How to have a boring and low-maintenance system?
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Depends on the environment surrounding the door, as well as the environment surrounding the computer.
Some people simply care less about their computer security. The debate stops there. Security operates on a foundation of what you want to secure.
By comparing two environments of someone's life you know little about, you are commenting from ignorance.
If they don't keep any private data on any computer that trusts their home network/wifi and don't do taxes or banking on those, there's no problem.
But if they do, I maintain that the analogy is correct: their unpatched machine is an easy way to digitally get access to their home, just like an unlocked door is to a physical home.
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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 has been this for myself. maybe tweaking every now and then to fix whatever edge cases I've run into but it's the least painful distro I've used so far
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So why would somebody run that on their homeserver compared to tried and true staples with tons of documentation?
It's just Fedora CoreOS with some small quality-of-life packages added to the build.
There's tons of documentation for CoreOS and it's been around for more than a decade.
If you're running a container workload, it can't be beat in my opinion. All the security and configuration issues are handled for you.
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Run k3s on top and run your stateless services on a lightweight kubernetes, then you wonât care you have to reboot your hosts to apply updates?
Can you point me in a direction to learn about this? It sounds ideal but I'm not really sure where to start.
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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?
My Arch Linux setup on my desktop and my servers are low-maintenance.
I do updates on my servers every month or so (unless some security issue was announced, that will be patched right away) and my desktop a few times a week.Nearly anything can be low-maintenance with the proper care and consideration.
For your constraints I would use just use Debian, Alma Linux or Linux Mint and stick with the official packages, flathub and default configuration on the system level.
Those are low-maintenance out of the box in general. -
Such a bad comment, what does tinkering mean? Not use any software besides the default one? So only browsing and text apps? facepalm
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. -
So why would somebody run that on their homeserver compared to tried and true staples with tons of documentation?
You're right, they should be running Windows Server as God intended
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Specifically upgrading major versions. See the official documentation for upgrading Debian 11 to 12. It's far more involved than minor version upgrades.
https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.html
This is what I've always done. It has worked fine for me every time.
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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?
Xubuntu LTS. I've been meaning to switch to Debian Stable when something breaks, but it's my third LTS on the desktop and 5th on the laptop and there was just no opportunity. I also learned to avoid PPAs and other 3rd party repos, and just use appimages when possible.
You can have a kernel from Testing or even Sid, I believe, but yeah, it's what we want to avoid - tweaking.
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This is what I've always done. It has worked fine for me every time.
Even then, there's a warning that the upgrade process can take several hours. Even if it's largely hands off, that's not exactly my image of an easy upgrade.
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Even then, there's a warning that the upgrade process can take several hours. Even if it's largely hands off, that's not exactly my image of an easy upgrade.
How quickly do you think an os upgrade of this type finish?
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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 ânot having to really touch anything for a couple of yearsâ. 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 donât understand the answer though. Maybe I am missing something here. Thereâs 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. Itâs 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 ânot having to really touch anything for a couple of yearsâ. 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 donât understand the answer though. Maybe I am missing something here. Thereâs 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. Itâs still in Alpha though. I feel confused.
I donât 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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Iâve been distro hopping for decades. I got exhausted with things constantly breaking. Iâve been using mint for the past six months with zero issues. Itâs so refreshing that everything just works.
