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1 • Debian with firmware (by Matt on 2018-01-29 00:37:17 GMT from United States)
The non-free firmware is available on the unofficial Debian installation images:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/
2 • openSUSE tumbleweed (by Tom Tumbler on 2018-01-29 00:39:36 GMT from Canada)
I normally use openSUSE tumbleweed with a tumbler full of weed to roll-it-up, until I, myself starts rolling round and round after couples of puffs.
3 • rolling-release (by brad on 2018-01-29 01:03:57 GMT from United States)
Manjaro, but I have experimented with all others except for slackware and void-based distros.
I had to check which distros were slackware-based rolling-release; the database lists only Zenwalk.
There are no distros in the DB that are Void-based.
4 • Rolling release (by Bruce on 2018-01-29 01:16:43 GMT from United States)
I use Sparky Linux which is based on Debian Testing and find that it covers every thing I need. I use a combination of Openbox with the xfce Goodies.
I am heatedly satisfied.
5 • Out-of-the-box Debian-based distros & rollers (by Brenton Horne on 2018-01-29 01:38:22 GMT from Australia)
Funnily the two most popular Debian-based desktop distros (assuming HPDs are infallible as a measure for this), Linux Mint and Ubuntu, both lack out-of-the-box proprietary Broadcom WiFi support, which I'm guessing is what the asker is looking for. Nor does MX Linux for that matter, only elementary OS and Zorin OS out of the top five have it (although #6, deepin, does too). You can install it easily on Mint and Ubuntu's live sessions though as they have the necessary packages already in their package cache. But even if you select the option to install proprietary third-party software in the installer they do not have such support out-of-the-box.
As for rollers well I have a hard time picking just one. I have all the rollers mentioned in the poll installed on my PC aside from FreeBSD (which I am not installing mostly due to driver issues, but I have tried it in VMs before) and Slackware current (although I do plan to get current and I do have 14.2 installed). The one I use the most is Arch Linux, but they all have their merits. I know which one I like the least though, Debian unstable, as it seems the buggiest.
6 • Rolling Release vs. Testing (by Winchester on 2018-01-29 01:56:44 GMT from United States)
Slackel is based on Slackware Current . Zenwalk "Rolling" .... same deal. The new beta release of Absolute Linux has also made the switch to Slackware Current.
Slackware Current , like Debian Testing distributions are not considered to be "true" rolling releases.
Gentoo, Solus, Arch, Void Linux, Chakra, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and KaOS are considered true rolling release distributions.
PClinuxOS is classified here as "semi-rolling". I will have to look into the details of that.
I have had success with all of the above "true" rolling release projects except for Chakra which was not compatible with my hardware. Arch seems to require the most attention. Solus might be the most beginner friendly of them.
7 • debian based distros and wireless (by dolpin oracle on 2018-01-29 02:03:31 GMT from United States)
@5 - just to clarify a point...mx linux does indeed ship with broadcom proprietary drivers enabled by default, along with an automatic configuration at first boot of the live media that selects either the proprietary or the open-source, depending on the parts installed on the system. antiX 17 does as well I think.
8 • antiX WiFi (by Brenton Horne on 2018-01-29 02:13:44 GMT from Australia)
@7 MX Linux was a guess, I knew that antiX didn't, MX Linux is based on it and I didn't see why they wouldn't include it, but if you say it is I'll believe ya.
9 • Broadcom drivers (by Jesse on 2018-01-29 02:38:13 GMT from Canada)
@7 @8: Both MX and antiX include Broadcom drivers on the installation media, though some assembly may be required to get them working.
10 • Manjaro (by Starskeptic on 2018-01-29 02:43:24 GMT from United States)
I'd used Ubuntu since 2005, with windows and OS X mixed in there; tried Manjaro this past Fall and am completely sold - no more distro hopping for me.
11 • Rolling Release (by cflow on 2018-01-29 02:49:22 GMT from United States)
For me, I'm surprised how Void is an option in the poll, yet Solus is not. What was the reason behind that?
Solus is indeed a rolling release in my eyes when I use it. It is just that the people behind the distribution try to polish their ISO's for stability, user experience, and features - and number them kind of like in fixed releases. But updates are definitely in a rolling release manner.
12 • antiX WiFi (by Brenton Horne on 2018-01-29 03:05:55 GMT from Australia)
@9 Well I'll be, I just fired up an antiX 18 live session in a VM and while I know on my actual machine it doesn't automatically detect my Broadcom BCM4352 WiFi chip I ran:
find /lib/modules -name "wl.ko"
and it found the Broadcom kernel module, so you're right. I also just used this method to confirm that this is also true for MX Linux 17. Although whether you can call it truly "out-of-the-box" is up for debate, given that it didn't work out-of-the-box for me on my actual machine. To be clear I am aware that all distros require you to enter your WiFi credentials (well duh right? Just mentioning in case yas are wondering if this is why I say so many are lacking this), but with antiX it didn't detect my WiFi networks.
I once mentioned in an email to DistroWatch that maybe adding Broadcom proprietary drivers to the list of packages tracked in the DistroWatch database may be worthwhile. This query may be better answered by this as what the database tracks is what's present in the ISOs of each release, or a base installation, if I'm not mistaken.
