can't expect /etc to remotely the same per distro.
Hell cp is actually a function which wraps a patched version of coreutils cp which has a progress bar built in
None of this is inherently complicated but it means going over notes and manually redoing tons of things. I probably should look into nixos
repparw@reddit
even if you don't look into nixos (you should). This sounds like more of a script with whatever your package manager is than documentation. Just a big
apt install *all the bullshit shell expect*before the line which copies the shell config to destination, another line with flatpak install, etc... It's hell of a lot easier to do when you have your working machine in front of you than when catastrophe hits. go do flatpak list, grab output, etcHell, any ai agent can do that for you right now
repparw@reddit
that's research. If you told me I need to install this other distro right now, yeah, it's an hour or two.
If you tell me I need to install ANY OTHER distro, yeah that's another thing entirely
Existing-Tough-6517@reddit
I feel like a distro depreciation has a productivity cost of a few days at least which is fairly non-trivial whereas frequently one could expect to use the same software/hardware combo for the expected life of the computer which is an average of 6 years.
repparw@reddit
I might be spoiled by daily driving nixos, yeah... but that's pretty much the same "productivity cost" as an ssd dying and having to reinstall your current distro. and I wouldn't worry about that either. Just keep your backups (dotfiles/equivalent in case of distro jumping). I meant an hour or two to get to a working computer. Of course, the rest of customizations depend mostly on how much you documented/thought about it before
ilfaitquandmemebeau@reddit
It’s not only about the risk of being abandoned, but also security. Small distros are maintained by a very small number of random people, maybe even a single person, with little scrutiny. And you fully trust that guy with your data. That he won’t introduce malware. And trust he’s going to fix security issues quickly.
StillNewspaper4799@reddit
I wonder if there's a sweet spot for trust based on numbers in this context?
I feel like I wouldn't trust a single guy very much. But a team of 5? More. A team of 20? Yeah, probably even more.
A team of 300? Probably no more than a team of 20.
a team of 1,000? Probably less, frankly. More scrutiny but less responsibility for each individual. And a team of 20 will likely be more familiar with a wider range of the software, so an individual acting on their own to introduce malware would likely be less likely to succeed in a smaller team.
But maybe I'm just pulling things out of my ass. Well, no, I am pulling things out of my ass. But it's my ass.
Ces3216w@reddit
Exactly, for example, Garuda isn't just Arch with some extra packages, it's a distro that makes people actually like Arch. It is my first distro, and it made me LOVE Linux
hardlying@reddit
not much to get used to, i might change hardware before I need to change distros
hardlying@reddit
Im always going to be able to google how do I do this thing on whatever distro im on, doesnt take more than an hour to figure it out
daemonpenguin@reddit
It feels like you're contradicting yourself.
You're saying many of these child forks could just be a few extra packages, but also saying you don't want to waste time getting used to something if you're going to have to get used to something completely different. So, which is it? Are child distros completely different and take a long time to relearn or are they simply a few different packages?
If child distros are so similar, then you can easily swap to another one or just pull packages from the parent repo, with no change required. But if you're doing a bunch of relearning then the child distro was obviously a big change and clearly not just a few extra packages.
hjake123@reddit
It's not a contradiction, child distros are just that diverse. Some of them are a few tools and an extra repository that can be switched off, some of them replace half your libraries with nom-compatible alternate versions. Whether you can leave (or enter for that matter) a child distro by just reconfiguring your current setup without too much headache varies.
Examples:
EndeavourOS is iirc easy to revert to Arch, which CachyOS is not.
Nobara has a whole FAQ entry about not being able to exchange it to or from Fedora.
Bazzite / Bluefish / SteamOS can obviously not be reverted to their parents (Fedora, Fedora, Arch respectively) since they're immutable
Mint might be able to be reverted to Ubuntu I guess, but it'd need substantial work
...etc.
DuckSword15@reddit
This really just sounds like you lack experience with doing these things. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from taring your home directory to migrate. I almost guarantee people have been doing this longer than you have been alive.
