Budgie might be easier for someone who isn’t a technical user.

I started using Linux as my primary computer about 7 years ago. After a few months of distro hopping, I landed on Solus because it is stable and rolling. I didn’t want to deal with breaks during major upgrades. My system is still going and I have no complaints. I’m just a regular computer user, personal and work (non-tech job). I have to wonder why Solus doesn’t get more attention.

Will a .onion site work for you instead? No registration, no cost, and easy to self-host.

My payroll company came out with a be version that won’t work in Linux. They wouldn’t accommodate me and I was too deep into their ecosystem to change companies so I ended up having to buy a Windows license so I could run a virtual machine every time I had to do payroll.

Edit: My mistake was getting too dependent on a company that doesn’t care about Linux users.

Even with tests, don’t most universities have library computers or a computer lab that’ll suffice instead of using your personal Linux machine?

Just because nobody’s mentioned them yet and they are worth trying out: Solus & Void. Both are independent and rolling distributions.

I got a very early version of Debian from a friend when I was in college. I had a very old computer gifted to me but couldn’t get Windows to install. I ran that badboy with no window manager, just text. I used elinks for my web browser and pine for email. VI was where I wrote my papers. Drivers were a problem, so I had to save papers on a disk to print from a computer at a library.

I’m a long time Solus user and am very happy.

For me it was the opposite. Windows required too much support. It didn’t do what they wanted it to do and bad updates inevitably caused problems. With Solus Linux everything became easier for them.

What do you most like? Thoughts on why others should give it a shot?

Does anyone consider Tumbleweed stable?

Correct.

As far as I know, there are only two independent rolling distros that are stable: Void & Solus. Solus comes out of the box ready-to-go with little-to-no tinkering, with a good aesthetic appeal. I like rolling distros because there’s no retiring my version. I keep it updated and it keeps getting updates. Support for life.

There’s been a few times I built from source but flatpak has been quite the blessing. Solus is also looking for more software maintainers, so if there’s something not in their software center now that you want, it could be a good opportunity to get involved.

Budgie 11 should be coming out soon and is supposed to be full Wayland. Arch is nice if you can stay up on your updates and can tinker if things don’t work right.

There’s self-hosting that’s low risk but does remove some convenience. For example, I use a offline password manager. I keep a Veracrypt container on my computer that hosts that and a few other important files. When I make enough updates, I’ll throw a copy into Dropbox so I can save access it elsewhere. The disadvantage is that I cannot update the primary version from one of those other devices but, for me, that’s not really an issue.