I’m kinda familiar with that rabbit hole :P . Though, I didn’t quite consider your 3rd and 4th methods. So kudos to you for that!
While writing up a draft, I actually stumbled upon an (unfinished) article that goes over this subject in way more depth than I could.
Though, the author doesn’t mention NovaCustom that intends to combine Boot Guard, Heads and QubesOS certification on their devices.
Obligatory watch for those interested in buying a new laptop. TL;DW: the latest generation of CPUs is such an improvement over the last one, that it feels like you’re seriously missing out if you don’t buy one of 'm.
Assuming that Arm-powered Linux devices aren’t ‘ready’ for your workloads, we’re left with the latest by AMD and Intel.
However, it’s noteworthy to mention that these aren’t provided by traditionally Linux-first vendors like NovaCustom, System76, Star Labs or TUXEDO computers yet.
Heck, these are currently only found on laptops by ASUS, HP, Lenovo and MSI. And from within their offerings, none are sold with Linux OOTB yet. This isn’t important for easy install (as I’ve yet to find one bundled with EndeavourOS anyways), but it is for proper Linux support so early into its lifecycle.
So, quite frankly, I’d suggest you to abstain from buying a device right now as it might lead to buyer’s remorse. Instead, consider buying one at next year’s Black Friday.
However, if you truly need one device right now, then I’d stick to one sold with an AMD Zen 4 processor. Furthermore, either ensure that the device is sold with Linux OOTB, or check out its ArchWiki entry to see how well-documented it is and buy accordingly.
For specific device recommendations, you seem to be particularly interested in making use of Black Friday deals, and thus I’d assume that price is an important factor. Unfortunately, most Linux-first vendors aren’t particularly known for offering great buck for your money. This does make it easier to choose, though.
Taking all of the above into consideration, we actually arrive -perhaps unsurprisingly- at Lenovo’s Thinkpad line of devices with AMD’s Zen 4 processors.
Or ‘do worse than’.
I think I like this one as well. Basically, as you’ll see later on, the expression is (probably) best translated as ‘to be inferior’. Combined with the negation that’s brought with “don’t”, we could rephrase the sentence as ‘Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) aren’t inferior to Windows.’.
‘steamos doesnt under-do windows in terms of gaming’
Another one that I like 😜. But, the double ‘do’ is indeed a bit awkward.
Mind if i ask what language the expression ‘do under’ is from?
Sure! It’s an expression found in Dutch. Heck, to be more precise, it’s a verb that can be split: ‘onderdoen’, but also ‘doen onder’. The literal translation would be, as you’d expect ‘underdo’ or ‘do under’. Here’s the (English) wiktionary entry.
Also agree with everything you said about OSes. I had tried linux in the past but mostly stuck to windows for gaming, then i got a steam deck and ill never install windows ever again.
Valve has truly outdone itself. While I only started using Linux after Proton’s release, the horror stories from the pre-Proton era still send shivers down my spine.
It doesn’t get much better than Digital Foundry’s coverage on the matter.
Performance is about similar. So no significant performance issues.
We were able to, up until Riot chose to mess it up for everyone (including us).
however, for them to be “main”, they should have “derivatives”,
Got you. Aight. I suppose that does disqualify NixOS. Though, to be fair, Guix System is heavily inspired from NixOS.
I also tried Nix OS, the use of 1 config file is refreshing, however that ease comes at the cost of some flexibility, installing Steam there is too complicated for me
Hehe 😜. Yeah, the paradigm shift associated with NixOS isn’t one that’s overcome in one sitting. But it’s cool to hear that you’ve tested it for yourself.
Anyhow, this was a cool interaction. Thank you for offering your insights! Wish you, my akhi in (at least) humanity, a lovely day!
Apologies. Allow me to clarify.
I meant that it’s not harder than Windows, when it comes to playing games. And I even made that claim stronger by proclaiming that it’s probably even easier.
Edit: SteamOS is the operating system found on the Steam Deck. It’s basically Arch Linux (btw), but with Valve’s (very) special sauce. It’s what you’d expect from your average game console; which is a good thing*.
Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) don’t do under fall short of Windows. Heck, I’d argue they might even be easier.
The real issue is anti-cheat. But that’s just the next hurdle we’ll have to overcome.
Edit: TIL that the expression “to do under” has no place in English.
I suppose that’s a fair assessment. Thanks for the clarification!
However, I do give precedence over their current situations.
Regarding NixOS, it and other independent distros are absent in the link you provided. NixOS is literally its own thing and also old; older than Ubuntu and Android for example. So, if anything, it did deserve a mention. Though, I suppose the maker of that website didn’t think it was relevant enough to be included over three years ago. NixOS’ popularity has thankfully exploded in the mean time, though.
I’ll keep it brief. But it comes down to the fact that, out of the more popular distros, it’s only officially supported on Ubuntu.
I suppose we differ in our definitions. Which is absolutely fine, to be honest*.
For completeness’ sake, IMO it’s basically the intersection of Major Distributions and Independent Distributions. Which happens to consist of Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE and Slackware.
Out of these, Arch and Gentoo don’t have defaults, but their documentation uses ext4 most frequently for examples. For the remaining four, Fedora and openSUSE default to Btrfs. While Debian and Slackware default to ext4.
