Hej lemmings! (Hoping this is relevant enough for the selfhosted commjnity)

Quick question for you all: do you stick with the same distro across your PC, laptop, and server, or do you pick different ones based on the device and what you’re doing?

For me, I’ve been mixing and matching depending on the use case, but I’m starting to think it’d be nice to just have one distro (or at least one family like Fedora or Debian) running everywhere. That way I wouldn’t get confused about default settings or constantly have to look up flags for different package managers.

Right now my setup is:

  • Gaming rig: CachyOS
  • Laptop: AuroraOS
  • NAS: Unraid
  • Various project servers: DietPi, Debian, Alpine etc…

I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases, but I’m a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it’d take to migrate everything over.

Am I the only one who feels like having “one distro to rule them all” would be nice? How do you guys handle your setups? All ears! 😊

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
    LTS Long Term Support software version
    LXC Linux Containers
    NAS Network-Attached Storage
    NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
    PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
    Plex Brand of media server package
    SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native
    VPN Virtual Private Network
    VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

    10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

    [Thread #152 for this comm, first seen 9th Mar 2026, 16:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • eksb@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    Servers are all Debian. Family member’s laptops are all Debian. I used Debian on my laptops for 20 years, but when Steam Deck switched to Arch, I switched my laptop to Arch to force me to learn it. I have a file with notes of differences between Debian and Arch. Next time I buy a new laptop, I will probably go back to Debian.

  • Magiilaro@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    5 days ago

    I use ArchLinux more or less on all Device where it is possible It runs on my workstations, on my NAS, on my servers

    Reason for that is: I am lazy and this way I don’t have to learn how to administrate different Distributions.

    • addie@feddit.ukEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Yep. Arch on my personal multi-use laptop, Arch on my work Java-development laptop, Arch on my gaming PC, Arch on my home Forgejo / DNS / NAS server. Just easier to not have to remember how to do things in different ways, plus my home server can efficiently act as a repo cache.

      Did have ALARM installed on the home server back when I used a raspberry pi, and while that’s an amazing project, a pi is just a bit underpowered for some uses. Got a mini PC extremely cheap since it wouldn’t support Win11, but it runs Linux like a champ.

  • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    4 days ago

    Yep. Debian. I like apt, and I like shit that just…works. I’m very much a form after function kind of person. Plus, Debian was the first Linux distro I became most familiar with at a young age. So what if a bunch of packages are on “old” versions. They work. The kernel works. KDE Plasma works. I can do everything I want to do without having to constantly be on the bleeding edge. If you prefer newer things, that’s great. I prefer older, more proven things. That’s also why I drive Toyota cars and old Honda motorcycles.

    My Proxmox cluster runs…uh…Proxmox, which is based on Debian. NAS runs OMV which also runs on top of Debian. Laptops all run Linux Mint Debian Edition 7, and my 5800X3D/7900XTX gaming PC runs LMDE6 (will be upgrading to 7 soon). The only non-Debian machines in my house are my wife’s iMac and Macbook Pro, and the Home Assistant mini PC.

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      That’s the same philosophy I’ve applied for a long time. Recently, I found out that gaming is an exception to the rule, though. While older versions are just fine for the most part, there are edge cases where that no longer applies. I also found out that I care about one of them. Until you hit that brick wall, there’s no reason to switch. Just keep on using Debian for everything.

      Took me a while to realise that I was spending way too much time figuring out workarounds instead of actually gaming. I ended up using Bazzite in my gaming rig because it works so well for that purpose.

  • hexagonwin@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    i have slackware 15 on all, it’s great how i can just copy over binaries and they just run because all the linked libraries are the same version

      • hexagonwin@lemmy.todayEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        tbh there are really a lot of things that aren’t on the repo or even the slackbuilds (kinda like arch AUR), kinda takes time to manage and install other packages. still i can’t find a better distro yet so i’m keep using it…

        i should try gentoo/void/alpine/arch someday but i’m too lazy.