Also one of the selling points about bazzite/bluefin/silverblue is the fact that they run bootc. Any distro running bootc can be in place swapped for another. Nothing prevents you from installing bazzite then rebasing to silverblue. Bootc was specifically designed so you could swap your root out without hassle.
hjake123@reddit
Reinstalling with the same home =/= changing one distro into another using solely the package manager, which is what I interpreted the prior comment to mean
50nathan@reddit
Best case, just dot files
NoResolution6245@reddit
I would genuinely avoid anything downstream from Debian, Fedora, Arch, and Gentoo. Unless I need a very specific distro for one very specific job that won't be changed or updated soon if at all (which is alrady unlikely).
thunderbird32@reddit
Related, I miss #! Linux. Even on an ancient laptop (by the standards of the time, of course) it practically flew.
bnscv@reddit
BunsenLabs and CrunchBang++ seems to be going strong.
sudogaeshi@reddit
There are scripts to basically recreate it from base Debian
ChocolateDonut36@reddit
does the fork use its own repository?
if yes then I'll have to change to something else as soon as I stop getting security updates.
if no, it will totally keep working just fine (until the OG distro/distro-release stops working)
Morphized@reddit
That's why everything niche I do is source-first. So I maintain it, not someone else.
KelGhu@reddit
Meh... You just go back to distro-hopping until you settle. Distros feel different and all, but they are all inherently the same for the most part. And people who are adventurous enough to use obscure distros are distro-hoppers by nature.
MythicHH@reddit
Nah, if anything using a child distro gives me more support incentive.
nmateofr@reddit
Prefer to be on a fork than use systemdown-syndrome
ben2talk@reddit
Why worry?
When I changed from Mint (Cinnamon) to Manjaro (Cinnamon) it was just a minute reinstall, then a ten minute import from my backup followed by installing my pkglist.
Nothing lost, except a day messing around a bit.
Next I went from Cinnamon to a fresh Plasma install, again - copy back configs, and then a while longer to learn the new desktop.
Overall, changing distribution is ambiguous - if you go from Debian to Debian, it's almost nothing.
This comes from experience, and hardware failure - with decent snapshots and backups I don't worry at all.
SilkBC_12345@reddit
I do. That is why I only ever use what I refer to as "source" distros -- the major distros from which the forks/derivatives are made from.
subz_13@reddit
I try to stay close to the source I guess and not go too niche.
MattyGWS@reddit
Yes. This is why I stick to Fedora rather than something like mint. Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian, that’s too many different devs with different philosophies. Same for Zorin and pop.
I did use nobara for a while but the dev started out as one guy and I really didn’t like the idea that he could just vanish.
I am kind of ok using Bazzite though.
oxez@reddit
My home server uses my own distro, so it'll get abandon when I get tired of keeping it up to date. I maintain it was if I had an actual userbase with my own package manager and rebuilds for specific things, even though I'm the only user :)
mortycapp@reddit
I probably have a 10 year long life expectancy, so no, that does not worry me.
lazyboy76@reddit
I didn't expect to see something like this here.
RndPotato@reddit
There comes a time in life when you realize you are closer to the grave than you are to the crib.
acdcfanbill@reddit
I mean, that's just normal 'midlife crisis' stuff, 10 years to go is way over halfway. I'm closing in on mid 40s and I definitely went thru the midlife thing a little bit ago.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
Already there, will likely die with a keyboard in my hands, lol...
aki237@reddit
Morbidly this seems to be the right and a different perspective to what is important.
HANLDC1111@reddit
I hope thinks improve for you
mortycapp@reddit
“Toutes les heures blessent, la dernière tue.” François Villon.
Savven@reddit
Is everything ok?
werygood_cz@reddit
I would assume it's not.
DizzyCardiologist213@reddit
could simply be someone who is 75 years old.
I'm a quarter century shy of that, but there are plenty of very competent IT or former IT/system pros who are 75 or older.
sudogaeshi@reddit
I resemble your username
DizzyCardiologist213@reddit
assigned at random (or algorithm) by reddit, so I don't!
kurowyn@reddit
We penguins gotta stick together. Tell us if something's bothering you.
DizzyCardiologist213@reddit
Advancing age is probably the culprit. It's difficult to avoid.
hallowdmachine@reddit
Speak for yourself. I know I can outrun a calendar. It has no legs.
