this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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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! 😊

(page 3) 21 comments
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[–] fozid@feddit.uk 4 points 22 hours ago

no, i use archlinux on my main desktop as i use it daily and is my main workhorse. i have a laptop that rarely gets used at that has debian on. then i have a mini pc server with debian and a raspberry pi 4 with debian based raspberry pi os.

[–] elperronegro@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

For me it depends on computer capability. 3 generations of laptop... Current: PopOS Older: MiniOS Oldest (32bit): AntiX

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

Oldest (32bit)

I still have a functional 32 bit laptop. It's rather slow, but it does work

[–] gurty@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

Ubuntu for the main pc and Arch for the filthy weird frankenstein laptop from 2008. Just as god intended.

[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

I use Debian on servers, because stable.

I use Fedora on desktops, because I game and I like having fixes for mesa, the kernel, and amdgpu for my latest gen AMD GPU. My laptop is for work, but it's just easier having consistency.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)
  • Servers: Ubuntu Jammy
  • NUC: Mint xfce
  • VMs: Kali, Mint, and a variety of others including WIndows & Mac.

I hear a lot of chatter about NixOS. Going to have to check it out.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago

I'm all some Debian dereritive, whether it's Q4OS or just Debian,

[–] rem26_art@fedia.io 2 points 20 hours ago

Servers are Debian Desktop is Arch Laptop is EndeavorOS

[–] dil@piefed.zip 1 points 18 hours ago

It causes issues, like bazzite has the same profile name, IDK if I missed the option to change it. Cant use the virtual mouse swap across computers because they require different names and it has an error related to that.

[–] Fierro@piefed.social 2 points 21 hours ago

My laptop needs reliability to be fairly certain I'll have everything working when I use it on poor internet, my desktop is always comnected to high bandwidth and has a decent cpu so I can spare a bit extra time and cycles on updating everything when something breaks

Different needs

I did like having the same thing going on on both for the couple months I used mint on both.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Debian on homeservers, centos on work servers, and mint on desktops

[–] pentastarm@piefed.ca 2 points 21 hours ago

SteamOS on my steam deck. Bazzite on my laptop. And fedora on my home server that I'm still learning how to set up(I have immich running in a container, but that was just following an online tutorial. Still trying to understand docker better.)

[–] MuttMutt@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

Desktop - Ubuntu Cinnamon LTS (I game and edit video this is also currently my Frigate host)

Laptop - Ubuntu Budgie (It's basically just a thin client to access my desktop when I want to sit in the livingroom)

Stepson's Desktop - ChimeraOS (Because I don't want to deal with anything in his room)

Server - TrueNAS (Been using it since the FreeNAS 9 Era)

Router - OpnSense (Been using that since before I started using FreeNAS)

Different distro's suit different needs. Could I use a single one for everything, yeah with a lot of extra work I don't want to deal with. I'm much more hardware oriented and can make software work tried switching to Linux for everything in the mid 2000's but couldn't do things reliably with it till lately.

[–] Fives@discuss.online 2 points 21 hours ago

My server is Debian. My desktop and laptops are all Garuda Linux.

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 17 minutes ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
LTS Long Term Support software version
LXC Linux Containers
NAS Network-Attached Storage
NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
Plex Brand of media server package
VPN Virtual Private Network
VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

8 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.

[Thread #152 for this comm, first seen 9th Mar 2026, 16:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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