pheusie

do you stick with the same distro across your PC, laptop, and server, or do you pick different ones based on the device and what you’re doing?

Definitely the latter.

constantly have to look up flags for different package managers.

FWIW, you don't have to choose the distro's package manager. While it makes sense in most cases, it's definitely not a requirement. And that's where the nix package manager comes in. Unbeknownst to some, you don't have to be on NixOS to access it, simply because it's probably already found in the repository of the distro you're using. So, frankly, you can even expect that it's well-supported.

I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases

FWIW, containerfiles used in conjuction with bootc to boot your OS from, do allow differentiation within a single containerfile; i.e. specific changes are only applied for the designated target. This is accomplished by virtue of a single containerfile being able to produce many (very) different container images to boot from. So, in short, other avenues exist and bootc happens to be one I know. Note that bootc doesn't (necessarily) push you towards Fedora(-derivatives). Despite being very new (and perhaps somewhat experimental), Bootcrew does provide container images for other distros; some of which have already spawned multiple derivatives of their own. See e.g. Tartaria and XeniaOS.

but I’m a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it’d take to migrate everything over.

My 2 cents: if you're interested in NixOS, just start out with installing nix on any distro. And see where that takes you ;) !

Yet another very lengthy comment. I hope you will find it worth reading.

Wow, that's very insightful. Thank you for the effort!

If you allow me, I wish to provide some feedback and -if applicable- give pointers on how some of that translates to Linux.

I’m closer to the average user than someone who has built a fortress.

That's probably true, but you're definitely upholding excellent practices. Most people I know don't even practice a fraction of that 😅. So mad props for that!

FWIW, I will assume for now that you haven't delved into Windows Registry (or stuff like HotCakeX) for the sake of hardening. Which, to be clear, is absolutely fine. But is worth noting for the eventual mapping to a suitable distro.

I use Firefox with ublock, ghostery, and privacy badger. I use the free tier of proton vpn.

You can just continue doing these.

I run avast daily and malwarebytes weekly.

Unfortunately, I'm not aware on how we would translate this responsibly. This could be on me, though. Granted, the situation on Linux is different from how it is at Windows. Anyhow, as a non-expert, the furthest I came would boil down to:

• ClamAV as the first layer of reactive anti-malware. AFAIK, this is your only free^[To be clear, it seemed to me that you would prefer this. Which is why I specifically targeted gratis options. But please let me know if you're willing to shell out.] option for real time protection^[Note that this might not be setup correctly OOTB. Consider checking out this entry within its documentation.].
• Unfortunately, ClamAV is plagued by a tendency to output many false positives. Perhaps even moreso than most of its kind^[This is actually widely reported. See e.g. this reddit thread or see this discussion on the Linux Mint forum]. So, you'd naturally want a second opinion to verify its claims. Which, often comes in the form of relegating it to something more accurate. Enter VirusTotal. If this only happens occasionally, then the web app might suffice. But feel free to look into Lenspect for a dedicated app with a GUI, that functionally does the same. Or, if you're more interested in ease^[Labeling a terminal-based tool as the easier option might seem counter intuitive at first, but makes sense when you notice that it can scan folders. Which, makes it possible to move all flagged files (by ClamAV or otherwise) to a folder in which they can all be scanned in one go] of use and/or function, the more powerful VirusTotal CLI.
• As for your weekly Malwarebytes, a couple of options do exist, but it's questionable to what degree they're effective. Though, there's somewhat of an exception: Kaspersky's Virus Removal Tool for Linux (KVRT) is pretty legit. But I would only recommend that if you trust Kaspersky (or, rather, trust that they're not compromised due to politics).

I think that I should already be close to best practices but I’m not sure how changing OS will affect that.

It will 😜. Look into the others comments for a healthy amount of pointers on this.

I’m not really worried about being targeted for anything.

I'm glad to hear that. It would otherwise complicate things a lot.

I don’t think that I really do much risky beyond the occasional torrent or downloading a patch for a game.

You should be fine as long as they're from trusted sources.

