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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

I would say fedora silverblue. Have been using it for a while. All updates, app and os, are distributed via app center so reasonably foolproof.

And a benefit is that it has podman out of the box so you can run docker images without fiddling with the terminal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

I put Fedora on a laptop as a whim almost 2 years ago.

My main computers are arch, but. I had an iso handy and hadn't used anything from based in years.

I am surprised at how quickly it gets updates. Gimp was at 3 before arch stable.

Anyways, I just keep updating the laptop and it just keeps working. I have yet to actually do anything for maintenance on it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

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

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

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

NIXOS, set and forget. It will not change unless you ask it to. Occasionally things might get renamed, but they set up warnings and don’t deprecate old naming for a long time

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

NIXOS has been really great so far for me. very stable and mostly easy to figure out. my only problem has been getting SSBM netplay working.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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

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

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Pls format your posts it's so much easier to read

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

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

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

[–] Lem453 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I didnt even remember which os I had until I read this and remembered it was aurora

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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

10/10 would recommend for anyone.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I've been wanting to try out NixOS for this very reason lately (although I don't break my system often). If everything works for me there, I'll switch to it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I've thought about nix, but it looks like it has a somewhat steep learning curve, and I honestly don't even have the time for that :/

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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

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

if you're okay with gnome, try it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

My favorite distros are Gentoo and Debian.

I can say with confidence that Linux Mint is what you're looking for.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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

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

good luck on your journey!

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[–] troyunrau 5 points 4 days ago (4 children)

OpenSuse Leap or even Tumbleweed. After getting the media codecs up and running, and remembering to set you firewall zone to "home", you're pretty golden.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

You could try CachyOS, arch based and you can run it with KDE. I use Pop!OS and have been super happy with it

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