*or distribution
Having been a (GNU-)Linux user since 2006 (desktop only), I have done what many Linux users have also done: hop around from one thing to another.
That all stopped a few years ago when I decided that I would just stick with Debian. I was happy and comfortable. It worked. I used Stable, Testing, Unstable… no issues.
That is until about 4 months ago I was cleaning and found an older laptop and decided to try something different on it: Alpine Linux.
I even wrote about it on my blog. It was such a nice installation and process that I decided to put it on my main personal laptop.
Since April I have been using Alpine and I must say I am pleased. Differences from one Linux to the next aren’t much to write about. With Alpine however, I finally experienced another part of Linux that I hadn’t had the opportunity to enjoy: the community.
Package requesting? Easy. Asking for help? No shame. Patience and help provided? Excellent.
None of those comments are to disparage other OS communities. It is simply that I had only ever used popular distros (Debian- and Arch-based) so I never needed to ask for help. Either way, I am still using Alpine.
So, just to repeat the titular question: what have you tried out this year? What are your impressions?
I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t consider different Linux distros to be different OSes. I was expecting to read people trying out Haiku, ReactOS, Solaris, any of the *BSDs, or something I’ve never heard of.
If you want something obscure barely anyone heard about try eComStation. Unfortunately you’ll have to pirate it, but its really easy to find.
If you’re not the pirating type, you can buy a license for ArcaOS to get something still supported.
It’s a bit pricey though.
That’s a good find. I’d never heard of it. I always thought OS/2 was pretty great, although I only got to mess around with it a few decades again. Looking up eComStation led me to ArcaOS, which seems like a more updated eComStation. OS/2, Amiga, BeOS and NeXT should have been more popular.
You are not the only one. Haiku is getting close to daily driver capability.
You cannot practically use it on real hardware yet but one to watch is SaerenityOS.
It is unfinished enough to be a pipe dream but RavynOS is cool.
I am not sure there is anything outside the POSIX space that is really usable as a desktop on current hardware.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because i really like that its rolling release, new software and stable. Im using it as a main distro now. It has everything i need.
OpenSUSE is one of the distros that I have never tried. If Alpine ever fails me, I think I’ll give it a try.
I’m usually an Arch person (btw) but I’ve been playing around with NixOS in a VM and I’m tempted to try daily driving it…
I was tempted to give NixOS a try as well. It seems to be highly recommended on the fediverse.
Well, I’ll put it this way:
I’ve been away from Linux for a few years (several reasons), but this year I heard of NixOS and decided to give it a try, and I had a blast playing around with it. With how easy* and quick to configure it is, and how stable it also is, it encouraged to tinker with it more than I ever have with Linux, and I never had any really frustrating issues like I had with some other distros that I barely tinkered with.
At the very least, I think you should play around with it for a while just to see if it’s something you like.
*PS: For anyone who does not have experience with Linux, NixOS is probably not a good first distro. I meant easy more so for people already familiar with Linux.
I’ve been daily driving it on my personal projects computer. The biggest issue for me is the promise of the project shell stops just before the application config files, meaning that you still have a shared environment for projects using the same software.
The idea for me was to have all my projects create their development environment and associated tools so that moving to a different instance was easy. Unfortunately VSCode doesn’t install extensions in the project nor does it understand which to enable/disable based on inputs.
I finally got fed up with Windows 11 when an update broke itself during an update. Apparently it was a pretty widespread issue. Defender got disabled because the update renamed several files.
I moved to PopOS and have been happy ever since. I couldn’t believe that almost everything on my Lenovo Flex 5 just worked, including the touchscreen, pen, and 360 degree hinge. The only thing that doesn’t work is the finger print sensor apparently due to lack of available drivers.
I really like how modern PopOS feels.
opensuse kalpa - the KDE version of its immutable desktop. Pretty neat combination of rolling core and applications separated out primarily into flatpak and other containers.