(Just kidding. I hurt myself getting out of bed this morning.)
Natural_Night9957@reddit
Debian, Fedora, KDE, Gnome, systemd, Wayland, Rust became liabilities. Fringe distros all we have now.
acdcfanbill@reddit
Well, l saw Martin Wimpress is leaving MATE development, which is kinda sad. It seems like development has slowed a bit in the last few years, but with Martin handing over the reigns to others it may speed up again? If not, I'll probably have to see about swapping to a different DE? I'm not too worried about the underlying Ubuntu stuff, but there's still stuff to be done in MATE to get it ready for wayland and if that stalls there could be desktop issues.
OptimalAnywhere6282@reddit
the first distro i used, Huayra, was a fork of Debian. it released Huayra 5 based on Debian 10 when Debian 11 released, Huayra 6 based on Debian 11 when Debian 12 released, and Huayra 6.5 based on Debian 12 right before Debian 13 released. they never released Huayra 7.
OptimalAnywhere6282@reddit
i forgot to mention, this distro was backed by the local government.
it is so abandoned that the forums are full of spam and gambling ads, on a government website...
fnoyanisi@reddit
Unless the gnu/linux distro has a killet feature you need - no, it’s not worth it.
InternetExplorer9999@reddit
I'm using a Fedora Atomic fork (secureblue), so in the hypothetical case where it became abandonware I would just rebase my install with rpm-ostree. Thanks to being atomic, it's so easy to do.
jeffrey_f@reddit
Ubuntu is a fork of Debian. You can, by changing your sources, make debian into ubuntu and visa versa. It isn't straight forward, so don't try it. Best option if that ever happens is to backup your data and drop a different distro and restore your data.
As an example, I reinstalled Debian and Ubuntu many times (differing reasons) and just restore my data and I am back up in no more than an hour......just a little longer for my data to copy back.
AntagonistOne@reddit
I still use Unity on Ubuntu and while it isn’t completely abandonware, it is “fewer and fewer people give a fuck if their shit looks nice on it” ware. I wish it were still supported and the default for Ubuntu, but a lot of it is just getting buggy or doesn’t work right with apps. Considering a switch to KDE
kingo409@reddit
I don't save too much on any installation, not even bookmarks. About all that I have is a custom .rc file that I keep in the root of my home directory, & that is universal.
djfdhigkgfIaruflg@reddit
Like if any installation would last me that long 🤣
Alpine Linux FTW anyways
rfc2100@reddit
It's already happened to me with Maui Linux, so I stick to mainline distros now.
I've also had bad experiences with Kinoite and went back to Fedora, and with Endeavor and would go to Arch next time.
Roguepapaya427@reddit
Hey. What was the issue with kinoite? Just curious...
GreeleyRiardon@reddit
Nope, don’t use em. OpenSUSE isn’t going anywhere.
AtomicTaco13@reddit
That was the OP's point - it's one of the "prime" distros
GreeleyRiardon@reddit
I’m aware. Which is why I said I don’t use the lesser known distros. And then stated I use OpenSUSE
Ok-Winner-6589@reddit
It deppends?
What do you consider as lessee known? Is CachyOS lesser known? Because it's way more little than Arch.
Forks are easy to maintain and most are just the standars distro with some packages preinstalled. You can migrate them to the base distros by deleting the specific packages.
The best example is EndeavourOS (despite is well known) it's just Arch. After installing It everything is exactly the same, same repos, same software, just with a GUI installer. Independent distros are something different but when someone develops a distro from Scratch they usually keep maintaining it
DimensionFrequent29@reddit
Crunchbang was the distro I had settled on as my favorite, used it for years and then it died. I was homeless for awhile. Bunsenlabs created a similar distro eventually which is where I'm staying for the foreseeable future
CaptainObvious110@reddit
Ah I remember the days of #!. I was. using wifi and it was really really slow, took me forever to get the distro downloaded and installed as I didn't have the Internet at home.
In a matter of days, the creator of the distro decided to stop the project.
