Ask HN: What is your favorite rolling Linux distro?

Arch.

I ran Gentoo from around 2005-2010. Getting into Gentoo was highly educational and fun in it's own way, but it broke way too often and the fun wore off after fixing wifi the third or fourth time.

Coming from Gentoo, Arch has been extremely stable. In fact, in my experience Arch has been more stable and reliable than RHEL or even proprietary operating systems like Windows. I'm running the Sway window manager, so pretty minimalist. YMMV, especially if you're running a heavier desktop like KDE or GNOME.

Arch may be the highest profile mainstream rolling distro. Sometimes it's easier to go with the flow.

Arch.

Feels like it's very unopinionated about how I run my system, but to be fair I spent a lot of time fighting Ubuntu and Fedora back in the day, if you wanted anything custom you could often wind up breaking your entire system in strange and difficult to debug ways. Arch felt like "vanilla linux" in a way.

I have, however, recently broken it beyond repair after yay decided it couldn't update itself and some libraries vanished or became corrupted, ending my nearly 10 year installation. I installed Manjaro over the top to get going again quickly and am surprised at how useful Manjaro is out of the box.

Manjaro feels like "vanilla linux with some defaults to start from" which is nice too.

Debian. Because it's worked almost all the time for a couple of decades and I am not a careful sysadmin. Wayland does not work very well though and it's getting increasingly hard to burn that crap out.

I thought I should move to guix. I started that and ran into the non-free kernel / firmware zealotry, concluded that was deeply stupid and stayed put.

edit: Debian call their rolling release sid or unstable, the slower rolling testing is also fine.

Arch, if I want to revive the 20-something geek in me. I’ve been using Debian in prod for very long time, but recently switched to Centos (and RHEL). No idea when or why I got so radicalized against Centos/RHEL that I didn’t even want to try it for years, but after working with it for a few months, I’m absolutely in love. When I started using Linux years ago, I had this feeling of order, that it just made sense. But it died with all the bloat and faction wars in the community on how things should be done (e.g network management). With RHEL, it all makes sense again. I know what’s going on and I am in control.

GNU Guix. It is nice to have atomic and reversible operations, it is extremely easy to extend (I have even pushed package defitions upstream, which I have never done with any other distro), it is easy to use the package manager (though unfortunately not install) without root access.

Arch.

I started using it basically by accident. I got a new computer, tried installing Ubuntu and it just wouldn't boot. Someone told me maybe the drivers weren't in Ubuntu yet and I should try Arch.

Getting it installed took some work since I'd never really used Linux before, but the wiki is such an amazing resource, and by necessity you learn a lot about your machine.

Now after a decade of use it's very much _my_ distro, and I can understand the whole thing.

Also, the aur is such an amazingly useful resource. Everything in the main distro is also put together in a very sensible way.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

A stable rolling distro with automatic snapshots. Packages are up to date without being bleeding edge. If an update breaks something, simply revert to an older snapshot.

I like how Arch and Gentoo both make it feel more like you're making your installation.

Tumbleweed is closer to where I am now, Fedora -- I've moved away from rolling releases. I appreciate a very light dance for planning upgrades.

All told: both OpenSUSE/Fedora invest in packaging that I also appreciate; mostly-binary but can easily opt into source-based installations

openSUSE Tumbleweed, because it is the most stable and predictable rolling-release distro. When they update a package to a new version the do quite some automated QA testing on it so it works properly, and also on the related dependencies so that all integration tests still pass before they release thw updated package to the repository. Also the snapper is very nicely integrated into the system, and before each updated a system snapshot is taken and also another snapshot is taken after the update. And the snapshots are automatically added to GRUB boot loader. So even if something goes wrong with the updated and th QA did not catch the problem you can still easily and quickly switch to an old working snapshot. In addition to this they also have one of the best KDE Plasma desktop integrations into the distro and their YaST graphical control/settings center is awesome.

nixpkgs-unstable

> why?

https://repology.org/repositories/graphs

They've just lowercased the "R".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rolling_Release_Linux...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rolling_release_Linux...

Endeavour (Arch based). Comes with a few more "batteries included" than base Arch, including a good graphical installer, sensible defaults, several nice desktop environment options, and a package manager wrapper thing that helps take care of Nvidia driver installation with no more fuss than any other package upgrade.

And Arch itself is just pleasant. Packages with as few downstream modifications as possible, reasonable defaults, organized and thoughtful system layout, systemd integration everywhere but without forcing you to use it as anything other than an init and logging system.

I'm sure the experience is different on a laptop, but on a desktop PC, Endeavour has been the lowest-fuss Linux OS I have tried and I have no plans to switch to a different one. Helpful community forum too.

