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! 😊
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Yes, Debian. It’s called the universal operating system for a reason.
Same, literaly only have bazzite and android on one device each with everything else being Debian.
Although I have been thinking about switching to Nix for a more robust backup/restore setup.
I’ve converted everything to NixOS (Desktop, laptop, nas and 3d printer, rpi with home assistant) only my router is still pfSense (and thus BSD). It just makes configuration and updating so much easier from one central configuration. And I don’t have to remember what and how I installed something. It’s just there in my flake.
How quick could you pick it up? And how does it handle one config for different devices (due to different hardware(fstab/cryptsetup differences), propietary/non-mainlined drivers?
I have been thinking about switching because I’d love a reproduciable system but fear it would take some of that flexibility I rely on (I’ve had some issues with ftstab/cryptsetup and initramfs customizations on the fedora atomic base of bazzite on my steamdeck).
No. Debian on the server. CachyOS on the laptop OPNsense / FreeBSD on the router-firewall appliance.
I don’t really feel like I need a single OS across everything. The lack of that has never been an issue.
Arch on user PCs and Debian on anything else. This is with the exception that our big server is on Proxmox and the NAS (as well as off-site backup) are on unRaid.
Tbh I still consider Proxmox as Debian, so you’re pretty much there ;).
Servers are all Debian. Family member’s laptops are all Debian. I used Debian on laptops for 20 years, but when Steam Deck switched to Arch, I switched my laptop to Arch to force me to learn it. I have a file with notes of differences between Debian and Arch. Next time I buy a new laptop, I will probably go back to Debian.
Same but a ubuntu-derivative instead of Arch.
I don’t want to think about my server, but I do sometimes want the latest and greatest app on my laptop.
i have slackware 15 on all, it’s great how i can just copy over binaries and they just run because all the linked libraries are the same version
I didn’t use to, but I do now. Debian on everything (except the Proxmox servers, but Proxmox is basically Debian too)
Yes. Everything is NixOS. Because it’s perfect for everything.
What is the learning/on-boarding curve for this?
I ask because my home folder has a giant just file I use to script everything. I feel like I’m 80% there to just migrating.
It’s a very steep curve to start, with some additional minor steep parts along the way, but it’s not a long curve. Once you got the core concepts and the basic language constructs, you’ve learned most of what you’ll ever need.
Two nice resources: search.nixos.org is super handy, and you can search GitHub with language:nix and a search term to get tons of examples from other people.
Oh, and nix and just is actually a pretty common combo!
And it’s very handy for this, I have the same config for all my devices (desktop, laptop and server). Enabling and disabling different modules depending on the host it’s deployed to.
Yep, exactly.
To be fair, if you use Debian, Arch, Fedora,… long enough, you also know how to tweak your machine for every purpose. In Nix, it’s just somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you have to know how to tweak your system to achieve… anything, and then it’s the same tweaking mechanics for every other purpose as well.
Same here, except the steam deck.
My Steam Deck also runs NixOS.
Because this way I can much more comfortably configure it, plus everything game related I automated through nix for my Desktop (e.g. mod installs, reShade config,…) immediately and without any extra steps also applies to the Steam Deck.
All normal PCs run CachyOS, includes gaming PCs, laptops and media PCs. All servers run some form of Debian (includes Proxmox) or a dedicated distro for their use (TRUE WAS, technically also Debian based).
I’m all some Debian dereritive, whether it’s Q4OS or just Debian,
I love how this post doesn’t even pretend that anyone may use anything but Linux. Classic Lemmy.
Self-hosting on Windows Server is a pain I don’t need in my life.
i do use freebsd :) and occasionally win7/10…
usage goes like freebsd >>> linux > m$win
I don’t see anyone here saying “actually I use BSD” so it seems to have been a safe assumption
For me it depends on computer capability. 3 generations of laptop… Current: PopOS Older: MiniOS Oldest (32bit): AntiX
Oldest (32bit)
I still have a functional 32 bit laptop. It’s rather slow, but it does work
Proxmox with plethora of distros (preferably Debian), openwrt, opnsense (freeBSD), the pies as well somewhere … but my desktop & laptop are both Tumbleweed.
(But I should try Bazzite myself at some point to understand if it’s really a distro to recommend to Windows refugees looking for gaming & not learning anything or not that much “Linux related” immediately. It wouldn’t be my guess, but the experiences I read here stayed with me for some reason.)
I use arch btw (on everything).
So yes … my laptop, my home server and even my wife’s laptop.
Gentoo > Arch > Elementary
What about your wifes boyfriends laptop
He uses Windows
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters LTS Long Term Support software version NAS Network-Attached Storage NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
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