How to have a boring and low-maintenance system?
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
Peppermint , based on debian
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Yeah, sure. I was running Bluefin-DX. One day image maintainers decided to replace something and things break.
UBlue is an amazing project. Team is trying hard but it's definitely not zero mainainace. I fear they are chasing so many UBlue flavours, recently an LTS one based on CoreOS, spreading thin.WIf you depend on third party modules you'll end up with third party maintenance - we didn't purposely decide to break this we don't work at Nvidia.
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Tinkering, in my personal definition, would mean installing third party repositories for the package manager (or something like the AUR on Arch) or performing configuration changes on the system level..
Just keep away as most as possible from accessing the root user (including su/sudo) is a general a good advice I would say.Keeping away from sudo, got it.
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Keeping away from sudo, got it.
If you want to take that from my text then feel free.
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WIf you depend on third party modules you'll end up with third party maintenance - we didn't purposely decide to break this we don't work at Nvidia.
Jorge, OP asked about “not having to really touch anything for a couple of years”. I am just sharing my experience. Big fan of containers and really appreciate your efforts of pulling containers tech into Linux desktop. Thank you!
I don’t understand the answer though. Maybe I am missing something here. There’s an official Bluefin-DX-Nvidia iso. Nvidia-containers-toolkit was part of that iso.
On a separate note, I liked the idea of GTS edition. Since few weeks ago iso became unavailable pending some fix. At the same time I see loads of new LTS edition buzz. It’s still in Alpha though. I feel confused.
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
Debian XFCE or Xubuntu LTS.
xfce is stubbornly slow at introducing new features, but it is absolutely rock-solid. Hell I don't think they've changed their icon set in some 20 years.
Debian and *buntu LTS are also likewise slow feature updaters that focus on stability.
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
fedora with gnome for me.
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Jorge, OP asked about “not having to really touch anything for a couple of years”. I am just sharing my experience. Big fan of containers and really appreciate your efforts of pulling containers tech into Linux desktop. Thank you!
I don’t understand the answer though. Maybe I am missing something here. There’s an official Bluefin-DX-Nvidia iso. Nvidia-containers-toolkit was part of that iso.
On a separate note, I liked the idea of GTS edition. Since few weeks ago iso became unavailable pending some fix. At the same time I see loads of new LTS edition buzz. It’s still in Alpha though. I feel confused.
I don’t understand the answer though.
The answer is if you're depending on software that is closed and out of your control (aka. you have an Nvidia card) then you should have support expectations around that hardware and linux.
There are no GTS ISOs because we don't have a reliable way to make ISOs (the ones we have no are workarounds) but that should be finished soon.
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I’ve been distro hopping for decades. I got exhausted with things constantly breaking. I’ve been using mint for the past six months with zero issues. It’s so refreshing that everything just works.
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is my pick.
I've got two study laptops and apart from Tailscale giving me some grief very recently with DNS resolution, I literally haven't had any problems with either machine. Both have been going for 1.5 years.
I like the LMDE route for the DE already having pretty decent defaults and not requiring much tweaking from the get-go. Xfce (as it ships by default in Debian) absolutely works, but I end up spending an hour theming it and adding panel applets and rearranging everything so that it... ends up looking similar to Cinnamon anyway, because default Xfce looks horrible in my opinion
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
avoid nixos
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
I use fedora and Ansible to fix things I want to be different all the time. After I install the OS I run Ansible pull and it makes all the changes I want
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
Debian. Unattended upgrades. Maybe flatpaks if your (GUI) stuff isn't on debian
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
Debian stable is as hassle-free as you'll get.
It sounds like your issue is more with having to migrate to a new laptop. Firstly - buy laptops that are more linux compatible and you'll have fewer niggles like with sound, suspend and drivers.
Secondly - use "dpkg --get-selections" and "--set-selections" to transfer your list of installed software across to your new laptop. Combined with transferring your /home directory, user migration can be speeded up.
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I don’t understand the answer though.
The answer is if you're depending on software that is closed and out of your control (aka. you have an Nvidia card) then you should have support expectations around that hardware and linux.
There are no GTS ISOs because we don't have a reliable way to make ISOs (the ones we have no are workarounds) but that should be finished soon.
Thanks for clarifying, Jorge. I wish I lived in a perfect world where all hardware and software follow FOSS principles. Until then I will have to rely on the other distros that embrace an imperfect reality. I cannot reconcile how Bluefin targets developers and NVidia, unfortunately is not something many of those developers can afford to ignore. Good luck with your project!
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Debian stable is as hassle-free as you'll get.
It sounds like your issue is more with having to migrate to a new laptop. Firstly - buy laptops that are more linux compatible and you'll have fewer niggles like with sound, suspend and drivers.
Secondly - use "dpkg --get-selections" and "--set-selections" to transfer your list of installed software across to your new laptop. Combined with transferring your /home directory, user migration can be speeded up.
Firstly - buy laptops that are more linux compatible
This is the thing: The laptop is from Starlabs, supposedly made for Linux...
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Thanks for clarifying, Jorge. I wish I lived in a perfect world where all hardware and software follow FOSS principles. Until then I will have to rely on the other distros that embrace an imperfect reality. I cannot reconcile how Bluefin targets developers and NVidia, unfortunately is not something many of those developers can afford to ignore. Good luck with your project!
I cannot reconcile
It's like a saving throw in a video game, most times you can make it, but every once in a while you don't lol.
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Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?
Context:
I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.
I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.
I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.
Do you have any other recommendations?
every system is only as stable as the user. anybody can break Debian or any other "stable" distro of renown the second they go tinkering, adding PPAs or anything else
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So here's the thing - if you can think of it, I've already tried it
I spent a week and a half sifting through countless forum posts on Apple's own support center, Macrumors, reddit, and a host of other forums.The "Wake for network access" setting was the first thing I disabled after I wiped and reinstalled the OS. Among a number of other settings. Still got the fucking "EC.DarkPME (Maintenance)" process firing off every 45 seconds, no matter what I did, causing excessive insomnia and draining the battery within 12 hours.
What I ended up doing was using a little tool called "FluTooth" to automatically disable wifi/Bluetooth on sleep (the built-in OS settings did fuck-all), set
hibernationmodeto 25, and a few other tweaks withpmsetthat currently escape me.I put a solid 7 full charge cycles on the brand new battery before it finally calmed the fuck down.
I feel you. I still use an intel macbook with tweaks i cannot remember plus 3rd party utils like Turbo Boost switcher. That experience alone has kept me from upgrading to newer models.
In retrospect my powerbook g4 (Ti) and os 9 was peak computing.
