Hej lemmings! (Hoping this is relevant enough for the selfhosted commjnity)

Quick question for you all: do you stick with the same distro across your PC, laptop, and server, or do you pick different ones based on the device and what you’re doing?

For me, I’ve been mixing and matching depending on the use case, but I’m starting to think it’d be nice to just have one distro (or at least one family like Fedora or Debian) running everywhere. That way I wouldn’t get confused about default settings or constantly have to look up flags for different package managers.

Right now my setup is:

  • Gaming rig: CachyOS
  • Laptop: AuroraOS
  • NAS: Unraid
  • Various project servers: DietPi, Debian, Alpine etc…

I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases, but I’m a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it’d take to migrate everything over.

Am I the only one who feels like having “one distro to rule them all” would be nice? How do you guys handle your setups? All ears! 😊

  • coltn@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    arch on my two laptops, and desktop. proxmox on my server as the hypervisor, and debian on the vm/lxc. my routers are running openwrt.

    one of my laptops i use for testing, and i do switch distro’s… i’ve tried alpine, gentoo and i’d like to try openbsd. but arch is comfy

  • Bakkoda@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    1 Fedora (laptop)

    1 bazzite (old gaming desktop)

    N+1 Debian on everything else than can

  • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Yes, because nixos and distributed git-based dotfiles, would be so much work to have a second setup for no real gain, I do investigate other distros regularly though

  • dieTasse@feddit.orgEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    Fedora just works for me in every case except NAS where I have TrueNAS, so Fedora it is and I installed it even to couple of people and they also like it.

  • arcine@jlai.luEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    I use NixOS on everything ! This way, I can re-use parts of my configuration as a base, and customise only the few things that need to change from one machine to the other.

    The only exception is my Steam Deck. I trust Valve on that one, and my usage of it is so different from other computers as to make 95% of my config entirely irrelevant anyway.

  • eksb@programming.devEnglish
    471·
    3 days ago

    Servers are all Debian. Family member’s laptops are all Debian. I used Debian on my laptops for 20 years, but when Steam Deck switched to Arch, I switched my laptop to Arch to force me to learn it. I have a file with notes of differences between Debian and Arch. Next time I buy a new laptop, I will probably go back to Debian.

    • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I would use Debian for servers, except that the version of Podman (at least on Debian 12) was old enough that it couldn’t do quadlets. So I went with Fedora.

    • Rioting Pacifist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      Same but a ubuntu-derivative instead of Arch.

      I don’t want to think about my server, but I do sometimes want the latest and greatest app on my laptop.

    • Tanoh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      Servers are debian, desktop debian. Why swap when you found the best already? 😁

      I guess technically steam deck is not on debian, but I didn’t choose it so it doesn’t really count.

  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    My main server runs Ubuntu Server (I’m thinking about switching it to Debian), and my laptop and desktop both run Arch Linux. Generally, I pick whatever I think is best for the given usecase — things like stability, package availability, documentation, security, etc. are considered.

  • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    30·
    1 day ago

    Yep. Debian. I like apt, and I like shit that just…works. I’m very much a form after function kind of person. Plus, Debian was the first Linux distro I became most familiar with at a young age. So what if a bunch of packages are on “old” versions. They work. The kernel works. KDE Plasma works. I can do everything I want to do without having to constantly be on the bleeding edge. If you prefer newer things, that’s great. I prefer older, more proven things. That’s also why I drive Toyota cars and old Honda motorcycles.

    My Proxmox cluster runs…uh…Proxmox, which is based on Debian. NAS runs OMV which also runs on top of Debian. Laptops all run Linux Mint Debian Edition 7, and my 5800X3D/7900XTX gaming PC runs LMDE6 (will be upgrading to 7 soon). The only non-Debian machines in my house are my wife’s iMac and Macbook Pro, and the Home Assistant mini PC.