DHOC_TAZH@reddit
Not worried. I am on q4os right as I type this. Not as well known as Ubuntu, Mint etc but it's been around since late 2014. It's one of a handful of distros that uses the Trinity DE, forked from KDE 3. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, takes me back to when I used Debian in the early 2000's. I also like that q4os OOTB links to the Debian Stable repos in addtion to their own repos. The distro also has a KDE Plasma based install, and uses an installer that makes it easy to add other DE's. But for me, sticking with Trinity for q4os.
I also run pure Debian on another, older laptop from 2012. That has the LXDE DE. :)
bornxlo@reddit
Not worried. I have a workflow with cloud sync of files and like to keep repositories from the parent distro. I think I could manage to migrate by replacing components, but also it's not that hard to install a fresh system.
ChainsawJaguar@reddit
I always stick to a major distro for my daily driver (work computer). I do set up a bunch of VMs with different niche distros just to play with them, though. It's fun.
TheGingerDog@reddit
I've been using siduction for the last couple of years on my desktop and laptop. It is basically debian/unstable with a few custom packages thrown in (e.g. kernel)
I don't follow it's community at all. If it went away, I'd just move to just debian/unstable, so I'm not worried.
sudogaeshi@reddit
lol, it's been around a long time. It started as apto-sid I think? Then there was a toxic community war and siduction was born. Haven't used it since forever. Good to see it's still kicking.
SaberBlaze@reddit
Talk about a blast from the past. It technically started with kanotix, which started as a distro to have an installable knoppix. Then the main developer announced the switch of the distro base to debian stable, which led to other developers forking it to create sidux. Sidux then changed its name to aptosid. As you stated due to some disagreements siduction was forked from aptosid and afaik aptosid was eventually discontinued. I remember staying on sidux but didn't stick around for the aptosid change. I was also using h2's dist upgrade script which her recommended to me back in the kanotix days. The script later later morphed into smxi. He's the developer of the handy inxi program. I'm not sure he's still maintaining smxi but here's the page for. it with some history: https://smxi.org/site/smxi-story.htm
sudogaeshi@reddit
yes, I forgot about the name Sidux, that's when I started using it! And H2's scripts!
Maybe I should go back to it from the hipster Cachy!
SaberBlaze@reddit
lol yea, definitely a trip down memory lane. h2's scripts were the bomb.
zabolekar@reddit
Don't worry too much in advance and just use whatever you like. You don't know the future. Maybe the well-known distro will abandon your particular use case and the obscure distro won't. A few years ago, I took possesion of an ancient chonky IBM Thinkpad and installed Debian on it. Then the next Debian release dropped support for 32-bit x86 CPUs. Some people report they were able to upgrade to trixie while keeping bookworm kernels, but whoever does that are on their own, it's not official Debian anymore. I guess I'll have to install something else. This wouldn't have happened if I had chosen Void, or Gentoo, or a fork like Devuan. Still, I like Debian and see no reason not to use it on supported hardware.
Anantha_datta@reddit
yeah that’s a valid concern tbh. smaller distros can disappear or slow down, especially if they rely on a tiny maintainer base for me it comes down to how close they stay to upstream. if it’s basically a thin layer on top of debian/arch, less risky because you can fall back or migrate easier. the more custom stuff they add, the more you’re locked in i’ve tried a few niche ones but always keep a path back to something mainstream just in case stability >>> novelty for daily drivers imo
whattteva@reddit
My worry isn't if it becomes abandoned. It's more because my distro (FunOS) is a rare breed. The combination of Ubuntu LTS and JWM is apparently something akin of a Dodo Bird.
sapphicu@reddit
It really depends on the software for me. If it’s something that does something that I need that’s super niche/can’t be done through user customization on a main branch I probably will use it, even if it becomes abandonware (unless security risks come up)
For distros, to my knowledge, niche releases/forks of forks tend to do things that are possible to do through customization one of the major distros, but they just do it automatically to save the user time.
I’ve always stuck to a major distro and just customized it the way that I like.
Sbatushe@reddit
it may happen, yes. but it's not a big problem, you could backup data to another disk, install another distro and restore
StrictFinance2177@reddit
If something is isolated, not accessible outside of the user, I don't care so much if the project hasn't been updated. Some programmers put their blood sweat and tears building perfect applications. What they built 20-30+ years ago often runs flawlessly today. I wish some of them just released their abandoned projects under the GPL, some do(or other copy left licenses).
