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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Should I give Arch a shot? (aussie.zone)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I've been using Linux as my main OS for a couple of years now, first on a slightly older Dell Inspiron 15. Last year I upgraded to an Inspiron 15 7510 with i7-11800H and RTX3050. Since purchasing this laptop I've used Manjaro, Debian 11, Pop OS, Void Linux, Fedora Silverblue (37 & 38) and now Debian 12. I need to reinstall soon since I've stuffed up my NVIDIA drivers trying to install CUDA and didn't realise that they changed the default swap size to 1GB.

I use this laptop for everything - development in C/C++, dart/flutter, nodejs and sometimes PHP. I occasionally play games on it through Proton and sometimes need to re-encode videos using Handbrake. I need some amount of reliability since I also use this for University.

I've previously been against trying Arch due to instability issues such as the recent GRUB thing. But I have been reading about BTRFS and snapshots which make me think I can have an up to date system and reliability (by rebooting into a snapshot). What's everyone's perspective on this, is there anything major I should keep an eye on?

Should also note I use GNOME, vscode, Firefox and will need MATLAB to be installed, if there is anything to do with those that is problematic on Arch?

Edit: I went with Arch thanks everyone for the advice

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[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks everyone for your advice, I decided to install Arch, I've got it all set up with BTRFS and snapper with automatic snapshots through snap-pac.

The only problems in the install were that the default BTRFS subvolume layout given by archinstall gives an @.snapshots subvolume. If you want to use snapper with the root subvolume you need to unmount and remove this subvolume so that snapper can create a new one.

The other problem was that once the proprietary NVIDIA driver is installed gdm will force X11 still on Hybrid graphics laptops. Just had to symlink the gdm config to null which is mentioned in the wiki for drivers older than 470 on single GPU set-ups. Sorry don't have the links on me.

Otherwise all set up now, we'll see how this goes