I get games primarily from gog

Unrelated to the rest of my commentary, but this is an excellent choice! You got great taste.

don’t open strange emails or click strange links, and use a password manager to generate secure passwords

Keep this up 👍.

One of the things that I’m most unsure about is keeping everything updated. Microsoft manages keeping everything updated for the most part on Windows

So, the gist is that as long as you're installing stuff from a repository, then upgrading your whole system should be a pretty straightforward, streamlined and seamless experience. Heck, it can even be automated if you want. The following is worth pointing out, though:

• If your notion of "updated" means that the latest ('stable'^[This can sometimes be a convoluted term as it means different things depending on the context. Here, I use it to mean production-ready as per the developer of said software.]) release is found on your system, then this will affect your choice of distro. By contrast, there are distros that update in leaps. So, instead of going from versions 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 7 -> 8 (and so on, and so forth) , it does 1 (long pause^[In which it basically freezes and skips any version in between. Security updates are backported, though. So, you're not necessarily unsafe/insecure and/or at risk.]) -> 3 (long pause) -> 6 (long pause) (and so on, and so forth).
• Automated background updates do exist, but I'd only recommend those on systems that do that OOTB. If however, you're fine with (or perhaps even prefer) pressing a button after a prompt for updates, then note that that's more widely available.

and the last time I needed to find a driver anywhere except from Microsoft it came on a 3.5" floppy.

So, if that was your experience on Windows, then I'm somewhat optimistic that you'd be more than fine on Linux. FWIW, drivers and whatnot are mostly found within the Linux kernel itself. Thus, making Linux a very smooth experience; your drivers simply receive the updates whenever an update to the kernel has been applied. Though, while rare, exceptions do exist. And they're quite notorious:

• Nvidia used to be pretty bad in this regard, probably the result of a bad relationship. But, it has become a lot better in recent years. Still, I would recommend a distro that specifically handles Nvidia updates (about) as gracefully as they come. So, please mention it if you're on Nvidia.
• Broadcom's wireless drivers. Tough luck. Thankfully, some distros have put in significant efforts to make this work. So, again, the specific distro could matter.
• There are perhaps others, but these were the first that came to my mind.

I use my computer primarily for single player gaming, discord, and fediverse sites. I need a spreadsheet and word processer, I use open office for that right now.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Most of those translate pretty easily to Linux:

• single player gaming -> For GOG specifically, there's Minigalaxy. But Heroic Games Launcher also supports GOG very well and can do more beyond that.
• discord -> If you're fine with how it works within a browser, then you're all set. If you desire an official app, then the one provided on Flathub is your best option. However, the Flatpak format is known to have the capacity to cause 'issues'^[Many reasons exists for this, but an oversimplification -for the sake of brevity- would be due to its improved security.] with otherwise well-functioning software. So, alternatively, you may install it from your distro's repository.
• fediverse sites -> Firefox is included in many distros, so you should be good to go OOTB.
• open office -> I wasn't expecting this, but only some Linux distros have continued to include it within their respective repos. The absence of Debian, Fedora and openSUSE is quite telling. Granted, Apache has continued to create .deb and .rpm install files, so nothing's actually preventing you from installing it. FWIW, if you're not necessarily tied to OpenOffice, then perhaps the likes of LibreOffice (and many others) are worth mentioning.

I do financial and work related things on a different device.

Good job on compartmentalizing your activities across multiple devices!

Fam, as this has become an absolute unit of a comment, please feel free to dismiss as you feel like and only engage with the parts you want. If you've come this far, then I'd like to express my appreciation: Thank you!

Aight. I'll give you some more then 😜:

• Don't expect real-time protection (à la Windows Defender) on Linux. While decent options do exist^[Ironically, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Linux is one of the best out there.], the better ones come at a premium.
• Though, related to the previous point, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The epitome of secure OSes, GrapheneOS (for mobile) and Qubes OS (for desktop), don't come pre-installed with one either. And I wouldn't be surprised if their respective maintainers would justify it by stating that proactive security is simply better than reactive security.
• FWIW, Lynis is a battle-tested security tool used to audit the system. It doesn't work on Windows, but does on macOS, Linux and some other systems. It even goes as far as granting a numerical rating that represents how well the system performs on security and notes (point-by-point) what could be improved (and sometimes even how). While I would definitely not argue that it's the be-all and end-all, the numeral rating definitely makes it easy to compare distros at a glance.

