from Sunny@slrpnk.net to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 09 Mar 08:07
https://slrpnk.net/post/35084396
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! 😊
threaded - newest
The machines I use regularly are all some form of ArchLinux (currently mostly CachyOS). Machines I use rarely I stick to LTS distros with few updates. Machines I don’t maintain myself I try to stick to immutable distros that just update themselves every once in a while (less chance of breakage).
Servers are all Debian. Family member’s laptops are all Debian. I used Debian on my laptops for 20 years, but when Steam Deck switched to Arch, I switched my laptop to Arch to force me to learn it. I have a file with notes of differences between Debian and Arch. Next time I buy a new laptop, I will probably go back to Debian.
Same but a ubuntu-derivative instead of Arch.
I don’t want to think about my server, but I do sometimes want the latest and greatest app on my laptop.
Servers are debian, desktop debian. Why swap when you found the best already? 😁
I guess technically steam deck is not on debian, but I didn’t choose it so it doesn’t really count.
I would use Debian for servers, except that the version of Podman (at least on Debian 12) was old enough that it couldn’t do quadlets. So I went with Fedora.
Yes. Everything is NixOS. Because it’s perfect for everything.
And it’s very handy for this, I have the same config for all my devices (desktop, laptop and server). Enabling and disabling different modules depending on the host it’s deployed to.
Yep, exactly.
To be fair, if you use Debian, Arch, Fedora,… long enough, you also know how to tweak your machine for every purpose. In Nix, it’s just somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you have to know how to tweak your system to achieve… anything, and then it’s the same tweaking mechanics for every other purpose as well.
Same here, except the steam deck.
My Steam Deck also runs NixOS.
Because this way I can much more comfortably configure it, plus everything game related I automated through nix for my Desktop (e.g. mod installs, reShade config,…) immediately and without any extra steps also applies to the Steam Deck.
github.com/Jovian-Experiments/Jovian-NixOS
What is the learning/on-boarding curve for this?
I ask because my home folder has a giant just file I use to script everything. I feel like I’m 80% there to just migrating.
It’s a very steep curve to start, with some additional minor steep parts along the way, but it’s not a long curve. Once you got the core concepts and the basic language constructs, you’ve learned most of what you’ll ever need.
Two nice resources: search.nixos.org is super handy, and you can search GitHub with language:nix and a search term to get tons of examples from other people.
Oh, and nix and just is actually a pretty common combo!
Nice, I’ll have to remember that GitHub trick. The main thing I’ve found lacking so far is config examples.
I’d say that if you’re an experienced developer, the learning curve is probably overstated, at least based on my limited experience. I’m still a relatively new user, but I’m feeling pretty comfortable with it so far.
Hitting obscure issues with limited documentation and barely any forum discussions on it in search results is killing me though. But at the same time NixOS makes a lot of things incredibly easy and offloads having to remember any changes so it’s worth all the effort for me.
I love how this post doesn’t even pretend that anyone may use anything but Linux. Classic Lemmy.
I don’t see anyone here saying “actually I use BSD” so it seems to have been a safe assumption
i do use freebsd :) and occasionally win7/10…
usage goes like freebsd >>> linux > m$win
Self-hosting on Windows Server is a pain I don’t need in my life.
Whoa, that’s completely untrue buddy.
Some people here use BSD-based systems.
Alright, windows users, do you run the same version of windows on all your devices? Yes? Oh how surprising.
OoOOoOOOooooo sassy boy, over here.
no, i use archlinux on my main desktop as i use it daily and is my main workhorse. i have a laptop that rarely gets used at that has debian on. then i have a mini pc server with debian and a raspberry pi 4 with debian based raspberry pi os.
yes. Everything is Fedora Silverblue, except servers they are ubuntu on proxmox.
My hobby is gaming, linux is just a means to do that hobby, not a hobby itself.
Your comment intrigues me… I need to switch, but I’m like you…gaming is my hobby, not OSes. You make it sound like it’s plug and play as far as gaming goes?
My server is Debian. My desktop and laptops are all Garuda Linux.
I hear a lot of chatter about NixOS. Going to have to check it out.