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      7·
      3 days ago

      That’s the same philosophy I’ve applied for a long time. Recently, I found out that gaming is an exception to the rule, though. While older versions are just fine for the most part, there are edge cases where that no longer applies. I also found out that I care about one of them. Until you hit that brick wall, there’s no reason to switch. Just keep on using Debian for everything.

      Took me a while to realise that I was spending way too much time figuring out workarounds instead of actually gaming. I ended up using Bazzite in my gaming rig because it works so well for that purpose.

      • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I’ve yet to run into major issues with gaming. But I’m curious what issue you ran into that caused the switch to Bazzite? I actually tried Bazzite briefly on my latest laptop acquisition (HP Spectre x360) before going with LMDE 7; I didn’t like the immutable aspect. I’m a tinkerer at heart and can’t handle not being able to get under the hood, so to speak.

        • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          It was Space Engineers 2. Even made a post about the journey.

          All the other games were just fine though. If you don’t stumble upon one of these edge cases, there’s no reason to switch.

          • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2·
            1 day ago

            Hmmm.

            Under LMDE7, the HP Spectre does great with the games I’ve thrown at it so far (BeamNG.Drive, Hollow Knight, Factorio, Universe Simulator, Minecraft, etc), but despite exceeding the minimum specs, it really struggled with running anything in RPCS3. Stuttering, frame drops, graphics simply not loading, etc… I ended up writing off RPCS3 in general as “too heavy for a laptop” and tasked my desktop gaming PC as the dedicated PS3 emulator - works great.

            Sounds like I might have to give Bazzite a shot again on the HP. I use that laptop for a lot of things, including diagnostics software for my cars, but I also have a perfectly-capable AMD Thinkpad T14 G1 hanging around that needs a purpose, too.

            It was Space Engineers 2. Even made a post about the journey.

            What was the actual issue you ran into though? I didn’t see it in your post. I believe you, but my curiosity is piqued.

            • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              2·
              21 hours ago

              Yeah, that post was getting way too long, so I made some cuts here and there. The issue was in the way SE2 detects hardware… or more like doesn’t detect my GPU at all, throws an error about it and refuses to start. Under Bazzite it starts the game first 🎉, then complains that my hardware might not be good enough to run this game 🤯, but the beautiful graphics say otherwise. It’s still in early access, so I guess this kind of strange behavior will be ironed out sooner or later.

              I got tired of researching this issue in Debian, so once I got it up and running in Bazzite, I stopped reading about it. Honestly, I have no idea what’s the key difference here. Is it the driver version, Proton-GE or something else? Who knows.

              Anyway, I would recommend trying Bazzite. It has some pre-configured tricks that seem to handle weird cases like this.

  • redlemace@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Every now and then I try something else (usually live usb from ventoy) just to see how others evolve. I like endevour, but I always en up with debian minimal install. Only on mylaptop I add xfce4. It’s just rock solid. For my wife’s laptop it’s elementary, only because of the looks just to make her move from windows to linux painlessly

  • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Yes and no, my main system is EndeavourOS as well as one laptop that stays docked in the bedroom as a media PC. My HTPC is running Mint with KDE, my Steam Deck is stock SteamOS, my MacBook Pro is running Asahi Linux, server running TrueNAS and Raspberry Pi’s running stock Raspberry Pi OS. Mainly I just like KDE, and have a preference for Arch based systems.

    I prefer EndeavourOS and haven’t had issues with it for a couple years now, but Mint on the HTPC was a reason to try Mint and I just left it alone except for swapping Cinnamon for KDE. Asahi is the only option for M1 MacBooks so no choice there. Pi OS I never really use the system as a computer, I just have one running PiHole and another running a digital calander for the wife and I, so I only interact with them through ssh or web portals. My Steam Deck works perfectly fine as is and I mainly just use the Steam launcher anyway so no point changing it. The TrueNAS system I mainly use through a web portal or SMB so it’s fine.