13 • Stable Debian distros with wireless all needed WINE programs (by dhinds on 2018-01-29 03:10:49 GMT from Mexico)
Try Sparky Multimedia Edition if you like Openbox
14 • Rolling release experience and test (by TuxUser on 2018-01-29 03:24:46 GMT from Canada)
A few years ago (2013), I took a test. I have installed 5 rolling release distribution: Sabayon, Arch, Slackel, PCLinuxOs and Siduction. All distributions have been installed with KDE.
None of these Distributions were on my main desktop computer. I only did update each system once a week. In order to see how long one or other of Distributions will have the first problems.
After 4 weeks Sabayon was the first to have problems (loss of graphical environment).
The second was Slackel (problem with boot init at the 7th week).
The third was Siduction (kernel panic around the 13th week).
Arch was next in the fourth month. Crash kde session
PCLinuxOS has never had any problems for up to 8 months. I stopped the test after nine months.
I did this test just for curiosity. at this moment (it's not a fake story).
I've been running Debian stable for 4 years. On my Laptop I used Debian for a long time but now I'm on OpenBSD and Zenwalk in second place.
In conclusion, if I were to use mainly a Rolling Release, I would probably opt for PCLinuxOS or give a chance to Manjaro.
15 • rolling broadcom (by wally on 2018-01-29 03:26:00 GMT from United States)
Like Mint rolling.
----
As someone who helps newb friends with Linux, Broadcom is a PITA.
16 • OpenBSD as rolling release (by Billy Larlad on 2018-01-29 03:33:48 GMT from United States)
I use OpenBSD's -current development branch as a rolling release. Tremendously smooth in more than four years of use on several machines!
Debian Unstable has also worked well for me. From about 2012 to mid-2017 I had used Debian Testing, but whenever packages broke they stayed broke for anywhere from days to weeks to months. Somehow unstable seems to have fewer problems, and the problems that do crop up get fixed in very short order.
17 • siduction and smplayer (by enrico on 2018-01-29 05:43:11 GMT from Italy)
I want to comment on bug with smplayer on siduction review: it's not distro related, it's smplayer that has this bug, if you use move engine to play videos it makes a new window to play it, it's easy to solve, change media player engine from mpv to MPlayer and smplayer work as expected with only one window, it work perfect on all my PC, with Ubuntu Manjaro etc etc.
Good work with the site, keep going
18 • Perfered Rolling Distro - PCLinuxOS (by M.Z. on 2018-01-29 06:34:19 GMT from United States)
The big surprise to me was that PCLinuxOS was left off the options list. I suppose there are other contenders that could also be but on the list as well, but PCLOS is a long established distro & a strong contender for most wide spread & easy to use rolling distro.
19 • PCLinuxOS (by Brenton Horne on 2018-01-29 07:54:35 GMT from Australia)
A few folks are referring to PCLinuxOS as a rolling distro, I agree with this designation but oddly if you search for rolling release model distros (1) with DistroWatch itself it doesn't come up. It seems like DistroWatch classes it as semi-rolling given this search's results (2). Its table (on its article https://distrowatch.com/pclinuxos) says 'Rolling' for apt (which I'm guessing is it when regularly updated) and 'Semi' for the 2017.11 release. It seems like DIstroWatch is counting the 'Semi' only in its search results.
This search (3) shows independent rolling distros if anyone is interested and somehow couldn't set up this search themselves. There's quite a few that are omitted in the poll, which is hardly surprising as most of them do not have derivatives (granted nor does Void so that's odd) in DistroWatch's database, others are very unpopular (e.g. Exherbo, paldo) so who would bother, while others are probably too relatively new (e.g. Solus) for them to possibly have offspring.
1. https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&rolling=Rolling#simple
2. https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&rolling=Semi-Rolling#simple
3. https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&basedon=Independent&rolling=Rolling#simple
20 • SystemD Start Up Times & Rolling Release Distros (by Paul M on 2018-01-29 08:20:29 GMT from Canada)
When I first began using Linux as my daily driver OS, I ran Ubuntu for several years. Then, I started to notice how bloated (and unstable) Ubuntu had become in comparison to other distros... slow boot times, broken dependencies with the "Automatic Updates", driver conflict issues, X-org DVI display problems, ALSA/Pulseaudio bizarre audio behavior, etc... ad naseum. And, after some distro-hopping - first Linux Mint, then PCLinuxOS, Fedora, openSUSE, and Arch - I settled on Debian Stable and haven't looked back.
That being said, it comes as no surprise to me that Jesse found Debian to be noticeably faster on boot than Ubuntu, regardless of the init system used. I also find Debian to be much faster than Ubuntu - in almost every way. I would even go further to add that my overall experience with Debian Stable has been MUCH more "Stable" than Ubuntu or any of the other rolling release distros that I have ever tried.
And that is why I always will avoid using a rolling-release distro (not even Debian Testing - no thanks!). For me, for my daily driver desktop OS, I want to keep it lean & clean... and that's what you get with Debian Stable releases. Yes, the kernel and the programs may not be bleeding-edge... but who wants that kind of instability for a daily work machine? That's a trade-off that some may be willing to make to get the latest versions of programs... but not me.