Desktop - Ubuntu Cinnamon LTS (I game and edit video this is also currently my Frigate host)
Laptop - Ubuntu Budgie (It’s basically just a thin client to access my desktop when I want to sit in the livingroom)
Stepson’s Desktop - ChimeraOS (Because I don’t want to deal with anything in his room)
Server - TrueNAS (Been using it since the FreeNAS 9 Era)
Router - OpnSense (Been using that since before I started using FreeNAS)
Different distro’s suit different needs. Could I use a single one for everything, yeah with a lot of extra work I don’t want to deal with. I’m much more hardware oriented and can make software work tried switching to Linux for everything in the mid 2000’s but couldn’t do things reliably with it till lately.
SteamOS on my steam deck. Bazzite on my laptop. And fedora on my home server that I’m still learning how to set up(I have immich running in a container, but that was just following an online tutorial. Still trying to understand docker better.)
I use arch btw (on everything).
So yes … my laptop, my home server and even my wife’s laptop.
What about your wifes boyfriends laptop
He uses Windows
Gentoo > Arch > Elementary
+ QubesOS >, if you’re into that kinky stuff.
Debian on homeservers, centos on work servers, and mint on desktops
Proxmox with plethora of distros (preferably Debian), openwrt, opnsense (freeBSD), the pies as well somewhere … but my desktop & laptop are both Tumbleweed.
(But I should try Bazzite myself at some point to understand if it’s really a distro to recommend to Windows refugees looking for gaming & not learning anything or not that much “Linux related” immediately. It wouldn’t be my guess, but the experiences I read here stayed with me for some reason.)
My laptop needs reliability to be fairly certain I’ll have everything working when I use it on poor internet, my desktop is always comnected to high bandwidth and has a decent cpu so I can spare a bit extra time and cycles on updating everything when something breaks
Different needs
I did like having the same thing going on on both for the couple months I used mint on both.
Everything but my server uses Arch (BTW). This is so I can have all devices have the same scripts for uniformity.
I use Debian on servers, because stable.
I use Fedora on desktops, because I game and I like having fixes for mesa, the kernel, and amdgpu for my latest gen AMD GPU. My laptop is for work, but it’s just easier having consistency.
Arch for Gaming/Desktop, Debian for Server/Proxmox/VPS.
Ubuntu for the main pc and Arch for the filthy weird frankenstein laptop from 2008. Just as god intended.
Servers are Debian
Desktop is Arch
Laptop is EndeavorOS
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.
[Thread #152 for this comm, first seen 9th Mar 2026, 16:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
For me it depends on computer capability. 3 generations of laptop… Current: PopOS Older: MiniOS Oldest (32bit): AntiX
I still have a functional 32 bit laptop. It’s rather slow, but it does work
I didn’t use to, but I do now. Debian on everything (except the Proxmox servers, but Proxmox is basically Debian too)
I’m all some Debian dereritive, whether it’s Q4OS or just Debian,
All normal PCs run CachyOS, includes gaming PCs, laptops and media PCs. All servers run some form of Debian (includes Proxmox) or a dedicated distro for their use (TRUE WAS, technically also Debian based).
I mix, my server and laptop are nixos but I use an arch variant on my desktop. Mostly I do this because of various pain points with nixos and gaming.
Any pain points in specific you could point out?
Any games that you can just run on Steam without issue will work fine, it’s when you have to start passing launch commands etc that things become more complicated. Most things are still possible but harder because you have to deal with the very unusual way Nixos stores its files. The specific thing that made me give up and go to CachyOS was trying to get gamescope working under wayland for Steam games – every way I tried, I was having to compromise on what I actually wanted. Also VR has been easier to play with, though it’s still far from Windows parity.
Arch on user PCs and Debian on anything else. This is with the exception that our big server is on Proxmox and the NAS (as well as off-site backup) are on unRaid.
Tbh I still consider Proxmox as Debian, so you’re pretty much there ;).
I actually agree, I just broke it out for this discussion.
I’m kinda with you, with a slight change: raspberrys that can’t run Arch Linux on Arm run Raspberry Pi OS, so, almost Debian.
Everything else: Arch.
(Oh… and pfSense on FreeBSD… but let’s not muddy the water)
Oh, good call out. I’m also running OPNsense which is a BSD system.
I’ve converted everything to NixOS (Desktop, laptop, nas and 3d printer, rpi with home assistant) only my router is still pfSense (and thus BSD). It just makes configuration and updating so much easier from one central configuration. And I don’t have to remember what and how I installed something. It’s just there in my flake.
