My objective is to ditch windows & utilize my triple monitor desktop as a cockpit style dashboard for my homeserver & lan devices along with always open widgets like music, calculator, etc.

There was another post yesterday about this and the community recommended Mint & Pop OS the most. However, I am not looking for windows-like. I want a new & fresh experience like using a smartphone for the first time or switching from ios to android.

Distrochooser.de recommended kubuntu to me.

So I have some questions:

  1. What are the building blocks of a distro? Things that separate distros from each other. Like I know 2 - Desktop Env & Package Managers. Are there others, what are they or where do I find a list? I would like to compare these blocks and make it a shopping experience and then pick the distro that matches my list. Is this approach even valid?

  2. How do I find and compare whats missing from which distro? For eg. if I install mint, what would I be potentially missing out that may be a feature on another distro? How do I go about finding these things?

  3. What are some programs/ widgets/ others that are must haves for you? For eg. some particular task manager

  4. What are the first steps after installing linux? For eg. In Windows, its drivers, then debloat and then install programs like vlc, rar, etc.

  5. I read on some post, a user was saying that they want to avoid installing qt libraries. Why would someone potentially want that? I have never thought of my computer in such terms. I have always installed whatever whenever. The comment stuck with me. Is this something I should be concerned about?

  6. Should I not worry about all of the above and just pick from mint, pop and kubuntu?

  • Maestro@kbin.social
    2·
    11 months ago

    Only install flatpacks if the distro repository doesn’t have the application in question. But I agree about snaps. Never ever use snap packages.

    • beta_tester
      3·
      11 months ago

      I’m curious for your reasoning

      I prefer flatpaks because

      • sandboxing technology
      • multiplatform
      • easy to package
      • less maintenance for devs
      • easier to install on atomic distros
      • better interoperability with other packages and dependencies, no dependency hell
      • up to date packages
      • doesn’t mess with base system
      • efficient with space (some say it uses a lot of space but it’s very efficient if you look into it)
      • launch quickly
      • easy to backup
      • Maestro@kbin.social
        3·
        11 months ago

        Distro native packages are:

        • Better integrated into the base system
        • No maintenance for the devs (they are usually maintained by distro package maintainers)
        • Better interoperability with other packages and dependencies, thanks to the package maintainers
        • No duplicate or outdated dependencies
        • More space efficient because they use system dependencies instead of packaging their own
        • Launch even quicker since they don’t go through flatpak
        • No missing or broken features due to flatpack limitations or sandbox issues (e.g. inter-process communication)

        If an application is new or niche or small then flatpak is definitely a good option. But if there’s a distro native package then that one is almost always the better option. Flatpak is nice for when there is no native package.

        • beta_tester
          1·
          11 months ago

          Thx

          • why should a weather app have acces to my whole system? Flatpak tries to solve that issue

          • a good integration into the system is important for system relevant apps like a terminal but not so important for a chat app like fraktal

          • if the dev maintains the flatpak, no distro maintainer needs to maintain the distro package anymore (see fedora that stop packaging apps for the system because of flatpak). In the past each distro had to package it, that’s not necessary anymore.

          • is that really true? “No duplicate or outdated dependencies” traditionally you’d stay on the outdated dependency because one app isn’t updated with flatpak those apps that are updated do not need to stay on the old versions.

          • more space efficient is true but I don’t consider flatpaks size a disadvantage due to the advantage of no dependency hell. Same for launch speed

          • sandboy issues should become better over time as flatpak matures. It’s still in its infancies. I bet that it’ll be much better in the future, even better than on android today (there’s still plenty of room left, even on grapheneos)

          As I mentioned that fedora stops packaging apps, I assume that other distros will follow suit because it’ll save time and money

          • Maestro@kbin.social
            2·
            11 months ago

            Distro maintainers are a lot better about keeping libraries up-to-date than random application developers. They will even patch applications to work on newer libraries, even when the app developers do not.

            There’s also auditability. If e.g. OpenSSL (or some other library) gets a high rated CVE and Debian ships a same-day patch, I know I am safe. I can verify that I have installed the patched version, and I know my applications use that patched version. Not with flatpak. Now I’m at the mercy of a dozen app developers, many of which probably value security less than the Debian Security team.

            IMHO it’s a mistake for Fedora to drop its own packages for flatpak. But Fedora appears just to be a RedHat experiments playground these days, not a user focussed distro.

            Don’t get me wrong, Flatpak is fine if you want to install stuff from Joe Random Developer off the internet, but I trust the Debian maintainers a whole lot more. If they ship it, i can trust it.

            • beta_tester
              2·
              11 months ago

              Great point.

              You state that distro maintainers may fix vulnerabilities that app developers don’t fix timely or at all.

              Right now fedora keeps their own flatpak repository, for other reasons but fedora may fix dependencies, runtimes, etc. If they wanted to. Meaning, it is not a flatpak issue in itself.

              Debian maintainers could instead of packaging for debian, package for their own debian-flatpak repository - which actually could be used by any distribution because it’s flatpak.

              I like the idea of having a party inbetween the lines, kind of like fdroid for linux but with security in mind.