[kwlug-disc] From Slackware to which distro?

[Doug Moen]

On Tue, May 31, 2022, at 4:12 PM, Raul Suarez via kwlug-disc wrote:
> While it wasn't listed I'd add one distro that's in the same category 
> and I may trust a bit more for "auto transmission" than Fedora:
>
> OpenSUSE.
>
> It is KDE based, and very stable, even tumbleweed.

I think I agree that OpenSUSE is more "auto transmission" than Fedora, based on internet research and using Fedora, but I haven't installed OpenSUSE yet. I've been distro hopping: I'm abandoning Fedora, and I will try OpenSUSE Tumbleweed + KDE next.

I'm looking for an alternative to Ubuntu. I mostly want the experience that "everything just works", and that system-level features that are important to me are supported/built in, rather than requiring me to (eg) compile kernels, manually install system software, edit system config files, and fix all the above when a system update breaks these things.

I'm also interested in having up-to-date software, although this goes against "everything just works". There is a tradeoff between stability/reliability and things being up to date.

Ubuntu is the best for "everything just works", but I don't want to use it because of the sleaze factor. I don't want Snap on my system, mainly. Software is not as up-to-date as some other distros, like Fedora and rolling release distros.

I've been using Fedora for some time on my laptop, and there are too many papercuts. Based on a list of the system level features I want,
 * Mint appears best, due to the Ubuntu base and the extra work that Mint has done. The tradeoffs are: the only supported DEs are Mint and Cinnamon. And it's based on Ubuntu LTS, so it has high stability but software is not fresh.
 * Among distros with up-to-date software, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed seems to be best, better than Fedora but worse than Ubuntu/Mint.

As for the DE (Desktop Environment), I strongly dislike Gnome 3, and I want something with a UI closer to MacOS or Windows. I also want a MacOS-like scrollwheel screen magnifier due to my eyesight (the Gnome screen magnifier is not very useable). This appears to limit me to: Mate + Compiz, Cinnamon, or KDE.

OpenSUSE appears to have the best story for trying out different DEs. Instead of installing a different "spin", you just install another DE using the package manager, and you can do this either in the installer, or in the Yast 2 GUI. We'll see how well this works in practice. (Fedora has a MATE spin, which I haven't tried. I tried installing the Fedora MATE packages using ynf, on top of the Gnome 3 distro, and it did not go well.)

I want to point out that I have some very specific requirements that other people may not share. The system level features I want include:
 * A high level UI for snapshot and restore of the root partition, so I can recover from disaster after a system update or package install goes badly. Like my problematic install of MATE on Fedora. This is built in to Mint and OpenSUSE, but not Fedora or Manjaro.
 * ZFS support (for an external array, not ZFS on root). Mint has this in the default install. OpenSUSE has a package that is not in the default repos, but the OpenZFS project endorses the package, and people on the internet report using it without issue. Fedora has a package that the OpenZFS project says "should not be used under any circumstance". Note that ZFS is for my server machine, not my laptop, and I won't use a rolling release distro on my server for stability/reliability reasons. I could use Mint or OpenSUSE Leap.