After years of searching through different distros, desktop environments, and configurations, I finally found my perfect Linux setup, with DEBIAN 13 (TRIXIE) as the core and btrfs as the filesystem. This is a short story of how I got here, and why I'm done searching
Desktop Evolution
- 1. GNOME - Started here, but grew frustrated with broken extensions
- 2. KDE - Too many options, too much tweaking, buggy
- 3. XFCE - Solid, but felt dated and limited
- 4. Cinnamon - Finally found my endpoint
The Breaking Points
GNOME Extensions:
- Extensions breaking with every GNOME update
- "This extension is incompatible with GNOME 4X" messages constantly
- Half my workflow disappeared after updates
- Searching for updated forks on GitHub when third-developers lost interest
- Extension conflicts causing crashes - Gnome disabled extensions for some reason or another
- Maintenance overhead became untenable
Fedora Silverblue: Distrohopping to Immutable Core
- Immutability restrictions limiting flexibility
- rpm-ostree layering complexity
- Toolbox/Distrobox container workarounds for everything
- Fighting the system to do simple customizations
I wanted the safety of rollback snapshots without the headaches of immutability. I saw OpenSUSE Tumbleweed did the snapshot rollback very well, but OpenSUSE is a story for another day, the nightmare to how to get peripherals working with YaST and why they suddenly disappear.
My Final Stack
I remember the day the founder of Debian, Ian Murdock, launched Debian. I was so excited to try it, so I bought the latest PC magazine with the CD, but alas, after a few days, I gave up in disgust. So many fatal errors and spitting out pages of meaningless gobbledygook. I took my tower to a town hall Linux day, but even the Linux gurus couldn't get it running. Eventually they convinced me to put on what everyone was raving about, something called Mandrake. At least it booted and had a Gnomish desktop, but at least I had Linux.
Fast forward today, I've had decades as a Linux administrator, and my dalliance with Windows is long gone. I still have an iMac 27 inch 5K Retina, that Apple kindly declared obsolete due to its Intel CPU. I just put Debian 13 on that as well, and will write a tutorial on the installation, if anyone shows interest in how to get the Wifi and iMac Magic Mouse working.
*After years of experimentation, here's what I settled on:
*
Core System
- OS: Debian 13 (Trixie)
- Filesystem: btrfs with snapshots, grub menu with rollback
- Desktop Environment: Cinnamon with zero extensions
- Display Server: X11
-
Keyboard: AZERTY/QWERTY (properly configured)
Applications
Email Client: Evolution 3.58 (via Flatpak)
Mail Server: Self-hosted (my primary email)
Package Management: Native apt packages first, minimal Flatpaks
only when needing some newer features
Infrastructure
- Mirrors: OSUOSL (Oregon State University Open Source Lab) Super fast, please support this incubator of technology.
- Locales: French default with instant English switching via bash aliases (That's because I live on a French island and regularly need to switch back and forth).
I'd love to hear your experiences, comments or suggestions.
Ok, that's my first contribution to dev.to platform. In the next episode, I will elaborate on the setup, and why IMHO, btrfs snapshots are the fail-safe system to have.
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