this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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Hej lemmings! (Hoping this is relevant enough for the selfhosted commjnity)

Quick question for you all: do you stick with the same distro across your PC, laptop, and server, or do you pick different ones based on the device and what you're doing?

For me, I've been mixing and matching depending on the use case, but I'm starting to think it'd be nice to just have one distro (or at least one family like Fedora or Debian) running everywhere. That way I wouldn't get confused about default settings or constantly have to look up flags for different package managers.

Right now my setup is:

  • Gaming rig: CachyOS
  • Laptop: AuroraOS
  • NAS: Unraid
  • Various project servers: DietPi, Debian, Alpine etc..

I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases, but I'm a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it'd take to migrate everything over.

Am I the only one who feels like having "one distro to rule them all" would be nice? How do you guys handle your setups? All ears! 😊

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[–] SpacePirate@feddit.nu 1 points 3 minutes ago

I use the following

Debian for Laptop Bazzite for Gaming PC HatvesterHCI for Hypervisor Truenas Scale for NAS (VM with disk pass thru) Rocky Linux for Servers (I have created Hardened Images) I use OS-build to create the Rocky Images

[–] dieTasse@feddit.org 1 points 6 minutes ago

Fedora just works for me in every case except NAS where I have TrueNAS, so Fedora it is and I installed it even to couple of people and they also like it.

[–] bear@slrpnk.net 1 points 18 minutes ago

I feel like NixOS might be the only distro that could realistically handle all these use cases, but I’m a bit scared of the learning curve and the maintenance work it’d take to migrate everything over.

It's a very steep learning curve, but I personally think it is worth it if what you want is to sync up all your various devices to a single common baseline configuration. I sought a single-distro solution for all of my systems for a long time and always ended up fragmenting them eventually because nothing I tried until NixOS was capable of handling such a diverse set of use cases in a way that would satisfy me.

I am similar to you, in that I regularly use a three server cluster, a gaming desktop, a multi-purpose personal laptop, and a work WSL instance on my work laptop. I still have some purpose-built distros where it makes sense; I use Proxmox for the actual server hosts themselves and then run NixOS VMs on them, along with running VMs for Home Assistant OS and TrueNAS (with the drives passed through, of course). All of these things I could do on raw NixOS (even Home Assistant is packaged in Nix, and there is a project to port Proxmox UI and tooling to NixOS) but I like the stability of the dedicated and battle-tested distros for critical infrastructure, especially for stuff whose configuration is very specific to a given task.

With NixOS, each other device has a consistent shared configuration and package set, they all get updated to the exact same versions thanks to flakes so everything works the same and as expected no matter where I am, and it's all declaratively configured and documented in one spot. Spinning up a new system or rebuilding an existing system is as easy as pulling the config and changing a few relevant lines, and from there it effectively assembles itself from scratch to the exact state I want it to be in. There's never any lingering packages or configuration cruft because the system is assembled from scratch every time it updates. Much of my home configuration is also managed, so aliases, environment variables, even vim configs are consistent across the board and set in one location.

The main downside is resource efficiency. Nix is designed to be reproducible and declarative, not fast or lean. It uses much more storage than a typical package manager, and packages are built with wide compatibility in mind so you often are leaving performance on the table from not using newer instruction sets like CachyOS. You can compile your own packages to fix that part, but that obviously takes a lot of spare processing power. I've been considering setting up my server cluster to do automatic building for me, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[–] jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 hours ago

Nah. Debian for servers, Fedora for desktops and Arch for funtimes.

[–] RattlerSix@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Slackware on desktop, laptop and mini PC, Debian on anything smaller

[–] Mio@feddit.nu 1 points 2 hours ago

Workstation: Fedora plasma Server: Ubuntu Rock64 Libreelec

[–] cevn@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

Fedora on laptop. Fedora on desktop. Fedora in the server. Fedora in WSL.

[–] arcine@jlai.lu 4 points 5 hours ago

I use NixOS on everything ! This way, I can re-use parts of my configuration as a base, and customise only the few things that need to change from one machine to the other.

The only exception is my Steam Deck. I trust Valve on that one, and my usage of it is so different from other computers as to make 95% of my config entirely irrelevant anyway.

[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago

Kind of.

Fedora on workstations. Debian on servers

[–] d3lta19@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 hours ago

No, Arch for laptops/desktops. Debian for servers.

[–] lensflare@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

My home server is on unraid while my other machines are on OpenSuse. Having a webui makes it so much easier for someone other than me to take care of stuff if I'm not around

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 hours ago
[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yes. Mint. Way enough, and I haven't figured out why I should like disto hop yet.

