this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026

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114

Help me ditch windows? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 days ago by ridethisbike@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.world

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey everyone! I'm finally fed up with Win11 and the bullshit that comes with it for the PC it's on.

It's being used as a Jellyfin+arr stack, qbit, Immich, and gaming PC for the living room.

I'm currently in the process of backing up all my important info and am doing research on which distro to use.

I don't mind tinkering, but for this PC, stability is key. I don't want to have to go in and update it every week... I want this one to work with minimal maintenance on my part.

I'd likely update it a few times a year, knowing me.

A few hardware specs:

MSI mobo (I've learned that UEFI can be a pain), 10600k, 2070 gpu, and will have a pool of 3x8tb drives that I would like to have in raid5 (or something similar) for storage (movies, TV shows, and Immich libraries), the OS will have its own drive, and I have a separate SSD that I have been using to store programs, games, yml's for docker, and other such things that get accessed more frequently, but aren't crucial if lost.

I've kinda narrowed it down to either Bazzite or CachyOS.

I've heard that Bazzite can be a little more locked down, which I'm not a fan of, but CachyOS has features I will likely never touch (schedulers, kernels, etc...).

I don't want an upkeep heavy OS. I'm moving away from windows for that reason. Win11 has been a nightmare for me with constant reboots and things not loading up until after I log in. Not to mention driver conflicts and all the other BS that's come with it.

So... What say the hive mind? Is Bazzite going to be too tinker-proof, or is CachyOS just way too much work? Or do I have it all wrong with my perception of both?

Thanks!

Ps: this will be my first full commit to Linux. I've dabbled in the past and am no stranger to CLI... So this will likely be a stepping stone into getting my primary PC onto Linux. Go easy on me lol

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[–] andybytes@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Why would anyone stick to one distro? Just jump in figure it out yourself. I had no help and I managed. Find a beater and beat it. I started on mint... now I run 4 distros. JUST DO IT! People will cringe but I like pop OS amoung many other. I just recently installed https://www.coreboot.org/ and linux on a old acer chrome desktop. The documentation was sparse and incomplete but by the grace of dog I got it working. It was a pain in the arse but pretty neato after I was done. I have it on a roling cart to test and set up routers or do things with networks when I need to connect externally to test stuff out. The struggle and the uncertainy is the point.... from there it will snowball into you wanting to install linux on every thing. But whats up with this BSD thingie... like I said crack some eggs!!! The feds can crack anything but the point of it all is to take control! Have you tried a bootable USB or virtual machine? I find all distros relativly stable clearly, windows or mac OSX have never met my standards anyways. Always back up your files. Thats my inflated 2 cents. Get some... get off the pot before you forget how to walk!!! Everyones got opinions like they got arse holes. PS. if it is a tower just add more bootable drives. Who cares if it fails cause you got it backed up! When things break it is a oppertunity to learn and cry.

[–] tarknassus@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

And for trying lots of distros and with a suitably sized USB stick, Ventoy will be useful. Great for storing a load of distros on a stick for live boots and testing versions.

However, there’s a caveat that not all distros support being booted by ventoy. IIRC Bazzite is one such distro and mentioned here a lot.

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[–] a_fancy_kiwi@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It’s being used as a Jellyfin+arr stack, qbit, Immich

for those applications any distro that lets you use docker and docker compose. If you don't know how to use them, do yourself a favor and learn. It makes self-hosting so much easier and makes the base OS almost irrelevant.

Is Bazzite going to be too tinker-proof, or is CachyOS just way too much work?

Since you seem set on these two, go with Bazzite. Between Distrobox and Docker, Bazzite being an immutable OS seems like a non-issue. After you play around with it, if you feel like you want something that could potentially require more of your time but gives you a little more control, go with CachyOS but ensure you are using ZFS, btrfs, or some other file system that allows rollbacks.

