this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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    They say debian is free and has its promise, but Arch has like 2-4 maintainers?

    (page 2) 50 comments
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    [–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

    For those warning you away from Arch, it doesn't have to be like that anymore.

    I installed Garuda as a Linux noob and it has been petty straightforward and problem free. You don't have to build Arch by yourself in a cave from scraps anymore. Garuda supports Nvidia too.

    Just make sure you have pamac installed, it's the one thing my build didn't do and it made software installation and updates way easier.

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    [–] Magnum@infosec.pub 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    I know its tough to see through all the noise. Everyone tells you what you should do and to not listen to the others. But what I want you to focus on is that they are all nobodies. Randos you don't know and never will. But I'm Magnum PI, you know me, so listen to me and forget what everyone else has said.

    Go with Debian.

    [–] imahappyguy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Hell yeah, I knew Magnum ran Deb

    [–] Magnum@infosec.pub 3 points 2 months ago

    Hell yeah brother

    [–] ChojinDSL@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago

    If you want your system to be reliable, stable and in essence boring: Debian.

    If you want to be hands-on, on the bleeding edge and updating daily: Arch.

    [–] djdarren@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

    As any fule kno, the true answer to this is Haiku. Particularly as it's now officially* supported on M-series Macs.

    _

    *maybe

    [–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    "As any fool know?

    Sorry if that's obvious.

    Meh, not relevant.

    [–] djdarren@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

    I did actually misspell it, but it's a reference to Nigel Molesworth.

    [–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

    Arch is a challenge, be prepared to spend more time learning and tinkering than using your computer for the first few months (and forever). It's not impossible, but you will most likely have to reinstall a few times as you learn. If thats what you enjoy, great. Go for a distro made for the lay person like Mint or Bazzite. There's a backup program called Timeshift, it will replace windows snapshots and can help you recover from mistakes without having to start over.

    If you put your home drive on a separate partition/drive it will be easier to distro hop as you try different ones. Still, make sure your data is backed up, ideally put the backup on an external drive that you can unplug while installing new a OS.

    [–] Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago

    Idk, I never reinstalled anything and just installed a bunch of packages and followed some configuration guides for Arch and the respective packages. Took probably 5 hours or so to get the whole thing set up to a place where I could use it for 95% of things I usually do, which is gaming and browsing.

    [–] diptchip@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Neither. Void or OpenBSD. Not hating on SystemD, but I aint lovin it...

    [–] Cort@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    If you want to go with bsd, just make sure your hardware is supported

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    [–] Chaser@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

    I like Arch. It's a rolling release distro with a nice community. However there is no installer. You have to install it by hand. That's why many people who never touched Arch themselves keep telling it's "too hard to install". Actually the process is well documented. You'll need like an hour for it, but in return you get a system, that's slim and perfectly tailored to your needs.

    https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide

    However, if you just want to do casual things like browsing the web, debian is absolutely fine. But be aware, that the packages are antique. Also I never survived a dist-upgrade once in my live. There was always broken configs afterwards.

    [–] KhanLee@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

    EndeavourOS (Arch based)

    [–] MITM0@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

    Take debian & if you are into headaches take Arch

    [–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

    I highly recommend Mint Cinnamon, especially if this is your first foray into Linux.

    [–] ArchsageRamases@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Just get Cachyos its what I use and is super easy and based on Arch

    [–] festnt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

    try one for a week, switch to the other for a week, and if you feel like it, switch to any other whenever you want

    [–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 1 points 2 months ago

    Use FreeBSD. It literally has FREE in the name.

    [–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

    What do you mean by free? Why did only those two make your list?

    In general, I recommend Fedora KDE Spin (or Fedora Kinoite if you know what containers are)

    For your question, I would go for debian. But the answer also depends on your use-case. Software dev? CLI user? Gamer?

    [–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Fedora KDE is not a spin anymore. Fedora embraced KDE fully now. Which is nice.

    I feel somewhat bad for using Fedora (IBM Redhat and all), but it has been unmatched on keeping up with current applications while being absolutely painless to use.

    I have updated this laptop through three major versions and I have not had a thing to do yet. It is as up to date as my Cachyos laptop with zero effort.

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    [–] khanh@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago

    free as in free beer: literally any distro other than winux/linuxfx/wubuntu free as in libre: trisquel

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