cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/35084396
Hej lemmings!
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! 😊
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No, I use whatever is most apropos for my needs and the hardware. I do stick to my preferred bases though.
I have like 5 years old openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop PC, rock solid.
I bought laptop recently and tried CachyOS there because it’s da bomb now apparently. It actually seems really nice with sane defaults, so I’m keeping it for now.
Yeah same here, recently installed Cachy and the first impressions have been great!
Sorta…
I’ve got 4x raspberry pis at my coffee house running things like digital signs and a soundboard. So PiSignage and PiOS. 2x laptops and 1x desktop running CachyOS. Then the steam deck running stock.
Yes. Fedora for everything. I have an unraid server in another home but only because idk how to get my drives out of unraids array.
I’m sorry but I think it’s ignorant to think any consumer and server grade distro cannot run all the tasks you list.
My laptop, servers, NAS (? This is a server?), and gaming/work pc all run fedora.
I was at one point, was really into KDE Neon for a while and used it everywhere. Then shifted when they released a new distro away from Neon.
But now I use Debian on my two servers and looking at DietPi for my Raspberry Pi and use Linux Mint Cinnamon for my gaming PC. With the Nvidia RTX GPU I have, I had nothing but issues on any distro that used Wayland so I felt forced into this and been here since with no issues so I will be here for some time.
Fedora Kinoite for all desktops, Fedora CoreOS for Kubernetes, and RockyLinux for anything else. I do use Proxmox though for any hypervisors though.
We’re all RHEL/Rocky at work so I try to restrict myself to something similar.
Only Debian-based
My brain also runs nix.
Mint for my machine and my kids machines, ubuntu on my server as its just what Ive used there forever. If that server ever implodes I might consider a rolling debian of some kind for that server, maybe even LMDE or just possibly base debian as its a lot more friendly these days I hear. I worry about using LMDE as a server because of the prospect of Mint dropping it because its taking too much dev time.
Given Debian’s longer release cycles, I imagine it’s not nearly as much of a drain as keeping up with Ubuntu. Plus, LMDE keeps them in position to ditch Ubuntu if they become too problematic or burdensome to work with.
LMDE keeps them in position to ditch Ubuntu if they become too problematic or burdensome
Oh I know thats what they say, but at the end of the day their resources are limited too and if they ever have to ditch something, I suspect it will be that.
I run Debian on my home server and my pi…my laptop runs fedora because I wanted to move away from Ubuntu back in 2021 and had no patience to solve my WiFi card issues with Debian…I miss running Debian on my laptop but fedora works for almost everything I need. I got no time to back things up and do a fresh install anyway.
Debian on my servers. Arch based on my workstation. Fedora kinoite for parents and family to reduce tech support. Postmarket on my android chrome tab. BSD on my SBC.
I run Alpine Linux on my laptop and two Raspberry Pi’s. I also have Linux Mint DE on my laptop but that’s exclusively for steam games. I also have GrapheneOS with Termux on my android phone.
Alpine on my laptop uses Sway as my desktop and it’s where I do all my coding and self hosting work. It’s also where I spend most of my time.
My Raspberry Pi 4 exclusively runs HomeAssistant and it doesn’t get touched unless I’m doing an update or making a backup.
I have a Pi 5 that’s going to be used to host a server. I’m just doing some background learning and setting up before I start hosting again. It should go a lot quicker and smoother this time because I set up my computer and HomeAssistant up in a standardized way. I tried to make as many files and folders as similar as possible so I have less differences to sort out from one machine to the next.
It’s feels a lot easier to manage for me.
It varies depending on use for me.
Arch on my desktop and main laptop. I use both frequently for gaming or working on my home lab.
Fedora Server for my two mini PCs. They both run docker containers.
Raspberry PI OS on one Pi for pihole, and a few other services.
DietPI on my other Pi for MotiomEye.
I test more bleeding edge stuff including testing repo for Arch on another laptop.
I’m running Mint on my Desktop/Gaming rig, as well as on my laptop and a microslop surface. I have some old hardware I’m considering trying vanilla Debian with, to try it out.
I like to stick with distros based on Debian/Ubuntu as I’m familiar with the utilities. Default settings and locations of things change, but I don’t mind finding those if the base architecture is familiar. I spun up a VPS with Ubuntu on it, and I was very comfortable getting it set up due to this.
I’ve also looked into a way to sync my OSs, but that’s a whole other animal, from what I can tell. I just have a markup file shared with Syncthing that gives a little To do list when I’m setting up a new machine.
That being said, I have an old laptop and a Ventoy USB loaded with distro images that I like to boot up now and then. Puppy, Kali, and Pop are some of the really interesting ones.
My setup:
- 2 Steamdecks running SteamOS
- Living room PC running Pop!_OS
- Gaming PC running Bazzite
- Phone, pixel 3a xl running Ubuntu Touch/Waydroid
