(Also extends to people who refuse to use Linux too!)
Every unique Linux Desktop setup tells a story, about the user’s journey and their trials. I feel like every decision, ranging from theming to functional choices, is a direct reflection of who we are on the inside.
An open-ended question for the Linux users here: Why do you use what you do? What are the choices you’ve had to make when planning it out?
I’ll go first: I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with the Niri Scrolling Compositor(Rofi, Alacritty and Waybar), recently switched from CosmicDE
I run this setup because I keep coming back to use shiny new-ish software on a daily basis.
I prefer this over arch(which I used for 2 years in the covid arc), because it’s quite a bit more stable despite being a rolling release distro.
I chose niri because I miss having a dual monitor on the go, and tiling windows isn’t good enough for me. Scrolling feels smooth, fancy and just right. The overview menu is very addicting, and I may not be able to go back to Windows after this!
This was my first standalone WM/Compositor setup, so there were many little pains, but no regrets.
Would love to hear more thoughts, perspectives and experiences!
You’re being very melodramatic about the whole thing…
It’s a computer. We want to use it under our terms. End of story.
Wheres the melodrama in this post ? I’m detecting enthusiasm maybe, but not melodrama. They’re looking for peoples thoughts and experience, i.e what your own terms are for making these choices. Seems reasonable. Sharing that is optional of course and I also choose not to, end of story.
I would agree with this. I don’t see it as melodramatic.
Enthusiastic, yeah. And nothing wrong with someone interested in tech to also take the more poetic route of expression.
Many of the tech enthusiast types are more akin to mindless 1s and 0s. And not everyone is.
So like you did, rather lack thereof, the response of your own story is optional. I chose to share, because it’s fun to discuss. This isn’t a changelog, or patch notes. This is part or being human and sharing something other than binary data.
That’s what I thought. OP made it poetic. I just want to use my PC without distractions and being watched all the time, that’s all.
I agree! Tbf that’s why we’re all here in the first place
Astrology, but penguin themed.
You are such a Debian.
Arch and Gentoos never got along.
If you are a Nix do not install KDE on the first monday of the month, it’s bad luck.
Me with every new Linux installation:
My network looks like George Foreman’s kids names.
Anyway I use Ubuntu to make other Linux users mad. Stay mad, nerds.
Actually, Ubuntu is pretty good if not for the snap issue
I would unironically use it on a system that can run it fine without the loss in performance being noticeable
Ubuntu with snaps disabled is my daily driver…
Honestly, I haven messed with any of this. I just installed Mint, made sure everything works and haven’t messed with it since. It’s a tool and nothing more. It is also the reason why I left Windows. They were trying to force too many features and ads on something that I didn’t want to be more than an operating system
The main customization has been that i added app snap store for the software that I couldn’t find in the default software store
Same. It’s an OS not a lifestyle choice. Good OS though - two years now I think, and not complaints.
I use Fedora with Plasma.
I hate customizing ui elements, so I wanted something that used plasma and looked good with tweaking things.
I don’t want to deal with Snap, so my choices were a bit limited, but I’ve used Fedora in the past and liked it. I still do.
I did try arch with plasma and couldn’t get hardware video decoding to work in the browser, so I switched to Fedora. I was pleasantly surprised that Fedora had so much more configured for my laptop out of the box.
I got tired of windows feeling like my only option. I knew there were alternatives out there so I went searching.
Mint and Kubuntu are both super easy to install and use and I’m glad to help my friends with installing a new OS whenever they ask.
I use NixOS to document all of the choices I make. I can transfer my whole setup between computers and it just works. I don’t have random modifications anywhere
Do you run it impermenant? Or traditional Nix style? I been thinking about running NIX with impermenance and then persisting all the important files so I can hardware swap, or just keep a lean, clean, more secure, self maintained system over time.
The only bad OS is one that won’t do what you want when you want to do it.
I run a mixed environment at home, Windows machine for work, personal Windows machine for interoperability, Linux on the Steam Deck since that what it comes with, external Windows SSD for the Steam Deck since some games absolutely require Windows, Linux NAS for media, Linux Raspberry Pis for some fun side projects, my wife runs MacOS because she’s an Apple Fangirl, Android phone and tablet, iOS work phone for testing. Xbox, Playstation, Switch consoles for gaming.
I also use Niri. Previously I basically used maximimized windows on dual monitors. But I really liked the idea of switching to one ultrawide display. Maximized windows wouldn’t work well in that setup. Tiling hadn’t really worked for me because you end up with a screen full of awkwardly skinny or short windows, or windows hidden away in tabs. I also didn’t like the idea of managing floating windows with… a mouse.
So I looked for a better option. I found PaperWM, and I loved it! Exactly what I needed! But it has a number of quirks, being an extension that entirely reworks Gnome’s window management. For a long time I wished for a native scrolling wm. And then Niri came along! And it’s so polished!
i decided to install linux mint over windows one weekend and here i am. plus i got sick of microsoft and their continuing quest to be terrible.
I use secureblue, because it offers the (AFAIK unique) intersection between:
- a security-first[1] approach while being fit for general computing
- a first-class citizen of the
‘immutable’reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis paradigm - a well-maintained project with many active contributors that exhibit a proactive stance when it comes to implementing (security) improvements
To be precise, it’s actually Linux-first and security-second. For an actual security-first approach, consider taking a look at Sculpt OS employed with the seL4 kernel run on ARM or 64-bit RISC-V. ↩︎
I use Devuan and TDE because the setup is so incredible boring and dusty that i do not have to get acquainted with anything new (SystemD, Wayland… whatever hipster WM is currently cool) and keep working with the tools i like.
