Unfortunately, the required steps to rid your Ubuntu (non-pro) system from this and other forms of advertisements are a lot more involved than it has any right to be.

Or, perhaps, consider another distro.

Support for coreboot can't come soon enough. My fingers are already tingling in excitement for that day.

Furthermore, a CLI instruction is DE-agnostic. So you don't need to cover the same topic with explanations for at least 3/4 desktop environments. GUI instructions also change a lot faster than their CLI counterparts; so by providing the commands one provides the method with the best longevity. Overall, it's just so much more efficient.

You can divide distros into two categories:

• Independent distros; these are not forks of other projects (at least not in their current iterations). We may also refer to these as upstream-projects.
• Derivative distros; these are forks from the earlier mentioned projects. We may also refer to these as downstream-projects.

E.g. Zorin OS is a derivative of Ubuntu, which itself is a derivative of Debian. After the gargantuan effort it takes to make Debian possible, Ubuntu's maintainers 'grab' Debian, apply a set of changes and ship it as Ubuntu. After which, Zorin OS' maintainers grab Ubuntu, also apply a set of changes and ship it as Zorin OS.

Of course, not all derivatives are created equal; sometimes a single change is applied that by itself constitutes the fork. And other times, the changes are so massive that they blur the lines between independent and derivative; Ubuntu's changes to Debian is a good example of this.

Derivative distros can't simply change everything as they see fit; some things are simply essential parts. In most cases, these include:

• the release cycle of the base; rolling-release vs point-release, but also LTS vs bleeding edge and everything in between
• the (base) packages of the base

But what other factors/aspects that are important for the average user to know about each ‘base’?

I was about to write a long ass dissertation, but it became very unwieldy. Consider asking for specific bases and perhaps I will respond for those.

On a final note, it's worth mentioning that differences between different distros have never been as blurry as they're today. With e.g. Distrobox, one can install whatever package from whichever distro they want. Thus, we aren't as tied to the packages provided by the base distro as we were used to. Furthermore, most distros have different 'variants' that allow access to different channels or release cycles. E.g. for those who want Debian packages but bleeding-edge; there's Debian Sid etc.

Sure, a lot more can be said; like how corporate interest plays into all of this. But what has been mentioned above should suffice for now.

But have been wondering why I haven’t heard of any immutable distros from arch based distros yet.

If your question is "Why doesn't Arch have its own atomic/immutable spin/flavor like Fedora and openSUSE have in their Silverblue/Kinoite and Aeon/Kalpa respectively?", then the answer simply lies in the fact that Fedora and openSUSE have a lot more incentive for venturing the unexplored waters of atomicity/immutability as their enterprise counterparts exist and will benefit majorly from it. And I haven't even mentioned how most of the new stuff first appear on Fedora (systemd, PipeWire, Wayland etc) before they're adopted on other distros.

The enterprise counterparts also allow funding that is essential for erecting this from the ground. But, even then, the shift towards atomic/immutable is a difficult one with a lot of hardships and complexity. From the ones that have developed their atomic/immutable projects retroactively (so GuixSD and NixOS don't count as they've been atomic/immutable (and declarative) from inception), only Fedora's (I'd argue) have matured sufficiently. But Fedora has been at it since at least 2017, so they've had a head start compared to the others.

In contrast to Debian (through Canonical), Fedora (through Red Hat) and openSUSE (through SuSE), Arch has literally no (in)direct ties to enterprise. Hence, it will only adopt an atomic/immutable variant if the incentive is high from the community or if it's very easy and only comes with major benefits. But, as even openSUSE is currently struggling with their atomic/immutable variants, it has a long road ahead before it becomes something that can be easily adopted by Arch. Hence, don't expect Arch's atomic/immutable variant any time soon.

However, if any derivative suffices, then at least the likes of blendOS, ChimeraOS and even SteamOS are worth mentioning here.

Why are you even considering Manjaro?

If gaming is the priority, then I honestly don't think anything out there can beat Bazzite in terms of ease of use, 'hands-off'-ness, robustness and stability.

Honorable mentions include: Nobara and Pop!_OS.

I’ve had Manjaro, and OpenSUSE recommended to me by a friend who likes both of them but he doesn’t game much and doesn’t need various software development tools.

If your friend is familiar around Linux, then I'd advice you to just stick to the distro they're using themselves. That's probably the best course of action.

Linux Mint Xfce Edition should be right up your alley.

Based on your history, I'll assume you're on Linux Mint; note that this is crucial information that influences the required instructions. Therefore, consider mentioning the distro you're using next time 😉.

