Interesting, how are you dealing with pacnew/pacsave files? From your explanation it seems that they would go into the read only filesystem and would need to be resolved manually and preserved there until some old version cleanup is ran.

And while I find the idea of a writable overlay filesystem for the /etc fascinating, I think that could have issues with some rollbacks and backwards incompatible config changes.

At the end of the day seems like a fascinating project, but I wonder if Arch+snapper wouldn’t be better overall.

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That’s an interesting idea, but if you make Arch’s root read only you’re leaving behind pacman/AUR (and to a good extent the Arch wiki) which are usually the main advantages of Arch based distros.

SteamOS solves the stability issue by providing runtimes for games, I didn’t read anything there about anything similar on your distro. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you’re not solving the stability issue, or in other words you will still be unstable as this will be a rolling release. In short I don’t see what would be the advantage of this over base Arch + Snapper (or timeshift).

In that regard, how is this different from Bazzite? I know it will be a different kernel and package versions but in principle the philosophy seems to be exactly the same, and I don’t expect the kernel/packages to be that different either.

What makes you think Google knows who you are? Just because it recommends videos you’re interested? Have you considered your interests might be average?

If you’re not logged in, using a system where you never logged in, connecting through Tor as you said google has no way of tracking you, so either one of those is a lie or you think it’s tracking you when it isn’t.

What do you mean? If you login the site has to know who you are, if you don’t then it won’t. What makes you think it knows who you are?

It comes pre installed, the question should be the other way around: why change the system? And I don’t think those two are sufficiently different to justify it unless you want to use the deck mainly as a PC.

That’s good, didn’t knew that but that’s a very smart move from them. Even so, that’s IF they know about that, also it only fixes the immediate issue of broken system, not the fact that you need to know what to do to not break it.

Cachy works great, it’s essentially a preconfigured Arch, but Arch issues for new users was never the installation process.

I’m very weary of recommending Arch distros to new users, Arch expects you to read the news and breaks stuff. 99% of the time for experienced users it’s fine, but new users tend to touch random configs when exploring which prevents pacman from upgrading them, and they won’t read the news to know about possible issues.

And before someone says Cachy is not Arch, it is, for this purpose it is, it suffers from the same thing by reason of being a rolling release that uses the same package manager. Just because YOU haven’t experienced a problem doesn’t mean it’s not there, I also have never experienced a similar problem with over a decade of Arch as my main distro, but it happens and you have to be blind to say otherwise.

Some tips for you:

• Check game compatibility using https://www.protondb.com/ this will let you know if the games you want to play run on Linux and how well they do so

• Buy an AMD GPU, support for Linux is great on them, miles ahead of nVidia. If you already had an nVidia card it’s usable, but if you’re starting fresh 100% AMD.

• Don’t fret too much on the distro of choice, not sure how familiar you are with Linux but because of the questions I assume not much. If this machine will also be used as a normal computer prefer a general use distro (my recommendation would be Mint), if you’ll plug it on the TV and use it as a console prefer a gaming distro (I’ve heard good stuff about Bazzite but never used it myself). You can have / and /home be different partitions, this means that you can distro hop and maintain your games, saves, and most configs from one distro to the other, or even when reinstalling the system, I strongly recommend people to do that.

• Linux is not windows, things are done differently and that’s okay. A lot of the frustration of new users comes from trying to do things the windows way and failing miserably, e.g. trying to install programs/drivers by navigating to a random web page and downloading a binary.

Good luck, and ask any more questions you might have.

Really? Never heard of that, which games did Valve did that?

Simple, look at what they invest the money in. Valve pays Proton developers and Linux support, GoG makes some ads about no DRM and invests something on preservation of games, Epic invests money on suing other companies and getting exclusives. Decide which of those is more important to you and spend money there.

Yeah, Gentoo is really good, but I dropped it the day I needed to edit a system, so I installed GIMP (there was no binary for it at the time), a few hours later I tried to open the image and realized I had forgotten to add the libpng (or similar) flag so didn’t had the support for the image type. Took me less time to install Arch than it would have taken me to recompile Gimp.

I fell for the Arch/AUR trap for a while, but I got tired of spending my weekends debugging file manager crashes instead of maintaining my home lab.