How quick could you pick it up? And how does it handle one config for different devices (due to different hardware(fstab/cryptsetup differences), propietary/non-mainlined drivers?
I have been thinking about switching because I’d love a reproduciable system but fear it would take some of that flexibility I rely on (I’ve had some issues with ftstab/cryptsetup and initramfs customizations on the fedora atomic base of bazzite on my steamdeck).
I have to be honest and say it was a journey. Nix in itself isn’t really difficult I find. But everything together and finding the right documentation and figure out how NixOS comes together can be a bit daunting.
But a simple straight forward config is pretty doable. My advice is to start small and build up. You can reuse your old dotfiles and include them in the configuration directly, so you don’t have to convert everything to nix (right away). Also don’t scare away from using flakes, they are the way to go in my opinion.
You can define multiple hosts/systems in one configuration with each their own
nixosSystemcall. So you can define hardware/fs/network etc per system.Also I like to add that the vimjoyer video’s on nix helped me with understanding some of the concepts, They are usually short and straight to the point.
Best advice is can give you is to #DOCUMENT everything you do for what reason and how it works inside your config file. So you know what each code block does and how it executes making your entire config dummy proof also helps learn the syntax super fast!
I haven’t looked at Nix in detail but you got me interested for 3d printers in particular, already have my klipper config in git if an SD card fails on me, going to have to look at doing that for the os too.
I love it for using klipper. But when I started doing it the klipper pkgs did give me some troubles. You can work around them, but know you might find some issues on the way. Maybe it’s better now, I haven’t really updated that part of my config much recently.
Do know that not all arm devices are equally supported. rpi 3 and 4 are, the rest is community based (see: nixos.wiki/wiki/NixOS_on_ARM). Personally I run klipper on a x86_64 thin client for this reason and because raspberry pi’s were scarce and expensive back then.
No. Debian on the server. CachyOS on the laptop OPNsense / FreeBSD on the router-firewall appliance.
I don’t really feel like I need a single OS across everything. The lack of that has never been an issue.
i have slackware 15 on all, it’s great how i can just copy over binaries and they just run because all the linked libraries are the same version
Awesome. I’ve been meaning to try out slackware forever. Would love to use it as my servers
tbh there are really a lot of things that aren’t on the repo or even the slackbuilds (kinda like arch AUR), kinda takes time to manage and install other packages. still i can’t find a better distro yet so i’m keep using it…
i should try gentoo/void/alpine/arch someday but i’m too lazy.
Yes, Debian. It’s called the universal operating system for a reason.
Same, literaly only have bazzite and android on one device each with everything else being Debian.
Although I have been thinking about switching to Nix for a more robust backup/restore setup.
If they call themselves that, it really doesn’t count. It’s like how trump ended like 10 wars to get his FIFA peace medal.
Almost everything is Debian - my servers, my desktop and laptops, my family member’s computers, the living room media player. Only exceptions are my router (OpenWRT) and my Steam Deck (SteamOS).
All my servers are Debian. All my personal machines are Fedora KDE.
No, and that’s the beauty of Linux.
Desktop gaming PC: Fedora KDE (might try Bazzite if I stop dual booting Windows, but I already got Nvidia set up and that’s the hard part)
Old laptop: Zorin OS
Old as dirt laptop: antiX
Wife’s Surface: Pop!_OS 22.04. Maybe change it eventually to something lighter.
I will likely go with Ubuntu Server or Debian when I set up my home server. Ubuntu seems like it has better Docker support.
Yep. Debian. I like
apt, and I like shit that just…works. I’m very much a form after function kind of person. Plus, Debian was the first Linux distro I became most familiar with at a young age. So what if a bunch of packages are on “old” versions. They work. The kernel works. KDE Plasma works. I can do everything I want to do without having to constantly be on the bleeding edge. If you prefer newer things, that’s great. I prefer older, more proven things. That’s also why I drive Toyota cars and old Honda motorcycles.My Proxmox cluster runs…uh…Proxmox, which is based on Debian. NAS runs OMV which also runs on top of Debian. Laptops all run Linux Mint Debian Edition 7, and my 5800X3D/7900XTX gaming PC runs LMDE6 (will be upgrading to 7 soon). The only non-Debian machines in my house are my wife’s iMac and Macbook Pro, and the Home Assistant mini PC.