[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I was like you for many years. From Windows to Mint and never changed. Now I got a second hand laptop from a couple of years ago and put ublue Aurora on it. I REALLY like the experience!

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

No, I've got nobara on my gaming rig, batocera on my wife's retro console that's just turned into a kodi device, and proxmox on my server

[–] hamsda@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

Ha, I wish I could.

I'm not 100% satisfied, so I'm still searching for the "perfect distro for me", if it even exists.

I have been using Arch Linux on my personal PC and company laptop for 4 years, but I couldn't get some things to work. Things that, after installing Fedora, worked out of the box.

My current setup is:

  • EndeavourOS (e.g. arch linux with a GUI-installer) for my PC at home
  • Fedora Workstation 43 for my company laptop
  • Servers are all running Debian, I'll probably never change that
  • Hypervisor for VMs is Proxmox VE, which is Debian too
[–] halyihev@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Currently my primary laptop is on LMDE and my secondary laptop is on GhostBSD just because I wanted to try out BSD. I'm thinking of taking a third laptop and putting EndeavourOS on it. That was my primary OS until an update blew up the EFI partition and I read "yeah, that happens sometimes" and decided my primary system should be a bit more stable than that. But I did really like EndeavourOS other than that. I have an old notebook PC I've thought about putting Haiku-OS on just for fun, if I can figure out what I did with the power cord for it.

Thanks to hyprland, I've fallen in love with Arch. Sure it works on other distros, but the AUR is great for easy configuration. I'm running it on my container server, my laptop, my gaming rig, and my OneXPlayer(portable gaming rig). That said, I have been eyeing CachyOS because of the kernel optimization plus it seems easier to install.

[–] exu@feditown.com 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I use Arch (btw) on my desktops and laptops.

On my servers I'm halfway through replacing Debian with openSUSE.

My desktop and servers have different use cases and I interact with them in different ways, so there's little confusion for me.

[–] jhdeval@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

I feel the same way. I use fedora on my laptops and desktops and debian on my servers. Generally my servers do not have or need a gui so debian makes it easy to install without. I tried fedora server once and i just was not happy with it.

[–] justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 12 hours ago

I used to have Ubuntu everywhere, then changed to Debian for servers. Now that I'm using bazzite for my gaming rig, I really liked the idea and went to fedora silver blue on my work laptop. I'm the near future I want to re do my home lab, bit not sure yet what, unfortunately to many open questions concerning storage left.

[–] retry1203@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 hours ago

My gaming PC runs Nobara so I started using Fedora on my general use desktop and my laptop for consistency. I have an older laptop that runs Debian. I have two server machines that run Proxmox and Debian, and all my VMs are Debian except one that is Fedora server (I read somewhere Fedora would provide better GPU support out of the box, but I've never confirmed this, it just works)

[–] mikedd@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

I use Fedora on my personal laptop and DietPi on my RaspberryPi 4 where I selfhost a bunch of stuff.

[–] VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 hours ago

I run OpenSuse Tumbleweed on my Daily Driver Desktop, Bazzite on my Laptop, Debian on my Game Server

[–] DarkMetatron@feddit.org 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I use ArchLinux more or less on all Device where it is possible It runs on my workstations, on my NAS, on my servers

Reason for that is: I am lazy and this way I don't have to learn how to administrate different Distributions.

[–] addie@feddit.uk 1 points 10 hours ago

Yep. Arch on my personal multi-use laptop, Arch on my work Java-development laptop, Arch on my gaming PC, Arch on my home Forgejo / DNS / NAS server. Just easier to not have to remember how to do things in different ways, plus my home server can efficiently act as a repo cache.

Did have ALARM installed on the home server back when I used a raspberry pi, and while that's an amazing project, a pi is just a bit underpowered for some uses. Got a mini PC extremely cheap since it wouldn't support Win11, but it runs Linux like a champ.

[–] Tywele@piefed.social 3 points 13 hours ago

I use Fedora on my desktop, laptop and server. On my motherβ€˜s laptop I have installed Fedora Kinoite.

[–] CarstenBoll@feddit.dk 3 points 13 hours ago

I do - more or less. Since I am the IT guy for my entire family and don't feel like doing tech support on 10 different distros.

[–] Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 13 hours ago

I typically use EndeavorOS because I enjoy how well documented and organized the arch wiki is.

I tried switching to fedora on my laptop recently but actually had some issues with software that was apparently only distributed through the AUR or AppImage (which I could have used, I know).