21 • Rolling Release (by ptyerman on 2018-01-29 09:47:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
I did run Manjaro for a while but it broke badly after some updates, as did Debian testing but that was half expected.
I went back to LTS releases and have stuck with them since. Rolling releases are far too crash happy for my liking, I prefer to switch on and go without worrying if the next update will foobar my OS!
22 • Rolling release (by OstroL on 2018-01-29 10:09:10 GMT from Poland)
Most probably the best rolling release is Debian testing. You can find the up to date Debian Testing live installable iso here, https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/ straight from Debian itself.
23 • @14 (by Simon on 2018-01-29 10:20:22 GMT from New Zealand)
Exactly :)
Rolling release is fun for playing with recent software and sometimes, if you're very lucky and/or you don't use a lot of different software, the whole system can work for months before something breaks...but in the end, something always breaks. It's still usable on a machine that you depend upon to do stuff *if* you're careful to keep enough backups of working systems that you can simply revert to one of those if something turns out to be broken when you really need it urgently...and with the competent user communities you often get around rolling release distros (Gentoo, for example) it won't be long before it's fixed and you can make a new working system backup. So there's never really any need, even on a rolling release distro, to be unable to do something for more than the few minutes it takes to restore from a backup.
However, like #20 above (Paul), I prefer the likes of Debian stable now: I don't want to be unexpectedly unable to do stuff for even a few minutes, as it's annoying and, at just the wrong time, potentially costly. Ubuntu/Mint LTS is good too...as are CentOS and Slackware if you don't mind putting a lot of work into setting things up, building packages etc.; which can be worth it, when the system you've built will then work reliably for years. After around 20 years of Linux on many different distros, I've come to value dependability above bells and whistles. I'm happy to wait a few more months for the improvements that "bleeding edge" distros are already enjoying: we still get them, only by the time we get them, they work properly. More importantly (to me and others who don't mind fixing bugs at certain times, e.g. when building new systems), they keep working, month after month: you don't fire up a program that worked last week only to discover that an update has broken it.
24 • Stable Debian distros with firmware (by DraganF on 2018-01-29 11:18:42 GMT from Serbia)
The non-free firmware is available on Serbian Linux KDE and Openbox Edition.
25 • systemD boot times OK, but ... (by curious on 2018-01-29 11:33:45 GMT from Germany)
... what about shutdown times?
That is the main difference I have noticed so far: the distros I have tried may have booted slightly faster (or slower) with or without systemd - the dfference is hardly noticable.
But quite a few systemD distros (and ONLY these) have had excessively long shutdown times.
This is fixable, if you don't mind messing with the systemd configuration (and know what to change and where to find it), but it shouldn't happen in the first place - and doesn't with other init systems.
26 • antiX WIFI (by anbticapitalista on 2018-01-29 11:59:11 GMT from Greece)
@11
There is no antiX 18. Latest is antiX-17
27 • Rolling release (by Bonky Osmond on 2018-01-29 12:25:33 GMT from Nicaragua)
I have Run Gentoo and Calculate (gentoo based) for a lot of trouble free years.
I have Slackel and Slackware current both running which I had some teething issues when first installed not sure the issues were Rolling related.!!
have Void on trial sadly i dont use it enough to really make an assesment but have had minimal troubles..
Me and Debian dont get along never have since the dawn of time well Linux
I ran Manjaro for the first 2 yrs and had no problems then it started to spiral out of control...kept getting issues with programs crashing on startup, and it got slow.....seem to remember GTK was involved but they also stopped supporting their openbox distro so as i didnt need it dumped it
28 • Rolling release (by Fox on 2018-01-29 12:28:33 GMT from Canada)
About a year ago the president of our local Linux club made a presentation on how to install Arch Linux. Going through his steps, it didn't seem that difficult, so I was inspired to try it. It worked well on a netbook, so I decided to install it on a second computer as well (an iMac) and see how long it would go before breaking. It has yet to break on either computer. I still don't use it as my main distro, but I am impressed that it has gone this long without problems. A few years ago I tried Manjaro on the same netbook, and I ran into a problem after about 4 months. It was fixable, but like previous posters, I value stability, and Ubuntu 17.10 is current enough for me.
29 • Rolling Release (by Hank Richards on 2018-01-29 13:01:10 GMT from United States)
Manjaro, used it for months no problems. I don't know if any distros do it automatically, but I have to update the package database from time to time.
30 • antiX WiFi (by Brenton Horne on 2018-01-29 13:32:17 GMT from Australia)
@26: thank you sir, I stand corrected. Must be too eager for a new release :P. The ISO I used was for version 17.
31 • Rolling Release (by mandog on 2018-01-29 13:56:20 GMT from Peru)
Arch here since 2005 had maybe 3 breakages in that time. and they were all sorted in 24 hrs, Arch users care, That is why they only support arch installed the Arch way because if its not installed the Arch way its not Arch. I have tried many so called easy arch installs and only Archbang was a viable option.