Trinity is fucking cool, I thought about running it alongside Plasma but I think it would fuck up my setup.
Actually, it goes to a lot of trouble not to step on the toes of later versions of KDE, and there are people who have them both installed side-by-each without major problems.
That being the case, I might give it a try. I can always uninstall it later.
I use NixOS for the atomic updates that I can roll back to at any time, so I can more or less never completely break my system. And even if I somehow manage it, I can just do a fresh install and apply my flake to get my entire setup back.
The drawback is that it does not follow the filsystem hierarchy standard, so a lot of scripts and binaries does not work out of the box. It gives me quite a bit of friction, but I’m sure that is a skill issue.
My desktop started by being inspired by a lot of Linux YouTubers, and I’ve gradually modified it to fit my needs.
I’m using Hyprland, Ghostty, neovim (btw), Rofi, waybar.
But, I’ll have to check out Niri after reading here.
I run Nix but never heard of Hyperland, ghosty, neovim, rofi, waybar? What are those? Extensions or programs?
Nice :)
Hyprland is a window manager (or actually a Wayland compositor if you want to be pedantic) , alternatives would be i3, dwm Niri, etc. A window manager is a more basic alternative to desktop environments like Gnome and KDE Plasma. It requires you to set up more things yourself, which is what most of the other things solve.
I use Rofi as an application launcher (it can be used for a lot more things as well), it basically does the same job as the Windows startmenu.
Waybar is a statusbar, can be configured to display anything really, but it usually displays the date and time, application tray, active workspace, RAM and CPU usage, battery level, etc. It basically does the same job as the the Windows taskbar.
Ghostty is a terminal, alternatives are Kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, foot. All operating systems come with a pre-installed terminal like Windows Terminal on Windows and Gnome Terminal on Gnome. But, you can change it out for some improved functionality.
Neovim is a terminal based text editor. New and improved version of the Vi and Vim text editors. Very steep learning curve, but very fun once you learn it. :q to exit the editor, if you ever feel like testing it.
I see and I’m going to check some of those out. There’s so much software in the open source world it’s hard to keep up, identify what is used for what.
I use conky for most stats on desktop, the default editor, default cinnamon terminal likely gnome, I’m going to look into the waybar though to see if it fills anything different that conky. I’m unsure why someone would need a window manager instead of tiling or dual monitor. Perhaps I don’t fully understand or I’m missing out on something, I’ve seen a lot of posts recently talking about window managers.
I use my PC fairly traditional. Nixos running cinnamon, I’ve tweaked it a bit but nothing outrageous as that’s when shit breaks or you go error hunting more often than I care too. My moving to nix was graduation from mint looking for even more stability through immutability and cutting out system drift with impermanence. I swap hardware as deals come along, so nix allowed for the most customization and ease of backups. Much more friendly for swapping hardware than a traditional OS.
I know right. xD I just have to learn things one at a time as they become relevant, otherwise it’s too overwhelming.
After a quick search of conky, it seems to me that it solves a different problem than waybar does. Waybar can display stats, but that is not its main purpose. Since you use Cinnamon, I doubt you need waybar or Rofi, as Cinnamon comes with pre-installed alternatives for them.
I should have mentioned before when I talked about window managers, I was mainly thinking about tiling window managers. They are really good for a keyboard centric workflow, so if you like using keyboard shortcuts, they’re worth a try. Ideally, you’ll spend less time moving windows around with the mouse, and less time trying to find the window you’re looking for.
But, we’re all different, of course. To each their own. To keep to the trodden path is definitely a good strategy for a stable system :)
I use Kubuntu on my Surface Go because it got way too warm under Windows. It’d work fine most of the time but I just got unhealthily warm to the point it’d get too hot to touch under very minor workload. My SO’s father, who’s been a huge proponent of Linux for decades now, suggested I give it a try and it’s been great. Some minor functionality restrictions but nothing I can’t work around. The touchscreen and the stylus work - that’s all I need for school
Fedora Kinoite, because it fits my workflow the best and has a nice mixture of stable and leading edge.
Everything I run was containerized either way (Flatpak, Docker or Podman) long before I switched to an immutable distro.
I have lots of different development environments for various versions of different programming languages that are incredibly easy to setup, throw away and recreate with toolbox without having to dive into the language specific tools for creating virtual environments (venv, conda, …). On regular Linux/Windows systems I end up at a point after a few years where there is junk laying around everywhere from 6 different PHP versions, 7 gcc variants and 8 .NET versions.
I was on Fedora KDE before that and the main reason for choosing it was that Ubuntu/Debian/Mint were too old to include firmware for my GPU. Arch and derivatives are on the opposite side of the spectrum and are too new for my taste, I’m fine with waiting a few weeks for .1 versions to release with bugfixes.
As for why not Bazzite or Aurora: Because I wanted to be as close to the original (Fedora & KDE) as possible. The modifications those distros make (and I need), I can do myself in a few minutes.
I do recommend Bazzite or Aurora for less experienced people though, they have a lot of tweaks that Kinoite is really lacking. Kinoite, just like the Fedora KDE variant has a lot of polishing issues that quickly become gigantic obstacles for beginners (Nvidia drivers, Flathub repository, H264/H265 codecs, missing udev rules, …)
