I’m sick of Windows, and especially what it’s become, and the way its trending looks like it will only get worse. I’ll be building a brand new PC this summer and want to choose a Linux Distro instead. In preparation, I’d like to try out a virtual machine with a Linux distribution. I am solidly familiar with Ubuntu, but I think it’s time to try something that may cater to my specific needs more.

I use my machine for work and gaming (mostly Steam). I am a fullstack software developer and use a second MacBook as well for my daily work needs.

I’ve had Manjaro, and OpenSUSE recommended to me by a friend who likes both of them but he doesn’t game much and doesn’t need various software development tools.

Are Manjaro or OpenSUSE good choices? I know there’s a tonne of distros out there, and I’m trying to narrow things down a bit. Hopefully this community has some helpful advice.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: First of all, thank-you everyone for your help and positivity. It’s been less than a day and the amount of advice and ideas is fantastic. Not too mention the noticeable lack of negative comments (a huge reason I left reddit more than a year ago), thank-you all for reaffirming my reasons.

I’ve got to admit, I’m a little overwhelmed by all of the advice, but in a good way. I will be scrutinizing all of this advice and laying it out into a roadmap for both my distro testing, as well as PC building. You are all making this community a helpful and spectacular place. I hope one day to be able to pay it forward! Please keep it up!

  • Vivendi
    31·
    6 months ago

    Use Debian.

    Manjaro has had major package policy issues in the past. Trying to bash arch into a stable release cadence doesn’t fucking work. Don’t know how true this is today, but it was a pain a couple years ago when I rolled it.

    My best luck with proper Linux development was on Debian and it’s derivatives. If you don’t need bleeding edge shite, it’s great.

    If you want something more up to date, debian based stuff like Ubuntu and Mint work well

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Manjaro has had major package policy issues in the past. Trying to bash arch into a stable release cadence doesn’t fucking work. Don’t know how true this is today, but it was a pain a couple years ago when I rolled it.

      It’s been working fine as far as I’m concerned for about 4 years now. But you really have to accept the fact you’re not on Arch and follow Manjaro updates at their own pace, and use a LTS kernel and so on. You have to let go of the bleeding edge.

      Most of people’s problems with Manjaro stem from trying to make it into something it’s not.