(Also extends to people who refuse to use Linux too!)
Every unique Linux Desktop setup tells a story, about the user’s journey and their trials. I feel like every decision, ranging from theming to functional choices, is a direct reflection of who we are on the inside.
An open-ended question for the Linux users here: Why do you use what you do? What are the choices you’ve had to make when planning it out?
I’ll go first: I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with the Niri Scrolling Compositor(Rofi, Alacritty and Waybar), recently switched from CosmicDE
I run this setup because I keep coming back to use shiny new-ish software on a daily basis.
I prefer this over arch(which I used for 2 years in the covid arc), because it’s quite a bit more stable despite being a rolling release distro.
I chose niri because I miss having a dual monitor on the go, and tiling windows isn’t good enough for me. Scrolling feels smooth, fancy and just right. The overview menu is very addicting, and I may not be able to go back to Windows after this!
This was my first standalone WM/Compositor setup, so there were many little pains, but no regrets.
Would love to hear more thoughts, perspectives and experiences!
Debian with xfce. Because I’m old. I don’t want to change, damnit!
i’m not that old but i gotta recognize a solid no-bullshit choice when i see it.
i started with slackware ~2003 and moved to gentoo in 2005. it was very transparent to me as a newbie. use flags and compilation from source were way simpler to me than mysterious precompiled binaries. also ndiswrapper worked with my wireless chipset on gentoo. that helped
I have nightmares of ndiswrapper and Broadcom chipsets. Struggled for ages to try and make that work when I was running Suse Linux. :shudder:
I use Fedora because I barely have to do any customization to get it how I like. An almost vanilla version of Gnome? Check. Flatpak? Check. Nothing to uninstall (I’m looking at you, snapd)? Check. Steam with just a few clicks? Check.
It’s almost perfect, and making it perfect is trivial. That used to be what I said about Ubuntu.
I haven’t used Windows much since Windows Vista, so I don’t really have any way to compare with Win10/Win11.
this is what i say about ubuntu. it has gnome with a nice dock built in, indicators, desktop icons. all it really needs atm is scrapping snapd and the snap store in favor of gnome software with flatpak.
fedora has more attention to detail put into it though, its very much better overall if you install a couple of extensions. feels faster too, dunno if that’s just me.
Alpine Linux + LabWC – as I update my hardware, I seem to end up paring down my software – the more powerful the computer is, the less use I make of its capabilities 🤷 – I’ve worked with Macs and Windows, and settled on Linux more for its simplicity than anything – I don’t have any problem with MacOS or Windows themselves so much as the companies behind them
Alpine is a nice, clean, lightweight distro that works surprisingly well on a desktop despite the whingers complaining it’s for containers only … Pop!_OS ⇒ Debian Stable ⇒ Alpine (with Gentoo back in the dawn of history)
LabWC is the spiritual successor to Openbox, a nice simple stacking window manager that I’ve added a handful of tiling keybinds – I’ve added utility programs as I’ve wanted them rather than going for the cohesiveness of a proper desktop environment … Gnome ⇒ Xfce ⇒ LabWC (and with Openbox way back when)
My current main machine uses Fedora KDE because at the time I built the machine and installed the OS, Mint Cinnamon did not have particularly good Wayland support, and I needed Wayland to access certain features of my GPU and monitor combo.
I used Mint Cinnamon for ten solid years on my older machines, Cinnamon is still my favorite distro, I tried a couple early on, Cinnamon just felt like home and I stayed there for a decade. But it was kind of jank on my new machine so I went with KDE.
i decided to install linux mint over windows one weekend and here i am. plus i got sick of microsoft and their continuing quest to be terrible.
I use secureblue, because it offers the (AFAIK unique) intersection between:
- a security-first[1] approach while being fit for general computing
- a first-class citizen of the
‘immutable’reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm - a well-maintained project with many active contributors that exhibit a proactive stance when it comes to implementing (security) improvements
To be precise, it’s actually Linux-first and security-second. For an actual security-first approach, consider taking a look at Sculpt OS employed with the seL4 kernel run on ARM or 64-bit RISC-V. ↩︎
You’re being very melodramatic about the whole thing…
It’s a computer. We want to use it under our terms. End of story.
