Get a big mainstream distro and stop tinkering with it.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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This really is the answer. The more services you add, the more of your attention they will require. Granted, for most services already integrated into the distro’s repo, the added admin overhead will likely be minimal, but it can add up. That’s not to say the admin overhead can’t be addressed. That’s why scripting and crons, among some other utilities, exist!
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i want to try another distro than ubuntu, but the damn thing isnt giving me a single excuse to format my system. it doesnt break if you don't fuck with it.
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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...
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”
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
This is the way. The uBlue derivatives benefit from the most shared knowledge and problem-solving skills being delivered directly to users.
Between that, and using a decorative distrobox config, I get an actually reliable system with packages from any distro I want.
Doesn't ucore also have to restart to apply updates?
Not super ideal for a server as far as maintenance and uptime to have unexpected, frequent restarts as opposed to in-place updates, unless one's startup is completely automated and drives are on-device keyfile decrypted, but that probably fits some threat models for security.
The desktop versions are great!
Not super ideal for a server as far as maintenance and uptime to have unexpected, frequent restarts
This is such a weird take given that 99.9% of people here are just running this on their home servers which aren't dictated by a SLA, so it's not like people need to worry about reboots. Just reboot once a month unless there's some odd CVE you need to hit sooner than later.
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They won't apply unexpectedly, so you can reboot at a time that suits. Unless there's a specific security risk there's no need to apply them frequently. Total downtime is the length of a restart, which is also nice and easy.
It won't fit every use-case, but if you're looking for a zero-maintenance containerized-workload option, it can't be beat.
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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.
I’ve been distro hopping for decades. I got exhausted with things constantly breaking. I’ve been using mint for the past six months with zero issues. It’s so refreshing that everything just works.
I second Mint. I've installed it on my laptop with zero issues, although that thing is pretty old so your mileage may vary on newer hardware. But mint comes with pretty up to date kernels these days so it's definitely worth a try.
Every time I stray from Mint I am reminded why I go back to it.
Same here. I got to a point I wanted to use the OS rather than play with and fix it. Went back to Mint and stayed there.
fedora with gnome for me.
Debian stable + XFCE for me. Missing newer packages though. I'm interested in what problems you had with Fedora
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avoid nixos
Debian. Unattended upgrades. Maybe flatpaks if your (GUI) stuff isn't on debian
Peppermint , based on debian (also a devuan flavor). "Everything you need and nothing you don't"
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.
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.
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.
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The thing with Debian is that yes, it's the most stable distro family, but stable != "just works", especially when talking about a PC and not a server (as a PC is more likely to need additional hardware drivers). Furthermore, when the time comes that you DO want to upgrade Debian to a newer version, it's one of the more painful distros to do so.
I think fedora is a good compromise there. It's unstable compared to RHEL, but it's generally well-vetted and won't cause a serious headache once every few years like Debian.
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I am a longtime fan of Debian Stable, for exactly that reason. I installed the XFCE version using the custom installer about 8 years ago and have had very few issues.
Initially my GPU wasn't well supported so I had to use the installer from Nvidia, forcing me to manually reinstall the driver after every kernel update. That issue has been fixed in recent years so now I can just use the driver from the Debian repos.
I installed the unattended-updates package about 2 years ago and it has been smooth sailing since
My desktop has been running debian for 5 years no problem including 2 major debian version upgrades, and a new(er) GPU.
I had an old laptop that ran the same debian install for 8 years. All upgrades in place, no reinstalls.
boring, and works. Stable + backports should cover the majority of people with new hardware support needs.
You simply don't do any maintenance whatsoever.
t. Got a arch linux install that I (rarely) perform "sudo pacman -Syu --noconfirm" and it works like a champ.
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every system is only as stable as the user. anybody can break Debian or any other "stable" distro of renown the second they go tinkering, adding PPAs or anything else
The fact that you're even saying such things as "time constraints" or "to learn new software" suggests an attitude to computing shared by about 0.01% of the population. It cannot be re-stressed enough to the (sadly shrinking) bubble that frequents this community: the vast majority of people in the world have never touched a laptop let alone a desktop computer. Literally everything now happens on mobile, where FOSS is vanishingly insignificant, and soon AI is going to add a whole new layer of dystopia. But that is slightly offtopic.
It's a good question IMO. Choosing software freedom - to the small extent that you still can - should not just be about the freedom to tinker, it should also just be easy.
The answer is Ubuntu or Mint or Fedora.
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