Is it true all the distros are the same in terms of performance and usability that the only difference is what software they're shipped without the box? Does it matter what distro I pick for longevity?
>>108855544all distros have some version of the same brain (kernel), but everything else can/may be differentusability varies the most. gentoo/arch are the least user friendly, while ubuntu/mint are the mostidk what you mean by longevity. any distro that's been around for a while will continue to be around, and you'll be able to use it. what you end up choosing will depend on what you want to do with the machine and how much effort you want to spend doing it. fedora/mint/cachyos are pretty solid for beginners i'd say.
>>108855544Distros are just package managers. Software is the same, most is not maintained by "distro" anyway. The difference is what is installed out of the box, how you install new things and default configuration. Of course there may be big differences, some distos are immutable. In the end of the day you are using the same kernel and software, just wrapped differently.
>>108855544>Would you prefer to update your system once a day, once a decade, or somewhere in between?>Do you prefer being able to modify every little bit of your system, or having certain bits that you can't accidentally fuck up?these two questions are all 99% of people need. there are some weird distros that aren't covered (e.g. NixOS) but if you have the presence of mind to consider them you should be able to decide whether or not they're right for you of your own volition
>>108855544just pick one with no systemd.
>>108855561>idk what you mean by longevity.As in, once I learn how the distro works, it'll function no different from every other distro in terms of performance, app compatibility and long term support
>>108855687the only practical differences between distros are the package managers (they mostly work the same so if you learn 1 you'll understand the others) and release cycles
>>108855544this is an oversimplification but it's essentially true. 90% of what makes a distro is the package manager, which dictates what programs it comes with. some distros default to certain desktop environments and programs which in turn makes them more user friendly / more minimal and so on
>>108855544Kinda, but not quiteYes
>>108855544No. It is not true at all.
>>108855544You could replicate any distro using linux from scratch if you tried hard enough, so yes
>>108855687well, all distros do upgrade at some point, even the ultra slow ones like debian. what you're describing is pretty close to debian though. it only updates major versions every two years. that means that, for most software, the only updates you get for 2 years are security updates and minor version bumps. keep in mind that debian is harder to jump into, especially if you use anything other than the defaul partitioner. maybe you can use the calamares installer and it's easier? idk. also, gnome on debian does not come with a firewall set up (though ufw is easy to set up), and it doesn't have zswap/zram set up. kde might have those set up by default, idkin any case, debian was how i learned linux
>>108855687>>108855835 (me)just realized you were talking more about functionality between distros. there are only a few main branches of linux: arch, debian, fedora/rhel, and i guess gentoo though it doesn't really count. all distros that are "downstream" from one of those will operate similarly to their parent. for example, ubuntu uses the same package manager (apt) as debian, since it's based on debian. cachy, to my knowledge, uses the same package manager as arch does, since it's an arch derivative. and the downstream fedora distros like bazzite will use the same package manager and function very similarly to fedora.so if you learn one distro in one of the main distro "families", you will be able to swap between other distros in that family easily. but as the other anon said, there is not _that_ much difference between most distros, aside from the ultra diy ones like arch or gentoo
>>108855544Yes, but all distros come already pre-packaged with bunch of different stuff that would be pain in the ass to setup on your own.In theory you can start with bare kernel and build your shit on top of it, but most people don't have this level of autism.
Is there any difference if I pick CachyOS, Nobara, or Bazzite as the distro of my choice? Don't they all do the same thing but with different ways to do them?
>>108855544They all have pretty much the same software. The difference is the package manager, software versions (update cycle + backports) and default configurations.
>>108855544No.Yes.
Uh, no. Linux is all the same and they might look the same, but performance wise and how you should expect to do thing usually vary a lot. Since they're all about choice, they also come with a lot of different philosophies or different ways to do the same thing, some tried to approach more to the Unix way of doing things (slackware and gentoo), while others tried doing their own thing/the linux way?? (Ubuntu, RHEL) and some even invented a whole new way like Nix and guix (afaik).And so, with that many differences it's trivial to imagine there'll be different performances for different tasks or activities
>>108856613it doesn't make a difference to most people if one distro opens google chrome one millisecond faster than another one
>>108856443can't speak for Nobara vs Bazzite (meme on me all you want) but they're both Fedora forks versus Cachy being an Arch (btw) fork, so it will be very different from both of them, or at least relatively. pacman instead of rpm/dnf, and mutability for core files