So as far as using obscure forks, then you just need to be mindful, replace what is necessary to get wherever you need to be. Its not a big deal unless you choose to use the most decrepit project.
Arrin_Snyders@reddit
I make mu choices on a pretty similar logic, but don't stop at just the risk of a project being abandoned. I prefer the major distros (and DEs for that matter) that also have some significantly sized organization behind them that can help fund development of features and work on bug fixes with some amount of speed and regularity. Even a project as popular as Mint seems to be struggling to keep up, especially with something as big as full Wayland implementation in the works, and I suspect the less well known ones struggle even more.
Dragenby@reddit
Better a public abandonware than a private abandonware. At least they can always be put back to life!
cyrixlord@reddit
abandonware. and especially with. net I worry about using a library or package that's open source, but then becomes payware once you are hooked
Hartvigson@reddit
I just want something that works and as long as it works I will stay with it. I prefer larger distributions that are well established.
hictio@reddit
I do, that is why I use Debian.
And Debian Stable specifically.
Xatraxalian@reddit
Yes. That is why I refuse to use anything that isn't an origin distro: Debian, Suse, or Fedora. (Between Suse and Fedora the choice would be the one with the best package tracker, but I haven't found anything better than Debian yet. I doubt there is.)
RomanOnARiver@reddit
A lot of people (I am not one of those) just do everything "in the cloud" - so Linux is Linux regardless. At least a lot (not all) Steam games will sync your saves.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
I never worry about any distro becoming abandonware - there are tons of others to choose from, an opportunity to learn something different or interesting... when I get bored I'll check out different distros, just spin up a vm and play...
lKrauzer@reddit
Yes, this is why I use the mainline ones such as Ubuntu and Fedora.
Rainy_J@reddit
Fedora is upstream but Ubuntu is downstream of Debian
Tireseas@reddit
Generally if I'm running a child distro rather than the mothership it's because it makes my life easier. See Bazzite vs Fedora Silverblue or CachyOS vs Arch. Worst case if the fork sops being maintained I can just replicate the setup on the parent distro.
Sinaaaa@reddit
Security would be my main concern, becoming abandonware is not a real problem with a fork, like most forks can very easily be rebased to their source distro to begin with & as long as you keep/back up your home folder hopping is not that big of a deal.
bigntallmike@reddit
This is literally why I use Fedora. Ymmv.
LoserOtakuNerd@reddit
This is also a huge reason of why I went with Fedora + Plasma instead of anything else. It’s just a downstream package of components with lots of weight behind them.
bigntallmike@reddit
I like knowing that there's enough resources to spend on fixing bugs quickly
nicman24@reddit
the only reason i am using cachy is because i switch back (and had previously)
TheGamerX20@reddit
I mean, if I am on CachyOS, and it dies, wouldn't I just be able to switch to Arch's repos and be okay? But I guess that is not a lesser known distro, lol.
I'd just switch to Arch if that happens though.
elatllat@reddit
Mandrava, and CentOS abandoned me. Ubuntu disappointed me. Now I use Alma, Debian, Fedora, and EndeavourOS(Arch) with an eye on Alpine.
that_one_wierd_guy@reddit
nah, most forks don't deviate very far, and remain upstream dependent, so even if they become abandoned the most you'll lose is branding and configuration updates
Existing-Tough-6517@reddit
I'm still running "project trident" a port of a freebsd based distro to void based. Fortunately after removing their now defunct repos its basically just refind -> zfsbootmenu -> void on zfs root
LectricTravelerYT@reddit
Cachy outside, how bout dat?
DerekB52@reddit
I distrohop every 3-6 months on everything but my main workstation, so im not really concerned.
scythe-3@reddit
Same here, upstream is best stream. Debian/Arch for personal machines and RHEL/Fedora for work machines. Started on Linux with this mentality, learned how to configure the minimal installs, and never felt the need to distro-hop.
sudogaeshi@reddit
I think there's a difference between offshoots like Cachy, Mint, Garuda, Siduction etc and things like Solus or, well, I can't think of any others that are really independent but also haven't been around for a long time. I mean PCLinuxOS is a bit niche but has been going over 20 years. Even Solus survived Ikey abruptly leaving.
