If you had to pick one distro to use for the next five years, what would it be? Bleeding edge / stable? Rolling / periodic?

What would you prioritise and why?

  • pheusie@programming.dev
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    8 hours ago

    My priorities:

    • Secure. Unlike popular belief, the fact that the worlds infrastructure basically runs on Linux does not imply that your average Desktop Linux distro enjoys the same level of scrutiny when it comes to its security. Hence, the security-conscious should carefully pick a distro that can handle their threat model. Or, at least harden it to their liking.
    • Stateless. Conventionally, you will be met with a (relatively) minimal system after installation. After which you’re expected to configure it to your liking and go smooth sailing afterwards. Occasionally, you might (un)install stuff and/or modify settings; but nothing out of the ordinary, really. While applying some of these changes might seem trivial, they (kinda) lead your system to accumulate cruft. This cruft might seem innocuous, but it’s exactly why your system seems so fresh after a reinstall. Foregoing this altogether is referred to as going stateless. This is done by declaring a desired state and ‘flushing’ all changes that have not been declared. Many other benefits are associated with this, but I digress…

    The above[1] already dictates the use of NixOS with the impermanence and nix-mineral modules.


    1. So, without even going into release cadence etc. ↩︎