Sup penguin people.

I’ve been running various flavours and variations of Ubuntu for a while. I find I have to nuke and reset my laptop every 6ish months because things eventually stop working or I get weird bugs.

Recently I’ve been having this on and off problem where the computer just shows a black screen after turning it on. The only way to fix this is to tap keys repeatedly until a console shows up and it seems to kick the computer into gear and log in. Other times I have to restart 2-3 times before it logs me in.

I’ve had a lot of small issues like that (like having to jiggle the volume knob in the sound mixer to get sound working) and I’m wondering if switching to an immutable distro (like bazzite) would solve this apparent config creep.

I have a Steamdeck and it’s been solid and stable ever since I got it. I know it’s running an immutable distro and after researching a little bit it sounds like they can be more stable.

I’m no power user but I play some steam games and run a local 7b LLM and like to have a virtual machine or two for Windows XP emulation for some retro gaming.

Anyone have any opinions? What are your thoughts on immutable distros (like Bazzite)? Pros? Cons? Success/doom stories?

Edit: I’m back baby. 4 months later and still kicking it with Bazzite. Go immutable if you’re a former windows person and needs a computer to just work the way you’d expect without any configuration. I’m running all my steam games and plugging into my usb c dock for mouse keyboard webcam and 2 1080p monitor. I could never get that working on other distros. The future is immutable 🙌

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    5 months ago

    Open your computer and reseat any cables and components that you can.

    Maybe even do a memory test with something like MemTest86(?).

    Random electric noise and disconnects could cause random corruption issues like this.

    • PerogiBoi@lemmy.caOP
      4·
      5 months ago

      Now that you mention it I do get another bug where if I pick up my computer in a certain way it logs me out. I’ve got a Framework 13.

  • joojmachine@lemmy.ml
    6·
    5 months ago

    I’ve been using Silverblue and Universal Blue’s images for at least a couple of years now and although there were a couple of rare instances I had to manually intervene with my system due to issues, the experience is considerably better than a traditional distro.

  • hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org
    4·
    4 months ago

    Echoing the other sentiments, it’s probably a good idea to hunt down why your system is having trouble because distro hopping might not fix it.

    That being said I’ve recently been using bazzite and it’s been relatively smooth. You just have to learn a couple (easy) ways to do package management a little differently.

      • poki@discuss.online
        2·
        4 months ago

        I’m not the one you posed your question towards, but it’s related to Bazzite’s relation to Fedora Atomic and uBlue.

        To put it simply, dnf is the ‘source of truth’ when it comes to package management (i.e. finding, installing, updating, removing (etc) of packages) on (traditional/regular) Fedora. So, dnf is basically to Fedora what apt used to be to Ubuntu. Sure, you can use Flatpak or any other (additional) package manager. But, there’s no need to unless the software you seek is not available for installation through dnf.

        Bazzite, on the other hand, does not allow you to install any packages through dnf. Instead, rpm-ostree, flatpak, Toolbx/Distrobox and (exclusive to uBlue projects) brew (and ujust) are provided by default. But, you might have to learn when you’d have to use which and why.

        To educate yourself on this, you should definitely consider reading up on the related entry within Bazzite’s documentation. In general, there’s a lot of very useful stuff in Bazzite’s documentation. Therefore, if you intend to use Bazzite, you should definitely read through its documentation.

  • kenkenken@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    I’m not sure if your issues are related to the distro(s) used and not to the hardware. But if you wish immutable distros…

    You can try to use Ubuntu, but installing all the apps as snaps (and/or flatpaks). That will give you immutable-like experience on a regular Ubuntu installation. Otherwise, I’d recommend to try Fedora Silverblue and openSUSE Aeon.

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    1·
    5 months ago

    I share the exact same experience with you.

    I use the ublue kinoite-main base image, not one of their very opinionated variants. It is best as a base, better than Fedoras (even though you need to trust Github 100%)

    config creep is solved only partly. I am currently overhauling the kind-of guide here

    Local stuff in your home is persistent, and /etc is also persistent.

    But we are working on that.

    Bazzite has a ton of WINE stuff on the system, not really the “immutable small core” principle. At the same time they uninstall Firefox, while Flatpak Firefox does not support all things.

    So I recommend to install Fedora Kinoite from the official website and follow the rebase guideline here at the bottom