Introduction

So as I grow older, I find myself in two different places when it comes to Linux.

1. I want it to be easy and clear with instructions when I’m lost
2. I want to be able to tweak the living crap out of it

At the time of writing this, I am running Gentoo and it really fills in #2 hard. But I’ve also always enjoyed gaming in Linux despite it’s difficulties in the past. I was an avid supporter of Cedega, and bought games that interest me that had Linux binaries like Unreal 2k4 and X3. Which Gaming under Gentoo is not doable, but not necessarily easy.

Distributions I’ve toyed with

KDE Neon

This is a pretty solid distribution. I’ve had some struggles with it though when it comes to upgrades. You should take a moment of caution if you try this distribution and it needs to do a big upgrade. That group doesn’t always test well. But it’s Ubuntu/Debian underneath it all, so fairly simple

NixOS

I really like the idea of NixOS. But as I play with it, I find myself just in constant configuration mode and then finding that there are about 3 different ways to accomplish something. Each of those ways are not created equal, so it becomes painful. That distro needs some unity in their lives.

Insert Arch distro here

I’ve tried this a few times. I’m not interested in the meme, but more of capabilities of it. But where I seem to always get lost is the tools for installation of any packages. I keep trying to follow it, but I just get annoyed.

Gentoo

I recently reinstalled this. I both love and hate it. Back in the early 2000’s I could install this from memory and enjoyed it. Now… I am married and have a kid. The amount of configuration I have to do sometimes with the wait… Just isn’t fitting. If you have the life style that allows it, more power to you.

Bazzite

If you were new and just wanted to play video games, sure. But my general opinion of this distribution is that it’s a lot of clutter and that makes it crap.

From here…

I will probably reinstall KDE Neon soon, maybe I’ll try CachyOS before I settle in. But it’s interesting to see how Linux fits in my life after ~20 years.