Sadly because of the name Archbang can be no more Archbang, Thank you Mr Green I know you are trying to keep the project low key on Sourcforge, and wish you the best of luck in the future. your work and family commitments must take priority. just call it Bang instead.
Now testing Artix as well very stable seeing its a new openrc distro I feel it will totally replace Arch for me in the near future.
As for the rest they are all unstable apart from Gentoo.
Debian must be the biggest joke of all the last time, I installed Debian the last release could not even install abiword due to missing deps it took 6 months for the deps to appear in the stable repro total joke.
32 • wifi (by Tim Dowd on 2018-01-29 14:20:07 GMT from United States)
Linux wifi is still the biggest pain about using Linux- mostly because certain companies don't seem interested in supporting it. At this point Linux is at the "it just works" stage in almost every aspect but this.
I realized a year ago the easiest solution: buy a wifi dongle that works- even if you have built in wifi. They're about 5-15 USD, and that means that if your time is worth minimum wage, buying one is cheaper than spending more than 2 hours dealing with a crappy driver.
It's not elegant, but I was waiting since 2014 for the Realtek 8188EE to not be terrible with Linux. Now things work great because its blacklisted. I really like Atheros chipsets.
@31, Debian isn't a joke... but unfortunately I had a lot of trouble with the last release (stretch) too. The previous two were great, and hopefully the next one will be too.
33 • @20 Ditched Ubuntu (by Ditchy Dutchkinson on 2018-01-29 14:33:20 GMT from Canada)
@ #20
"...hen, I started to notice how bloated (and unstable) Ubuntu had become in comparison to other distros... slow boot times, broken dependencies with the "Automatic Updates", driver conflict issues, X-org DVI display problems, ALSA/Pulseaudio bizarre audio behavior, etc... ad naseum..."
Ubuntu has a long story of getting bloated. Upon first BIOS corruption, I guessed so called human-error, I could not fix or reflash. I have to scrap the hardware. Up on 2nd time BIOS corruption, I thought Ubuntu is not perfect-fit for my hardware, I trashed and ditched Ubuntu. While someone re-flashed my BIOS and brought it back.
34 • siduction (by alotovkrap on 2018-01-29 14:35:47 GMT from France)
I had the same problems as you with videos; I would roll the mouse, but when in ful-screen mode there was no cursor over the video, and no controls. Other than that it was not a bad experience. Aprt from having the same tor problem as LMDE; strictexit nodes do not work.
35 • Stability of Rolling Release Distributions (by Winchester on 2018-01-29 14:47:44 GMT from United States)
I can testify that I have several rolling release distributions installed for a couple of years now and they all have been very stable except for the Debian Testing-based Parrot Security OS which broke a few months back.
Arch requires a little bit of intervention once in a while.
Solus has run into only one problem the entire time,which was with the LightDM log-in display manager,maybe because,at that time,I chose not to update that package while updating other packages. Easily fixed.
PClinuxOS has not had an issue of instability or breakage outside of PCmanFM-Qt. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with LXQt .... same thing despite massive amounts of updates .... once I removed the "Packman" repository from the equation.
Even Paldo has not faltered on me,although I rarely boot into it and have to manually remove old kernels.
Smooth sailing with Calculate Linux Desktop and Gentoo as well. One VirtualBox-guest-additions update would not go through under Calculate but,I edited the "package-accept-keywords" file and the next update for that package went off flawlessly.
So,I believe the instability,breakage aspect is greatly exaggerated when it comes to some rolling release distributions. That has been my opinion formed from a couple years of experience living with them,anyway.
36 • Rolling Distro (by BushPilot on 2018-01-29 15:46:45 GMT from Canada)
I have been running Antergos and Debian 10 (SID) along side Debian stable for the past 4 months. Antergos xfce broke a few times but SID has not so far. Upgrades are a real pain for me as is the instability of rolling release. I also found that SID or Antergos does not offer me any real advantage over Debian stable, so why both with them?
37 • @31 (by aquila on 2018-01-29 15:50:09 GMT from France)
"Debian must be the biggest joke of all the last time, I installed Debian the last release could not even install abiword due to missing deps it took 6 months for the deps to appear in the stable repro total joke."
Be careful, when you are laughing. Don't get choked!
"Arch here since 2005 had maybe 3 breakages in that time."
Don't know what you are doing here, when you have such a stable distro for last 12 years!
38 • rolling release (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-01-29 15:52:50 GMT from United States)
I have used PC-LinuxOS64 for a couple of years now and previously to the changes
to accommodate UEFI and GTP. In the lapse I used Mageia 4.1 and 5.
Before the change PCLinuxOS hung up on some display driver problems but
that is a problem for people who fail, in the install process, to discard unneeded
hardware drivers.
I have run PCLOS on several laptops, a Compaq with dual core AMD, an HP
with AMD A10 4 core, and Dell E6420 with i7 and E 6520 with i5. In addition
for a friend I administer his use of a Dell E 6510 and we have had no real
problems particularly since the forced update to KDE's Plasma 5.
Before PCLinux and Mageia I used Mandriva from 2006 to 2010.1 until
2012 when I started looking for a replacement,
My paid-for Mandriva 2011 quit working on my hardware which was
likely a display driver problem that I was unprepared to deal with
then.
