I’m kinda familiar with that rabbit hole :P . Though, I didn’t quite consider your 3rd and 4th methods. So kudos to you for that!

While writing up a draft, I actually stumbled upon an (unfinished) article that goes over this subject in way more depth than I could.

Though, the author doesn’t mention NovaCustom that intends to combine Boot Guard, Heads and QubesOS certification on their devices.

Lovely collaboration! You just love to see it.

It was heralded as such a couple of years back. And while I’d argue it didn’t manage to keep up the momentum since, this recent update has definitely reignited my enthusiasm towards the project.

Regardless, you should test out distros that interest you on a Live-USB. I’d recommend employing Ventoy to that effect as it allows you to simply stack multiple ISOs on the same USB. Furthermore, adding/removing ISOs is as easy as placing/removing it in/from the designated folder. In effect, it does a great job at streamlining the process.

As for which distro to use, consider making a dedicated post in one of the Linux communities with this inquiry. Consider mentioning stuff like:

• activities on PC
• what software you use
• device specs

If you’re not interested in creating a dedicated post, but would like a rundown/infodump instead, then consider requesting that in a reply to this comment.

I love both GNOME and automatic/dynamic tiling. So Regolith should have been a match made in heaven. However, unfortunately:

• It’s not found in the repositories of any major distro. You know it’s messed up if it’s not packaged as a nixpkg!
• If you can look surpass that, it’s still intended only on Debian/Ubuntu. While the AUR package exists (and even RebornOS -an Arch-derivative- offers it in their own repos), you’re simply out of luck outside of that. So, as a Fedora enjoyer myself, this unfortunately applies to me as well.

Thanks for answering!

xubuntu

I’ve only started to use Linux after Snaps were introduced to Ubuntu. As the community has been pretty vocal in their disdain, I lost any inclinations to test out Ubuntu or any of its flavors from the get-go.

Though, I have used Zorin lite; which is Ubuntu LTS with Xfce by the Zorin OS team. Which is probably the closest I’ll get to Xubuntu. From what I recall, it was pretty neat. I did use the terminal, but it was more out of convention. Therefore I don’t really recognize myself in the following sentiment:

it still forces you to learn how to use it!

Would you mind elaborating?

Unsure if you’re being serious or not. Or if this is just bait. So I apologize in case I just got whooshed.

There’s a decent amount of distros that don’t require you to ever operate a terminal. Updates either

• happen automatically in the background
• Or, you’re prompted for an update and can choose to run it
• Or, within settings or a dedicated app, you can press a button to initiate the process of updating

Furthermore, most distros that are recommended for beginners don’t need regular updates anyways.

Updating isn’t the only part that has been taken care of by this set of distros. Linux has become pretty smooth sailing overall.

Notable exceptions to the above are mostly tied to some janky/troublesome hardware setup. Or, if you’d like to run software that isn’t easily accessible. In those cases, while a GUI-only solution may exist, it’s simply a lot easier for all involved parties if a terminal solution is offered instead:

• it works on most distros; irrespective of version, DE, base distro or whatsoever. So, the one providing a solution doesn’t have to create over a dozen of distinct solutions to cover all bases
• these methods tend to change a lot less frequently. Sometimes solutions are tied to DEs, and these may change how they organize stuff over time. So, terminal solutions have better longevity
• instead of moving through dozens of menus/toolbars/buttons or whatsoever, you literally copy and paste a couple of commands and you’re done. I would prefer the terminal any day

OP, you did get me curious, though. Which distro do you use?

It ain’t perfect. But it’s the best we got when it comes to a secure OS on x86.

The author is even quite explicit when they mentioned to use Fedora Silverblue for gaming.

I believe the author continues to make use of NixOS VMs withing Qubes OS.

Even if you’re rightfully concerned, they become non-issues in the author’s platform of choice: Qubes OS.

The reason (I think) they mentioned all of those explicitly Linux things, is because they’ve also stopped using OpenBSD VMs in Qubes OS.

So with the recent drama it looks like bcachefs isn’t going to stay in the kernel for too long.

That’s way too doomsaying. Even after ReiserFS’ developer was sentenced in 2006, it took till 2022 for it to be deprecated. And it has only recently been left out of of the kernel.

Excellent write-up!

Though, it’s a pity that a great ambassador of OpenBSD has stopped using it.

Initially, I was drawn to KDE Plasma for familiarity. Therefore, when installing Linux for the first time, I chose a distro with KDE Plasma. Which happened to be Fedora Kinoite 35, a very new distro at the time. It was clearly buggy and after fiddling with it for some time, I just had to rebase to Silverblue (and GNOME) for the lack of alternatives.

Thankfully, I actually happened to really like GNOME. This was on a laptop and GNOME’s touchpad gestures just felt very satisfying and intuitive; much better than anything else I had experienced before. Its (intended) workflow also made a lot of sense that way.

GNOME has really grown on me ever since. And while I’ve revisited KDE Plasma to see what I was supposedly missing out on, I simply stuck to GNOME as it felt cleaner and more elegant.

Thanks for the clarification!

I hope you’re not implying that NixOS is the only distro you’re comfortable with. Pretty impressive if you’ve jumped ship directly to NixOS, though.

With all due respect, the biggest takeaway would be that you should never recommend a distro before you’re comfortable with it yourself.

From Star Labs their StarLite tablet looks very attractive. Right now I considering buying a tablet for drawing and a laptop for 3D modeling instead of 2-in-1.

Honestly, this makes a lot of sense. It’s unfortunate that all of your needs aren’t satisfied by a single device. Assuming that the drawing capabilities of the Starlite and Infinityflex are up to par, their hardware specs don’t come even close to Blender’s recommended. So opting for a second device may indeed be necessary.

Whatever you’ll end up picking, I hope you and your wife will be satisfied with the end result 😉!

Consider giving devices offered by NovaCustom a look.

When it comes to Linux-first laptop vendors, it’s definitely my favorite out of the bunch.

On purchasing one of their devices, they offer:

• 3 years of warranty
• 5 years of firmware update support
• 7 years of (guaranteed) spare parts availability

I’m simply unaware of any other (Linux-first) firm that can compete regarding the above.

And I haven’t even mentioned how vast their customization options are, or how well-praised their support is.

I’m actually stunned why it’s not mentioned more often in these conversations.

Btw, I’d actually recommend you to consider the whereabouts of the respective support centers before you buy a device. You never hope to be in that situation, but it makes a real difference when it matters. So, in case you’re unaware, AFAIK:

• NovaCustom; Netherlands. But as long as you’re in EU mainland, it should be good enough.
• Star Labs; UK. EU outside of Great Britain is OK.
• System76; USA.
• Tuxedo; Germany. Again, EU mainland is fine.

Thank you for the clarification 😊!

I tried to find sources on that but failed. Could you help me out?

The .deb package can be found on Github.

I find it peculiar that it doesn’t seem to be packaged by any distro. Debian does have a package called level-zero. But, while they’re linked, it doesn’t seem to be the exact same thing.

Edit: It’s packaged under intel-compute-runtime.