There's perhaps more to go through, but I believe we should address the elephant in the room:

How much hardening did you even apply on your current/previous OS?

Like, if you've built a literal fortress, chances are that you'll have a hard time finding a suitable distro that provides similar protection OOTB. But, if you're just your average Joe and you just ran with how it came OOTB and at least didn't try to actively sabotage/compromise their system, then... chances are that a decent amount of mainstream distros will suit you fine. I kinda hinted at it in my previous comment, but a mainstream distro could be fine if you uphold best practices. So, in that scenario, the query shifts to:

Are you willing to adopt best practices?

If you're unsure whether you'll manage given your wants/needs out of the system, then that would (again) shift the question. This time we'd have to discuss the activities you engage in and 'decide' whether there are any distros out there that can handle those gracefully and responsibly.

Etc. Etc.

Warning: as you should be aware by now, and if you haven't yet, see the security entry on the (excellent) ArchWiki and the (infamous^[Madaidan used to be a security researcher on Whonix. Whonix is one of Linux' finest when it comes to privacy and security. Heck, it's involved in the preferred way to engage on the Tor network. It's even endorsed by Edward Snowden. So, by their efforts/contributions, Madaidan should have rightfully earned the required credentials and be regarded as somewhat of an authority on the subject matter. However, this article wasn't well-received. From what I saw, the community was mostly dismissive. Disappointingly so. Which..., unfortunately shows that there's a lot more circle jerking than what we'd all admit to. Anyhow..., FWIW, there was actually a slice of the community that did take it seriously. I'd characterize them as the security-conscious. Furthermore, note that Madaidan hasn't updated it for a couple of years now. So some of the writings have clearly become outdated. So, to be clear, the situation isn't as bleak as they described in their article.]) Linux entry on Madaidan's Insecurities, this can be a pretty ugly rabbit hole. I hope this doesn't discourage you, though.

Finally, consider giving answers to the bold and cursive questions 😉.

OP, I'll keep it short as you might have already moved on. Security on desktop Linux isn't great. The lack of widespread sandboxing is one of the main culprits. Good 'hygiene' should keep you safe. But, if you're (rightfully) more concerned, then I'd suggest looking into secureblue^[Note: this distro might be hard to get into if it's your first distro. Consider joining community channels for assistance.].

The way you present "immutable distros" make them look like state-of-the-art stateless systems (a la NixOS with the impermanence module).

As much as I'd wish (so-called) immutable distros were like that, almost none of them actually are^[It's basically the aforementioned NixOS. And, even then, only if you've set it up like that. Guix System might offer it as well, but I couldn't verify it the last time I looked into it.].

Fedora Atomic, which may or may not have surpassed NixOS in popularity by now, practically just locks down /usr. That's cute, but it means that the immutability doesn't prevent persistence of hardware in most of the filesystem.

Similarly, I could go over the other popular immutables to point out how their immutability doesn't do much to combat persistence. But I digress...

It's Xfce's default file manager. I guess that means that OP is actually using Zorin OS Lite.

Yup.

After reading a ton of discussions and inevitably trying out many interesting text editors (including niche ones like Leo and Sam), I just had to give it to Doom Emacs. Been very happy with it ever since.

Thanks! I wonder who will reach the finish line first between Cinnamon and Xfce.

Does anyone happen to know the state of Wayland on Linux Mint?

Let's hope places like Lemmy stay relevant, vivid and slop-proof.

The article unfortunately does a horrendous job at highlighting AerynOS' unique features by only giving vague descriptions without going into any technicality that matters.

FWIW, my two cents on AerynOS:

• It offers (yet) a(nother) novel approach to atomic distros. The gist for its ambition (or, at least, my understanding of it) would be NixOS, but with FHS intact and without a DSL.