The offshoots are easy enough to just go on the main parent distro. For instance Crunchbang which was Debian based has two new ones that are similar, and an install script to make a stock Debian install much like Crunchbang was.
RetroGrid_io@reddit
Really, it depends on what your goals are.
Are you "just playing" to explore and try things? Are you practicing and/or building infrastructure for employment? Be honest with yourself about what you expect to see in 5, 10, 20 years.
I assume that what I'm doing today will last the rest of my life, and even if done for personal reasons, is fair game for future work-related activity.
As an example, I wrote a simple host oversight tool to coordinate updates and backups on and off-site before yum even existed, and I still use it because it's rock solid and "just works", even if it's completely hackish and based on sloppy code originally written in PHP 3.x.
I made a "big bet" in 1998 or so to go all in on Red Hat. I loved Linux, but for me it was less about hobby/tinkering and more about "getting it done". Really, I'm all in on KISS and try to devise the simplest possible thing I can design to get it done reliably and correctly. I'm very conservative about implementing anything new until the admin overhead to ensuring I have a clear update path to keep things secure, and "plan B" (rollback, alternative plan) in place when it doesn't work out, because it happens, has happened, and always will at some point.
For me, I'm about as stodgy as it gets. I am hesitant to install anything that won't get updated by
dnf update. Containers and VMs are cool but carry significant administrative overhead that must be taken into consideration in order to develop responsibly. A server install is a decad-or-so plan in practice.I shudder when I see virtualization technology used to enable ancient software to continue being used as a security risk. I prefer last year's hardware because drivers tend to be more stable, and "works slowly/reliably" is drastically better than "lightning fast but unreliable/fails".
For me, it's been Red Hat universe almost exclusively. My mobile workstation is Fedora because it lets me experiment on technologies that will be on my server(s) in a few years.
The only areas I'd consider this as a bit high friction is:
ZFS not built in or natively supported. This is a pain point. I just don't trust BTRFS because it has logical holes that cannot be fixed without some re-architecting and nobody is doing the hard work to bring it up to parity. Worse, it's right in the area I most care about - handling failure situations in RAID 5/6 type usage - exactly where I lean on ZFS the hardest.
Red Hat virtualization is just... awkward compared to ProxMox. Simply moving a VM at all between disparate hosts (different CPU arch, different OS version, etc) is a PAIN ITA.
Why does RH make it so hard to support serial installs? Yes, there's kickstart, and it's possible to make it work (I do) but it's a real, needless chore that only starts to make economic sense at rather large scales.
Infinity-of-Thoughts@reddit
I'm much more worried about the US/Russia/China sneaking something into a package that isn't spotted before it hits the repositories of a distro.
There are a lot of projects out there that really don't have many eyes on them, and the XZ backdoor is also an example of people even playing "the long game".
Minute_Department_92@reddit
Changing distros is so painless that i don't really care. If it has a considerable good community with at least a few active maintainers/contributors I'm okay with it, if they stop working on it it takes like a couple of hours to do a full switch.
I'd be much more worried about using tempered/hacked/backdoored software than actually being left in the dark.
OrangeKitty21@reddit (OP)
Yeah that makes sense; especially if /home is separate. I agree though that software hacks might be a bigger concern. But for someone like me who doesn’t have a lot of free time I feel like taking hours to find (and switch) to a new distro would be inconvenient
Minute_Department_92@reddit
Even then distros don't become abandonware everyday anyway. Even I was very busy in my life i still had 2 hours every other month to spend doing it if was necessary and it isn't like after it stop getting updated it becomes unusable or unsafe instantly.
acemccrank@reddit
I had that happen with DreamLinux.
