this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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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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I do scientific computing and I've used Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Arch, and NixOS for work.
Any and all of these can do what you need. Hell, you could probably throw your whole development environment into a docker container and use it anywhere. Pick one and go with it.
That said, here are my preferences:
Right now, I really like NixOS and Nix for development environments, but it's a lot to learn, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you were really excited to try it.
Before NixOS, I used Arch on my laptop, and it was soooo nice to be able to build my own desktop environment just the way I wanted it from the ground up, which is possible on any distribution, but the Arch documentation makes this much more approachable. If you are happy with KDE Plasma or Gnome, and you're using well-supported hardware, then I wouldn't say Arch is really worth the time (unless you're excited to play with it).
Fedora and Nobara (a Fedora-based distribution with a lot of gaming-focused presets) have been a breath of fresh air coming off the heels of painstakingly setting up Arch and then NixOS. Fedora is pretty nice out of the box and Nobara has been the best experience of going from zero to gaming even when compared to Windows.
Debian (especially Debian 12) has been fantastic for servers and for machines that don't need to use the newest hardware. It's still my go-to for lots of things.
Ubuntu is fine, but Canonical, the company that makes it, has made some unfortunate choices lately, and with Debian 12 being as good as it is, I don't think I'll ever have a reason to go back.
Side note: One thing to look out for in the near future is System76's COSMIC desktop environment, which seems to be doing a lot of things right. There is already active development to get it working on NixOS, and I'm sure it will be available on Pop!OS from the start. I would also bet that it would be ready to go on Arch not long after. It will likely eventually be easy to install on all distributions, but if you want to try that out as soon as it's ready, one of those three would be a good option.
That's awesome! I hadn't heard about COSMIC DE.
Well put. The one thing I would add is using the Nix package manager on a distro other than NixOS! I'm daily driving Fedora 39 + Nix (home-manager) with zero problems. My pick would either be Fedora or Debian.
Tons of good documentation either way. Flatpak the packages you, no kidding, need to be easy / consistent to debug. Non-root podman for containers. Nix for more up to date packages than are available in the native repos (especially useful with Debian) + the other benefits like nix-shell.