What sort of file manager crashes were you having?

Pacman doesn’t fetch from the AUR.

Yeah, I can see that. But I don’t think that knowing Ansible will teach you that difference. OP seems to know enough about Linux to be comfortable so I would expect him to be able to distinguish between those.

I agree that Nix has a steep learning curve and it’s not for everyone, but OP specifically asked for a way to declare their system, and Ansible doesn’t work for something you’ll setup now to use in 6 months when you decide to reinstall the system, because the best case scenario is you get your system as it was 6 months ago, but more realistically it doesn’t work and you have to spend time fixing it or doing it manually.

Don’t get me wrong, Ansible is great, I manage my home server with it, but if I go a while without running the pipeline when I do it rolls back several changes I made manually to test and forgot to consolidate. Nix is annoying because it forces you to declare everything every time, but you’re guaranteed to get the same result you have now, which is very important for the case OP asked about.

You should have a look at NixOS. It’s a Linux distro where you declare the whole system in configuration like files, in a language called Nix (hence NixOS), then you run a command and that gets resolved into your system.

It takes a long time to setup the first time, but it’s a breeze when you need to reinstall, and you will never need to reinstall as every boot is a fresh copy of the system you declared.

There’s also a thing called home-manager which uses the Nix language to declare your home configuration. That part can be used in any other Linux by installing the home-manager package.

You can declare your OS in a way that the home part is portable for machines running other systems. I do that, then my machines are very easy to declare, and with some groups for things like Base (Terminal, prompt, some things I expect to have on every system like Python, nvim fully configured, etc), Gaming (Steam mostly), UI (Sway, many GUI things I use like browser with extensions, etc) I can add configs for a new machine in instants depending on what I expected for it, and if I ever want to convert my “Steam machine” into a desktop it’s just a couple line changes, regenerate the config and it’s exactly the same as my laptop.

Honestly I don’t think Nix is for everyone, but it’s a very niche thing that works extremely well for what it sets up to do, and if you’re in the target audience it’s a game changer.

Just post the same info on any Linux sub. Linux users bash on Linux a lot (pun intended) when it’s deserved. The thing that most people from the outside miss is that we’re very sensitive to what is and isn’t a Linux problem, your game/software not working is not a Linux problem, just like how it’s not an Android problem not to run the same game.

I haven’t seen that community but I would guess the majority of posts there are not actual Linux problems, therefore you might be downvoted and corrected if you post those links on a normal Linux community, but I don’t think any of them would outright ban you unless you were constantly spreading missinformation.

Edit: just gave that community a quick look, currently the top threads are:

• The one you replied, which makes no sense, no one says that’s a bonus, it’s a known issue and is in fact a fault somewhere in the Linux ecosystem. So posting about that issue would be acceptable in any Linux community.
• A post about someone being banned from an online game for using Linux. This is not Linux’s fault, but still would be allowed in any Linux community, the general answer would be to stop giving money to a company that bans people for no good reason, but it is a valid topic of discussion as to how Linux users are mistreated by different companies. But as is the post is a Straw man of “Linux users say X” when no one has said X.
• A post making a joke about Linux being good for development, yet under-develop. The content is about how professionals don’t use Linux, and I think that’s bullshit. A post about how companies force people to use Windows would be better and get the same point across. I have worked in several different companies, one of them I worked for over a year on Linux, writing backed server code, and one day they decided I couldn’t work on Linux anymore. It happens, it would be a valid post on Linux communities as well but it’s not a Linux problem, some companies allow it and it works well for them. Also a Straw man, the joke has no link with the content, and the content is about how people are forced to use a different system and act as if that’s their choice. Bb
• A post about sudoedit, that’s a good one can be reposted as is.
• Meme post that makes no sense outside of that community
• A post about a long list of arguments from Linux users. There are a lot of interesting points of discussion there, but posting everything together is not insentivising discussion. A lot of the arguments there are simply wrong, but a good faith discussion can be had on each of those individually, however the answer to a lot of them will be among the lines of “but that IS Windows fault, or hardware manufacturer purposefully not targeting Linux”. In short this is Gish Gallop, which is not to say there aren’t good critics, but this should be split inyo multiple posts to allow proper discussion of all of them.

