Rolling release: openSUSE Tumbleweed
Semi-annual release: Fedora KDE Spin
LTS: Kubuntu (3 years), Debian (5 years), AlmaLinux (10 years)
I personally think semi-annual is where it’s at. You get packages that are mostly up-to-date (and with Flatpak user-facing software is up-to-date anyway), and you don’t have to fear that something will break/be incompatible with every small update.
I’m running TW and it’s great. If you don’t want a rolling release, OpenSUSE created Slowroll, that is supposed to release major updates every one or two months, which would probably be my go to if I were to start over.
Slowroll is experimental and it’s still a rolling release that tracks tumbleweed. It might be less maintenance, but not necessarily more stable in terms of bugs. I’ve seen some people report pretty major issues with it in the last couple months.
Leap is the version you want if stability is your priority. You can even get the tumbleweed nvidia driver if you have an Nvidia card and want the latest driver. The only os I’ve used that was more stable than leap was debian. But Leap is much more flexible than Debian.
Yep ! From the official documentation of tumbleweed
Who should use openSUSE Leap instead of Tumbleweed?
While every effort is made to build them, at this point there is no guarantee to have all additional modules available in openSUSE Tumbleweed like for example, VMware or VirtualBox. And while the Packman Tumbleweed Essential repository attempts to deliver them there is no guarantee they will always succeed due to the incompatibilities with the quickly advancing Linux kernel. The problems with proprietary graphics drivers are similar and there is no guarantee they will work tomorrow, even if they do today. If you don’t know how to compile your own additional kernel modules and you don’t wish to learn or keep a very close eye on what is being up
dated, please don’t use Tumbleweed.
I wasn’t sure about the state of Slowroll. In terms of stability, Tumbleweed ist absolutely fine. It’s the less frequent, but not super low frequent update cycle that’s interesting to me. I could always just ignore updates on TW, but I’ve got the urge to run the updates if there are any.
Firstly I recommend Debian, I think the person above forgot to mention Debian and Ubuntu LTS update every 2 years and provide support for 5 years (if you don’t want to update).
Kubuntu like Ubuntu also has 2 releases a year (April/October).
That said snaps can have 5-10 second startup times and Ubuntu is trying to switch everyone to them so KDE Neon/Kubuntu will suddenly be really slow to start because a Snap got installed and your in a constant war to purge them from your box. It’s really annoying, I don’t recommend.
A few years back I switched to KDE Neon for the improved wayland support but the constant updates got annoying. It was stuff like config being lost, buttons moving around, etc… I was on Neon for less than 2 years (Debian updated to a version with fixed Wayland support). This is one of the reasons I don’t recommend a rolling release to people.
My issue with Fedora is Red Hat are incredibly poor at packaging. They’ll bump versions to bring in fixes and half ass dependency management as a result I have never had a Fedora installation that remained functional if I forgot to update it for a fortnight.
The 2 year update is nice because you get a fixed desktop for 2 years and Debian aims for LTS releases of everything.
The advantage here is KDE tends to focus on polish for the LTS., 5.21 was great (used in Debian release), 5.22 and 5.23 were a bit of a nightmare (KDE was rewriting a lot of screen stuff so you had issues). 5.27 is rock solid, etc…
So I accept having to add ‘non-free’ and ‘non-free-firmware’ to your repo list isn’t ‘normie’ froendly but its a one off effort for something that just works.
Of course, 5 years is the support window of Debian and Ubuntu without Ubuntu Pro (with it it’s 10 years). Kubuntu LTS is only 3 years though, so just keep that in mind.
Debian is pretty great if you’re fine with older versions of system software. User-facing software can be just as up-to-date using Flatpaks. I wouldn’t recommend it for certain tasks like gaming though, as an up-to-date kernel and up-to-date DE is beneficial.
Rolling release: openSUSE Tumbleweed Semi-annual release: Fedora KDE Spin LTS: Kubuntu (3 years), Debian (5 years), AlmaLinux (10 years)
I personally think semi-annual is where it’s at. You get packages that are mostly up-to-date (and with Flatpak user-facing software is up-to-date anyway), and you don’t have to fear that something will break/be incompatible with every small update.
I’m running TW and it’s great. If you don’t want a rolling release, OpenSUSE created Slowroll, that is supposed to release major updates every one or two months, which would probably be my go to if I were to start over.
Slowroll is experimental and it’s still a rolling release that tracks tumbleweed. It might be less maintenance, but not necessarily more stable in terms of bugs. I’ve seen some people report pretty major issues with it in the last couple months.
Leap is the version you want if stability is your priority. You can even get the tumbleweed nvidia driver if you have an Nvidia card and want the latest driver. The only os I’ve used that was more stable than leap was debian. But Leap is much more flexible than Debian.
Yep ! From the official documentation of tumbleweed
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed
I wasn’t sure about the state of Slowroll. In terms of stability, Tumbleweed ist absolutely fine. It’s the less frequent, but not super low frequent update cycle that’s interesting to me. I could always just ignore updates on TW, but I’ve got the urge to run the updates if there are any.
Everyone is waiting for Slowroll I think.
Kubuntu is also semi-annual, but LTS releases only come every two years. Regular releases have a year and a half of support.
Firstly I recommend Debian, I think the person above forgot to mention Debian and Ubuntu LTS update every 2 years and provide support for 5 years (if you don’t want to update).
Kubuntu like Ubuntu also has 2 releases a year (April/October).
That said snaps can have 5-10 second startup times and Ubuntu is trying to switch everyone to them so KDE Neon/Kubuntu will suddenly be really slow to start because a Snap got installed and your in a constant war to purge them from your box. It’s really annoying, I don’t recommend.
A few years back I switched to KDE Neon for the improved wayland support but the constant updates got annoying. It was stuff like config being lost, buttons moving around, etc… I was on Neon for less than 2 years (Debian updated to a version with fixed Wayland support). This is one of the reasons I don’t recommend a rolling release to people.
My issue with Fedora is Red Hat are incredibly poor at packaging. They’ll bump versions to bring in fixes and half ass dependency management as a result I have never had a Fedora installation that remained functional if I forgot to update it for a fortnight.
The 2 year update is nice because you get a fixed desktop for 2 years and Debian aims for LTS releases of everything.
The advantage here is KDE tends to focus on polish for the LTS., 5.21 was great (used in Debian release), 5.22 and 5.23 were a bit of a nightmare (KDE was rewriting a lot of screen stuff so you had issues). 5.27 is rock solid, etc…
So I accept having to add ‘non-free’ and ‘non-free-firmware’ to your repo list isn’t ‘normie’ froendly but its a one off effort for something that just works.
Of course, 5 years is the support window of Debian and Ubuntu without Ubuntu Pro (with it it’s 10 years). Kubuntu LTS is only 3 years though, so just keep that in mind.
Debian is pretty great if you’re fine with older versions of system software. User-facing software can be just as up-to-date using Flatpaks. I wouldn’t recommend it for certain tasks like gaming though, as an up-to-date kernel and up-to-date DE is beneficial.