Material_Mousse7017@reddit
As long Zorin os is still based on the great Ubuntu LTS, i have no worries.
juipeltje@reddit
I think "worry" is the wrong word, but it does cross my mind sometimes. I'm not that dependent on a particular distro though, aside from just preferring it. I've used Void in the past and still have it installed on my server, and i recently moved to guix on my desktop/laptop. Since i do feel like i prefer declaritive distros atp, if something were to happen to guix i'd probably just go back to nixos. I still have a backup of my old nixos config so aside from having to update a few things here and there it shouldn't be much of a problem.
luxa_creative@reddit
I've thought of that, but it doesnt make much sense. In reality, a distro is just a lot of packages (and some special configurations). So you could always change your repository to the MAIN distro ones. - artix user
GigaHelio@reddit
Yeah, same with Desktop Environments. I was excited about Ubuntu Unity a few years ago, but then I learned the lead dev, while incredibly talented was a kid. I wasn't confident that he would keep the project going.
Lo and behold, Ubuntu Unity appears to be dying out after he went to college.
ezoe@reddit
What was the problem? Ubuntu Unity was mostly GNOME clone on top of Compiz. I really don't picky on Desktop Environments.
robprobasco@reddit
Well, /home is mounted to a separate partition. I can swap distros in like an hour.
doc_willis@reddit
I have changed distribution in the past, and can change again in the future.
The more I learn about using containers and distrobox, the less the specific host distribution matters to me.
So, no, not worried.
Warm-Refrigerator552@reddit
Very true
KudzuPlant@reddit
If Trisquel goes belly up, I'd just move to base Debian again and reconfigure it back to basically being Trisquel without the Ubuntu dependency
HecticJuggler@reddit
I’m a developer, 20years on Kubuntu. My code stays on GitHub, my documents on Google drive. Distros don’t keep my files in proprietary files that aren’t usable on a different distro or OS.
Besides, a distro being abandoned is not an overnight event. It’s going to be year or so before the software I use can no longer support my OS. That will give me all the time in the world to migrate.
Separate-Sky-1451@reddit
I don't really think about it.
Hindigo@reddit
This is a valid concern in a number of situations, despite the dismissive tone of most replies. For instance, when choosing/installing a distro for a non Linux-savvy user who would have trouble installing another distro themselves later on. Of course, inexperienced users are less prone to choose such distros, but the concern remains valid.
smilaise@reddit
they can pry Hannah Montana Linux from my cold dead hands
daemonpenguin@reddit
If a child distro I use gets abandoned it would literally take me about ten minutes to install a replacement and configure it since my home directory is on its own partition. So no, not worried at all.
no_life_linux@reddit
that's one of the reason I am sticking with standard arch setup I do see some cool forks but hesitate to try because they are lesser known so I am not confident about security and updates I want to try but they are kind of try and uninstall distros.
crypticcamelion@reddit
I'm usually staying on one of the bigger ones for all the support and stability that brings, but why would it be a problem if "your" fork runs into a dead end? You can just shift either to the parent of another fork. Even with the big ones I have still shifted around over the years. As an example, I was happy with ubuntu and gnome 2, but not so keen on gnome 3 so the shift to Mint was natural and without any problems, later I had a really old laptop and the solution was a distro with xfce and now I'm on toxido os not because I own one of their laptops, but simply because I want a debian based kde distro. Non of the changes has brought any problems and neither has the deturs to Suse and Fedora been, Its all Linux after all.
eric_glb@reddit
Keep your /home on a dedicated partition (and backup it, of course): the switch to another distribution will be easier, if ever needed.
Kanvolu@reddit
If it loses support I can just migrate to a new distro, no biggie
80kman@reddit
So what? I will probably move to the main distro.
The reason to use these forks/lesser known distros as they are build upon the main distros and offer some features which will take some extra time and effort to achieve on the main distro. I have used Spiral Linux in past because it offered btrfs snapshots out of the box on Debian, and recently moved to PikaOS because it offers the same with Linux kernel 7.0 as well as gaming optimizations.
veltas1349@reddit
Not really. First of all, I keep backups and documentation, and multiple machines run different OS. If I ever need to wipe everything out on one of my machines and start over, it's pretty easy for me to do so.
For my primary gaming & writing PC, I use Garuda which is an Arch distribution that's been around for 6 years. If Garuda suddenly stops working I'd just use Arch. It's the same thing, Garuda just included gamer stuff pre-installed.
Murb0rk-8098@reddit
I backup my important data. I can switch in an hour or 2 and lose nothing but a little time