Dealing with other non-rolling releases I have spent hours upgrading users
to later versions of Ubuntu and to the 64 bit versions but these users
don't want to know Linux and prefer to defer upgrades until some failure.
bliss - Running the Radically Simple distro, PCLinuxOS64 2018.1
39 • @20 (by Per on 2018-01-29 15:57:22 GMT from France)
"When I first began using Linux as my daily driver OS, I ran Ubuntu for several years. Then, I started to notice how bloated (and unstable) Ubuntu had become in comparison to other distros...blah, blah, blah"
Use Kubuntu instead. Initial system load is just 0.39GB! It never breaks these days.
40 • Running Debian testing Xfce (by debianxfce on 2018-01-29 16:11:27 GMT from Finland)
Debian testing Xfce is a stable, light, compatible and easy to use rolling release distribution.
41 • Post # 35 (by Winchester on 2018-01-29 16:31:12 GMT from United States)
Just because one rolling release distribution may not be stable with a given set of installed packages DOES NOT mean that they all are unstable.
See post # 35.
Some have many updates,others only a couple times a week,such as Solus .... not much different from Debian stable in the amount of updates. The main difference being that the updates continue to be available throughout the lifetime of the distribution and do not stop at at set point in time in the future.
42 • Debian is a REAL joke for all the times! (by Lenny Laconi on 2018-01-29 17:41:44 GMT from Canada)
@ # 31
"Debian must be the biggest joke of all the last time, I installed Debian the last release could not even install abiword due to missing deps it took 6 months for the deps to appear in the stable repro total joke."
Debian spirit is already long been already dead and buried with Debian 5.0 (Lenny).
On 6th release they squeeze beyond their capacity of developers, and.
on 9th release they stretch everything beyond the ethics of Debian.
Most of the users - newbies never get past of installer issues.
Of course,
Debian IS the BIGGEST joke of all the times.
43 • Rolling... (by c00ter on 2018-01-29 17:57:01 GMT from United States)
Wow, Arch currently leading @ 29% blows my mind, and I'm an Archer. From prior comments I can only imagine derivative users are including themselves in this poll. *sigh* Over the years I've run all in the poll, but it really boils down to one thing; the user taking a *real* interest in whatever distro they are using and understanding why they are using it, specifically.
44 • Rolling (by Martin on 2018-01-29 18:55:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am a new user of rolling release distros and I am trying out Artix as I am trying to avoid Systemd...
I picked Arch on the poll as Artix is based on Arch.
45 • Arch is the biggest joke (by Lenny Laconi on 2018-01-29 19:22:01 GMT from France)
Arch is the biggest joke too, even afraid of Archbang...
46 • Rolling (by Mitch on 2018-01-29 20:40:58 GMT from United States)
Other - I used Foresight back in the day, and loved it. Rolling release and a snappy install speed on hardware over a decade ago was pretty sweet! The fastest installation around, and probably would still pummel some today. How bought that Foresight Ken Van Dine?!
47 • "biggest joke" (by Vukota on 2018-01-29 21:00:11 GMT from Serbia)
Yes, both Debian and Arch are joke if you are not the target user for the distro. No distro is error prone or bug free. Debian has outdated software/drivers. I haven't seen it too broken on the hardware where it was configured and made working. Arch (and Arch based distros), gets broken often, especially if you don't babysit it regularly, but you get bleeding edge software. In the similar way others have their own problems and advantages. If you are looking for something headache free (easy to maintain) and between these two, Mint is your friend as it auto upgrades itself with a good recent track record (although not considered rolling distro).
48 • Debian is not a joke (by imnotrich on 2018-01-29 22:01:20 GMT from Mexico)
Debian is not a joke, in fact it is the rock solid foundation for many of the greatest distros out there.
However, by itself Debian is just the foundation. After every install you're often faced with weeks or months of troubleshooting, configuration, tinkering and using your Google Fu skills to find solutions for both hardware and software issues. Plural. As in MANY.
Sometimes your tinkering/solutions will break something else, and you're back to square one. Which, at least for me made it unsuitable for work/as my daily driver.
I used Debian almost exclusively for years when Linux was my hobby, but now that I use Linux primarily for work I've no choice but to go with Linux Mint Cinnamon. With Mint, I can still get my fingernails dirty but things I consider to be basic functionality are up and running out of the box. Not so with Debian.
Sorry Ian. May you RIP.
49 • Rolling Releases (by Tom on 2018-01-29 23:21:00 GMT from Germany)
Not running a fully rolling distribution, but KDE Neon keeps KDE rolling, which is already an important part
50 • Void (by mcg on 2018-01-29 23:53:21 GMT from Finland)
Rooling relase Void Linux! All you need is Void Linux not only rolling-relase, LibreOffice, Runit etc.
51 • Rolling distros (by Grraf on 2018-01-30 00:07:55 GMT from Romania)
Been with the arch derivate known as Manjaro for about 4yrs and encountered about 5 major issues 3 of wich were easily&quickly dealt with by following the instructions in their forum while the other 2 were self-inflicted by my own experiments/inexperience with kernels&drivers&AUR: guess what their wiki and custom built tools helped me fix my mess in about 10minutes both times despite me being at those points most familiar with debian testing(wich i coincidentally dumped for Manjaro) then with arch...
