With Debian you either get something stable (including drivers) or something that's constantly being updated, userland and drivers. Some people do run Debian stable and use backports for things like the kernel, but presumably build Mesa for themselves. Either way you're gonna have to fiddle with it.

Around 10% of GoL users use Manjaro so they are clearing doing something right, and means you can most likely ask others for help here.

Even as a Debian user myself I would suggest Manjaro, at least for starters. You can always try out Debian, stable or unstable, later!

How unstable is Debian unstable? Needs an extra reboot once a year unstable? Or broken packages every now and then unstable?

If snaps are the main reason you're looking for alternatives to Ubuntu, you might want to consider [Mint](https://www.linuxmint.com/) as another option. Based on Ubuntu's LTS releases, no snaps, and all the stability and game compatibility you could hope for. [Xanmod kernels](https://xanmod.org/) and [Kisak's Mesa PPA](https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa) provide the latest stable drivers for me.

Quoting: ShabbyXHow unstable is Debian unstable? Needs an extra reboot once a year unstable? Or broken packages every now and then unstable?

It's primarily unstable as in constantly changing.

Broken packages can be a problem but it's usually that you need to be careful during upgrades and might sometimes have to wait for conflicts to be resolved or fix them yourself.

Problems with the system being unbootable or being in need of a complete reinstall I have never experienced. But that's no guarantee that it can't happen tomorrow.

why Manjaro ...

Never Manjaro.

Your apparent dichotomy from switching from a conservative distro that's easy to get the latest versions of stuff to either extreme of rolling release or super long-term suggests that you really don't know what you want from a distro.

If you want Ubuntu but not snaps because you've heard from Reddit that snaps must be bad, just remove snapd. Or use one of the many Ubuntu derivatives that don't include snapd by default.

In my opinion for choosing a new distro, I'd generally follow the following route:

Decide what you want from a distro:

• How frequently do you want new software versions? The latest software that's potentially unstable or something tried and tested?


• Which packages and software are you likely to need? Which distros include the ability to easily and quickly install those?


• What update method do you want? Do you want to continually update or do you want to stay on a set version with set software for a while?


• Do you need a distribution with easy recovery or rollbacks? Or are you okay to simply re-install? Some distros handle this better than others.


• What security level do you need? Do you need something with only SELinux enabled? Or do you need higher levels of sandboxing?

Once you've whittled down the list of appropriate distributions we move onto the next step:

Test them!
Download an install/live ISO for each of them. Then install each one (separately) into a virtual machine, get a feel for their usage in terms of methods of updates and configuration. Also check to make sure they do actually meet your previously set criteria.

Do this until you're down to at most 2 distributions.

Run it live!
Run a live iso version of the distribution on your own computer, this will let you know if you're hardware is working fine with it.

Finally once you've made your final decision, install it and enjoy.

Last edited by BlackBloodRum on 23 Feb 2023 at 5:59 pm UTC

Debian.

Quoting: CatKillerYour apparent dichotomy from switching from a conservative distro that's easy to get the latest versions of stuff to either extreme of rolling release or super long-term suggests that you really don't know what you want from a distro.

I used to upgrade Ubuntu every 6 months, but recently find myself going from LTS to LTS. Does Debian stable still take longer than 2 years to release? That's ridiculous. I use "Rolling Debian Testing" at work FWIW, and it rarely gives me any trouble (but it's also curated by the company, so :shrug:)

Quoting: CatKillerIf you want Ubuntu but not snaps because you've heard from Reddit that snaps must be bad, just remove snapd. Or use one of the many Ubuntu derivatives that don't include snapd by default.

Ugh, no, I know what I'm talking about. It's not just snap, Canonical is just making bad decisions all around and it's been years I've been thinking of switching.

Quoting: BlackBloodRumDo this until you're down to at most 2 distributions.

Thanks for the advice, but I mean, I did do that and I'm down to Manjaro vs Debian. I use the company-curated rolling release of Debian at work, and have been fiddling with Manjaro at my parents' house.