From Linux Mint's release notes, we find the following:

apt install wine-installer

In case this doesn't do it, add sudo and it should work. So, instead we get:

sudo apt install wine-installer.

Tip: consider sticking to documentation and resources provided by the maintainers of your distro.

On a final note, I don't know exactly what your intentions are, but software like Bottles, Conty and/or Lutris are worth mentioning here as they're 'wrappers etc' for Wine.

We actually already have an experimental coreboot port on the FW 13 AMD.

And, from my understanding, Framework has sent over a device to make this possible.

However, I don't know if it will ever get official support. Though, surely, I hope it will.

Yup, as time went on, I simply felt less need to have proprietary software on my system. Steam remains as an exception; simply by virtue of having no F(L)OSS alternative (AFAIK).

For me:

• atomic updates
• reproducibility
• (to some degree) declarative system configuration
• increased security
• built-in rollback functionality

and their consequences;

• rock solid system even with relatively up to date packages
• possibility to enable automatic updates in background without fearing breakage
• (quasi) factory reset feature
• setting up a new system in just a fraction of the time required otherwise

are the primary reasons why I absolutely adore atomic/immutable distros.

Furthermore, it minimizes all kinds of issues related to or caused by bit rot, configuration drift and hidden/unknown states. (Note that you won't reap all of these benefits on all atomic/immutable distros.)

I advice against using https://distrochooser.de as it's horrendously outdated and doesn't offer accurate information. The results will also bombard you with a bunch of distros that have lost all of their relevance.

Small nitpick; layering is technically only a thing on Fedora Atomic. Not all immutable distros subscribe to it.

I’ve been bouncing between live versions of ubuntu and mint

Ah okay, is this problem on Ubuntu or on Mint (or are you going to tackle it on both 😜)?

I’m still learning, so thank you for educating a linux ignoramus like myself.

It has been my pleasure fam!

Why does your brother use NixOS in the first place?

Don't get me wrong; I think NixOS is a very interesting project with a very bright future. It probably wouldn't be an exaggeration if I said that NixOS has single-handedly inspired the current immutable revolution. However, it's also a distro that wants you to learn and digest its ways before it will return the favor.

But, based on my reading/understanding of your comment, your brother doesn't strike me as a seasoned Linux user. Am I right? Btw, NixOS is hard unbeknownst of how many experiences you got with other distros. However, I would simply never recommend a new user to use (Gentoo, Guix System or) NixOS. There are definitely outliers, but they would have to find it themselves then.

Fam, with al due respect, make up your mind; because, unfortunately, it's not possible to keep up great security practices in conjunction with access to the AUR on a low powered system.

I'd argue that your best bet is probs Kicksecure. Though, I reckon you'll have a hard time on a VM regardless.

I've been on Fedora Silverblue for over two years now and I've never experienced such a thing. Would you mind elaborating? Like, does the system force itself off after the first reboot without any input? Or, instead, do you notice that the installed package is not installed and therefore succumb to another reboot by your own admission? Which, to be honest, seems like some broken interaction*.

Ubuntu is no longer the user friendly everyman’s desktop system anymore.

Agreed.

Arch is extremely user friendly, just not the installation process.

I do wonder what your definition of user friendly is. Cuz I can't fathom how you can think that a distro that subscribes to what's quoted below can (by any stretch of the imagination) be considered user friendly.

"Note: It is imperative to keep up to date with changes in Arch Linux that require manual intervention before upgrading your system. Subscribe to the arch-announce mailing list or the recent news RSS feed. Alternatively, check the front page Arch news every time before you update."

Which simple means that you have to check if you can update before you actually perform an update. That's just wild.

And you know what's most curious about this, we've actually solved (within Linux) issues related to updating your system. You read that correct, it's a solved problem. And I hope that you'll benefit from these advancements even if you continue to use Arch.

Btw, please don't come to me with packages that automatically pop up in terminal to inform you about manual intervention. On my system, updates occur automatically in the background and with some black magic shenanigans (or just great engineering) it 'fixes' itself without requiring any manual intervention from me. That pop-up message in terminal can't compete with that.

I find it to be much less of a pain in the ass to use than Debian based systems.

That's subjective, but sure; you're absolutely free to think that.

For one, you have the Arch User Repository, so you’re very unlikely to need to not be able to find some software you want, and more importantly, so many packages in Debian are out of date and they take forever to update them, stuff often breaks because the version needed as a dependency for something else is not in the repositories.

Distrobox exists. Moving on.

and pacman is so much more robust than apt.

What do you mean with robust here? And what makes you think that pacman is much more robust than apt? Thank you in advance for clarifying/elaborating!

