Hej lemmings! (Hoping this is relevant enough for the selfhosted commjnity)
Quick question for you all: do you stick with the same distro across your PC, laptop, and server, or do you pick different ones based on the device and what you’re doing?
For me, I’ve been mixing and matching depending on the use case, but I’m starting to think it’d be nice to just have one distro (or at least one family like Fedora or Debian) running everywhere. That way I wouldn’t get confused about default settings or constantly have to look up flags for different package managers.
Right now my setup is:
- Gaming rig: CachyOS
- Laptop: AuroraOS
- NAS: Unraid
- Various project servers: DietPi, Debian, Alpine etc…
I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases, but I’m a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it’d take to migrate everything over.
Am I the only one who feels like having “one distro to rule them all” would be nice? How do you guys handle your setups? All ears! 😊
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I’ve thought about it, but I like having Bazzite for my gaming PC and Debian for my laptop, so I’ll probably keep using multiple distros. For me it’s:
- Gaming PC: Bazzite (it’s plugged into my TV, like a console, and goes straight to Steam’s big picture mode)
- Laptop: Debian with KDE Plasma
- Home Server: Debian (a little single board computer, no desktop environment)
Work notebook runs Linux Mint
My private desktop PC runs Cachy OS with Wayland/KDE but Wayland crashes all the time, so my private notebook bot Cachy OS with Gnome. Love it. Now I need to reinstall my desktop to also install Gnome. Dont want the hazzle to install it Next to wayland
Basically, I do. Kubuntu everywhere. Only exception are the servers that run a UI less version of Ubuntu.
I normally install Linux based upon what I am doing. Gaming wise is usually popos. (I have eyed up CachyOS). I use Endeavor for a lot of old mac stuff. etc.
My laptop was, as of a couple of minutes ago, running Windows 11 (for AutoCAD before anyone says anything), but I just installed Fedora again so I’m free!
My server is running RHEL, which I don’t have an excuse for — I thought it’d be fun, but I’m going to switch over to Proxmox (hopefully) later this year.
So as it stands, currently, kinda.
I was HEAVILY into the apple ecosystem, so I have a lot of macs. I have a macbook, running MacOS, and i have a desktop computer that i was using for my server, but instead bought a ras pi, and now use my desktop AS a desktop (partly because i want to dump apple because of all the bootlicking that Tim Apple is doing towards drumpf), which runs linux mint. My ras pi runs ubuntu server. Aside from that, that’s the extent of my home computing. I have an iphone too. But my mac mini goes unused now, and thinking of selling it, but not sure. /rambling
I usually stick with ubuntu/debian based distros, because it was the first distro system i used when i first used linux. so I stick with what i know. Though I did support a RH server once when i worked in IT.
Debian home server, macOS desktop, newer laptops run Arch and Fedora, and the two old MacBooks both run Mint DE. Oh, and OpenWrt on the router.
For me, I am running EndeavourOS on my laptop (for its rolling release updates and its customisability) and Debian on my homeserver (for its stability). I have also set up a secondary laptop with Linux Mint that is now being used by somebody else for its ease of use :)
Debian always. Stablility is good, good is stability. But i am open to trying fedora in the near future
yes, it’s Arch all the way for me. it’s flexible in the way that I can configure it for any system I need, and I usually know what I want from it.
my installations on my desktop and laptop look fairly similar, but my server and test computers can look different depending on the hardware specifications they have.
plus, with BTRFS snapshots, if anything breaks I can simply roll back to a previous version of the system.
Arch everywhere. LTS kernel on servers and zen kernel on desktop and laptop. I love the idea of nixos but in practice it felt like more work than it was worth (to me).
I originally did Debian on servers but after using arch for long enough and never having stability problems, it was easier to move to the same distro.
Debian on my servers. No drama, it just works.
Fedora on my laptop and desktop. Still solid, but quicker updates.
NixOS home server, gaming PC will soon move to Bazzite from Windows 10 (whenever I’m done working on my home server). I’m trying Bazzite for that machine because I use it more like a game console hooked up to the TV and don’t need the same level of tweaking and customization.
Bazzite GNOME on my “it needs to work daily no matter what” school/work/light gaming laptop, ~250ish flatpak apps (mostly very awesome tiny GTK4-based tools)
Devuan on my desktop PC, Trinity Desktop Environment, almost entirely apt apps, I do heavy multimedia work and gaming on it, I squeeze as much speed as I can
Debian on my Linux phone (FuriLabs FLX1s running FuriOS, a fork of Droidian, which is a fork of Mobian, which is a fork of Debian), Phosh UI, almost entirely ~140ish flatpaks
I try to keep my operating systems and software as controlled and predictable as possible, but I approach that differently depending on the usecase. Yes, I’ve tried NixOS, fell in love with it, and quickly realized it’s overengineered and makes my head hurt. I also used CachyOS with TDE on my desktop for a while, was really speedy but TDE packaging for Arch really sucks compared to their Debian packaging
Nope. Raspbian, Arch, Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE (sorta samesies, I guess), Manjaro…I think that’s it.