The reason I'm asking here is not for general advice, but specifics you can't just observe from live booting, after all gnome on Manjaro and gnome on Debian is just gonna look the same.

The questions were:

- Is either going to give more headaches running games?
- Is either less stable (let's assume rolling Debian)?
- Is there something like PPA/AUR on Debian?
- Are Manjaro rants on the internet about management something I should care about? I don't want to set everything up, then find out it's managed by a*holes.

Quoting: CatKillerNever Manjaro.

And _that_, I really want to know what you have against it.

Quoting: ShabbyX- Is either going to give more headaches running games?
- Is either less stable (let's assume rolling Debian)?
- Is there something like PPA/AUR on Debian?

First: An apology, I assumed you we're more on the newbie side of things. That was clearly wrong! Sounds like you would be fine with either Debian testing or unstable.

Anyhow about Debian specifically:

The only real headache I can think of is that Debian didn't used to ship firmware with the (default) installer. You had to enable it from the non-free section after boot. That trips you up if you install over Wifi. There is an alternate installer available and I think the new one enables non-free firmware by default.

Most native games are usually only tested and recommend some version of Ubuntu, but it has only seldom been a problem. Usually the version required is so old I would assume you would have run into the same issues on a modern Ubuntu system.

There isn't really anything like a PPA system for Debian. Something like that have been suggested but it's never been implemented. You can however add (and host) custom repositories with Debian packages. Wine for example does this.

There's also usually release candidates of software like Mesa or the kernel in the (optional) experimental repository if you want even more bleeding edge stuff.

Quoting: ShabbyXThanks for the advice, but I mean, I did do that and I'm down to Manjaro vs Debian. I use the company-curated rolling release of Debian at work, and have been fiddling with Manjaro at my parents' house.

The reason I'm asking here is not for general advice, but specifics you can't just observe from live booting, after all gnome on Manjaro and gnome on Debian is just gonna look the same.

The questions were:

- Is either going to give more headaches running games?
- Is either less stable (let's assume rolling Debian)?
- Is there something like PPA/AUR on Debian?
- Are Manjaro rants on the internet about management something I should care about? I don't want to set everything up, then find out it's managed by a*holes.

With Manjaro and Debian, it's like comparing an apple and an orange, no really. They serve two very different purposes. The Live CD suggestion was more to verify hardware compatibility. That's why I also suggested an installed copy in a virtual machine - this would give you a change to see how packages are handled, to go through the configuration (such as /etc/ files) and so on.

With regards to rants, and what people do - or do not - like about it. This doesn't make the distro, the software and configuration does.

Debian has tons of packages available, I think you'll easily find what you need for that distro.

Though, based on your criteria, have you looked at OpenSUSE Tumbleweed? It's sort of in the middle between the two. It's rolling release, has a crap ton of packages and extra ones can be found from OBS (think AUR) but also relatively stable and can roll-back if it breaks with btrfs snapshots. It also works well with games in most instances (I've not had any trouble anyway). And the management is handled well and not just by, as you put it, a*holes.

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: CatKillerNever Manjaro.

And _that_, I really want to know what you have against it.

You should hop on the GOL Discord and ask why you shouldn't use Manjaro. You'll get lots of information about that.

A bleeding edge distro (like Arch, or Endeavour, or Siduction) has its place. A stable long term distro (like Debian) has its place. A middle-of-the-road conservative distro that gets you newer stuff on a regular schedule (like Ubuntu) has the place that's going to be the best fit for generic desktop users. Any of these could be the best for a specific use case. Manjaro is just a bad choice for every use case; the two weeks that they hold back packages isn't enough time to test (and they don't have the resources to actually test anyway) but is just long enough to get conflicts between the stuff you get from Manjaro and the stuff you get from the AUR (which is expecting Arch versions). The whole model is just broken from the outset.

