I believe that’s due to package drift.
Every system starts with the same packages, but due to upgrading or adding/ removing stuff, you slowly drift away from the starting point, which makes it truly “your own”. But this also introduces bugs that aren’t reproducible.
I especially noticed it with KDE. Every time I installed a new distro or configuration, it worked fine, but after a few months, the bugs and crashes got more and more.
Since I installed Fedora Atomic (the “immutable” variant, e.g. Silverblue), everything just works. It’s extremely comfortable and just exists, so I can run my apps. When you upgrade the system, you don’t just download one package and install it, you apply it to the whole OS and then basically have the same install as all the thousands of other users out there, which makes it reproducible.
Maybe that’s something for you? You can check out Aurora, Bazzite or uBlue in general.
The problem with package based distros (everything non-immutable) is, that a distro is very complex.
Even if you manage to “swap out” the package repositories, you usually still have a lot of remaining stuff in the background and many things tweaked by the maintainers. It’s a huge mess.
In theory, you could absolutely do that, but to be honest, why bother? You already always should have a backup of all your personal data, so why not reinstall it cleanly?
Speaking of image based distros (“immutable”), the cool thing about most is that that you can easily swap out the underlying OS with just one command.
For example, you can always rebase from Fedora Silverblue to Kinoite to Bazzite to something with Hyprland and then back to vanilla Silverblue, without any traces.
So, for example, if the guy who makes your custom image on Github stops maintaining it, you can simply switch to something else in just seconds.
Maybe this is something relevant for you :)
Yeah, +1 from my side for Fedora Atomic, especially uBlue.
For this use case, I can absolutely recommend using Aurora (KDE) or Bluefin (Gnome), especially with the gts
branch.
uBlue offers different branches, namely:
latest
: in sync with the current Fedora repos, all the newest stuff official Fedora also ships, including kernelstable
this is the default by now. You have to wait two weeks more for feature and kernel updates, but they are better tested. If something would have broken, others would have noticed and already fixed it.gts
: this one is what I recommend for this use case. With that, you’ll get the last release.At the moment, F41 hit Bazzite/ Aurora latest
already three weeks ago when it landed, on stable
, I got it a few days ago, and on gts
, you have to wait another 5 months until F42 is released, and then you’ll update to F41.
gts
is perfect for those who don’t need the very latest features, and want something more chill with fewer surprises.
And the other benefits of uBlue/ Atomic also apply of course, like better hardware enablement, QoL tweaks, automatic staged updates, and much more.
9.5/10, can absolutely recommend!
I recommend you Aurora. It is basically Bazzite, which you already suggested, but without gaming stuff.
Why do I recommend you that?
GTS
variant around, which uses the last big release of Fedora, which is still kept up to date maintenance wise.
So, you are always half a year behind in terms of new features, but it has been tested for half a year more than regular Fedora or the other images.
When you choose the more conservative GTS variant, you’ll get way fewer surprises.After installation, you can hop into the terminal and use the ujust rebase-helper
, where you can select which image variant you want to have
latest
: synchronous with Fedorastable
(default): features are two weeks behindgts
: already said, last release, but still secure and more polished.I think it is the perfect balance for you between “Debian is too stale” and “Fedora and many other distros change too often”.
I would recommend you Aurora or Bluefin. They’re both the same, but one is KDE, and the other is Gnome.
They are pretty much indestructible, ultra-low maintenence (staged automatic updates, etc.), different branches, great quality of life tweaks and more included.
It’s a bit similar to how Android works, but powered by a common PC.
With the great touchpad both KDE and Gnome would shine due to their smooth gestures they offer.
Fedora Atomic, especially Bluefin, Bazzite and Aurora.
Nearly unbreakable, very reliable and stable in everyday use, needs no maintenance (updates itself, etc.) and more!
I chose to continue with my current setup until I get the time and motivation to upgrade.
I will build a new server from scratch. For that, I bought an used mainboard for a few bucks, which has 6 SATA slots.
You won’t need any additional driver, since, as you already said, it is already included in the kernel.
However, as owner of a RX6600, I can tell you that the GPU will be quite loud sometimes. I can recommend you to check out LACT
, which let’s you define fan curves, which makes it A LOT less noisy.
Your case sounds like a perfect fit for Bazzite or Aurora.
ujust
command away, many complex things are made easier with those commandsIt’s a mastodon post where “Fedora” is typed as a hashtag, and then it is followed by “Linux 41…”. The title should say “Fedora Linux 41 will be released on October 29”
For the beginning, I would recommend you to stick to a more popular Distro, like Mint, Fedora, Debian, and therelike.
Many niche distros, like CachyOS, are more tailored towards advanced users who know what they’re up to, or for special use cases, like TailsOS for extreme privacy (e.g. buying drugs, journalism, etc., it’s also commonly installed on an USB stick for portability and non-persistency).
With Fedora or Mint you get way more community support and resources in case something doesn’t work as expected for you, which it certainly will some time.
They’re also (mostly) identical performance wise.
For gaming, I would recommend you Bazzite, which gives you a first class gaming experience, and is extremely robust due to it being a completely new kind of distro. It also has the Nvidia-drivers already baked in if chosen, which makes it more reliable.
But regular Fedora (especially the KDE spin) or other common distros are perfectly fine too for that.
I’ve had this happen more often than I’d like to admit.
There were quite a few instances where I just couldn’t game in the evening after turning on my PC, mostly because of my power supply (outages while updating, unstable grid, damaged PSU and hard drive, etc.) and my ability to shoot myself in the foot in regards to my IT skills.