That’s the same philosophy I’ve applied for a long time. Recently, I found out that gaming is an exception to the rule, though. While older versions are just fine for the most part, there are edge cases where that no longer applies. I also found out that I care about one of them. Until you hit that brick wall, there’s no reason to switch. Just keep on using Debian for everything.
Took me a while to realise that I was spending way too much time figuring out workarounds instead of actually gaming. I ended up using Bazzite in my gaming rig because it works so well for that purpose.
I’ve yet to run into major issues with gaming. But I’m curious what issue you ran into that caused the switch to Bazzite? I actually tried Bazzite briefly on my latest laptop acquisition (HP Spectre x360) before going with LMDE 7; I didn’t like the immutable aspect. I’m a tinkerer at heart and can’t handle not being able to get under the hood, so to speak.
It was Space Engineers 2. Even made a post about the journey.
All the other games were just fine though. If you don’t stumble upon one of these edge cases, there’s no reason to switch.
Hmmm.
Under LMDE7, the HP Spectre does great with the games I’ve thrown at it so far (BeamNG.Drive, Hollow Knight, Factorio, Universe Simulator, Minecraft, etc), but despite exceeding the minimum specs, it really struggled with running anything in RPCS3. Stuttering, frame drops, graphics simply not loading, etc… I ended up writing off RPCS3 in general as “too heavy for a laptop” and tasked my desktop gaming PC as the dedicated PS3 emulator - works great.
Sounds like I might have to give Bazzite a shot again on the HP. I use that laptop for a lot of things, including diagnostics software for my cars, but I also have a perfectly-capable AMD Thinkpad T14 G1 hanging around that needs a purpose, too.
What was the actual issue you ran into though? I didn’t see it in your post. I believe you, but my curiosity is piqued.
Yeah, that post was getting way too long, so I made some cuts here and there. The issue was in the way SE2 detects hardware… or more like doesn’t detect my GPU at all, throws an error about it and refuses to start. Under Bazzite it starts the game first 🎉, then complains that my hardware might not be good enough to run this game 🤯, but the beautiful graphics say otherwise. It’s still in early access, so I guess this kind of strange behavior will be ironed out sooner or later.
I got tired of researching this issue in Debian, so once I got it up and running in Bazzite, I stopped reading about it. Honestly, I have no idea what’s the key difference here. Is it the driver version, Proton-GE or something else? Who knows.
Anyway, I would recommend trying Bazzite. It has some pre-configured tricks that seem to handle weird cases like this.
I used to use a variety. I’d use Arch on my desktop/gaming machine, Fedora on my laptop, and Debian on my server. But I got the NixOS bug a few years back and now I use that everywhere. It’s great to have every change and configuration documented and available for easy review or modification, and built in generation rollbacks are a lifesaver.
Thinking of building an HTPC from some spare parts, and I think that’ll be the machine to buck the trend. Bazzite will be everything I need out of the box for that purpose without any effort for maintenance. It’s not getting customized or doing anything but games and media
It causes issues, like bazzite has the same profile name, IDK if I missed the option to change it. Cant use the virtual mouse swap across computers because they require different names and it has an error related to that.
I do, but it’s more out of laziness than anything else. I hate having to remember sixteen different ways of doing things, so I tend to configure all my stuff as identical as reasonably possible. Is this the best way of doing things? Probably not. But it keeps my blood pressure down.
laptop & desktop: both fedora silverblue
home server: fedora server
I used to with LMDE (client) and Debian (server), but Cinnamon was a little bit too stuttery on the rickety old hardware I have (i5-5200U NUC and i5-5250U MBA), so now the NUC runs CachyOS with Xfce and the MBA runs Win10 LTSC because sometimes Windows is needed for my studies or certain voxel game leaks.
ZorinOS for the desktop and PopOS on the laptop which also serves as a Plex server.
Welcome to Lemmy 🫶
Laptop arch
Web servers Debian or fedora.
Looking into slackware for self hosting
Fedora KDE for anything I need a GUI for, Debian for anything headless.
I’ve used damn near everything else in 30 years of Linux, but I’m pretty sure my tombstone will run Debian.
