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 really 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.
- yet another vote for Debian Stable
- second the comment on: if you need a newer kernel for hardware reasons, use backports
- Xfce
- stick to flatpaks when dealing with wanting to try out a new program (if you like it, then make the decision to use apt or not)
- don’t confuse “hasn’t been updated” with “hasn’t needed to be updated”
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…
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
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
Debian
If you like debian and just need a newer kernel you could just add backports to your debian install then install the kernel during the install process.
fedora with gnome for me.
Debian stable + XFCE for me. Missing newer packages though. I’m interested in what problems you had with Fedora
I had problems with waking from sleep/hibernate, audio issues (total dropouts as well as distortion in screen-recording apps), choppy video playback and refusal to enter fullscreen, wonky cursor scaling, apps not working as expected or not running at all. I’ve managed to fix most of these or find temporary workarounds (grateful for flatpaks for once!) or alternative applications. But the experience was not fun, particularly as there was only a 2 week return window for the laptop and I needed to be sure the problems weren’t hardware design/choice related. And I’m finding it 50/50 whether an app actually works when I install it from the repo. There’s a lot less documentation for manually installing things as well and DNF is slow compared to apt…
I don’t want to say for certain that Fedora as a distro is to blame but I suspect that it is. I miss my Debian days.
(grateful for flatpaks for once!)
That’s how I run my system right now. Fedora KDE + pretty much everything as Flatpak.
Gives me a recent enough kernel and KDE version so I don’t have to worry when I get new hardware or new features drop but also restricts major updates to new Fedora versions so I can hold those back for a few weeks.
I made a similar switch as you but from Ubuntu to Fedora because of outdated firmware and kernel.
Let’s hope Debian fits you. I had to change to an Intel WiFi card but everything else worked OOTB for me on my laptop
I had problems with waking from sleep/hibernate
what graphics do you have? Don’t expect that to go away with nvidia. no such issues on AMD though, intel should be fine though
Intel Arc integrated graphics.
This! Debian with Gnome or others is the answer. Take an afternoon to make it yours, then forget it. You can use backported kernels on Debian, to support newer hardware. Try this or upgrade to Debian 13 right now by changing the sourcefile to trixie instead of bookworm. Note : if you use Gnome, let gnome-software handle the updates for you (there’s an equivalent for kde). If you use others, configure unattented-upgrades for automatic updates.
avoid nixos
Peppermint , based on debian (also a devuan flavor). “Everything you need and nothing you don’t”
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.
LTS is released every 2 years, for reference.
Debian. Unattended upgrades. Maybe flatpaks if your (GUI) stuff isn’t on debian
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.
Ubuntu. It’s boring but it all works.
Ubuntu is literally just Debian unstable with a bunch of patches. Literally every time I’ve been forced to use it, it’s been broken in at least a few obvious places.
So, you are saying Debian is the better choice, right?
Ubuntu comes with non-free drivers which can make it easier to set up and use. I use Debian on my server and Ubuntu on my laptops. They have both been pretty reliable for me. LTS versions of Ubuntu are pretty bug free but have older versions of software. I’d guess that Daniel was using a non-LTS release which are a bit more bleeding edge. The LTS ones strike a good balance between modernity and stability.
Absolutely. I’ve been running Debian for literally decades both personally & professionally (on servers) and it’s rock-solid.
On the desktop, it’s also very stable, but holy-fuck is it old. I’m happy to accept the occasionally bug in exchange for modern software though, so I use Arch (btw) on the desktop.
I am currently using an recent version of Ubuntu live USB for backups and a “serious” error window pops up every time I boot it. Same experience with Ubuntu installations. For me at least, Ubuntu isn’t anything close to stable.