I've noticed people recommending Tumbleweed and its snapper/btrfs based snapshots as a way to recover if something goes wrong. I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation.

Few caveats about snapper rollbacks though. First of all, you need grub working to be presented the read only snaptshot boot menu. If an update breaks grub, you'll be out of luck. How likely is this to happen? I don't know.

Second, /home is not part of snapshots by default. I would leave this as is. But this means if the update changes something in /home like a config file and you need to rollback, you'll end up in an inconsistent state. I believe this is what happened when people upgraded to plasma6 from within an existing plasma session. They could not rollback and fix the issue.

In my experience of a few years tumbleweed has been really stable until very recently. The plasma6 issue in my opinion was huge. Should never have happened. I belive they added extra checks into openQA to catch this class of errors in the future. However, if I am to speculate, I don't understand how not even one person from the whole org has not tried to upgrade plasma6 from within plasma and notice this issue. We've had another issue last week or so that hit users of a particular manufacturer's gpu. I don't remember which, but it's not intel which I am on. Last year there was an issue where they broke up networking packages in such a way that if install recommended packages was disabled, you'd lose your wifi. (install recommends is enabled by default for tumbleweed. Fair enough. But at the time it was not enabled for the variant called MicroOS.)

By the way, people who are considering Tumbleweed, can also look into Slowroll, which is tumbleweed at some point in time. It does not update as frequently as tumbleweed but as far as I know a slowroll update does not signify anything like a point in time were the packages were most stable or a security issue was just fixed. (By extension, you'll be less likely to have a broken system but also less likely to get security updates on day one. Something to keep in mind.)

Lest it sound like I am not recommending Tumbleweed, I'd like to explicitly recommend it. It really is great.

Two you should look at imho

- Void Linux

- Chimera Linux

I can’t decide on a favourite, but they’re both very interesting projects.

Tumbleweed. I've also experimented with NixOS which I enjoyed but it was just too disruptive to my workflow.

NixOS - rolling is really nice when you can roll-back from the boot menu if something breaks. You can be bleeding edge without downsides of breakage!

Hands down Debian.

From all I tested, it offers best synergy for all I wanted. Biggest package repo, every problem is nicely searchable and has nice community.

I got 10 years out of my Debian box. When I replaced the harddrive I did a fresh install.

I always go with Testing and have had a few hiccups and issues along the way, but nothing unfixable in short time.

Wanting toget away from systemd, I attempted a Devuan install but bungled it and went back to deb.

I did Arch for a few years but am not a newfangled fanatic so gave up on that. As most say, the Arch documentation is tip top.

Arch, but I have nothing interesting to contribute to the topic. Instead posting to share my Pacman 'checkupdates' Bash wrapper that splits up the output into major/minor/patch/packaging sections for easy reading from the Waybar icon tooltip where this I have it show. Helpful to know if I can expect issues from major updates (though not everything is semver'd obviously).

e.g.

    Major:
        * neovim 0 -> 1

    Minor:
        * jq 0.1 -> 0.2

https://pastebin.com/FeVg0kDU (expires 202408)

Definitely a case of something that started as Bash and wound up likely better as something else. It's not a clean script, bit of inconsistency - don't @ me :)

OpenSUSE is working on a "Slowroll" variant, that will be a rolling release like Tumbleweed, but rolling a bit slower. I just went back to Debian on my main desktop from Tumbleweed. While I liked it all right, I was just more comfortable with Debian and it had packages and things that worked out of the box that were missing in Tumbleweed.

From Manjaro for a few years to Arch for another year to Endeavour since 2021. EndeavourOS is a pre-configured Arch. Good for me.

Manjaro, it's basically arch with some herbs and spices.

I do realize that the whole point of arch is that you're the one with the spice rack, but, I generally like what manjaro's doing. Not to say it's been all roses, just that it's been fun.

Arch.

Using it for 4 years, both at home and at work (also have Raspberry Pi 4 under Arch Linux ARM).

I'm a bit perplexed why it is considered less stable than "your typical Linux distro". Never used Debian, but I used Ubuntu with KDE prior to Arch. It was very common to have problems, from constant messages about crashing staff (AppArmor hitting the record) to reinstalling the entire OS. During 4 years with Arch I had only a few tiny issues that required 5-10 minutes to fix (not least thanks to Arch Wiki).

Not sure though if this is because Arch is so nice by itself, or because with Arch I moved to more minimalist setups (which Arch endorses so naturally).

openSUSE Tumbleweed is amazing, especially with its automatic snapshotting every time you install updates. That has saved me a handful of times when Mesa broke on my system.

Arch Linux, because of Arch User Repository and documentation

Manjaro, for my personal desktop use. Not because it is the best, but because I like the Arch base, and it is easier for me to install Manjaro and remove what I don't want than to install Arch and configure what I want.

