Windows has been a thorn in my side for years. But ever since I started moved to Linux on my Laptop and swapping my professional software to a cross platform alternative, I've been dreaming on removing it from my SSD.
And as soon as I finish my last few projects, I can transition. (I want to do it now).
Trouble is which I danced my way across multiple amazing distros, I can't decide which one to land on since the one software I want to test, Davinci Resolve doesn't work on my Intel Powered Laptop. (curse you intel implementation of OpenCL).
So the opinions of those of you who've used Davinci Resolve, Unity/Godot, and/or FreeCAD. I want it to be stable with minimal down time on hardware with a AMD Ryzen 5 1600x and a RTX 3050. Here's the OS's I am looking at.
CentOS (alt Fedora)
- Pro: Recommended by Davinci Resolve for the OS, has good package manager GUI that separates Applications and System Software (DNF Dragon), Good support for multiple Desktop Environments I like. Game Support is excellent and about a few months behind arch.
- Con: When I last installed Fedora my OS Drives BTFS file system died a horrific and brutal death, losing all of my data. Can't have that. And I personally do not like DNF and how slow it makes updating and browsing packages.
Debain (alt Linux Mint DE)
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Pro: The most stable OS I've used, with a wide range of software support both officially in the distros package manager, or from developers own website. I am most familiar with this OS and APT
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Cons: Ancient packages which may cause issues with Davinci Resolve and Video Games. An over reliance on the terminal to fix simple problems (though this can be said for most linux distros). I personally don't like APT and how it manages the software.
EndevourOS (alt Manjaro)
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Pro: The most up to date OS, great for games with the AUR giving support for a lot of software which isn't available on other distros.
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Cons: Manjaro has died on me once, and is a hassle to setup right and keep up. EndevourOS has no Package Manager GUI, and is over reliant on the Terminal. Can't use pacman in a terminal the commands are confusing.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
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Pro: Like Fedora but doesn't use DNF, good game support
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Cons: Software isn't as well supported.
Edit: from the sounds of thing, and the advice from everyone. I think what I’ll do is an install order while testing distros (either in distro box or on a spare ssd) in the following order.
Debain/Mint DE -> OpenSUSE -> EndevourOS -> CentOS
This list is mostly due to stability and support for nvidia drivers.
You don't have to switch anything. You get a LTS kernel when you install and can sit on it for many years. If you hit EOL on a LTS kernel it will switch it out for you. Manjaro currently ships a wide variety of LTS kernels that are under active support: 4.19, 5.4, 5.10, 5.15, 6.1 and 6.6.
But I don't want to use Fedora. Manjaro is a much better experience out of the box, and it's a much less opinionated distro.
That works great unless you have nvidia, in which case it will break terribly many times and you all of a sudden won't be able to install packages because you need to update desperately but nvidia conflicts with that version of the lts kernel
things like this happen all the time on manjaro, and have for years.
I found out that it worked this way, because it broke. Repeatedly. Across multiple machines, multiple times.
Then use mint or endeavoros, suggesting people use manjaro is suggesting a fundamentally broken experience. This is a distro that made steam uninstall your desktop environment. Their incompetence is genuinely incredible. How could you not notice that problem with your two week delay that clearly adds nothing?
If you want arch but with a two week delay that manages to make things less stable at worst, and accomplishes nothing at best, use manjaro, but if you want a system that never breaks, don't use manjaro, or arch, really.
What I don't understand about manjaro fundamentally is why on earth you would want a distro that does break, but isn't bleeding edge/minimal, the problem is that manjaro is supposed to be the "easy to use" edition of arch, but i've spent far more time doing maintenance on manjaro systems than arch systems, so what's the benefit? The GUI? If you're reliant on a GUI, I doubt you want a system that ever breaks, use debian, if that's too out of date for you, fedora, or mint, there's just not a set of desires that corresponds with manjaro being the best choice for you. If you don't want to switch because you're used to it, that's fine, it honestly doesn't matter, but we shouldn't be telling people to use it, or advertising it.
At this point you're just plain lying. There's no problem with Nvidia on Manjaro, it just works. I've had nothing but smooth upgrades. I don't know why you're lying but please stop.
I'm not lying and why would I? Your only remaining argument is that I must be lying?
https://www.google.com/search?q=nvidia+update+broken+manjaro
see the countless results for yourself.
Again this is a distro that shipped an update to steam that uninstalled your DE, why are you surprised it's a buggy mess?