(Also extends to people who refuse to use Linux too!)
Every unique Linux Desktop setup tells a story, about the user’s journey and their trials. I feel like every decision, ranging from theming to functional choices, is a direct reflection of who we are on the inside.
An open-ended question for the Linux users here: Why do you use what you do? What are the choices you’ve had to make when planning it out?
I’ll go first: I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with the Niri Scrolling Compositor(Rofi, Alacritty and Waybar), recently switched from CosmicDE
I run this setup because I keep coming back to use shiny new-ish software on a daily basis.
I prefer this over arch(which I used for 2 years in the covid arc), because it’s quite a bit more stable despite being a rolling release distro.
I chose niri because I miss having a dual monitor on the go, and tiling windows isn’t good enough for me. Scrolling feels smooth, fancy and just right. The overview menu is very addicting, and I may not be able to go back to Windows after this!
This was my first standalone WM/Compositor setup, so there were many little pains, but no regrets.
Would love to hear more thoughts, perspectives and experiences!
You’re being very melodramatic about the whole thing…
It’s a computer. We want to use it under our terms. End of story.
Astrology, but penguin themed.
You are such a Debian.
Arch and Gentoos never got along.
If you are a Nix do not install KDE on the first monday of the month, it’s bad luck.
I use secureblue, because it offers the (AFAIK unique) intersection between:
- a security-first[1] approach while being fit for general computing
- a first-class citizen of the
‘immutable’reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm - a well-maintained project with many active contributors that exhibit a proactive stance when it comes to implementing (security) improvements
To be precise, it’s actually Linux-first and security-second. For an actual security-first approach, consider taking a look at Sculpt OS employed with the seL4 kernel run on ARM or 64-bit RISC-V. ↩︎
Used it at work and wanted to learn on my own. Then installed Ubuntu as a noob, and was like “why tf is everyone still using Windows?”
I use Fedora with Plasma.
I hate customizing ui elements, so I wanted something that used plasma and looked good with tweaking things.
I don’t want to deal with Snap, so my choices were a bit limited, but I’ve used Fedora in the past and liked it. I still do.
I did try arch with plasma and couldn’t get hardware video decoding to work in the browser, so I switched to Fedora. I was pleasantly surprised that Fedora had so much more configured for my laptop out of the box.
For my gaming rig I use Mint Cinnamon with the Xanmod kernel and kisak-mesa PPA for bleeding edge performance but otherwise a very low-maintenance, convenient system.
For my personal laptop (ThinkPad T480s) I use Arch with KDE. For my various mini PCs used as servers, I use primarily Debian derivatives, except for my Mac Mini which runs Asahi Arch so I could optimize the use of its 8G of RAM.
how does the xanmod kernel and kisak ppa stack up? whats the performance gain?
I use Devuan and TDE because the setup is so incredible boring and dusty that i do not have to get acquainted with anything new (SystemD, Wayland… whatever hipster WM is currently cool) and keep working with the tools i like.
Trinity is fucking cool, I thought about running it alongside Plasma but I think it would fuck up my setup.
Actually, it goes to a lot of trouble not to step on the toes of later versions of KDE, and there are people who have them both installed side-by-each without major problems.
Debian with xfce. Because I’m old. I don’t want to change, damnit!
i’m not that old but i gotta recognize a solid choice when i see it.