So, in short if you reword things I expect you can post most of them on any Linux sub, but word for word might get you downvoted as they’re mostly fallacious arguments.

If I had to put a name I would say customizability and ease of use. I dual booted for several years, it started as Linux was my programming OS and everything else was on Windows, but organically I started to spend more time on Linux and at some point I noticed Windows had become my gaming system, anything else I was doing in Linux. I fiddled with Wine and some games I could get to run on Linux so I only had to reboot for some games. Then Humble Bundle gave me a few games for Linux and I found other ones that offered Linux builds like Project Zomboid and I decided “you know what? I don’t even game all that much, between Humble Bundles and Wine I can probably get enough games to keep me entertained and I don’t have to keep dual-booting” so I nuked windows from my system and a short while later Steam came to Linux consolidating my choice.

So yeah, it wasn’t that I chose Linux it was that using both for long enough pulled me to one side. I can’t tell you exactly what pulled me, but whenever I try to use Windows everything seems so clunky and rigid that I think that played a large role. I remember several times when I had issues on one OS I would jump to the other, the issues in Linux were mostly self-inflicted (even though I didn’t knew it at the time), whereas the Windows issues were random, unpredictable and unfixable with time the Linux ones became fixable and even predictable.

I’m not saying its not possible, I am disagreeing that his is a valid point as an argument for “the distro does not matter” statement.

But when the question is between Ubuntu and Kubuntu you can “convert” between them very easily. Not to mention that the fundamental difference between all Debian based distros is the version of the packages they offer, so you can very easily jump between them expecting most things to be the same.

These are not the only reasons, but good reasons WHY the distribution matters. BTW I also think that some distributions are technically superior for certain use cases. In example CachyOS is more up to date, has optimizations even on Kernel level, compared to an old Debian distribution that is focused on stability. These are technical differences that matter, for whatever you want to achieve. It’s not just a personal taste.

Yes, that matters for you, it doesn’t matter for someone who just wants something to use. That contributes to the decision paralysis of switching to Linux, when we say distro doesn’t matter we’re trying to remove that hurdle, because for the average guy that will just use his computer the difference between Debian and CachyOS is the name. Someone without experience in Linux doesn’t understand what stability means, they think it means the system won’t crash so they always try to use stable distros and get frustrated because they’re out of date, or alternatively they think they want bleeding edge until it cuts them. And that’s the crux of the issue, when we make a distro choice, it matters because we understand the differences, when a new user is trying to pick their first distro they’re essentially throwing a dice, it doesn’t matter where it lands, it matters how they feel about it.

It’s hard for us to put ourselves back in the shoes of someone just getting started,

They are thetorical questions

But they’re not, they might be to you or me, but for someone without Linux knowledge they’re very real questions. I have answered some form of some of those from people in the past.

If they don’t understand the differences, then they SHOULD research and debate until they do.

Oh really? Would you mind telling me what’s the difference between Pop, Ubuntu and Mint in a way that would matter for someone who doesn’t understand anything about Linux?

Choosing a random distribution and hopping until they understand is not only waste of time and resources, it will teach them wrong lessons this way.

Having to research what to use before understanding the difference will teach them nothing and make them give up before starting.

I for myself researched for months before I landed on Ubuntu in 2008 as the default, to replace Windows XP. Then I kept using it for… I think 15 years straight or so (forgot the exact numbers).

Yeah, but 2008 was a very different playing field than it is today. 2008 we were almost unanimously recommending Ubuntu or Mint, every forum you asked, every thread you found online it would have been essentially the same recommendation. It’s easy to make the decision then. Today if you open 4 different articles from 4 different sites you will likely get at least 4 different answers to which distro you should choose. And theyake it seem like it’s this big important decision that you have to get right the first time around, that’s the mentality we’re trying to fight.

I don’t like the analogy of “clothes” or someone else with “colors”. Distributions are extremely complex and there is way more work and knowledge involved, they have way more impact and dependencies.

An expert in clothes might tell you the same about them, and that’s what you’re missing, you are an expert, to you the difference between Mint and Pop is concrete and mensurable, to someone who doesn’t understand what I package manager is it’s just vague words without any meaning.