Bottom line stick with the default options(preferably avoid AUR)&read the forum update's sections and its unlikely anything will go wrong/won't a have an easy fix... otherwise if u go looking for trouble with stuff from the AUR/mess around and modify kernels/drivers then the thing u need is to at least be familiar with manjaro's chrooting&MHWD tools so u can clean up yr own mess instead of shifting the blame from yrself on to other people( like most idiots these days complaining its the window that's poorly made not hammer's fault for smashing trough it)
PS:been with debian testing for about 2years (before moving to manjaro) and at that time it was an endless bug fest and the aptitude/apt-get/synaptic trio wasn't doing it any favors either... glad i bailed before my hair turned gray...nowadays i don't even bother checking a distro unless its got the 'pacman' (it's simple&sane approach quickly became a priceless commodity for me)
PPS: PCLinuxOS & LMDE are about as rolling as brick is...(don't get me wrong but theyr update cycle is so slow that its barely faster then some of the non rolling distros)
52 • Rolling Release (by Fernando on 2018-01-30 00:54:44 GMT from Argentina)
I use SparkyLinux (debian "testing"-based distro) with MATE desktop without problems.
53 • Rolling Distros & Non Rolling (by Armand on 2018-01-30 04:45:31 GMT from United States)
Over the last 15 years I have tried over 25 distros; rolling, semi-rolling and fixed. I have found only Mint and PCLinuxOS (running on tower for over 2 years) consistently are the easiest to install, recognize all the hardware and have no problems over the long term.
If a distro does not install properly and does not recognize hardware, I jettison it, not worth my time. Running MX on a Dell 5420 i5 for the last 5 months, no problems. This laptop has bcm4312 but I don't recall having any difficulty at the installation or getting the wireless to work at that time.
54 • Wayland (by OstroL on 2018-01-30 11:32:48 GMT from Poland)
Will Wayland ever be ready? After more than 9 years of "development" neither RedHat nor Ubuntu is going to implement it fully as default. Nvidia being a graphics related specialised company won't touch it. Nvidia can't afford to have screen tearing problems that plague Wayland.
55 • rolling release (by anbticapitalista on 2018-01-30 12:03:10 GMT from Greece)
Various flavours of antiX with debian sid repos on my desktop. The oldest running version on the desktop is antiX-12-sid 32 bit.
56 • @ # 53 (by Harry Hopper on 2018-01-30 14:40:05 GMT from Canada)
I am a distro hopper too, sometimes 3 distos in a day which is way faster than changing my attire.
In accordance with the ranks on DW Page Hit Ranking of top 100 only 20 at-the-most worked for me like a charm. These were - in accordance with rank - zorin, antiX, MX Linux, PCLinuxOS, Lubuntu, puppy (fatdog flavour), LXLE, xubuntu, Devuan, Bodhi, KNOPPIX, BlackArch, Alpine, Slax, wattOS, Pararabola, Vector, Calculate, Trisquel, and RoboLinux.
None out-of-top 10.
And, of course, Gentoo, Arch and Slackware - slackel and derivatives & co. FreeBSD and Dragonfly.
57 • Wayland way, way, off... (by OS2_user on 2018-01-30 15:01:27 GMT from United States)
Like OstroL, I just came across this in The Register: "Ten years' worth of effort to replace the Xorg graphics framework has been given a "must try harder" mark by Ubuntu, which says its next release will not use Wayland by default." -- Incredible. A major well-funded Linux org can't come up with a slightly better Xorg?
I asked a couple months ago "Why Wayland"? And now I'm confirmed in opinion that instead of fixing up basics, programmers tried to put in place a vast new plan with every "cool" feature they could think of.
Appears to be ten years of wasted effort. Surely change will now be put off by anyone reasonable, and the whole project will dies. The effort could have been put into any number of useful improvements, for instance replacing the horrid arbitrary 1960s command line shells with ANY new plan (copied from MS-DOS, say).
Oh, well, huh?
As I've said, Linux-on-the-desktop types had better QUIT adding features. Xorg seems to be adequate for windowing and video.
58 • @11 Solus not Void? (by pepa65 on 2018-01-30 15:14:08 GMT from Thailand)
Why should Void not be listed as a rolling release distro?? I have been testing it for over a year, and it is rock solid hasn't broken yet. (It is recommended to not leave too many kernel versions lingering about, as it will slow down upgrades when needing to build modules.)
Nothing against the suggestion to include Solus, or PCLinuxOS (really should have been there!), but Void is a very valid option that is unique and stands out. It also uses Runit instead of Systemd, another outstanding feature.
59 • @ # 57 Way... way... off (by Quick Questions on 2018-01-30 15:24:42 GMT from Canada)
@ #57
Whole development cycle is rolling a way... way off during past couples of years to hatch golden-eggs in their utopia.
"I asked a couple months ago "Why Wayland"? And now I'm confirmed in opinion that instead of fixing up basics, programmers tried to put in place a vast new plan with every "cool" feature they could think of."
