I know I know, another "help me choose a distro" thread

I’m wondering if a distro like the one I’m looking for even exists:

  • simple as in KISS and vanilla. This excludes Debian where the package manager is too complex and packages deviate from upstream too much, as well as OpenSUSE, where systems administration relies on GUI tools too much and the package manager is even more complex.
  • fixed release (excludes everything Arch-based)

So from the major distros, only Fedora is left as an option, where I really don’t know enough about it. Is it possible to do a minimal install of it? Is it built around a GUI app store? Does it rely on Flatpak like Ubuntu does with Snap?

Or are there other distros out there that I’m not aware of? Basically everything from the past 5 years I have no experience with. I’ve heard good things about NixOS, but it sounds weird as a daily driver.

LainOfTheWired,
@LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol avatar

It doesn’t quite fit your fixed release requirement, but have you checked out void? It’s like arch, but has no systemd and it’s more stable then arch

TCB13,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

This excludes Debian where the package manager is too complex and packages deviate from upstream too much

This isn’t even remotely true.

Also going with Debian + GNOME Software + Flatpak isn’t a bad ideia at all. Unlike Snaps, Flatpaks are fast you won’t notice delays and waste 10GB of RAM for each application you want to use. And at the end of the day you get rock solid Debian + the latest and greatest software as Flatpaks without “deviation from upstream” and you also keep a clean system.

PerogiBoi,
@PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca avatar

Mac OSX

BigBlackCockroach,
@BigBlackCockroach@lemmy.world avatar

I am 100% serious when I say pick one off of this list: www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

HumanPerson, (edited )

Have you tried macos? Seriously though, in Debian you just type ‘sudo apt install program,’ that is about as simple as it gets. Also opensuse allows you to not install yast with like 2 clicks in the installer, and all the GUI tools are just wrappers for terminal tools that they also include. I am not saying this to be insulting, but I honestly don’t think you know enough about Linux to know what you are looking for. If you do want to try Linux, just try a beginner distro like mint.

Edit: upon reading some comments, I see that you mean apt is complicated under the hood, not difficult to use. You could try gentoo if you don’t mind long installs. It compiles from source so that is about as simple as package management gets.

KISSmyOS,

Seriously though, in Debian you just type ‘sudo apt install program,’ that is about as simple as it gets.

I know apt is easy to use, but it definitely isn’t SIMPLE.

It has apt, apt-get, aptitude, synaptic and an app store as frontends, and some of them handle dependencies differently or work differently in scripts, so you need to know which to use and avoid mixing them. It has recommended and suggested dependencies. It has meta-packages, virtual packages, package groups, different repo branches seperated into categories. It has blacklisting, apt-pinning, holding back packages. You can set how aggressively it should resolve dependencies and it allows mixing releases.
I know I can do the most basic stuff with “apt update” etc. but try creating a package with dependencies for it and then maintain it across releases.

HumanPerson,

Good point with the various frontends, but please refer to my edit.

Dotdev,

Void linux with its xbps package manager might match with your requirements.

Then solus with its eopkg package manager which I might wait like next year to try it.

Andy,
@Andy@programming.dev avatar

Alpine Linux!

PseudoSpock,
@PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Debian apt repositories is too complex?!?

ultra,

NixOS as a daily driver is really good

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