My work PC and gaming PC are Kubuntu, my media server is Debian, and my Home Assistant server is macOS, because it’s an M1 mini. So yeah, kinda. I thought about putting the server on Kubuntu, but in the end figured I’d go for as stable as possible.
All my kubernetes nodes are Ubuntu but when I rebuild my cluster I’ll probably moved to Talos. My Gaming Rig/Workstation runs Bazzite. My Dev laptop runs Aurora. The little differences between Aurora and Bazzite are a little irritating so if I ever have a reason to rebuild one I’ll probably switch it.
The PIs run whatever is most convenient for their purpose.
My next NAS will probably run Unraid or TrueNAS, but for now its Synology.
Jup, Debian stable on my three servers an on my laptop. I think its just way easier to run the same system everywhere. Also, Debian is a great distribution.
My main desktop is Mint - I feel like most of the random pieces of software I find myself wanting to run are built for Ubuntu or at the very least a lfh distro.
My server and random devices run NixOS, and I’m acrually considering combining all the config into a monorepo…
My Raspberry PI I think runs Raspbian though. I should see if I can nixify it.
Debian on my servers. No drama, it just works.
Fedora on my laptop and desktop. Still solid, but quicker updates.
I run unraid for my main servers (mostly out of convenience/ease), and pop-os for everything else. I treat my laptop as my beta tester for my desktop which is stable, but both use the same underlying os. Who has the time to troubleshoot more than one?
Gentoo, Qubes on desktops. Cent, Gentoo, Alpine and OpenBSD for servers.
Then there’s weird stuff like MirageOS, DuskOS, openwrt, opnsense and I’m 90% sure there’s a laptop with Kali purple in my trunk.
For other people I usually install fedora spins or bazzite.
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.
Oooh, look at mr. Rich guy here with multiple devices.
/s… (not really, cries in only computer being a dying laptop from 2011 with no way to get even just another dying 2011 laptop when this one dies.)
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.
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
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.
Nope. Raspbian, Arch, Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE (sorta samesies, I guess), Manjaro…I think that’s it.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
Basically, I do. Kubuntu everywhere. Only exception are the servers that run a UI less version of Ubuntu.
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
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:
Due to bazzite,I checked out fedora silver blue for my work laptop. So far I’m happy.
I typically use EndeavorOS because I enjoy how well documented and organized the arch wiki is.
I tried switching to fedora on my laptop recently but actually had some issues with software that was apparently only distributed through the AUR or AppImage (which I could have used, I know).
When I also had issues setting up my VPN to my home network again, I caved and restored the disk to a backup I took before attempting the switch. The VPN thing almost definitely wasn’t Fedoras fault since I remember running into the same issue on EndeavorOS but after my fix from last time didn’t work I was out of patience.
My servers runs either on debian or Ubuntu LTS though.
I do - more or less. Since I am the IT guy for my entire family and don’t feel like doing tech support on 10 different distros.
I use Fedora on my desktop, laptop and server. On my mother‘s laptop I have installed Fedora Kinoite.
I use ArchLinux more or less on all Device where it is possible It runs on my workstations, on my NAS, on my servers
Reason for that is: I am lazy and this way I don’t have to learn how to administrate different Distributions.
Yep. Arch on my personal multi-use laptop, Arch on my work Java-development laptop, Arch on my gaming PC, Arch on my home Forgejo / DNS / NAS server. Just easier to not have to remember how to do things in different ways, plus my home server can efficiently act as a repo cache.
Did have ALARM installed on the home server back when I used a raspberry pi, and while that’s an amazing project, a pi is just a bit underpowered for some uses. Got a mini PC extremely cheap since it wouldn’t support Win11, but it runs Linux like a champ.
I used to have Ubuntu everywhere, then changed to Debian for servers. Now that I’m using bazzite for my gaming rig, I really liked the idea and went to fedora silver blue on my work laptop. I’m the near future I want to re do my home lab, bit not sure yet what, unfortunately to many open questions concerning storage left.
For my Gaming PC I ended up with cashyOS. Justs works and still gives me enough flexibility for customization. Server is Proxmox with mostly Debian LXCs but I started to add in some alpine containers. Probably going to throw alpine on my old laptop as well, just for fun. Ah and then there is my MacBook with macOS, which for now I plan to keep…
I use Arch (btw) on my desktops and laptops.
On my servers I’m halfway through replacing Debian with openSUSE.
