Hey everyone! I'm finally fed up with Win11 and the bullshit that comes with it for the PC it's on.
It's being used as a Jellyfin+arr stack, qbit, Immich, and gaming PC for the living room.
I'm currently in the process of backing up all my important info and am doing research on which distro to use.
I don't mind tinkering, but for this PC, stability is key. I don't want to have to go in and update it every week... I want this one to work with minimal maintenance on my part.
I'd likely update it a few times a year, knowing me.
A few hardware specs:
MSI mobo (I've learned that UEFI can be a pain), 10600k, 2070 gpu, and will have a pool of 3x8tb drives that I would like to have in raid5 (or something similar) for storage (movies, TV shows, and Immich libraries), the OS will have its own drive, and I have a separate SSD that I have been using to store programs, games, yml's for docker, and other such things that get accessed more frequently, but aren't crucial if lost.
I've kinda narrowed it down to either Bazzite or CachyOS.
I've heard that Bazzite can be a little more locked down, which I'm not a fan of, but CachyOS has features I will likely never touch (schedulers, kernels, etc...).
I don't want an upkeep heavy OS. I'm moving away from windows for that reason. Win11 has been a nightmare for me with constant reboots and things not loading up until after I log in. Not to mention driver conflicts and all the other BS that's come with it.
So... What say the hive mind? Is Bazzite going to be too tinker-proof, or is CachyOS just way too much work? Or do I have it all wrong with my perception of both?
Thanks!
Ps: this will be my first full commit to Linux. I've dabbled in the past and am no stranger to CLI... So this will likely be a stepping stone into getting my primary PC onto Linux. Go easy on me lol
Why would anyone stick to one distro? Just jump in figure it out yourself. I had no help and I managed. Find a beater and beat it. I started on mint... now I run 4 distros. JUST DO IT! People will cringe but I like pop OS amoung many other. I just recently installed https://www.coreboot.org/ and linux on a old acer chrome desktop. The documentation was sparse and incomplete but by the grace of dog I got it working. It was a pain in the arse but pretty neato after I was done. I have it on a roling cart to test and set up routers or do things with networks when I need to connect externally to test stuff out. The struggle and the uncertainy is the point.... from there it will snowball into you wanting to install linux on every thing. But whats up with this BSD thingie... like I said crack some eggs!!! The feds can crack anything but the point of it all is to take control! Have you tried a bootable USB or virtual machine? I find all distros relativly stable clearly, windows or mac OSX have never met my standards anyways. Always back up your files. Thats my inflated 2 cents. Get some... get off the pot before you forget how to walk!!! Everyones got opinions like they got arse holes. PS. if it is a tower just add more bootable drives. Who cares if it fails cause you got it backed up! When things break it is a oppertunity to learn and cry.
@andybytes @ridethisbike Have to say I really disagree with this. Life is too short. Pick one and stick with it, it will serve you well for many years to come.
And for trying lots of distros and with a suitably sized USB stick, Ventoy will be useful. Great for storing a load of distros on a stick for live boots and testing versions.
However, there’s a caveat that not all distros support being booted by ventoy. IIRC Bazzite is one such distro and mentioned here a lot.