In all fairness, one might argue that Distrowatch’s list of major distros is arbitrary. Therefore, we could refine what’s found above by including actually data. For this, I’ll use Boiling Steam’s usage chart based on ProtonDB’s data. This ain’t perfect either, but it’s the best I can do. Here, we notice how both Gentoo and Slackware are not represented. Furthermore, NixOS poses as a candidate instead. For which, we find that (if anything) ext4 is the default. Regardless, it doesn’t actually impact the earlier outcome:
Anyhow, what are the main distros according to you? Please offer an exhaustive list, please. Thanks in advance!
none of the “main” distros default to BTRFS, just “derivatives” default to BTRFS
So you don’t regard Fedora (or openSUSE) as “main” distro?
I wanted to stick to (what I’d refer to as) OG distros; so independent distros that have kept their relevance over a long period of time.
But you’re correct, Garuda Linux and others default to Btrfs as well. At this point, I’d argue it’s the most sensible option if snapshot functionality is desired from Snapper/Timeshift.
You didn’t get my point. Btrfs is one OG distro removed from being THE standard. It’s doing a lot better than you’re making it out to be.
It’s not like Btrfs is dunking on all other file systems and Debian is being unreasonable by defaulting to ext4. Instead, Btrfs wins some of its battles and loses others. It’s pretty competent overall, but ext4 (and other competing file systems) have their respective merits.
Thankfully, we got competing standards that are well-tested. We should celebrate this diversity instead of advocating for monocultures.
Both Fedora and openSUSE default to Btrfs. That’s all the praise it needs really.
With Bcachefs still being relatively immature and the situation surrounding (Open)ZFS unchanged, Btrfs is the only CoW-viable option we got. So people will definitely find it, if they need it. Which is where the actual issue is; why would someone for which ext4 has worked splendidly so far, even consider switching? It’s the age-old discussion in which peeps simply like to stick to what already works.
Tbh, if only Debian would default to Btrfs, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Thank you for the reply! And apologies for the late response*.
First of all, I owe you another apology for the deleted comment; I was still in the process of cooking and accidentally sent the undercooked message.
They will get a little more respect from me when they stop trying to target programmers and gamers. Because of course everyone uses Steam and VScode.
As per its README (I’m paraphrasing):
Bazzite started as a project to resolve some of the issues that plague SteamOS:
Like, SteamOS is a pretty cool operating system that allows both Linux enthusiasts and Linux newbs to enjoy playing (most of) their favorite games on Linux. But the former may find it too restrictive, while the latter may want to import that experience over to other devices. Bazzite aims to be that solution. Were it not for the success of the Steam Deck (and by extension SteamOS), such pressing need wouldn’t even have arisen. So Bazzite isn’t trying to target gamers as “an easy way to attract users” (or whatever the insinuation may be); its raison d’être is to address SteamOS’ limitations.
Regarding the targeting of programmers, you could be right on that. But I suppose it’s fine as VS Code’s inclusion (and other goodies) is only confined to the respective -dx images. I regard Bluefin (and Aurora; its KDE Plasma spin-off) as the opinionated distro its maintainers like to use for themselves (i.e. programmers). I’d argue this actually makes it suitable for most people. But your average Linux user is a lot more sensitive towards ‘bloat’. So it’s definitely not for everyone.
It just feels very much like it is being run by young edgy programmers.
I guess my reply would be that I simply don’t feel that way. And factually, it’s being worked on by people that work (or have worked) at places like Canonical, Red Hat and (even) Microsoft. So, while that doesn’t necessarily dismiss them as being “young edgy”, it does make it easy to trust and be confident in their proficiency and competence. I wonder what other distros are maintained by such a star ensemble.
It is the same group that is trying to force crappy “dark mode” everywhere.
This is probably some meme or meta joke/reference I didn’t get. Please feel free to enlighten me.
What’s the bigger program is the lack of internet knowledge about how to fix problems. With Ubuntu and Debian there are tons of stack overflow pages on all of the various issues. Sure things have changed over time but it still the most documented distro. I can look up “how do I fix X Linux Mint” and I will get an answer. With the Bazzite immutable base almost all of the help online will be useless.
I admitted to as such in my first comment. But, what if, instead of looking up questions in your favorite search engine, you visit their support channels and get the exact answer within a couple of moments? This last bit has been based on my own experience*.
Immutable Linux requires that you understand Linux under the hood.
Instinctively, I just absolutely have to disagree on this. The most clear-cut counterexample would be how NixOS -the granddaddy of immutable atomic distros if you will- doesn’t adhere to many Linux conventions (including FHS). Therefore, “understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood” might have even been detrimental and wasteful for the many things you’d have to unlearn.
Beyond the overlap in Linux 101 that most distros adhere to and/or the basics everyone should know about their operating system, could you please demonstrate how “understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood” becomes necessary with atomic distributions?
deleted by creator
Don’t go straight to immutable Linux.
My first foray into Linux was through what you’d refer to as immutable Linux; shortly after the release of Fedora Kinoite. I’m literally the embodiment of the antithesis to your statement.
It is very new
This is factually true. So I can’t simply deny that. But being more precise is helpful:
and I don’t like the focus.
Could you be more elaborate 😜?
I wonder how long it will take before it will drop off the top 10.