It could be Endeavour. I never used it, even though it looks like it would suit better my use case, but it has a smaller userbase than Manjaro.

Clickable link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240503140631/https://en.wikipe...

NixOS unstable.

Is very up to date. Is very stable/recoverable. Has many packages. Has reproducible packages. Has a great config system (I do not miss having to learn a new config syntax for each package). Allows for easy compartmentalization of packages.

My favourite was Crunchbang, which was a rolling distro based on Debian Sid iirc, but it was retired a while ago. Current favourite is Arch or Endeavour depending on whether you count Endeavour as a separate OS.

Does Steam OS 3 count? They have a nice atomic update system, with an Arch base.

as always imho.

may not be recognized by most people as such, but

* debian testing ( atm its "trixie" :)

i use it for my "internal" systems - like backup, NAS, etc.etc...

yes, its not "your default" rolling distribution, but it rolls ... and breaks things from time to time ...

but this shouldn't be a big problem, if you know a thing or two about debian - otherwise: see this as yet another possibility to learn something use[full|less] about debian/linux/...

if you want debian testing but somewhat "moderated" - to avoid the biggest "riffs":

linux mint debian edition (LMDE):

* https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

just my 0.02€

I am not a fan of rolling releases, but many people use Slackware Current as one. So if I had to chose a kind of rolling Linux, that would be my choice.

**But** Slackware Current is really a Alpha/Beta Test System for Slackware Release.

Arch. The documentation, packages, community and flexibility are great.

Arch. Many years ago I tried Gentoo (2010) and it was bloody frustrating. Encountering kernel panic was really damn easy, not sure what mistake I did.

On the other hand, Arch was much easier to setup.

Arch. I have arch on x86, on arm and on risc-v. It's perfect. I learned all the linux stuff long time ago and for me it's just easier to deal with the bare-bones thing.

It was Fedora rawhide, now Alpine edge, just working on one or two pieces of software I use that still need Glibc (Ardour DAW and the Swift compiler).

Gentoo for me has been rock solid, reliable and almost 100% customizable since January 2009. Portage is seriously underrated.

I don't use them, but I'm curious why people prefer rolling distros.

CentOS of course

Debian testing.

Aeon

No one. I've tried arch and realized that's good if you are a geek investing time in your own system not caring if it's in a good known state and having plenty of time before any upgrade. I'm on NixOS willing to switch to Guix System (but not doing so, so far, simply because it does not support various stuff I use, starting from a quick good zfs encrypted root support, Rustdesk client and server etc), willing especially due to last community issues who have put the development on the verge of something potentially really bad, BUT both are declarative systems. I only have to write a config, they build themselves out of it. I can replicate, change and came back, always having nearly a fresh install.

No need to backup the system, only my data, config included, no need to keep a bug ridden giant homegrown install scrip to replicate (trying to) my system on hw changes or wasting time with Ansible and Salt YAML/python hell to do the same with no less bugs and real guarantee of successful replication.

I have an *nix background but a bit tired of GNU/Linux since MANY years, I've tried switching back to FreeBSD a bit of time ago, but it's modern hw support is not enough for my needs, orphaned of OpenSolaris/IllumOS (with zfs a bit integrated into the system, meaning installer/package manager able to produce boot environments and clones reliably and easily enough) I've found in NixOS a relief. The Nix langue for me is as digestible as Haskell, something close to digesting broken glass, but for my mere needs it's usable enough. I only dream the community find a relief of Guix start to care the desktop a bit more, since HPC is a nice thing but... To have a model spread we need the desktop, Microsoft know that very well...

Long story short: the point is not "avoiding regular painful fresh installs or dirty cross-release upgrades" but making upgrades NOT PAINFUL and easy to reverse without issues. All the time in all system an update can fail, that simply must be not a issue. A casual user have no reason to invest much time in his/her own production machines, investing to learn once, profit forever must be the model. Is something breaks the casual user just have to reboot and wait a bit of time if the breakage is caused by upstream changes of waiting for when he/she have time to see what's part of his/her own code needs to change. No issue meaning not much more than a simple reboot. No time wasted with zfs diff and so on to quickly fix your system because you need it tomorrow morning and you have updated late night on the go. Also there MUST BE NO REASONS to waste hw resources and running Babel's towers like docker and co just because some apps are damn complex.

In NixOS deploying a classic LAMP app is (if packaged) servicename.enable = true; in most cases. Few LoC otherwise, DB, NGINX, PHP, ... no matter what get set up issueless without downloading and running a Matryoshka of distros with lxc/d wrappers running binaries made by unknown people on internet, with often not updated dependencies, forgotten ssh authorized keys and so on.

NixOS and Guix are the classic IaC applied to the OS.