And to your point if someone asks me “do clothes matter?” i will say “off course”. Not just to contradict you, but because I think clothes do matter depending on how they fit to me, to the situation I am and how nice it feels, how it looks and so on. Even on practical side, if it rains or if I want to swim. While I don’t like this clothes analogy, I still wanted answer that question you assumed I would say “no”.

Cool, now explain to an alien who walks around naked why this jean and t-shirt is different from that jeans and t-shirt.

Just because it does not matter for most, does not mean that it does not matter at all.

And if the alien above asked you what clothes to wear to go to the supermarket, you would just say “any jeans and t-shirt would do”, only to have dozen of other people telling him “use this shirt and this pants”, “No, that’s a bad color combination for your eye color, use this one instead”, “No, that show is hard to lace, use this outfit instead”, “You’re not really dressed unless you wear a custom tailor suit”, etc, etc…

They don’t know it does not matter.

Precisely why we tell them it doesn’t.

I think there are choices better suited to them, even if they don’t know and say it does not matter - it does, they just don’t know it yet.

Yes, exactly, but they won’t know until they understand, and you won’t know until they understand, and they won’t understand until they do, and no amount of reading will make them understand. The initial choice between 5 different “noob” friendly distros doesn’t matter, the understanding you get from that will guide your next step, trying to take the next step before knowing where you’re standing is a recipe for disaster

I see often people say that the distro you are using doesn’t matter.

For certain things it doesn’t. Usually this is brought up in the context of someone wanting to choose between 5 possible valid alternatives to start using Linux, and the advice is “it doesn’t matter, just pick whichever and when something annoys you you might understand the difference”

One can turn any distro into another. And I do not agree with that.

You can disagree all you want, it’s 100% possible, stupid, but possible.

If that was true, why do we even have so many distributions?

Because philosophy matters. You don’t pick a distro because it’s technically superior or because it has features others don’t have (with some exceptions like NixOS). You pick a distro because it’s philosophy speaks to you, be it “I aim to be user friendly” or “I aim to follow KISS”. This is why for the most part distro doesn’t matter for newcomers, because they’re looking at 5 examples of “I aim to be user friendly and…” distros.

• … why distro hop?

Because I want to try something different and see how I feel about it.

• … why don’t you use Ubuntu then?

I did, for a long time, then I decided that building my system up was easier than tearing it down. If I was using Plasma or Gnome I wouldn’t have switched probably.

• … why don’t you recommend Archlinux to a newcomer?

Because Arch philosophy is KISS, meaning you have to build everything from the ground up and you’re expected to understand the steps and read the manual. This is why I believe distros like Manjaro or CachyOS cause issues, they remove the initial hurdle of Arch but don’t change the core philosophy, making them ticking time bombs for people who don’t know their way around Linux.

• … why don’t you use Kali Linux as a server?

You do you, my servers don’t usually need all of the extra tools a distro with the philosophy of “I’m a pen tester tool” has.

• … why don’t you use Batocera or SteamOS as your daily driver?

Because usually I want my daily driver to do computer stuff, and those distros philosophy is “I’m a gaming console”

• … why do you trust a community distro more than a corporate distro? (or vice versa)

I don’t trust either more inherently than the other, I trust distros that have a track history of good behavior.

I don’t think that distros only matter to newcomers. Maybe it matters for experienced users even more.

Distros matter, they tell a lot about what you’re trying to accomplish. But most newcomers are debating for days whether they should use Ubuntu, Pop, Mint, Fedora or CachyOS, and realistically they’re unlikely to even understand the difference between those. Think on distros like clothes, if you’re just going to the market it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, if you’re going to a job interview it matters, and if you’re going to do something very specific like swimming some clothes are simply better than others. But if someone asks you “do clothes matter?” You will probably reply no, because for most stuff you do as long as you’re not wearing clothes with holes in them you’re fine, but you can tell a lot about people by the clothes they decide to wear. It’s a similar thing for distros, for most stuff it doesn’t matter, for certain things it’s important for others it gives some information and for some specific cases it makes a huge difference, but for the most part it’s a personal choice.