Artix Linux

No systemd.

a 2 year break

I've been using linux as my primary OS since the late OOs and my advice is to go with something easy and well supported. I use Fedora since I need to know RedHat tools at work. First get started and stay using a mainstream distribution.

I hate the design philosophy of systemd, but I'm not going to go out of my way to fight it. I am more than capable of setting up any distribution I want, but it usually isn't worth the time. I have virtual machines and embedded stuff running non-systemd distributions, but that is because it offers other compelling advantages for those particular installations. On a modern PC, I would just suggest picking an easy to use distribution and running with it for a few years.

If you pick Fedora, I'm sure I can answer reasonable questions. Ubuntu is also well supported and easy to use. I'm just less experienced with it. I have several machines running with Ubuntu LTS because that is what was tested with the particular hardware or software I needed to run.

Any package manager can be kept stable assuming a well supported upstream and non-bleeding edge software. I've got a debian box that been stable with apt for well over a decade plugging along with no issues.

I would recommend Salix OS, but it's based on Slackware, which has slapt-get, which tries to emulate the features of apt-get as closely as possible. I'm not sure exactly how similar they are, though. And I don't really have any other recommendations because I haven't found any better distro, so I guess you need to just try it out.

I don't have any particular distro suggestion but if privacy is important to you and it is possible on any of your computers, I would say to consider using libreboot

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/the-management-engine-an-attack-on-computer-users-freedom

Is there a manual for setting up libreboot? Also, wasn't libreboot famous for having batshit insane developers? I seem to remember something along those lines.

https://libreboot.org/docs/install/

There was some drama in the past when Leah, the trans lead developer, suddenly pulled out of the FSF over some allegations that they had unfairly fired a trans employee who reported harassment. But Leah fully owned up and apologized. https://libreboot.org/news/unity.html

Libreboot is a variant of coreboot so a lot of it was not written by Leah. Not in that it matters imo. Leah had some issues, apparently even went so far as to publicly post transition surgery pictures and videos online... which is pretty bizarre I think. But crazy people can still be good developers.

Looks like it would fit the bill! And I always wondered about Slackware.

Will check out!

Actually used it for a few years.

Good distro, but I want to try something more stable.

I've actually corebooted all my machines which had a port.

I would love to go full freetard and have everything librebooted, but unfortunately I do need some more raw power than a Core 2 Duo/Quad can pump out (unless I want to wait for stuff to finish till the heat death of the universe).

Sure, but for some reason I have an easier time trusting some crazy guy coding his own operating system because God told him so, than trusting some guy cutting off his dick or some girl cutting off some of her skin to stitch together as a penis. Self-mutilation ranks higher on my crazy scale than delusions.

The more stable distros have the issue of running outdated software with no way to update until the next stable release, so if you know what you're doing I strongly suggest going with rolling release ones. Unless you're fine with installing once and then never installing anything newer, except for some choice software like browsers, that get updated along the way.

On DistroWatch, when you search for LTS (minimum 5 years of support per release) plus not systemd, you get all of two results:

• FreeBSD
• GhostBSD

Of these, GhostBSD is more user-friendly, but neither is particularly user-friendly -- or Linux, for that matter.

You can reduce the release model to fixed and then semi-rolling to get a few more results, but you don't have a lot to choose from.

For stability, I've always been a fan of just Debian 10. But that doesn't meet any of your requirements.

There is a Debian fork that doesn't use systemd, though I don't recall what it's called or how well maintained it is.

Could always try CentOS or RHEL based distros like Fedora or some systemd-less fork. I'm sure they exist, but I haven't used any RHEL based distros in probably six or seven years and even when I did, it was always for servers and not for desktops. Plus, there is some RHEL organization stuff going on that I haven't cared to follow up on because it doesn't impact me. Not sure what the future of projects based off it hold.

Best suggestion, especially if you have decent internet and a decent computer: Download several distros, load them up in VM's and test them out. Even if you hate Debian, can always install a stable base OS and then just load up the VM of your choice when logging in. Gives you a bit more freedom to test things out before comitting to a full blown reinstall.