I get frustrated online when I see people saying “Ubuntu is the most user friendly distro” or “arch is not for noobs”, this stuff was true like 10 years ago, that’s no longer the case. Ubuntu is user hostile, and there are arch derivatives that are basically arch with a graphical installer, which is the only part of using arch that is hard for people who aren’t hardcore nerds.

Honestly, I actually agree with you. Ubuntu has indeed lost all of its credibility. And Arch is absolutely not as bad as people make it out to be. But! In an environment in which Linux Mint, Zorin OS, Pop!_OS, Bazzite are mentioned; Arch simply is (by contrast) the lesser option in terms easy of use etc. So, while in absolute terms, it's definitely not as bad as peeps make it out to be. It is, compared to the earlier mentioned distros, simply less newbie friendly.

It’s not like Gentoo or Void or Alpine or Nix or running a BSD system or something advanced like that.

Thankfully, no one ever bothers to recommend these to new users 😉.

So, to be clear, these are clearly too advanced and thankfully people never recommend these to newer users. However, while Arch isn't that bad and thus can be used by some newbie users, it should IMO only very very carefully be recommended to new users. If it's the kind of person that likes to learn as they go and enjoys reading documentation, then (by all means) it's absolutely fine to recommend it. But you won't find them that frequently...

Thank you for some much needed background information (and perhaps even some of Ubuntu's justification)!

There is literally not a single useful comment here.

That's a bit harsh 😜. Though, I agree the 'f*ck-Ubuntu'-circlejerk is very present.

It is an optional service, they warn you that you use outdated packages, and offer a solution.

I guess it's wishful thinking to argue that they should have included the security patches from the get-go.

Unfortunately, I can't take this seriously as 1% lows and additional variance due to difference in DE haven't been accounted for.

Furthermore, you bet that Tuxedo OS has done a splendid job at optimizing performance on a device that's sold by Tuxedo. Therefore, I wonder if it's even a fair comparison to begin with.

So I have a two monitor setup, and I really dislike how gnome only lets you have the bar on the primary screen unless you install a plugin that is very outdated and I cannot get working on the latest version of gnome or use dash to dock, and I am not a fan of the dock style…

I believe both Dash to Panel and V-Shell are capable of resolving this issue in a way that should suit your needs IF you wish to continue using GNOME.

From the FAQ of Qubes OS (i.e. most secure desktop OS for general use):

"Why does Qubes use Xen instead of KVM or some other hypervisor?"

"In short: we believe the Xen architecture allows for the creation of more secure systems (i.e. with a much smaller TCB, which translates to a smaller attack surface). We discuss this in much greater depth in our Architecture Specification document."

I always upgrade as I can't deal with a clean install every so often. This warrants using a distro that does handle this well, though*. Which, thankfully, isn't a big deal as most distros support this anyways.

Microsoft's enshittification and becoming more privacy-conscious

Until its drivers are completely open source, Nvidia will continue to cause trouble every once in a while.

Therefore, if you liked Sway, then don't leave it expecting to be a lot better elsewhere.

However, Hyprland's community is pretty big and I can only be positive regarding the pace of its development. Therefore, if anything, Hyprland might be able to offer a solution. But, don't forget what I said earlier*.

is PopOS! still the popular choice for desktop gaming?

Pop!_OS was pretty good for two reasons:

• System76 sells devices installed with it. Thus, onboarding (potentially new) users is something they put significant efforts into. As a result, it was a pretty polished experience that offers some unique functionality like factory reset and
• Easiest install for proprietary Nvidia drivers on the market

But, the Linux landscape is always on the move. And while the engineers behind Pop!_OS have put their hearts and souls into COSMIC (a new Desktop Environment), the current available version of Pop!_OS has seen only relatively timid changes. Thus, it has become less competitive over time.

For example, over the past two years, distros have erupted that come with built-in Nvidia drivers (pre-installed).

So, Pop!_OS has gone slightly out of favor. But, if you liked what you had back then, then it's still perfectly reasonable to continue using it.

But..., if you're actually interested in the latest and greatest Linux for desktop gaming, then we'd have to mention the following:

• Bazzite; built-on technologies made possible through Fedora Atomic. This is one of the few distros that, based on its installer, come with built-in Nvidia drivers pre-installed. Rock-solid atomic system that comes with all the bells and whistles without sacrificing any general functionality nor high security standards. Offers decent documentation (please consider to read up on it) and has thought up great onboarding solutions. All-in-all, it's (probably) the most hands-off gaming experience on Linux.
• ChimeraOS; this is more of a couch-gaming/console experience. Unfortunately, only supports AMD. Definitely worth mentioning still.