I've distro-hopped a lot over the years. Ubuntu (most flavors), Fedora, Debian, Arch, Solus, EndeavourOS, CentOS, Alma, more I'm forgetting, and even some BSDs. Out of all of them, I keep going back to Ubuntu for my servers. I like the release cycles, it's never given me any issues that I didn't cause myself, the packages are new enough, the installer lets you set up ZFS and 3rd party tools/software (like Nvidia drivers), and there is a ton of documentation. I want my server to be an appliance, not something I tinker with, and Ubuntu does that really well. If I do feel like tinkering, I do it in a VM or container.

[–] ridethisbike@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Docker has been the deployment method of choice, thus far, and the plan is to continue that method since I'm already familiar.

I'm not attached to either, I've seen a lot of people recommend them. Debian has gotten more than a few recommendations in this thread, so I'm checking out PikaOS now.

As much as I didn't want to, it's really seeming like I'm going to need to pick a few a test them out. Bazzite, CachyOS, and PikaOS are all on the list right now. Plan to install steam, install a game or two, and see how things go there. Followed up by a potentially small deployment of Jellyfin and a tiny library to see how easy it is to get hardware transcoding up and running.

You mentioned ZFS or other file systems... And that brings up another question I forgot to add to the OP.... As of right now. The plan is to have the media files on the 3 disk pool. I was planning on using ZFS for that, but hadn't landed on a FS for the OS drive and other storage drive.

Is it common practice to use one FS across all drives? Or would ZFS work well enough on its own for the pool and use a different FS for the OS/storage drives?

[–] a_fancy_kiwi@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Docker has been the deployment method of choice…

Nice 😎

I'm not attached to either, I've seen a lot of people recommend them. Debian has gotten more than a few recommendations in this thread, so I'm checking out PikaOS now.

The biggest problem you are going to have is the NVIDIA graphics card. As long as you overcome the hurdle of installing those drivers, any of the popular desktop OSs should be fine. Some people seem to get them going no problem but for others, it’s a show stopper. The OSs that have the option for installing the drivers during installation are nice for that reason.

As much as I didn't want to, it's really seeming like I'm going to need to pick a few a test them out...

Yeah. Unfortunately that’s going to be the best way to learn what you want from your OS. It’s equally frustrating and rewarding.

Is it common practice to use one FS across all drives? Or would ZFS work well enough on its own for the pool and use a different FS for the OS/storage drives?

Depends on the environment, really; there’s no wrong answer. ZFS will work fine for its own pool. I would say a FS with snapshotting and rollback capabilities are almost a requirement for Arch based/rolling release distros. You never know when an update might break something.

I’ve been testing out ZFS on my OS drive for my personal server and it’s probably overkill because all the important stuff is on the ZFS pool with backups. My OS drive could shit the bed at any moment and I could switch it out with anything else because of that pool.

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Mint has been rock solid for me. Not one crash in a year. Its easy and has some of the best support

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

choose something with a good track record that won't go away anytime soon

[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago

If you have an amd graphics card, fedora (with kde) has been a surprisingly smooth drag and drop replacement for windows. Shits just worked.

[–] Encephalotrocity@feddit.online 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I had horrible experience with Bazzite. Installer somehow corrupted a separate win10 installation on another drive, I couldn't get Samba 1 to connect to a network share, 'ujust updating' caused boot to black screen, and in general the online support is abysmal compared to older more established distros like Ubuntu.

Wiped and installed (win10 again, and) Mint fixed all the issues. Samba 1 unlocking works so the network drive is accessible, updated everything with one click and it didn't crash on reboot, both OS's appear in the boot list, and it being much older the support is far easier to obtain as a newbie.

Literally just installed Mint (and reinstalled), a couple days ago so I'm as wet behind the ears as they come. IMO the people recommending Bazzite don't care of their system breaks and it takes 2 hours to fix every 2nd week (I assume this will improve as you gain xp with the BS/Bazzite Software).

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