That's all before you think about them - at least twice - having let their security certificate expire, or misappropriation of donated funds, or any other of the miscellaneous shady or shonky things they've done. But it's your computer, and if those are the kind of people you want having root access to your machine, that's your choice, of course.

Quoting: whizseFirst: An apology, I assumed you we're more on the newbie side of things. That was clearly wrong!

No worries!

---

Thanks everyone for the input! I think I'll just go with Debian. As much as I'm _capable_ of fiddling with my installation to fix things, I really want things to just be rock solid at this point in my life.

I thought I'd miss out on the latest stuff, but it's been three years I'm on Ubuntu 20.04, and it was fine. I'll start with Debian stable, and if I find it's too old, I can always upgrade it to testing.

Quoting: ShabbyXI thought I'd miss out on the latest stuff, but it's been three years I'm on Ubuntu 20.04, and it was fine. I'll start with Debian stable, and if I find it's too old, I can always upgrade it to testing.

If you want another option, the current testing, codename bookworm, which will become the new stable, is now frozen in preparation for release.

So you can install that, configure the package sources to track by codename (the specific bookworm release, not testing) and go from testing -> (new) stable.

I gamed using debian testing for about 5 years... Never seen issues. There is the freeze period right before stable updates, but in reality, if you can't game without the latest version, I'd assume you have the knowledge to manually install it. Most games don't need bleeding edge.

I've also used Manjaro for about a year. For gaming, the AUR is not needed, everything works out of the box. I'm more familiar with apt, but pacman does an ok job (is very fast compared to apt or zypper).

I'd also second OpenSuse Tumbleweed. It's similar to debian testing in spirit and is very stable. I used it for about 2 years. I would throw a caveat; the way they do Nvidia drivers is odd and you can end up with a new kernel but no driver module for that kernel version. If you are not a frequent updater, that issues is mostly moot. If it does happen, the system is designed to let you roll back pretty easily.

Manjaro. fast speedy secure uptodate i mean yea i have latest mesa but dont know when i installed it lol.

Quoting: denyasisMost games don't need bleeding edge.

I've yet to see a single game that needs bleeding edge. The only thing that might make a difference are hardware drivers, and those (the kernel, Mesa, Nvidia's proprietary drivers, firmware) aren't too hard to keep up to date on most mainstream distributions.

I would absolutely recommend to use a rolling release distro.

Stable distros are severely outdated and I have run into multiple problems (including (severe) bugs, missing functionality, not possible to connect to servers, because of outdated clients etc.) because of super-outdated packages.
And backports etc. have not really helped, because they only cover a small percentage and many of them are also often outdated (even though not as severe as the distros themselves).
Also testing branches etc. were not really up-to-date for most packages, so this is kind of misleading.
Most importantly missing security updates (even though the stable distros claim to include security fixes) are a real problem.

But I guess it depends on the usecase, as some people seem to enjoy them.

Regarding Manjaro specifically:
I use it regularly and haven't come across any (severe) problems.

The two weeks (or so) between releases are mainly not for testing (by Manjaro), instead it is intended to watch for Bugreports on Arch Linux, so if there are severe problems, Manjaro can either fix these problems before release or delay a release further.

This approach works pretty well and I also use many AUR packages and only on one occassion there was problem with a version mismatch, but good software would include notes or warning for abi mismatches on compilation, so in my oppinion it is more a problem of software projects and less a problem of Distros.

I use Debian testing. But there are a few things I build or maintain outside of Debian repos:

* Kernel itself (I usually build newest release, testing gets kernels with quite some delay).
* Firmware from upstream kernel repo (for AMD GPU). This one is updated in Debian very rarely.
* Mesa main for gaming (not replacing system Mesa).
* Wine from WineHQ Debian repo.
* vkd3d-proton / dxvk master from upstream.
* Firefox beta from Mozilla Linux build.

Other than that, I use what's in Debian repos.

Last edited by Shmerl on 27 Feb 2023 at 8:58 pm UTC