Any user ever asked, except yourself,
Why Wayland?
Why systemD? How to run systemD in a single user mode?
Why UEFI or linuxboot?
Why GRUB has grown so fat?
Why linux kernel is so bloated and installs the modules that end-users never need?
Technology has gone messier than ever before, where anything comes-in and anything goes-out. And, final end result is smoke of entropy that ever can be sorted out.
For experience linux users, LFS Linux from the scratch is only the way.
60 • Rolling: Surprise (by mchlbk on 2018-01-30 16:12:01 GMT from Denmark)
Slow Win10 laptop. Tried Ubuntu, Mint, LMDE, Antix etc. Worked but still too slow.
Tried Manjaro (LXDE community spin) and to my surprise it not only works, it's significantly faster than any other OS I've had on this laptop.
It's been running without issues for a few months. Having never tried Arch-based before I don't know what to expect.
Only issue so far: Boinc won't work. There's probably a solution, but I can't be bothered to look it up.
61 • Poll & Xorg (by Tony on 2018-01-30 19:49:14 GMT from Bulgaria)
I roll with Void Linux because it's awesome. I run it as main OS on my production PC but I also have a stable as rock Mageia just in case something happens to Void (which is normal). On all other PC's & single board PC's I use Debian (DietPi). And about about Ubuntu switching back to Xorg - that is an excellent move for an LTS release!
62 • Wayland and XOrg and Ubuntu 17.10 DE (by TheTKS on 2018-01-30 20:36:37 GMT from United States)
I installed Ubuntu 17.10 on my kid's laptop, with minimal modifications, to see what the new DE would look and work like.
No problems with display or usability *on 17.10 as I installed and configured it on this laptop* under Wayland, except for Synaptic not working. For that there's a workaround, but I just logged out and then back in under XOrg.
So not ready but usable with still serious limitations. The biggest issue for me would be the crash behaviour noted in the Ubuntu news release.
As for the DE - I'm not sure I'll ever get to really like GNOME, whether stock or as transmogrified for 17.10. I like the look of stock GNOME enough, but I think at best I could get used to using it. I found Unity better. Will stick with Xubuntu and Slackware/KDE for main distros, and Kubuntu and elementary occasionally.
63 • Some disappointment during install. (by harry on 2018-01-30 22:21:34 GMT from United States)
Lets start with Shark Linux as I as have tried to install two versions to hard drive with corrupt files and made two coasters. Maybe they are saying install something else. What is it with there downloads? The Absolute Linux site has been down about a week or more. Slackware that I like and have built powerful a 14.1 system years ago still has the silly cfdisk, fdisk install partitioning. I thought it was 2018. 14.2 would only recognize one of my hard drives. So what do I have to do disconnect my other hard drives, and use Rescatux to build back the grub after I reconnect them? I don't trust most of these releases partitioning software that can't recognize other drives in your system as you will get burned and your other drives will get erased and loose data which has happened to me before. Also all distros should make the Nvidia or ATI driver easier to install with out all the bull about how to disable the nouveau driver or how to disable X which depending on the distro could be about twenty or more different ways. I guess that's why we like Linux so much. If you really want to save time and get things done use Windows.
64 • paldo (by subg on 2018-01-31 00:48:14 GMT from Canada)
Rolling release daily driver for the last six years or so.
65 • Tumbleweed (by vstan on 2018-01-31 04:01:50 GMT from United States)
Tumbleweed is the only real rolling release I've used as a daily driver. It's pretty good; lots of customization, lots of available software. Not a big fan of YaST though, its Wayland support needs work and the terminal interface is challenging (more so than other ncurses apps).
In Tumbleweed, Snap doesn't work super well either; the backeneds for its use in Discover and GNOME Software are unavailable.
My optimal distro would likely use a bit more vanilla versions of applications than Tumbleweed, without branding, and provide git versions of most applications, as well as the latest system software.
66 • @58 (by cflow on 2018-01-31 04:46:56 GMT from United States)
That's way beyond the point: Void and Solus are rolling releases, but for some reason, this poll suggests that Solus is not worth even giving as an option, but a very less popular distro than it, like Void is - Despite that Solus is as equally innovative in its own right.
Nothing much against Void as a Distro - Just that if it deserves this much attention as a poll option, Solus definitely should be one as well.
67 • Rolling release (by Giorgos Exis on 2018-01-31 10:43:10 GMT from Italy)
Running PCLinuxOS, since July 2016 on my laptop (Asus F555L-AB) and on my netbook (ACER Aspire One D-271) without any problem, so far. I am updating my systems every 3-4 days.
68 • Void! (by P.D. on 2018-01-31 15:57:59 GMT from Germany)
yes Void! Best one i had in years. (mostly) very sane policies with everyhing. No user repository like AUR (official at least), which is very wise.
i run it on my laptop, some RaspberryPi and my server. It is a very good experience for 1.5years now.
69 • Rolling Release (by Lawrence on 2018-01-31 16:11:36 GMT from United States)
I tried Manjaro but found that after a few months the distro crashed. (I had added some programs which I needed from the Arch repository and that probably caused the problem.)