When I also had issues setting up my VPN to my home network again, I caved and restored the disk to a backup I took before attempting the switch. The VPN thing almost definitely wasn't Fedoras fault since I remember running into the same issue on EndeavorOS but after my fix from last time didn't work I was out of patience.

My servers runs either on debian or Ubuntu LTS though.

[–] blxt@lemmy.zip 2 points 12 hours ago

For my Gaming PC I ended up with cashyOS. Justs works and still gives me enough flexibility for customization. Server is Proxmox with mostly Debian LXCs but I started to add in some alpine containers. Probably going to throw alpine on my old laptop as well, just for fun. Ah and then there is my MacBook with macOS, which for now I plan to keep…

[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I've thought about it, but I like having Bazzite for my gaming PC and Debian for my laptop, so I'll probably keep using multiple distros. For me it's:

  • Gaming PC: Bazzite (it's plugged into my TV, like a console, and goes straight to Steam's big picture mode)
  • Laptop: Debian with KDE Plasma
  • Home Server: Debian (a little single board computer, no desktop environment)
[–] justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 12 hours ago

Due to bazzite,I checked out fedora silver blue for my work laptop. So far I'm happy.

[–] g_blob@programming.dev 5 points 17 hours ago

Debian always. Stablility is good, good is stability. But i am open to trying fedora in the near future

[–] Nalincah@feddit.org 2 points 14 hours ago

Work notebook runs Linux Mint

My private desktop PC runs Cachy OS with Wayland/KDE but Wayland crashes all the time, so my private notebook bot Cachy OS with Gnome. Love it. Now I need to reinstall my desktop to also install Gnome. Dont want the hazzle to install it Next to wayland

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 5 points 18 hours ago

For me, I am running EndeavourOS on my laptop (for its rolling release updates and its customisability) and Debian on my homeserver (for its stability). I have also set up a secondary laptop with Linux Mint that is now being used by somebody else for its ease of use :)

yes, it's Arch all the way for me. it's flexible in the way that I can configure it for any system I need, and I usually know what I want from it.

my installations on my desktop and laptop look fairly similar, but my server and test computers can look different depending on the hardware specifications they have.

plus, with BTRFS snapshots, if anything breaks I can simply roll back to a previous version of the system.

[–] M137@lemmy.world 7 points 19 hours ago

Oooh, look at mr. Rich guy here with multiple devices.

/s.... (not really, cries in only computer being a dying laptop from 2011 with no way to get even just another dying 2011 laptop when this one dies.)

[–] K3can@lemmy.radio 7 points 20 hours ago

Debian on my servers. No drama, it just works.

Fedora on my laptop and desktop. Still solid, but quicker updates.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yep. Debian. I like apt, and I like shit that just....works. Very form after function. So what if a bunch of packages are on "old" versions. They work. The kernel works. KDE Plasma works. I can do everything I want to do without having to constantly be on the bleeding edge. If you prefer newer things, great. I prefer older, proven things. That's also why I drive Toyota cars and Honda motorcycles.

My Proxmox cluster runs...uh...Proxmox, which is based on Debian. NAS runs OMV which runs on top of Debian. Laptops all run Linux Mint Debian Edition, and so does my 5800X3D/7900XTX gaming PC. The only non-Debian machines in my house are my wife's iMac and Macbook Pro, and the Home Assistant mini PC.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Basically, I do. Kubuntu everywhere. Only exception are the servers that run a UI less version of Ubuntu.

[–] Ravenmark@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

I normally install Linux based upon what I am doing. Gaming wise is usually popos. (I have eyed up CachyOS). I use Endeavor for a lot of old mac stuff. etc.

[–] StellarExtract@lemmy.zip 6 points 19 hours ago

NixOS home server, gaming PC will soon move to Bazzite from Windows 10 (whenever I'm done working on my home server). I'm trying Bazzite for that machine because I use it more like a game console hooked up to the TV and don't need the same level of tweaking and customization.

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I was HEAVILY into the apple ecosystem, so I have a lot of macs. I have a macbook, running MacOS, and i have a desktop computer that i was using for my server, but instead bought a ras pi, and now use my desktop AS a desktop (partly because i want to dump apple because of all the bootlicking that Tim Apple is doing towards drumpf), which runs linux mint. My ras pi runs ubuntu server. Aside from that, that's the extent of my home computing. I have an iphone too. But my mac mini goes unused now, and thinking of selling it, but not sure. /rambling

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 2 points 15 hours ago

I usually stick with ubuntu/debian based distros, because it was the first distro system i used when i first used linux. so I stick with what i know. Though I did support a RH server once when i worked in IT.

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