Fair! Especially as a server software

I appreciate Debian being the community distro, but other than that, how’s it much better?

Arch broke for me quite fast any time I tried to run it. I have no idea how to manage Arch properly without being a red-eyed nerd constantly checking forums for broken updates and other notes.

Nah, OpenSUSE/Fedora require very little maintenance too - the only thing separating them from Mint is more knowledge required to set them up the right way. Terminal has more use there.

So, I’d expect you to confidently operate either at home without much work. You have competence, and neither requires your constant attention.

Tumbleweed might be a bit of a hard start, since it assumes you already know a bunch of nuances. But I’m happy that you were ready to learn and grasped it from the get-go!

Hope you’ll have your software figured out

Which is exactly what OpenSUSE/Fedora have to offer. It just works and doesn’t get in the way. The only real difference between them and Mint in terms of user experience is that they require some more proficiency with the terminal and experience with Linux overall and do not assume user to be a complete newbie.

So, you’re on the right track with Mint. It holds to nearly the same philosophy, and offers you the tools you may find useful as a less proficient user. Keep it up!

As someone who ran Manjaro as my first Linux for 1,5 years, it’s a breeze to set up and everything just works…until it doesn’t.

What screws it is that eventually, over time, something goes wrong. Something breaks here and there, new bugs appear, and without Arch proficiency that is not really expected of a Manjaro user, it’s next to impossible to track it down. So, eventually one has to reinstall.

I’ve been a strong Manjaro proponent back in the day, but now I see its flaws, unfortunately. I wish it could be a great option, though.

Except Fedora is actually fine as an option. Though I had my share of troubles setting it up, and their decision to ditch X11 forced my hand to OpenSUSE when I went for it the second time. Had no regrets so far.

Manjaro is a tempting option when you want Arch without being competent enough to confidently operate Arch.

Been there before. Had it for over a year for the first time, but quickly noped out on the second try.

OpenSUSE :)

Can confirm been through it all, except I took a rough start with Manjaro, then straight to Fedora, then all according to the graph. Just this year ditched Endeavour and Debian in favor of OpenSUSE - loving it so far!

If you often find yourself in a position when you can’t troubleshoot issues yourself, CachyOS might not be the perfect option. It’s Arch far and wide, iirc since I tried it about half a year ago, it doesn’t even feature something as basic as the app store, and is heavily terminal-based. Considering how many diverse issues Arch can create, this turns into a nightmare very quickly.

Currently, I ended up running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my machines.

• It’s an OG distro, so no fork issues
• Has decently large userbase
• Is nearly as bleeding-edge as Arch
• At the same time is rock solid thanks to advanced automatic package testing
• Does not brick your system upon poor update
• Has good and user-friendly documentation (that can be understood by non-nerds, unlike Arch Wiki)
• Unlike newbie-friendly distros, does not assume user is an idiot and gives all power at your fingertips
• Has btrfs and snapper properly set up by default to easily revert most mistakes you can make

So, generally, this is the peace of mind rolling release distro that just works, doesn’t bother you too much and at the same time allows you to spend as much time under the hood as you like. You’re unlikely to break anything, you can always revert if you do, packages are well-tested and unlikely to cause issues, and on this solid foundation, you can do anything you like.