My desktop and servers have different use cases and I interact with them in different ways, so there’s little confusion for me.
I feel the same way. I use fedora on my laptops and desktops and debian on my servers. Generally my servers do not have or need a gui so debian makes it easy to install without. I tried fedora server once and i just was not happy with it.
I use Fedora on my personal laptop and DietPi on my RaspberryPi 4 where I selfhost a bunch of stuff.
I run OpenSuse Tumbleweed on my Daily Driver Desktop, Bazzite on my Laptop, Debian on my Game Server
Yes. Mint. Way enough, and I haven’t figured out why I should like disto hop yet.
I was like you for many years. From Windows to Mint and never changed. Not I got a second hand laptop from a couple of years ago and put ublue Aurora on it. I REALLY like the experience!
My gaming PC runs Nobara so I started using Fedora on my general use desktop and my laptop for consistency. I have an older laptop that runs Debian. I have two server machines that run Proxmox and Debian, and all my VMs are Debian except one that is Fedora server (I read somewhere Fedora would provide better GPU support out of the box, but I’ve never confirmed this, it just works)
Currently my primary laptop is on LMDE and my secondary laptop is on GhostBSD just because I wanted to try out BSD. I’m thinking of taking a third laptop and putting EndeavourOS on it. That was my primary OS until an update blew up the EFI partition and I read “yeah, that happens sometimes” and decided my primary system should be a bit more stable than that. But I did really like EndeavourOS other than that. I have an old notebook PC I’ve thought about putting Haiku-OS on just for fun, if I can figure out what I did with the power cord for it.
No, I’ve got nobara on my gaming rig, batocera on my wife’s retro console that’s just turned into a kodi device, and proxmox on my server
Ha, I wish I could.
I’m not 100% satisfied, so I’m still searching for the “perfect distro for me”, if it even exists.
I have been using Arch Linux on my personal PC and company laptop for 4 years, but I couldn’t get some things to work. Things that, after installing Fedora, worked out of the box.
My current setup is:
Yes
Thanks to hyprland, I’ve fallen in love with Arch. Sure it works on other distros, but the AUR is great for easy configuration. I’m running it on my container server, my laptop, my gaming rig, and my OneXPlayer(portable gaming rig). That said, I have been eyeing CachyOS because of the kernel optimization plus it seems easier to install.
If you already have arch installed, don’t worry about how hard it is to install. All done! You can also run the cachyos kennel in arch if you want
Huh, I didn’t realize there was an AUR for it already. It would only take
yay -S linux-cachyos.But I need to fix my btrfs/snapper anyways.
I broke it after reverting by messing up my subvolumes. Swap was not properly setup and somehow reverting also broke my snapshots subvolume.
I also want time to test on my spare laptop first so I can create a script/config for it to deploy to my school laptop and gaming rig. But it’s exam week for school and I need to finish transferring a 25TB VM to a hardware server.
I’ll mess with it over spring break.
No, Arch for laptops/desktops. Debian for servers.
My home server is on unraid while my other machines are on OpenSuse. Having a webui makes it so much easier for someone other than me to take care of stuff if I’m not around
I use NixOS on everything ! This way, I can re-use parts of my configuration as a base, and customise only the few things that need to change from one machine to the other.
The only exception is my Steam Deck. I trust Valve on that one, and my usage of it is so different from other computers as to make 95% of my config entirely irrelevant anyway.
Kind of.
Fedora on workstations. Debian on servers
Fedora on laptop. Fedora on desktop. Fedora in the server. Fedora in WSL.
Slackware on desktop, laptop and mini PC, Debian on anything smaller
Nah. Debian for servers, Fedora for desktops and Arch for funtimes.
Workstation: Fedora plasma Server: Ubuntu Rock64 Libreelec
It’s a very steep learning curve, but I personally think it is worth it if what you want is to sync up all your various devices to a single common baseline configuration. I sought a single-distro solution for all of my systems for a long time and always ended up fragmenting them eventually because nothing I tried until NixOS was capable of handling such a diverse set of use cases in a way that would satisfy me.
