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Cake day: February 4th, 2024

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  • A Linux distribution is just the Linux kernel distributed with various other pieces of software that make it usable. Often times, there are multiple software projects that aim achieve the same goal by going in different paths. These are packaged together by the distro maintainers who mostly do this out of passion.

    Different distros prioritize different aspects of the software they package and they do this in different ways. To make the best choice for you, it is best to try and understand what each distro aims to do. Here are a few examples out my head:

    • Debian is a traditional distribution that aims to keep the system stable for a few years. They do backport security patches, but slow rollout of feature updates is a deal-breaker for some people (like me).
    • CachyOS (based on Arch Linux) compiles it’s packages utilizing newest CPU instructions which may lead to slight performance gain on newer hardware. They also ship some kernel patches optimizing it for gaming use cases.
    • Bazzite is based on an atomic/immutable version of Fedora. The aim here is to provide a system that makes it very hard for users to mess it up, using containerization technologies. It also means that installing packages in the traditional way is not very feasible or recommended. You are supposed to install packages without root access and using technologies like flatpak. It also includes some gaming specific kernel patches similar to CachyOS, but not as many.














    • dnf-automatic looks a like a package designed for non-Atomic versions of Fedora.
    • libreoffice is available as a flatpak. You should avoid layering packages as much as possible.
    • A VPN app makes sense to have layered. I assume it comes from a third-party repository added to /etc/yum.repos.d. It is possible this package does not support Fedora 42 yet. You can try removing it to see if the update succeeds.
    • rpmfusion is a repository providing packages that often cannot be pre-installed due to some legal reasons. Unless you need/installed a package from there, uninstall it.




  • Garuda Linux was one of my first distros when I started three years ago. It is fine, but I generally prefer customizing my system to my liking, including installed applications. I switched to Arch Linux (which is what Garuda is based on) after a few days. After using it for two and a half years, I realized I was spending way too much time customizing it. Then I switched to Fedora and it was a really tame experience. Now I am using uBlue Aurora, which is a fork of Fedora Kinoite (Atomic variant of Fedora KDE Plasma spin). It updates everything automatically and in one go (similar to smartphones) and I download all my apps from Flathub. It is practically the opposite of what I was doing with Arch.