this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Linux distro for a laptop I might barely use (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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For years, I've gotten by with a desktop at home running Arch and a work laptop running Kubuntu. Now I want a laptop that's not owned by my job, so that I can use a computer outside the house and not have my workplace own the IP rights of whatever I do on it. My workload is basically just going to be emacs and web browsing, so basically any distro can do it.

I've already got the laptop (HP Elitebook 840 G5, secondhand), but now it's time for the distro. I don't plan to use this laptop often, since it'll mostly be when I travel a few times a year. I don't want Arch, because I don't want to install 6 months of software updates the night before a vacation and then hope that everything works.

Thus, I'm looking at Fedora Silverblue, since that can apply updates atomically on the system, and I can always roll back. I'm wondering if anyone else has good recommendations for a distro to serve my needs.

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[–] Shikadi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I haven't had an arch update go bad since 2016, other than a few things that had instant fixes on the home page/mailing list, whereas with Ubuntu I have trouble with every distro upgrade.

I like Fedora's dnf package manager though, it's similar to Pacman. It's been a while but last time I used Fedora I got annoyed by packages being out of date and went back to Arch

[–] nani8ot@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Arch updates going bad is much more likely to happen if the system goes without updates for a long time. So I'd really not recommend it for a seldomly used laptop.

But regularly updated Arch is fine. Even if something breaks it's usually easy to deal with.

[–] Shikadi@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

I should have added that I update one of my arch computers like once or twice a year, and the other maybe 4 times a year. The reputation for having update issues is just as out dated as Ubuntu's reputation for not having update issues

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I say... Debian

[–] Shikadi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm probably the only one here who doesn't like Debian for desktop lol, stable doesn't have to mean out of date

[–] garam@lemmy.my.id 2 points 1 year ago

Fedora

I like fedora, and I don't like how apt handle rollback in debian, so I'm same on desktop, I would rather use Fedora, and on Critical Production Server, I use RHEL/Fedora/RHEL Clones (Alma).