I imagined spending my friday evening differently than chrooting my install from another USB more often than I’d like to admit. At least Linux is repairable, good luck trying that with Windows…
Now, thankfully, I live in another house with a landlord that actually cares that I don’t get electrocuted in my shower, and I don’t have those problems anymore. I also don’t tinker as much with my OS anymore, at least not much.
Still, Fedora Atomic feels way more robust and less buggy than regular Fedora, especially KDE. And the QoL tweaks from uBlue are great too!
Probably Bluefin-DX.
The “DX” stands for developer experience. It’s a variant of uBlue/ Fedora Atomic (Silverblue) with a lot of added programming tools like Brew, Nix, IDEs, local LLMs, and more.
You can read more about it on the website.
There’s also Aurora, which is the same, but with KDE instead of Gnome.
The dx
-images are meant to be a plug-and-play solution for developers.
You just install it, share your container config to your project colleagues, and go. Don’t worry about not being able to work because of a bad update or some misalignments in your package manager broke your OS. Most stuff is containerised, and if your host breaks, you can just roll back, because the system is basically powered by git.
I’m no developer, but I use the regular variant for casual purposes (no specific tasks, mostly browser) on my laptop, and Bazzite (also very similar, but gaming focused) on my desktop, and both are wonderful! They’re the most boring distro/ OS I’ve used yet, and that’s great. They’re immutable/ image based and always work reliably.
I can really recommend them for a lot of people, from ranging from IT professionals to my mum.
I totally understand your wish, absolutely valid. From what I know Mint supports secure boot.
There aren’t many things that prevent that, but one might be the Nvidia driver. Were you able to boot into Mint and install it or similar things? Or did you just get greeted by the error message?
Maybe try downloading the image again and reflash it with another tool (e.g. Fedora Media Writer instead of Etcher) on another USB if you have one. It might be totally possible that your .iso did get corrupted in the process. And then do the whole process again.
I believe I had something similar a long time ago when I aborted the download and then resumed it, or when I pulled the USB too quickly without safely ejecting it beforehand.
I don’t use Mint, but secure boot is something that usually works by default on most distros.
Afaik, secure boot won’t increase the security as much as you think.
Did you try to reinstall it? From what you’ve written, you have some trouble with booting it. Maybe you selected some wrong partition schemes? The best one would be to select “Wipe whole drive and install”.
Did you disable secure boot, install it, and the enable it again? If yes, don’t. Boot your ISO from the USB with secure boot enabled and install it from there.
Btw, if you worry about security, then also consider also enabling full disk encryption, or at least the encryption of /home/
I wanted to add my own comment first, but yours covers it very well.
OP will be very happy with KDE and its’ app ecosystem.
About distro choice, it doesn’t matter very much.
My top recommendation would be Fedora Atomic KDE (Bazzite or Aurora), because it “just works”, has zero maintenence, will never break, and especially on Bazzite, gives you a first class gaming experience.
Other than Bazzite/ Aurora, I can of course recommend classic Fedora KDE, because of the sane defaults and both modern and stable release schedule.
OpenSuse Tumbleweed would be great if OP wants something that’s both bleeding edge and reliable, and EndeavourOS if they like Arch with very sane defaults, but more minimal than Tumbleweed.
I also made a very similar comment, but with uBlue (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin) instead.
They are still pretty vanilla, but include a big list of QoL stuff added in, like staged updates, Distrobox, a huge list gaming tweaks in Bazzite, and much more.
It’s basically stock Atomic made right!
I’ve used them for a year now, and they’re fantastic!
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic. Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
Because others already suggested Arch/ EndeavourOS, I’ll be suggesting something else: Bazzite.
It’s part of the image based (“immutable”) Fedora series and is basically Fedora Kinoite, with all drivers and codecs already set up for you, self managing, with many gaming tweaks included.
It’s rock solid and basically unbreakable, while also being extremely modern and updated. On Arch, even if it doesn’t break, you always get the newest stuff, which might not be as polished. On Fedora, it matures a few months, while still being very modern.
The main target group is “For Linux users who don’t want to use Linux”, meaning, it runs all your favourite stuff (KDE, etc.) without having to care for anything. It even updates itself automatically in the background without any interference.
If you prefer something with less “bloat” (a lot of optional tools and software to choose from, but nothing mandatory), then check out Aurora, which is basically the same, but without gaming stuff.
For more information, check out universal-blue.org
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic.
Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
Just use Flatpaks for 95% you do graphically, and for CLI stuff or software that isn’t available as Flatpak, I would recommend you to create an Arch Distrobox container (already set up IIRC) and use that. You can even install stuff from the AUR and export it, so it works just like it is supposed to.
Maybe, another consideration might be to not run Linux on Windows in some way, but the other way around.
Linux offers great virtualization, maybe you can use QEMU with KVM and GPU passthrough, and then run Windows inside this box.
I find Linux more powerful and less annoying to use day to day, and having those annoyances inside a small virtualized container I can just shut down is more peaceful.
WSL can be restricting, since Linux can’t access anything, and I think getting “the real and proper thing” might be better.
And dual booting, by having both Windows and Linux on the same drive, is something I would advise against. Windows doesn’t play nice with others and often “accidentally” breaks the bootloader and hard drive permissions, leading only to trouble. If you dual boot, install them on a separate drive and select the booting drive manually in the BIOS.
Also, why do you want to run Ubuntu specifically? Did you also look up for alternatives, like Fedora or Debian?
My desktop is a full AMD system that I set up specifically for Linux compatibility, and the laptop is also one of the best compatible ones out there (Dell XPS) with firmware updates included.
Theoretically, the system should be less buggy than other ones, because due to Fedora Atomic, there is less configuration drift and easier fixing for devs due to reproducibility.