tldr:
What reliable, up-to-date, linux distro would you recommend a gaming softwareengineer and privacy enthusiast?
Full text:
Hey all,
I know this is the age old question, but I would like to ask it anyway.
I am currently switching from windows to linux on my main pc and am on the hunt for a fitting distro. I am a software developer and used to working with wsl, debian servers, etc. I selfhost a bunch of things and know my way around the linux commandline and would call me privacy enthusiast that uses a lot of FLOSS software. I also do occasional gaming but I guess that should work on any distro with enough work.
My thought regarding a few distros:
- I like to live on the edge of time and therefore have the feeling that debian based distros (although being very stable) are too “old” for my liking.
- Ubuntu - Canonical is out for me.
- I also looked at fedora, and liked it, but after reading more and knowing it is backed by IBM and that is US based I am not too sure anymore. I ideally would want to have something independent. Although being backed by a company promises continuous work in the future (with the risk of becoming bad).
- OpenSUSE tumbleweed seems promising (german origin!) but also quite intimidating as it is apparently mostly targeted towards power users and I am not sure if it fits an all purpose desktop pc.
- Arch based distros seem great as it contains all the newest packages and is infinitifly customizable. But the KISS nature of arch and the (as far as I understood) high effort to get everything running is a bit intimidating when switching from windows. But I also do like the fact that it ships with only the bare minimum and not anything bloated.
Further more I somehow think that using a base distro (in comparison to a fork of a fork…) is more ideal as they receive updates, etc faster. But that is just a feeling and I couldn’t argue more precisely about it.
Regarding a DE I am definitely going KDE.
I would be very happy for some tips, opinions or pointers in the right direction to continue and finally get rid of windows… Well at least mostly. I guess i will keep it in dual boot as I do play a few games that unfortunately won’t run on linux.
Thanks in advance already!
Figure out what qualities you want in an OS, pick out a few distros that have those qualities, and make usb sticks that you can live boot. Use each one as though it was your actual system for a few days and get a feel for it. Then install the one that you like best, or go back to the drawing board. But pick one that suits you, not one that meets someone else’s needs.
Based on your write-up, one of the Arch based distros is likely your best bet. My strong recommendation would be EndeavourOS. It is awesome.
If you use EOS, install both the current stable kernel and the LTS one. Use current day-to-day. In the very rare instance that you have a kernel or driver issue, boot into LTS.
Fedora is a great distro. As a non-American, I would say that you do not need to be so focussed on either IBM or the “American” control over Fedora.
1 - Fedora has a great community and a strong commitment to Free Software. Independence from Red Hat’s commercial agenda is the very reason it exists.
2 - Even in a worst case scenario, you are not locked into Fedora and switching is low risk and easy. There is little downside to enjoying Fedora now even if something was to happen later (however unlikely).
3 - modern Linux distros are almost all built from the exact same base elements. Fedora is really no more exposed than anything else.
4 - Red Hat is a driving force behind half the technology at the heart of whatever distro you will end up on including SystemD, Wayland, Pipewire, Glibc, GCC, and the Linux Kernel itself. To repeat point number 3, you are no less exposed to the influence of IBM/Red Hat on Ubuntu or even Arch.
I mean, you could use something like Chimera Linux that avoids SystemD, GCC, and Glibc. But you would still be using Wayland, Pipewire, and of course the kernel. And Chimera does not sound what you are looking for.
I would recommend EOS but I would not avoid Fedora for the reasons you cite.
Good job eliminating Ubuntu.
I Second EndeavourOS as a gaming distro, I’ve installed it on my girlfriends laptop (Amd Lenovo IdeaPad) an It’s been running without issues since 2020, She mainly uses it to do video/image editing and gaming on steam. And you an keep it up to date from system dialogs menu without much hassle. I’ve been a long time arch user. Mostly using it to play online and programming. Recommend Amd video cards if you are able to choose.
I’d just go Tumbleweed
Gentoo is also a good candidate. The drawback is that being source based, updates can take more than on binary distribution, but its wiki is very well written with a lot of use cases.
I would recommend Trisquel. It’s 100% free, recommended by FSF, based on Ubuntu, MATE environment, but there is also a KDE version, everything works okay.
This mentality that “Corporate backed stuff is bad” should be thrown out of the window. Alot of evil corporations have contributed to make Linux better for everyone.
Regardless, have you tried Debian Stable with Backports?
Have you looked at Linux Mint or other Ubuntu derivatives that have programs compatible with Ubuntu without all the scuff Ubuntu is known to do bad
Again, are you sure affiliations with IBM and Redhat makes Fedora worse? Can you justify this statement?
An even better question might be, what is present in Fedora that is not also found in Debian?
Is it RPM? Because RPM was Free Software and GPL licensed for over a decade already when the Arch Linux project was started. And of course, RPM is used in many other distros including the apparently totally European driven and unfettered SUSE distro.
Doesn’t seem like anyone mentioned it yet, so I’m gonna chime in: Bluefin-DX by Universalblue might be worth a look.
It’s a special developer version of their already interesting and rock solid atomic distro, meaning it’s not rly meant that you do much with the OS part of the filesystem (I’d recommend you read up on it, since I can’t explain it that well) It has VSCode preinstalled (you can replace it with VSCodium tho with a simple command IIRC) and allows you to spin up virtually endless Linux environments where you install your additional programmes that aren’t available as a Flatpak (you can still use them in the CLI, DW)
I’m on bazzite which I believe is like a sibling or derivative of bluefin. All based on atomic fedora. Atomic means the base system is immutable, which should help with stability. As mentioned elsewhere, for bleeding edge you use flatpak or distrobox. Its been a pleasure to use, I’m very happy.
Well from what you’re saying I’d go for something like EndeavourOS.
Based on arch, usable out of the box but without much preinstalled so that you can do your own mix. Manjaro is a bit similar but with more preinstalled (and maybe more bugs from what I read).
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It offers a good installer, a decent out of the box setup, useful helper scripts, and a helpful community. That’s a lot more than Arch!
Seems like you answered your own question. If a gaming software engineering privacy enthusiast isn’t a power user, I don’t know what is.
Also, Tumblweed really isn’t intimidating. Give it a try.
Ubuntu/Canonical gets flak for telemetry & Snap packages, despite PrivacyTools.io recommending it. Criticism stems from perceived compromises on privacy & a “walled garden” feel, despite being a better option than Windows/macOS. It’s just a clash between open-source ideals & pragmatic realities.
Off-topic, but AFAIK the team responsible for PrivacyTools.io’s content has moved to PrivacyGuides.org.
PrivacyTools is now (mostly) solely run by its original owner and its content has ceased to be reliable ever since the likes of NordVPN and Surfshark have appeared at the top of their VPN recommendations.
While I wouldn’t argue that PrivacyGuides is perfect, it’s undoubtedly better than the alternative. And thus unsurprisingly the actual (spiritual) successor of (what used to be) PrivacyTools.
FWIW, PrivacyGuides doesn’t recommend Ubuntu.
P.S. while it doesn’t tackle as many topics as PrivacyGuides does, privsec.dev offers comprehensive guides on the topics it does. FWIW, they also used to be in the PrivacyGuides team (and perhaps even in PrivacyTools).
Interesting point. It’s surprising how much nuance there is in the world of Linux. PrivacyGuides and Privsec rightly highlight some legitimate concerns regarding Debian’s approach. The expectation that package maintainers should backport security patches rather than simply updating to the latest upstream version is a rather peculiar quirk.
The expectation that package maintainers should backport security patches rather than simply updating to the latest upstream version is a rather peculiar quirk.
Can’t agree more.
I’ve been recommending Fedora.
