It all depends on how much time and energy you have to configure and maintain your system. If you want a rolling distribution and don’t have much time available, I would recommend Tumbleweed because it strikes a good balance between constant updates and operational stability, as it comes configured with snapper, a great tool for restoring the system in case of an update failure. If you have more time available to manage your system, I would try Arch directly because I am not in favour of using distributions that do not have control over their own repositories.

I agree with you, but for Linux-based mobile phones to advance, pressure would need to be put on large financial institutions and instant messaging companies to allow their applications to run outside the Android ecosystem. Regarding the brands you have chosen, I think it is also important to directly support EU-based companies such as SUSE, which focus on open source and support Linux development projects such as openSUSE. As for hardware companies, there are several that specialise in distributing hardware optimised for Linux, such as Slimbook and Tuxedo, but I believe it is more important to support companies that focus their business on the development of FOSS code than companies whose business is to distribute hardware manufactured outside the EU.

I have had a Windows+Tumbleweed dual boot installed for years on a single SSD. The only precaution I take is to disable secure boot in BIOS because it is true that Windows sometimes encrypts the entire disk during updates and prevents you from accessing Linux. In short, disable secure boot and enjoy dual boot. 😉

Arch is a great DIY system where you have to decide which tools and configurations you want to use, and this is precisely what many people do not understand, leaving the system with significant security and restoration holes.

Install a fixed distribution like Ubuntu, Leap, Debian,… and enjoy Linux and read the wikis of the chosen distribution. Once you have gained experience, install a rolling distribution.

The truth is that you failed to mention the distributions derived from the openSUSE project.

Aur is probably the main reason why many people use Arch and derivatives. However, many users are unaware that aur is not an official Arch repository and that, as you say, you are the one who has to monitor the pkgbuilds of each installed aur package. Normally the most used aur packages tend to generate more confidence but that does not prevent that package to include malicious software in a version change and having root access to the system can take control of certain system services. That’s why I always recommend not using Aur and that’s why I’ve always found Manjaro to be a great distribution, as it retains packages for a few days to check them and discourages the use of aur. Any security measure is too little and that’s why any security tool you can configure is advisable. In a rolling distribution where new code is constantly entering the system, it is essential to have selinux and secureboot enabled.

I also use openSUSE Tumbleweed for the same reasons as you. In my case I also like the security configuration that openSUSE has (SELinux+Firewalld) and its snapshot restore tool in case of failure (snapper). I think openSUSE is one of the distributions that enforces security the most as soon as you install the system and to maintain that security I try to install only the software I need and I try not to add external repositories. I would like to try Aeon because I think it is a more security-focused distro but I still need to dual-boot with Windows to connect to my work and Aeon doesn’t allow this. In short, I use Tumbleweed as it comes out of the box and just add the packman repository. Many people think that Linux is free of malware and viruses and install many programs from aur, obs, external repositories,… without thinking that they are giving root access to code of dubious origin.

I left Arch for the same reason but in relation to my system’s graphics. If you are an end user, an operating system should work for you, not you for the system. I installed Tumbleweed 5 years ago and its snapper tool gives great peace of mind when using a rolling system. My advice, try Tumbleweed, its package manager (zypper) already supports parallel downloads and although it is slower than pacman, it is more complete in package and repository management (an example is what has happened in Arch recently with firmware packages and that requires manual user intervention because pacman cannot make those changes automatically).

I used to recommend Ubuntu. Now that immutable distributions exist, I prefer to recommend openSUSE Aeon or Fedora Silverblue to new users. However, check this website before installing Linux.

https://endof10.org/

The only AMD (A10-7700K) that has given me problems with wayland uses by default the old radeon driver. I switched to the amdgpu driver and everything was solved.

That is, you admit that most aur users delegate that function to other eyes instead of auditing the external code they are installing. A user repository outside of the official distribution repository is not a secure means of installing packages on the system, which may have root access to the system and the source code may change with each package update. Do you think that every time there is an update to a package that is not widely used, others will audit the source code for you? For that reason I stopped using Aur and by extension Arch, as their software catalog outside of aur is small.

Any major Linux distribution has a system for building packages, it’s not something special to Arch. In fact, Arch’s great advantage of the aur repository actually becomes a disadvantage by introducing instability and insecurity into your system when you add programs from that repository. It’s amazing that people criticize Windows security with .exe’s and then install packages from external repositories with the security of “trust in the repository”. How can you trust code with root access to the system just because it’s in the aur repository? That’s the main question I would ask Arch users.

Most of the time it is achieved with the phrase: “I use Arch, btw”. 😉

You can install Firefox from Mozilla’s own repository. It is a luxury to have in Debian a Mozilla repository to install Firefox.

If you want full system control and a rolling distribution with a good security setup, stay with openSUSE Tumbleweed. Immutable distributions like SilverBlue, Aeon,…are not recommended for everyone, only for those who don’t want to administer their system and who have good hardware and a good internet connection.

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