I am similar to you, in that I regularly use a three server cluster, a gaming desktop, a multi-purpose personal laptop, and a work WSL instance on my work laptop. I still have some purpose-built distros where it makes sense; I use Proxmox for the actual server hosts themselves and then run NixOS VMs on them, along with running VMs for Home Assistant OS and TrueNAS (with the drives passed through, of course). All of these things I could do on raw NixOS (even Home Assistant is packaged in Nix, and there is a project to port Proxmox UI and tooling to NixOS) but I like the stability of the dedicated and battle-tested distros for critical infrastructure, especially for stuff whose configuration is very specific to a given task.
With NixOS, each other device has a consistent shared configuration and package set, they all get updated to the exact same versions thanks to flakes so everything works the same and as expected no matter where I am, and it’s all declaratively configured and documented in one spot. Spinning up a new system or rebuilding an existing system is as easy as pulling the config and changing a few relevant lines, and from there it effectively assembles itself from scratch to the exact state I want it to be in. There’s never any lingering packages or configuration cruft because the system is assembled from scratch every time it updates. Much of my home configuration is also managed, so aliases, environment variables, even vim configs are consistent across the board and set in one location.
The main downside is resource efficiency. Nix is designed to be reproducible and declarative, not fast or lean. It uses much more storage than a typical package manager, and packages are built with wide compatibility in mind so you often are leaving performance on the table from not using newer instruction sets like CachyOS. You can compile your own packages to fix that part, but that obviously takes a lot of spare processing power. I’ve been considering setting up my server cluster to do automatic building for me, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Thanks a lot for the insights. I have dabbled a tiny amoubt with nix so far and while it was steep i do feel like it was doable. I am very likely to fall into the rabbithole again soon, and as you say probably very smart to run proxmox underneath for stability and convince 😊
Fedora just works for me in every case except NAS where I have TrueNAS, so Fedora it is and I installed it even to couple of people and they also like it.
I use the following
Debian for Laptop Bazzite for Gaming PC HatvesterHCI for Hypervisor Truenas Scale for NAS (VM with disk pass thru) Rocky Linux for Servers (I have created Hardened Images) I use OS-build to create the Rocky Images
Yes and no, my main system is EndeavourOS as well as one laptop that stays docked in the bedroom as a media PC. My HTPC is running Mint with KDE, my Steam Deck is stock SteamOS, my MacBook Pro is running Asahi Linux, server running TrueNAS and Raspberry Pi’s running stock Raspberry Pi OS. Mainly I just like KDE, and have a preference for Arch based systems.
I prefer EndeavourOS and haven’t had issues with it for a couple years now, but Mint on the HTPC was a reason to try Mint and I just left it alone except for swapping Cinnamon for KDE. Asahi is the only option for M1 MacBooks so no choice there. Pi OS I never really use the system as a computer, I just have one running PiHole and another running a digital calander for the wife and I, so I only interact with them through ssh or web portals. My Steam Deck works perfectly fine as is and I mainly just use the Steam launcher anyway so no point changing it. The TrueNAS system I mainly use through a web portal or SMB so it’s fine.
Usually I keep everything on Debian, but I’ve been thinking in making some changes, like running mint on my kids laptops. My rock64 is running armbian, due some problems with latest Debian on it and DietPi on an rpi3. Oh yeah, an rpi4 is running has, due to my absolutely laziness 😂
Every now and then I try something else (usually live usb from ventoy) just to see how others evolve. I like endevour, but I always en up with debian minimal install. Only on mylaptop I add xfce4. It’s just rock solid. For my wife’s laptop it’s elementary, only because of the looks just to make her move from windows to linux painlessly
My main server runs Ubuntu Server (I’m thinking about switching it to Debian), and my laptop and desktop both run Arch Linux. Generally, I pick whatever I think is best for the given usecase — things like stability, package availability, documentation, security, etc. are considered.
1 Fedora (laptop)
1 bazzite (old gaming desktop)
N+1 Debian on everything else than can
Yes, because nixos and distributed git-based dotfiles, would be so much work to have a second setup for no real gain, I do investigate other distros regularly though
Server: debian
Desktop: mint
Laptop: pop-os
Nanopi for travel Jellyfin: Debian.
Debian on server, arch of some kind for personal use
this is the way
arch on my two laptops, and desktop. proxmox on my server as the hypervisor, and debian on the vm/lxc. my routers are running openwrt.
one of my laptops i use for testing, and i do switch distro’s… i’ve tried alpine, gentoo and i’d like to try openbsd. but arch is comfy
I just use Debian