Honorable mentions:

• Nobara; Glorious Eggroll's (will be abbreviated to GE) distro. GE is well known for providing all kinds of gaming related goodies. For example, a popular set of Proton releases/derivatives is Proton-GE and it's often recommended over the others. So, the community was very excited when GE announced (and shortly after) released its contribution to Linux distros for gaming; a Fedora-based distro called Nobara. It did a lot of good things and still does. However, as a former Nobara user, I have to say that updates for major releases are pretty hit or (mostly) miss. This is not GE's fault; it's the nature of the beast. Reproducible distros (like Bazzite) are able to circumvent these issues with help of incredible engineering that goes on in the background. But, this is not Nobara's stronghold. (And let's not even talk about the bus factor.) If you're fine with potentially reinstalling every once in a while, then, by all means proceed. But, if you'd rather not, then other options are better.
• Linux Mint (Edge ISO); this is just the goodness we've come to appreciate from Linux Mint but with a more up-to-date kernel. Kernel updates often come with improvements to performance. So, with this, you won't be missing out. Like Pop!_OS, it's based on Ubuntu. The only caveat with Mint is the fact that it's not enabled to game from the get-go. The required steps to get it all setup aren't very hard, but it's great to just have everything setup for gaming from the start.

Btw, OP, I foresee a switch to Linux Mint Xfce Edition. Please consider writing about your experiences in which you compare Xubuntu to Linux Mint Xfce Edition. Thanks in advance!

I wanted to know from OP why they're considering Manjaro.

Because it’s an excellent distribution which is also in the top of the Steam Survey (alongside Arch, Ubuntu, Mint and PopOS) (and Flatpak, and Steam Deck’s SteamOS).

I'd argue it's to Arch what Ubuntu is to Debian. Do with that whatever you will.

Btw, ProtonDB's numbers show that Manjaro is losing lots of ground over the years. I won't deny that the negativity around it plays a significant role in this. However, to me, if it's already installed on your device, your experience with it is simply more important than whatever's said about it. Therefore, I'd argue that Manjaro's ever decreasing market share has to be linked to users being ever so upset of its vision, direction and mishaps.

It’s a rolling distro but mitigates the risks of bleeding edge with a curated stable branch, offers LTS kernels going back to 4.19 but you can choose LTS or newer versions or RT patches, it does not force you to switch kernel version if you don’t want to, has visual management tools for packages, kernel management and driver installation, does a great job installing drivers during install, comes with extra safety features (update rollback built-in if you use BTRFS for root), Steam works great, you can use AUR and Flatpak etc.

All of that is cool and all, but trust is what it's all about. And honestly, I think someone should get a diagnose for Stockholm syndrome if they're still putting up with Manjaro after all it has done.

I expected this to be more feasible on the Intel models for whatever reason.

Historically, in the past few years, for devices that support coreboot, we've had more Intel models than AMD models. So perhaps that's were your hunch stems from.

Most immutable systems I’ve seen require a reboot in order to apply system changes.

It depends on the type of change you're applying and which specific immutable/atomic/composable distro we're talking about. In the case of GuixSD and NixOS, this is simply (mostly) false. For the others, if you're going to change the base-system/image, then a reboot is required. Though, it's important to mention that often enough systemctl soft-reboot suffices. And even then, some of them (like Fedora Atomic) offer functionality (e.g. through --apply-live) to apply the changes directly to the working system. And we're not even talking about the latest innovations (like systemd-sysext that might be able to provide a revolutionary solution to this problem altogether.

Also, even immutable OS I’ve seen wants you to opt-in to a rollback. Rarely do I see the full effects of installing a package or altering a config immediately. By the time I notice an issue maybe it’s too late to rollback to before the change or maybe I’ve done a few other things since and I don’t want to rollback everything. I would much prefer to make “rolling forward” or persisting changes to be a very conscious process.

You seem to have false notions on how this works on atomic distros, or at least it seems your understanding only applies to a small subset of them. E.g. responsible use of GuixSD and/or NixOS completely circumvents this from the get-go. Even Fedora Atomic offers (relatively) sane management of rollbacks.

I started messing with BTRFS and I think I’ve come up with a process that will get me what I want, no matter the distro. Please poke holes in my idea. So I think I can use BTRFS to hold data for the rootfs in three different subvolumes (at minimum): root-A, root-B, root-Z. root-Z is my golden image and it represents what I want root to look like after reboot. root-A and root-B are the active and passive instances of rootfs, but which one is active will flip-flop after every reboot. So if I boot with A, B gets replaced with the contents of Z. In the meantime I can do whatever I want with A. Not sure how I’ll update Z (chroot or “promote” the active subvol to be Z) but without an update every reboot is an automatic rollback.