Wheres the melodrama in this post ? I’m detecting enthusiasm maybe, but not melodrama. They’re looking for peoples thoughts and experience, i.e what your own terms are for making these choices. Seems reasonable. Sharing that is optional of course and I also choose not to, end of story.
I would agree with this. I don’t see it as melodramatic.
Enthusiastic, yeah. And nothing wrong with someone interested in tech to also take the more poetic route of expression.
Many of the tech enthusiast types are more akin to mindless 1s and 0s. And not everyone is.
So like you did, rather lack thereof, the response of your own story is optional. I chose to share, because it’s fun to discuss. This isn’t a changelog, or patch notes. This is part or being human and sharing something other than binary data.
That’s what I thought. OP made it poetic. I just want to use my PC without distractions and being watched all the time, that’s all.
I agree! Tbf that’s why we’re all here in the first place
I got tired of windows feeling like my only option. I knew there were alternatives out there so I went searching.
Mint and Kubuntu are both super easy to install and use and I’m glad to help my friends with installing a new OS whenever they ask.
Astrology, but penguin themed.
You are such a Debian.
Arch and Gentoos never got along.
If you are a Nix do not install KDE on the first monday of the month, it’s bad luck.
I had configured a windows/linux mint dual boot a few years ago because I thought it would be a cool and fun thing to do. Flash forward to now, and I’m using the mint OS 99% of the time.
I use just Fedora with GNOME I ditched windows because of its bad interface and UX, first I tried linux mint, liked it but I wanted more, so I installed Nobara with KDE (but quickly begun rising hyprland), my rice was almost done, than I updated my system and its all broke, after that I decided that I just want a stable DE and went to Fedora KDE spin, overtime I noticed more and more bugs and Windows style interface bothered me more and more, so I decided to stop my unreasonable hate on GNOME and try it, and I quickly loved it. Now my plans is maybe install Fedora Silverblue (or GNOME OS once it will have stable release) and run it forever
EDIT: a little bit more about my setup. I use mostly flatpaks bacuse of sandboxing, 5 little extensions that don’t change intended GNOME workflow and glfw + sdl compiled to have no window decorations (because they useless in games imo) (they not installed in system)
For my gaming rig I use Mint Cinnamon with the Xanmod kernel and kisak-mesa PPA for bleeding edge performance but otherwise a very low-maintenance, convenient system.
For my personal laptop (ThinkPad T480s) I use Arch with KDE. For my various mini PCs used as servers, I use primarily Debian derivatives, except for my Mac Mini which runs Asahi Arch so I could optimize the use of its 8G of RAM.
how does the xanmod kernel and kisak ppa stack up? whats the performance gain?
Xanmod has a bunch of little tweaks, mostly I’d say it helps with frame pacing more than anything else. It’s only maybe 1-2fps difference most of the time, but it’s very close to the upstream mainline kernel in terms of release timing, whereas Mint keeps to LTS kernels.
Likewise, the kisak-mesa PPA just keeps you more up to date with the upstream package version.
IMO the biggest differences are responsiveness, frame pacing, and getting to have access to the latest fixes/features ASAP while still getting to use the very stable package versions for the rest of the system.
will def try this out. pacing is one of the frontiers of linux gaming right now.
Me with every new Linux installation:
My network looks like George Foreman’s kids names.
Anyway I use Ubuntu to make other Linux users mad. Stay mad, nerds.
Actually, Ubuntu is pretty good if not for the snap issue
I would unironically use it on a system that can run it fine without the loss in performance being noticeable
Honestly, I haven messed with any of this. I just installed Mint, made sure everything works and haven’t messed with it since. It’s a tool and nothing more. It is also the reason why I left Windows. They were trying to force too many features and ads on something that I didn’t want to be more than an operating system
The main customization has been that i added app snap store for the software that I couldn’t find in the default software store
Same. It’s an OS not a lifestyle choice. Good OS though - two years now I think, and not complaints.