I currently use GeckoLinux Tumbleweed and have had no problems with it.
I especially like the fact that it installs the latest kernels and it also has a file-checking program to make certain that nothing interferes with anything else. (Sometimes it asks questions and a bit of common sense gives you the correct answer.)
My questions here are: (1) Does siduction 2018.1.0 also install the latest kernels and (2) is there some means by which the distro checks for incompatibilities within programs?
Thanks for any help.
70 • Rolling Release (by Robert Collard on 2018-01-31 17:45:25 GMT from United States)
Currently using Manjaro with both Stable and Testing as a dual boot on the same Desktop.
Tried many others and found problems either with the forums or the systems.
Manjaro is an offshoot of Arch Linux, with compatible software.
Kernels are up to date and fast. Upgrades in Testing are often and later moved to Stable.
71 • KDE neon not a rolling release per se (by james s on 2018-02-01 18:26:19 GMT from United States)
If one looks at the KDE Neon site it is "not quite" being a "distro" and it is described as "not quite" being a "rolling release".
So taking that into consideration, I have been using nothing but the KDE Neon developer edition on one "midrange" machine and the stable / user edition on another "midrange" ( dual core AMD 4g ram etc. machine) since Neon was started and have not had one single error of any kind.
again, I have never had any kind of problem. It is as stable as Kubuntu.
72 • For me Arch Linux is the perfect distro (by Oriol from Catalonia on 2018-02-02 00:15:00 GMT from Spain)
On my laptop old Acer Extensa 5620 (2008-01), I installed Arch Linux beside Windows Vista dual booting.
Today Vista is completely useless, but Arch Linux is the same installation 10 years ago, with no breakages in all this time. Never.
My system:
1. Read "latest news" on archlinux.org (for manual intervention on updates if necessary - one every 4-6 months)
2. pacman -Syu (or yaourt -Syua) every week.
3. if any package do not work, then "downgrade" it waiting for its fixing to upgrade.
Just to this point is the general recomendation to general maintenance of Arch, but I have a little trick against the panic to breakages.
TRICK: I have the same Arch Linux installation on a USB 8 Gb with the same packages, and first, ever, update usb. If all is ok, update PC. If not then I wait to fix usb prior to update PC.
Conclusion: ARCH IS ENOUGH STABLE AND THE LAST 2-3 YEARS VERY STABLE LIKE A DEBIAN ROCK.
PS.: On my new laptop I have W10, Fedora (for UEFI) and Arch Linux, and I expect the laptop die in 2028 with the same Arch installation.
73 • Manjaro/Arch (by Jordan on 2018-02-02 13:33:31 GMT from United States)
Manjaro has been moving up the PHR steadily, and for good reason, not the least of which it's an Arch based roller.
It's also passionately developed and maintained.
74 • good trick (by Tim Dowd on 2018-02-02 17:14:19 GMT from United States)
@ 72
That's a good idea with the USB drive. If I ever go back to rolling I'll do that
75 • Pclinuxos semi rolling (by Tym on 2018-02-03 05:24:46 GMT from United States)
Pclinuxos is described as a conservative semi-rolling release because it keeps a stable core and only rolls non-critical packages. (A rolling wrapper )This is less cutting edge ,but more stable over time.
76 • @72 (by laptop killer on 2018-02-03 08:46:17 GMT from Portugal)
If you expect your acer to last 20 years, you are not using it correctly.
77 • Siduction and Synaptic (by Oscar Laboy on 2018-02-03 16:22:12 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Just my two cents: NEVER use Synaptic to install or upgrade in Debian SId. As the manual indicates:
"Package managers like adept, synaptic and kpackage are not always able to account for the huge amount of changes which happen in Sid (depedency changes, name changes, maintainer script changes, ...).
This is not the fault of the developers of those tools though, they write excellent tools for the debian stable branch, they are simply just not suitable for the very special needs of Debian Sid.
Use whatever you like to search for packages, but stick with apt-get for actually installing/removing/dist-upgrading.
Package managers like adept, synaptic and kpackage are at the least, non-deterministic (for complex package selection), mix that with a quickly moving target like sid and even worse an external repository of questionable quality (we don't use or recommend those, but they're a reality on your user systems) and you will be courting disaster."
78 • rolling releases (by alexander on 2018-02-04 01:43:13 GMT from Australia)
i have tried many of them
and multiple flavours of a few
I installed all my usual software to each and most crashed before the job was done
two survivors only remained
debian testing which required several of my programs to be installed outside its repos, not kali which died on many nvidia laptops
pclinuxos which had every one of my programs in its repo and working.
among those who failed
Opensuse
manjaro
antergos
solus
kali
redcore
any distro without a gui package manager was dismissed as a waste of my time
if a program was missing or failed I in stalled it outside the repo
Number of Comments: 78
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BlankOn was an Debian-based distribution developed by the Indonesian Linux Mover Foundation and BlankOn developer team. It was an Indonesian distribution that includes a variety of software that was widely used by consumers in general, such as office programs, financial applications, Internet applications, drawing (both vector and bitmap), support for various multimedia file formats, as well as other interesting programs.
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