as much i am enjoying pop!_os and used linux mint, i also like to explore other distros.
Guix, slackware, void, PCLinuxOS, vanilla debian
Non linux: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, HaikuOS
OP: I’ve tried mint tea, what other drink do you suggest?
You: if you want an interesting cocktail, try a mix of ayahuasca and peyote.
OP asked for a distro to tinker with 🤷
Did it make you shit yourself?
Guix as an OS made me shit myself, yell at the computer many times, and curse David from System Crafters for ever showing it to the world. And that’s with almost 10 years of Emacs experience, a loooot more Linux experience, and good enough scheme to muddle through.
It’s great as a supplementary PM though. And when used in that way you get everything guix offers appart from system configuration, but you get to use other PMs, like the ones required by the programming language you’re using.
arch
Something simple to the tune of pop!_os and linux mint - Manjaro
No fuss, just great experience and freedom - Debian
If you want something solid you can depend on, especially when you forget to update and don’t really need the newest features, Debian will carry that need. I love that distro and it’s good to have installed as a backup tool even if you don’t think it’s a good main choice for you.
I like endeavor os. It’s a pretty easy way to get started with arch and it comes with some cool space theming.
This ones my favorite too. Basically just a pretty installer for arch, that helps you pick a desktop.
I love garuda. Zen kernel is god sent.
What does zen kernel do?
it is a optimized version made by a group of kernel hackers, according to phoronix the stable arch kernel is thr best, it performed better in most situations, so it is the specific use kinda of thing.
if u want want to delve into custom kernels and optimization i think you should try your luck compiling your own kernel, where you can weed out parts you don’t need, apply some optimizations confings and compile to target your cpu exact model
Try Nobara, it’s Fedora but with sane defaults. IMO it’s the best of the (relatively) stable distros. The main downside is that Fedora will remove x11 support in the future versions.
I’ve recently moved from Arch based distros because I was tired of having to fix minor crap all the time. I went through Debian, MX, Mint, and Opensuse during that period.
