I was reading into atomic distros just now. Is the rebase feature the main thing that sets atomic desktops apart?

I'm not too worried about having to troubleshoot. Nobara has been appealing to me because it's developed by the Proton guy.

How does an atomic distro help teach containerization and data security as compared to a traditional distro?

I suppose that's fine, and please feel free to act however way you wish.

The fact remains, however, that no one actually delved into the essence of the matter.

Furthermore, I find it rather troublesome that you deflected the question rather than answering it head-on. Perhaps you didn't think it through yet, and are just waiting to be swayed by whoever advertises best.

To illustrate my point, would you (at least) be so kind to explain me where/why Fedora has lost your favor? While, on the other hand, what Solus provides (in contrast) to justify your interest in it?

Do you think I am using this thread and this thread alone as my only source of information on these distros? I'm crowdsourcing opinions and checking them against the documentation for the distros and my personal preferences.

I feel as though this thread has delved into the essence of the matter perfectly well. That matter being, of course, people's opinions on the three distros I laid out. I deflected your question because you are looking to pick my brain and start an in-depth discussion, but I've reached a point in my research where I'm comfortable making a choice without any more guidance.

And, well, idk, I feel like my statements indicated I was looking for a good middle ground between a stable system that works smoothly and something I can crack open and break while tweaking - for the learning experience. I suppose that would really just boil down to fixed vs rolling release distros.

Fedora has lost my favor due to being a fixed release distro. After CachyOS was brought to my attention, and I researched it a little bit, it seemed to fit my desires pretty well. It's optimized for speed, which is perfect for games, and it's rolling release so I still get to feel like an uber haxx0r. Nothing against Fedora, it seems great. I want something a little further from my comfort zone.

Solus is appealing to me because it isn't based on anything else, and I love that it's a small team. Plus, the weekly updates thing they do felt like a good middle ground between how Debian-based and Arch-based distros work in terms of updating. But, I think I'll stick with CachyOS for now, I'm excited to use Arch btw.

First of all, thank you for that response!

Do you think I am using this thread and this thread alone as my only source of information on these distros?

No, I don't think that. I'd even challenge that notion as your query didn't start with a simple "What's best?" but instead asked for a comparison between three distros that were (somehow) selected by you. Please feel free to enlighten me on what made you even consider the premise of your above question. Though, as this is not that important to begin with, it's also perfectly fine to ignore that 👍.

I feel as though this thread has delved into the essence of the matter perfectly well. That matter being, of course, people’s opinions on the three distros I laid out.

If you lay it out like that, then; yeah, surely. However, it seems we fundamentally differ on what the essence of the matter is. And, perhaps I'm at fault for thinking this is a beneficial exercise to begin with. Regardless, I feel I at least owe you an explanation that goes over where I'm coming from:

Fundamentally, literally none of your original three distros serve you well for the purposes of "I’m starting to want to delve into my OS more to see what I can customize". Each one is pretty opinionated (by default^[Garuda is exempted from this through its KDE Lite offering.]) and -heck- both Bazzite and Nobara come with (highly) specialized tools required for system maintenance. This is because they've identified that there's a very serious disconnect between the freedom they'd like to allow their users and the (otherwise almost insurmountable) complexity this adds to how upgrades are managed. Bazzite trusts Fedora Atomic's tooling for this, while .

Being (highly) opinionated isn't necessarily bad. But it's undeniably easier to tweak/tinker/configure a more minimal system. Hence, you're better served by a lean install (with sane defaults). Thankfully, community members either recognized this and tried to sway you towards other options. With success*. Or, you were able to discern distros that better serve you from the communities' input. However it may be, both CachyOS and Solus are definitely better in that regard. Though, crucially, if the community strictly kept to discussing the original three distros and didn't go out of their way to venture into unexplored waters, then you wouldn't have arrived where you are right now.

Anyhow, all of the above could as well be disregarded the very moment you (hypothetically) state that your idea of customization is limited to the avenues KDE Plasma offers. Because, the original three are perfectly suited for that. So, your ideas on what tweaking/tinkering/customization entails is fundamentally linked to the distro that's most fit for the job.

And thus, I would distill the essence of the matter to be a clear idea on what kind of balance between "stability" and "customization" is envisioned as desirable by you. And, while at it, proper delineations of what is and isn't understood as stability and customization. Is the requirement of stability only satisfied if you can easily rollback to a proper working state? Or, is borking on a random update simply unforgivable? On the other hand, do you really want to compile your own kernel and install it? Or were you merely interested in KDE's knobs? Etc. etc.

and start an in-depth discussion

Not necessarily, answering "Or…, like could you perhaps be more clear on what it is you’d like to tinker/tweak/customize in the first place?" would probably have been sufficient.

something I can crack open and break while tweaking - for the learning experience

There's so much we could go over in the paragraph the above text is found, but I'll instead limit myself to just the above text. I find myself in a conundrum when you present that the above was implied and that (somehow) you came to consider Bazzite. While Bazzite is a lot more customizable than people give it credit for, I would not describe any part of the experience as "cracking it open". So, when met with an oxymoron as such, I literally have to ask for a clarification.

Fedora has lost my favor due to being a fixed release distro.

