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What new Linux distribution should I try?
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this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I wanna use Guix but I worry about hardware compatibility, when I tried to run it the installer said my hardware wasn't 100% compatible and recommended me not to continue.
Yeah, "unfortunately" since Guix is a GNU project, they don't package the upstream Linux kernel, just linux-libre, which removes a lot of binary blobs. Great if you want a fully free OS, not so great if you need drivers only available in the mainline kernel.
The practical solution to this is to use the channel nonguix, which packages mainline Linux for Guix. You can follow the instructions for nonguix to create a guix ISO with the regular Linux kernel, then make sure your installed system uses that same kernel.
It's not hard to do, but if one doesn't have the inclination I'd just recommended using NixOS. :-)
Right now and using NixOS and I'm pretty happy with it, it suffers from There's More Than One Way To Do It and there are so many options that do the same and the documentation isn't great.
When I finally made my base flake.nix, easy peasy! But the difficulty curve is pretty steep.