Here's the thing. When I talk to friends interested in Linux, it's always Debian or Fedora that I suggest. I think they draw a good line for what the average user wants and needs and they're stable. In fact, I used Fedora for a long time, and all my homelab stuff runs Debian. It wasn't until computers themselves became a hobby that I switched to Arch. And I think that's likely the cutoff. If you're a computer user, stable distros are great. If you're more a hobbiest... Well, the Arch wiki can own your free time.

based

Almost every interaction with a boomer involving their computer/phone

I just switched to CachyOS and I’m really enjoying it so far. My journey so far has been Mint > Bazzite > Kubuntu > back to Mint > CachyOS and for the first time I don’t have any real complaints. There’s a voice inside my head telling me to jump to just standard Arch though. Not really sure why. Have you tried standard Arch? If so, how does it compare to CachyOS? I probably won’t end up switching, I haven’t had any issues yet and I’m a computer problem magnet and certified idiot, so I’ll probably stick to what works, but something draws me to pure Arch.

Arch on my server

Sane people usually go bungee jumping or cave diving to get their irrational danger kicks.

Installing Arch on a server is certainly a choice

Just means your over 25

But are you a well loved and taken care of hoe? Cause you deserve to be.

Hell yes! Mint 4 life!

I am convinced that I will try Arch or similar some day in the future simply because of SteamOS switching over to being based off of it. But for now, I develop software for embedded Linux systems all day at work. When I get home it's either family time inside or it's playing "engineer turned farmer" in my back yard. Literally digging in the dirt and building stuff out of wood. Feels good man.

I want to switch to Nix... the idea of Nix is compelling. In practice every time I try and test it out I remember that I'm an idiot with a keyboard and I should stop.

Nah, I looked at it and it doesn't interest me. I like arch because, contrary to popular belief, it is quite stable (as in non crashing, not package versions) if you only install exactly what you need. I had way more stability issues on the more standard distros since they had so much extra stuff. Debian for servers every day though.

Nix looks interesting in theory, but is a lot of work and too opinionated for me. Far from an expert though and have nothing against those that like it or any other distro.

Yeah at some point they are all the same to me it's just the different package manager. Pacman, apt, yum or whatever they are calling it now a days.

Most use systemd.

I started using Arch flavors because when you have brand new hardware the latest kernel can be important. After the machine is a couple years old it doesn't really matter.

Also Endeavouros is where it's at (but don't tell the vanilla Arch people, they won't help me with my problems if they find out)

Calm down there Satan.

Nothing like getting to screw up your computer your way! Ultimate customization* 😄

*am Arch-based user

I used to be like you, then I used Arch btw. Then I actually used fedora then I started reminiscing about Arch btw.