Fedora and Debian testing

I've found openSUSE tumbleweed to be the perfect mix between stable and constant updates. By default uses brtfs so if you break something the fix is a simple as rolling back to the snapshot that was automatically made right before the update

fedora is a good middle ground

IMO Debian is already pretty far middle-ground. The packages are new enough for my personal usage.

Atomic distros + distrobox/toolbx. Bluefin is a good start for general desktop or Bazzite for gaming (But Bluefin can be more stable, I use it for some games with steam in flatpak). If something breaks roll back to any release in the last 90 days with a single command. Install all of your packages in a distrobox (Arch if you need it). Otherwise in general Fedora is pretty good.

Arch is not harder to maintain nor is it easier to break, that's a myth. If anything, it's the opposite, as a rolling release stays up to date, though it relies on the user keeping it up to date. If you get lazy with updates, then yes, you are going to have problems eventually.

From anecdotal experience I can only tell you that not once have I witnessed a showstopper bug on Arch. I recommend using btrfs and snapshots to really make sure however.

Debian Stable isn't the only way to run Debian though people often act like it. That said, if you want the stability of Debian Stable then run it with the nix package manager (nix-bin).

This may be an unpopular opinion, but NixOS. It has package up-to-dateness comparable to (and sometimes better than) Arch, but between being declarative (and reproducible) and allowing rollbacks, it's much harder to break. The cost is, of course, having to learn how to use NixOS, as it's a fair bit different to using a "normal" Linux distro.

I'm sure I'll get shouted down for this suggestion by the haters, but I'm going to make it anyway because it's actually really good:

Use an Ubuntu LTS flavour like Kubuntu. Then, add flatpak and for apps you want to keep up to date, install either the flatpak or the snap, depending on the particular app. In my personal experience, sometimes the flatpak is better and sometimes the snap is better. (I would add Nix to the mix, but I wouldn't call it particularly easy for beginners.)

This gets you:

1. A reliable Debian-like base that you only have to upgrade to new releases every 2 years
2. Up-to-date apps, including confinement for those apps
3. New kernels every 6 months (if you choose - you don't have to, though)

I would say:

• Fedora if you like a point release, which means that every 6 months you do a big update of core stuff like the desktop environment, and on Fedora everything else is always generally up to date.
• OpenSUSE Thumbleweed if you like a rolling release, which means that you don't do big updates, everything is kept to the last version that the software repository has, this is how arch works except in Thumbleweed the repositories are updated slower than in arch and less likely to break.

But you could also go for any more up to date debian-based distro, like Pop_OS or even Ubuntu, they might be easier for a newbie user. Fedora and OpenSUSE will be more up to date though.

If you do use Ubuntu, don't stick to just LTS versions, use the last version available (which right now happens to be an LTS version). The "extra support" it offers is not something desktop users care about, it's outweighted by the benefits of more updated software.

What's wrong with Ubuntu/Mint/PopOS/Fedora or any of the distros usually recommended? They're easier to maintain and more up to date than Debian

Probably not the place to ask, but. Say In a n00b and have Arch (EndeavourOS BTW) on a 15+ year old laptop. Everything works fine hardware wise. Software is fairly basic web, Inkscape, LibreOffice.

Do I really need all the latest Arch updates? Or can I just do an update say every 6 months?

install debian

apt install flatpak

flatpak install theThingYouWantTheLatestOf

You could.. of course also try to use Debian Testing (which is more stable than Debian Unstable), but also more up to date than just Debian Stable.

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting And see also: https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/ (currently "trixie" is the testing release).

EDIT: I mention this, because nobody mentioned it yet.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

Arch is easy to maintain and is stable enough. Of course you can make Arch unstable if you do greedy stuff, but if you use like a normal person, it will be fine

It's using Arch for 5 years now and I never broke my system, for example

Fedora is pretty good there, but I wouldnt use the DNF variants.

The atomic variants though totally rock. Atomic Desktops, IoT, etc.

The atomic model deals with all the troubles you would have with so new packages.

OpenSUSE slowroll would be a better middle-ground, but I have had strange broken packages and they dont have a useful atomic model, as it is not image-based.

For private use? Hot take, but Arch. It's easy to maintain and not easy to break at all. I think I spend zero time on maintenance other than running package updates. I only reinstall when I get a new computer.

(I say for private use only because you'll be getting weird looks from people if you use arch on a server in a professional setting, and it might break if you try to update it after five years of not doing it since there aren't any "releases" to group big changes - in practice I run arch on my home server too with no issues)

Is there a good sort of middle ground distro between the reliability of Debian and the up-to-date packages of arch?

This guy:

(OpenSUSE Tumbleweed).
Or maybe Slowroll.

Fedora, Ubuntu etc. use up to date packages if you're using flatpaks and snaps. Nix I suppose fits the bill better but it's a harder distro to "learn" than arch imo

How about Rhino? Rolling release of Debian Sid iirc

Absolutely. Here's three options

Fedora updates every, or around every, 3 months. This is very stable but very up to date.Most professional devs particularly ones working in Linux projects use it fornit's relative stability while having modern packages.

There's also PopOS! which is a rolling release, updating daily, but much more delayed than arch thus being much more usable.

Now for my favourite, OpenSuse Tumbleweed. Same style as PopOs but with a KDE, or gnome spin or of the box. A bit more sleek too. It also has YAST which is the best GUI based managment system on Linux.

I use arch (btw) but have a second duel booted tumbleweed install for work related stuff in order tonensure stability

OpenSUSE tumbleweed is a good compromise IMO. it is also a rolling release distro with built in snapshotting. So if anything does go wrong it takes ~5 mins to roll back to the last good snapshot. You can set the same thing up on arch but it isn't ootb and YAST is a great management tool as well.