You've stated somewhere that you "Love the idea of rolling releases". So, if Solus passes as a rolling release distro ^[To be clear, technically, it absolutely does.], but has less uptodate packages than Fedora's previous release^[So I'm not even comparing it to Fedora 42 or Fedora Rawhide (i.e. its rolling release branch).]. Then, what is it intrinsically that makes it favorable as a rolling release? And I haven't even delved into why Fedora's release cadence is referred to as semi-rolling or how the latest updates to packages like GNOME arrive earlier in Fedora compared to even Arch. Btw, this is not meant as one big advertisement for Fedora. Instead, I want to point out the many many nuances that exist within the Linux landscape.

After CachyOS was brought to my attention, and I researched it a little bit, it seemed to fit my desires pretty well. It’s optimized for speed, which is perfect for games, and it’s rolling release so I still get to feel like an uber haxx0r.

But, I think I’ll stick with CachyOS for now, I’m excited to use Arch btw.

I agree that CachyOS is one of the better fits. And if you're not interested to check out Arch, EndeavourOS or openSUSE Tumbleweed(/Slowroll), then I can't even think of another rolling release worth considering for you.

I love that it’s a small team.

I don't know why this would be preferred over a big team 🤔. Mind helping me understand this?

Btw, to be clear, Solus, as a project, is currently not very healthy. While it could compete with Fedora and openSUSE in the past, the last couple of years haven't been very kind to it. I'd propose the idea that the departure of its founder (i.e. Ikey Doherty) from the project has left it (relatively) visionless. And the turbulent times that followed made nurturing its community a great challenge. One, I'd argue, they weren't able to handle gracefully. Regardless, it's undoubtedly a shell of its former glory. This is also reflected by how relatively bare-bones its repository is. Or how absent it is within the discourse. Hopefully it will be able to bounce back after goodies from Doherty's latest project (i.e. AerynOS) trinkle down to benefit Solus. But, until then, it would be very irresponsible of me if I didn't discourage you from daily-driving it...

Nobara new user tips.

Some basic usage tips for users new to NobaraNotes/Edits:1, Ignore the mouse cursor graphical glitch, its due to the recording desktop capture, not present o...

^YouTube

See, this is what I meant. I deflected because my phrasing gave everyone else enough information that they could just suggest a distro.

I appreciate that you've clearly put thought into the recommendation you want to give, and I appreciate that you'd like to really understand what I'm looking for. But at the time of your original comment, CachyOS was baremetal on my machine. So, I've already picked what I want, and you're insisting I must explain in greater detail so that you may answer my question (already been answered).

Please feel free to enlighten me on what made you even consider the premise of your above question.

The fact that you were insistent no one "delved into the essence of the matter." I didn't need them to, I was researching every OS that anyone mentioned.

but instead asked for a comparison between three distros that were (somehow) selected by you.

They're all gaming distros, dude. I felt like that was evident.

I'm sorry this whole post discussion has not gone the way you wanted, but it's gone the way I wanted. And I believe I've found something that works for me.

But, in the end, it ain't Sophie's Choice. I have my important files on a thumb drive and a backup thumb drive with Pop!_OS in case I need to start fresh again. NBD.

Fam, with all due respect, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you've 'properly' engaged with my previous reply. Don't get me wrong, it's your absolute prerogative to disregard/move-on/disengage/let-go especially if you're already moved on. The daunting task to read a wall of text concerning a subject you've internally closed/'solved' ain't everyone's cup of tea anyways. The reason I've brought this up, is because most of how I would respond to your latest reply is already contained within my previous reply 😅. As such, I will refrain from reiterating what I've said before for the sake of brevity. Instead, I'll try to strictly address the unaddressed. I'll also take the liberty to assume that you're not a fan of consuming long-form content. This will also be reflected in the remainder of this reply.

my phrasing gave everyone else enough information that they could just suggest a distro

Suggesting a distro ain't hard; CTRL + click here consecutively to get a random stream of distros. Even if we would limit it to the union of gaming distros with (semi-)rolling release distros, there's a lot to choose from. As such, mentioning what's out there ain't impressive. But expertly navigating between them sure as hell is.

Granted, suggesting a (new) distro wasn't even the objective. You wanted comparisons... Or, rather, I assumed you did.

CachyOS was baremetal on my machine.

It would probably have saved us both a bunch of trouble if you had been transparent/explicit about this. I can't read your mind nor do I like to assume stuff.

but instead asked for a comparison between three distros that were (somehow) selected by you.

They're all gaming distros, dude. I felt like that was evident.

Please allow me to clarify that it wasn't entirely clear why these gaming distros were specifically selected, while others like CachyOS, ChimeraOS, DraugerOS, Jovian-NixOS, PikaOS and Regata OS were not.

I'm sorry this whole post discussion has not gone the way you wanted

Fam, I got literally no stakes in this discussion. Apologies if I made you uncomfortable (or something) by making you think otherwise. I was merely in it to help/assist/support/aid you to the best of my abilities. For this, I required more input so that I wouldn't have to succumb you under multiple walls of text. I didn't think asking you to answer "could you perhaps be more clear on what it is you’d like to tinker/tweak/customize in the first place? Please, if possible, be explicit." was unreasonable. But perhaps I was wrong.

but it's gone the way I wanted. And I believe I've found something that works for me.

I sure hope so, fam. I wouldn't want to see you return with your tail between your legs.

Drauger OS - Home

Drauger OS is an open-source desktop Linux gaming OS.

^{Drauger OS}

Hmm, thank you for your point about Solus. I was interested because it seemed the most interested in the desktop experience. But it does seem they're updating and getting back on track. I love the idea of a weekly rolling release for beginners who still need the idea to click.

I do have backups ;)