TheModerateTankie

Outside of security patches there probably won't be the latest version of apps available, so the software you use can be out of date and you will have to wiat for new features that have been implemented. Flatpak mostly solves this for gui user-level apps, but it's not set up by default and can require tinkering with permissions to fix some issues.

If you have new hardware it might not work well with the kernel that comes installed, but you can enable backports and get a newer one.

Practically half the linux exo-system is built on top of debian, so you can get a different distro built on debian but with better default experience or custom guis for certain tasks like managing drivers, so people you can save time and not have to dive into terminal commands following how-to guides for various things.

I really like Bazzite and the universal blue project (Bluefin and Aurora) in general. It is the fastest way to get a stable, usable linux installation with a bunch of QoL tweaks without having to follow a "here's top 10 things to do" guide after install. Starting from a stable install is the best way to get used to linux, imo. If you are coming from windows or a mac and the system borks itself or throws up wierd errors during installation or an update, or you have to follow a bunch of guides inputting commands you are unfamiliar with to get basic funcionality working, you aren't going to trust the system enough to switch over to full time. A stable, well functioning system upon install is essential for new users.

It is very possible to do development work, however you will most likely need to be familiar, or willing to become familiar with, a containerized work flow. This is probably a good practice to get into regardless of distro you use. Bluefin/Aurora are specifically is targetted towards developers.

As far as packages go, you use bazaar for flatpak/gui apps, brew for CLI apps, distrobox for any random program from a different distro you might need, and podman for docker images. Layering is a last resort and should be reserved for apps that need to interact on a system level, most often VPNs with custom installers and some password managers.

Flatpak will be set up on install with decent defaults, so permission issues are less of an issue. Distrobox is also set up and easy to dive into if needed. Setting it up this way seperates user apps and system apps and makes the install much less prone to breaking un updates. It also updates in the system and flatpaks/brew apps in background without bothering the user, you just need to restart the machine every once in a while to upgrade to the next version, although this behavior can be modified with a simple terminal command.

Relying on flatpaks/brew means those apps will be up to date and you don't have to wait sometimes months for the distro to get an upgrade, which can happen with non-rolling release distros. Since they are all fedora based, the system will be fairly up to date while not bleeding edge like a rolling release distro, so it is rare to experience kernel regressions or those types of issues.

The default file system is btrfs with seperate system and home partitions, and it's set up to be able to roll back to a previous version from the grub menu if an update causes a problem. This is possible with other distros, but can take quite a bit of effort. I've done it in debian before and it was not intuitive, and if something went wrong after following the guide I followed, I would have no idea how to fix it and would just have to nuke the isntall and start over.

The main difference between the universal blue releases is that Bazzite has steam installed at the system level, and has Gnome, KDE, or KDE plus Steam Bigpicture modes available. Bluefin is Gnome focused, and Aurora is KDE focused, but steam is only available as a flatpak. It is easy to swtich between each release with a simple terminal command and there is almost no risk to your user files when you do so. It just swaps out the system layer and leaves your user partition alone.

This set up will not be limiting or cause problems unless you are wanting to explore different window managers or desktop environments outside of KDE or Gnome, or have an obscure device that the bazzite maintaners haven't installed support for, or have to use a vpn with a custom installer that needs system access, or use a password manager that isn't configured well in flatpak.

As far as I understand it, the immutable fedora-based distros want as much as possible to be installed at the user level. Layering things onto the system should be reserved for things that need system level access to work properly, like maybe a driver or something like that, which might not have been included.

It's a better practice for stability and security.

The universal blue distros are the fastest I've been able to have a usable computer up and running and doing what I want it to do. They are fantastic.

There are no official cosmic variants anymore, but there are things like Origami that you can rebase to, if you want to try. Can't vouch for their stability, but it's an option. If support is dropped you can rebase back to regular bazzite. Rebasing is easy and pretty safe, it basically acts like an update and switches out the system files, but you should back up your config files just in case the different DE's don't play nice with each others config settings. From what ublue developers have said this can cause problems or annoyances.

Or you could develop your own derivitive with bluebuild or something. I'm not sure how involved that requires you to be, but it's probably easier than learning nixos.

Anything with docker set up OOTB, like Flatcar Linux

And a good docker container like: WG-Easy

You can make gnome more or less like mac with a few extensions, which works well in my experience. Extensions like apps menu, places indicator and dash to dock (or dash to panel) are useful.

You can make kde more or less like mac by sorting through a very comprehensive configuration gui, which is great for people who want it but not necessarily new users.

Is it this issue? - https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/2344

Someone fixed a similar issue by setting their display color accuracy to "Prefer Efficency" instead of "Prefer Accuracy"

you can boot ostree:1 change the setting, run sudo ostree admin pin 1 then rebase back to testing (not reboot to ostree:0) that should hopefully work around it

The ublue releases (bazzite/bluefin/aurora) are tweaked to be set up and ready to go with minimal or no set up. You can switch between ublue and the normal fedora atomic distros, or even user customized variants, from what I understand. The root system will change, but anything installed under your user account will stay the same. The only problem that might occur between switching is that different desktop environments might overwrite some settings and cause problems that way. You would want a way to backup your config files just in case if you do a lot of switching.

This also means you can't install multiple desktop environments side by side. Like if you wanted to choose between kde,gnome,xfce at the log in screen, it's not possible under the atmoic distros. When i've done that on regular distros it would always result in a mess, and getting rid of a DE meant a lot of orphaned programs I didn't want, so I avoid doing that, but this is a potential downside to the atomic distros. You would have to rebase and redownload stuff every time you switch DE.

Otherwise they are rock solid and basically designed to get you up and running as fast as possible, and be as stable as possible with seamless background updates. I'm running bluefin, and it's the most user friendly and smooth experience on linux i've ever had.

I just switched to a ublue distro (bluefin) and think it's great. These are designed from the ground up to be an "install it for a family member or friend and never have to touch it again" experience. They are based on Fedora. Bluefin has been the most trouble-free install of linux I've ever tried. I can't say enough good things about it.

I would go with Aurora (essentially bluefin but with KDE instead of Gnome), unless they do a lot of gaming, in which case Bazzite-kde would probably work best (bazzite is more up-to-date which can mean more instability).

These are set up to use flatpak with a software center, so all gui apps can be installed from there and is similar to windows. It updates everything automatically in the background and only requires rebooting whenever you want to switch to the updated system. Also the immutable nature makes it hard to break, but if something does go wrong it makes it easy to roll back to the previous working install. There are also GTS versions of bluefin and aurora available, which are pinned to more stable releases so there's even less chance of breakage.

Live USB installs aren't stable yet so that might be an issue if you want to make sure hardware works before install, but you can install to a usb harddrive and boot off of that to check it out that way.

I've been running bluefin for about a week and I agree. One of the best things about these different distros is they install and configure a lot of things for you. Bluefin installs with flatpak, homebrew, distrobox, podman/docker, devcontainers configured and running on install, good peripheral support, good desktop tweaks, and sensible but easily removable default apps. Bazzite does something similar for gaming installs. It's great. If there are common apps or configs that their users want they try to implement it and get it set up and running on install, if possible. The most friction free linux install I've ever had.