Sup penguin people.

I’ve been running various flavours and variations of Ubuntu for a while. I find I have to nuke and reset my laptop every 6ish months because things eventually stop working or I get weird bugs.

Recently I’ve been having this on and off problem where the computer just shows a black screen after turning it on. The only way to fix this is to tap keys repeatedly until a console shows up and it seems to kick the computer into gear and log in. Other times I have to restart 2-3 times before it logs me in.

I’ve had a lot of small issues like that (like having to jiggle the volume knob in the sound mixer to get sound working) and I’m wondering if switching to an immutable distro (like bazzite) would solve this apparent config creep.

I have a Steamdeck and it’s been solid and stable ever since I got it. I know it’s running an immutable distro and after researching a little bit it sounds like they can be more stable.

I’m no power user but I play some steam games and run a local 7b LLM and like to have a virtual machine or two for Windows XP emulation for some retro gaming.

Anyone have any opinions? What are your thoughts on immutable distros (like Bazzite)? Pros? Cons? Success/doom stories?

Edit: I’m back baby. 4 months later and still kicking it with Bazzite. Go immutable if you’re a former windows person and needs a computer to just work the way you’d expect without any configuration. I’m running all my steam games and plugging into my usb c dock for mouse keyboard webcam and 2 1080p monitor. I could never get that working on other distros. The future is immutable 🙌

  • @[email protected]
    22•5 months ago

    I used Ubuntu for a long while, then Debian for a new PC because the video card or display just wasn’t working on Ubuntu.

    Couple of weeks ago I finally tried this distro hopping thing people have been on about. I’d stuck with Ubuntu for so long due to an apparently misguided belief that it was stable.

    I’m now using Project Bluefin from Universal Blue, a derivative of Fedora Silverblue and I’m blown away by how good it is. It uses Gnome and the maintainer has packaged a few tweaks to keep it similar in user experience to Ubuntu, along with a fantastic array of great software I never knew existed.

    I’d highly recommend it to anyone historically loyal to Debian or Ubuntu.

    For gaming you can easily install Bazzite as a container to access Steam. I can’t say I fully follow the tech stack that makes it work, but it just does. Whereas my boilerplate Steam install on Debian was completely botched.

    Universal Blue really is the future…

    • @[email protected]
      5•5 months ago

      https://getaurora.dev/

      Has been working for me. The issues I’ve encountered so far are all minor flatpak issues (Firefox not allowed to sleep-lock so the laptop screen shuts off watching videos etc)

      • @[email protected]
        1•5 months ago

        You could use some sort of caffeine as a workaround. I do since sleep locks don’t always work.

        • @[email protected]
          2•5 months ago

          Kde has a disable sleep button in the power/battery icon menu which I use as a work around, still annoying and yet another quality of life issue that Just Works ™ on other platforms