I don't understand how this solves your (conceived) issue with rollbacks. Furthermore, I also wonder what kinda changes you're applying to your system on a daily basis. Like, do you really feel the need to poke at /usr every day? Aren't your needs regarding installing software already (mostly) solved through AppImage/Nix/Flatpak/Snap/Brew etc?

How does signing up work? What do they ask in terms of your data (email, name, address, more)? I tried finding out myself but their website misbehaved for some reason.

Thank you for sharing your experiences! While my personal experiences with these distros don't quite match yours, I do appreciate your openness in this regard.

Just to be clear, it's not my intent to persuade OP to a specific distro of my liking. Rather, I was interested to know why they would rather troubleshoot their booting issues on Debian instead of returning to distros that have shown to work.

In your case it's still an excellent choice.

Though, other opinionated images by uBlue (like e.g. Aurora and Bluefin) do deserve a mention. I'm on Bluefin (through secureblue to be more precise) as I desired more hardening than what Fedora offers by default.

The excellent part is also that it's possible to rebase to another branch without reinstalling. So, let's say you're actually interested in experiencing these different images without going through the installation process over and over again. Then, you simple enter the following command:

rpm-ostree rebase ...

With ... being replaced by whatever is required for the image and/or branch you're interested in. Then, simply reboot, (pro-tip: make a new user account and through the new user account) experience the other image. Rinse and repeat to your heart's content.

Last year, this piece was written on it. And, based on an extremely small sample size (N=1), the takeaway was basically that the 1% lows (and the 0.1% lows) do seem to benefit on some games.

But, there are so many factors at play, it's pretty hard to back up any claim of performance increase (or decrease). However, if you've got the time and you want to play around, then please feel free to benchmark the 1% lows (and 0.1% lows) of the games you play on different distros and come to your own conclusions.

Excellent contribution. Even if I'm not OP, I really appreciate this. Thank you!

I'm afraid that you won't get an answer from OP. Based on the last couple of days, and OP's many posts, we've noted that OP has only rarely answered questions. I don't think it will be different this time.

So, while I can't read their intentions, I will provide my thoughts.

OP is a newb. And has asked this community many different (but somehow related) questions.

OP was on Xubuntu, but experienced a problem. After they saw that the solution involved more steps than they're willing to take, they instead opted to switch distros. After prompting the community for some input and inspiration, they decided to go for Debian with Xfce. However, they've experienced a bunch of things since that have made them second-guess their choice; Xubuntu was perhaps better at some things AND Linux Mint Xfce was actually the popular pick in their earlier community prompt.

So, in order to resolve their second-guessing, they intend to put them all to the test simultaneously though multi-boot before finalizing their decision.

You get all of this by using Btrfs in a regular distro.

No you don't. Refer to this reply I've written to someone else.

Btw, Btrfs is only a file system, snapshot-functionality isn't automatically implied with it. See traditional Fedora as a reference; i.e. defaults to Btrfs, but doesn't set up Snapper/Timeshift or anything to that effect.

But, even then, snapshot-functionality provides only of a small subset of the benefits in an inferior way (as I've explained in the reply to the other person).

What works best for gaming nowadays?

Depends on your system/setup. Though, you should be able to get it to work on most distros (eventually). Consider checking out https://linux-hardware.org/ to see which distros are known to work for your new laptop. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that Bazzite is the most hands-free solution for most people. However, other good options include Linux Mint and Pop!_OS.

Is manjaro good for that?

I really wonder where newcomers get to know about Manjaro 😜. Manjaro does a bunch of good stuff and has in the past been great for providing a platform by which Arch Linux (Manjaro is based on Arch) could be (relatively) easily consumed. However, Manjaro has since tarnished its own branding (see Manjarno). Hence, I find it hard to recommend it ever since.

I’ll also do some book keeping, writing et cetera but I don’t think it’s much to worry about.

You should be fine unless you need specific software (that's not available on Linux) to do those things on. For most software there are decent alternatives; https://alternativeto.net/ might be a helpful resource in that regard.

I also hope to use my Valve Index on it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experiences on that. Therefore I abstain from giving any further comments. Wish ya good luck with that though!

But they rely on rpmfusion, an external repo packaging the proprietary NVIDIA stuff for Fedora. The repo is not supported by Fedora, and the drivers cannot be fixed by anyone.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Would you mind elaborating? FWIW, Bazzite's model (by default) allows automatic fixes to be applied to a broken driver without requiring any manual intervention from its user.