I have tried Linux as a DD on and off for years but about a year ago I decided to commit to it no matter the cost. First with Mint, then Ubuntu and a few others sprinkled in briefly. Both are "mainstream" "beginner friendly" distros, right? I don't want anything too advanced, right?
Well, ubuntu recently updated and it broke my second monitor (Ubuntu detected it but the monitor had "no signal"). After trying to fix it for a week, I decided to wipe it and reinstall. No luck. I tried a few other distros that had the same issue and I started to wonder if it was a hardware issue but I tried a Windows PC and the monitor worked no problem.
Finally, just to see what would happen I tried a distro very very different than what I'm used to: Fedora (Kinoite). And not only did everything "just work" flawlessly, but it's so much faster and more polished than I ever knew Linux to be!
Credit where it's due, a lot of the polish is due to KDE plasma. I'd never strayed from Gnome because I'm not an expert and people recommend GNOME to Linux newbies because it's "simple" and "customizable" but WOW is KDE SO MUCH SIMPLER AND STILL CUSTOMIZEABLE. Gnome is only "simple" in that it doesn't allow you to do much via the GUI. With Fedora Kinode I think I needed to use the terminal maybe once during setup? With other distros I was constantly needed to use the terminal (yes its helped me learn Linux but that curve is STEEP).
The atomic updates are fantastic too. I have not crashed once in the two weeks of setup whereas before I would have a crash maybe 1-2 times per week.
I am FULLY prepared for the responses demanding to know what I did to make it crash and telling me how I was using it wrong blah blah blah but let me tell you, if you are experienced with Windows but want to learn Linux and getting frustrated by all the "beginner" distros that get recommended, do yourself a favor and try Fedora Kinoite!
edit: i am DYING at the number of "you're using it wrong" comments here. never change people.
Thank you for reading through that info dump and thank you for your reply!
Interesting. So, you never heard of Fedora CoreOS, Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite, uBlue, Aurora, Bazzite and Bluefin?
Thank you for clearing that up!
Finally 😜.
Thank you for your answer! First of all, regardless of which distro you would have chosen, I would have respected your answer. Though, depending on your answer, I could have definitely judged you for it 😂. Thankfully, however, you've shown to have great taste; openSUSE Tumbleweed is indeed a formidable distro. Unfortunately, I'd argue it's (somehow) underrated and underappreciated; which is really a pity for how excellent of a distro it is. I hope it will garner a bigger audience, because it simply deserves better. Regardless, openSUSE Tumbleweed is definitely a top contender for best traditional distro IMO and I might have been daily driving it were it not for 'immutable' distros.
Secondly, while I agree with you generally, I can't deny that the total package deal specifically is what makes openSUSE Tumbleweed special. So, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Rolling release distros aren't that rare by themselves. And, as even Arch is an independent distro with a rolling release cycle, it becomes very hard to regard this selling point as unique.
zypper's args/syntax don't seem very different fromdnfandaptin terms of saneness. But, if this is a selling point for you, what preventsdnf(which is found on Fedora) from being a selling point for you?Fedora also ships Btrfs by default, though TIL that Btrfs was first adopted by openSUSE. But, once again, this begs the question why this isn't a selling point (according to you) when it's found on Fedora?
Snapper also seems to be properly integrated on the derivatives of other distros; e.g. Garuda, Siduction and SpiralLinux to name a couple. So, again, this selling point doesn't seem unique.
Excellent. This is openSUSE Tumbleweed's USP (if it's combined with the fact that it's a well-funded independent distro, great security standards et cetera et cetera). And if this is precisely what you seek from your distro, then openSUSE Tumbleweed is what you rightfully should stick to.
Fair. I'm not necessarily opposed to it.
Interesting. Like, in which cases would you recommend something else for example?
Silverblue yes, rest no.
I have no clue how that is done on those distros, never tried any of those. I just know that it is even "hard" to replicate the configuration of snapper on a system like Void Linux. But that might also stem from my lack of knowledge. At least the guides I found didn't provide the same result.
I am glad you also think highly of Tumbelweed, but I think it has the disadvantage of not having such an amazing documentation as other distros. If you stumble upon something and are looking for a fix online, you won't find as much resources for it as there are for debian based distros for example.
All in all, I have to thank you for this amazing exchange. I think this is one of the most friendly and informative exchanges I had on lemmy so far. :)
Thank you, once again, for the reply!
Yeah lol 😅. It's definitely a blessing when it's setup by default. For example, while Fedora Atomic does come with a built-in rollback mechanism through
rpm-ostree, Fedora does actually not. Hence, Fedora users are often interested to set it up themselves. And then, they find this gargantuan guide 😂.To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if openSUSE Tumbleweed's implementation is simply better. At least, it would make sense if that were the case. So, I will give you that 😉.
Fair. Fedora's documentation isn't that great either 😅. Though, in that regard, I'd argue only Arch and Gentoo have excellent documentation. Granted, I suppose that's a prerequisite if the distro claims to be unopinionated; which both of them do while Fedora and openSUSE don't.
I agree. But, for Debian (and Ubuntu), I feel their documentation isn't necessarily better. Instead, their user base is simply more substantial. Hence, there's a pretty good chance that someone has experienced the same issues before you did. And thus, it's easier to find resources on the internet to help with troubleshooting.
I feel the same. Thank you! And I would also like to thank you for being patient with me 😅. I have got the tendency to write very long answers and not everyone appreciates those 😅. I even noticed how you weren't particularly appreciative in this interaction. So, to be honest, I was very happy when you messaged me back earlier today. I really appreciate you for that!
Thank you for being you! I am really grateful for these wholesome and sweet compliments!
Sometimes, I question if it's worth pursuing these conversations. But, thankfully, exchanges like these make it worthwhile. My fate in humanity has just been rekindled. From the bottom of my heart, thank you 😊!