I think we’re misunderstanding eachother. So perhaps consider to outline if you agree with the following:

• uBlue has some systems in place that enable it to detect some breakages.
• uBlue’s pipeline is such to not ship you the detected breakages.
• After a method has been found to fix a breakage (or other issues), uBlue’s maintainers implement these fixes and then, the very next update, the users will receive an image that contains both the updated package and the fixes required for it to not cause problems. Heck, the user didn’t know anything was up in the first place. They didn’t notice a thing*.
• uBlue’s issue/problem detect systems are not absolute; things might slip through.
• However, Nvidia drivers will not cause breakage that will make you shiver in fear.
• uBlue does not fix it on your device. They fix the image and that fixed image will deliver you the fix built-in; so manual intervention are a thing of the past (except for edge cases).
• Their pipeline does not require nor does it detect (through telemetry or whatsoever) the breakage on the device of the user. Heck, as implied earlier, most breakages are detected, prevented from shipping broken, fixed, ship the fixed one before any end user is disturbed by it.
• uBlue is not a Stable system (i.e. it does not freeze packages (apart from security updates) until the next major release). So yes, you receive updates all the time.
• Not being tied to legal restrictions is cool. However, a lot of derivatives do this. So this can’t be its unique selling point.
• uBlue is not entirely free. Its maintainers do pay money for providing some of their services (as has been mentioned by Jorge).
• Some of their images do have testing branch; even Bazzite has.

But there is no automatic repair voodoo anywhere, on any distro. That driver is proprietary, only NVIDIA can fix it.

Consider to revisit this, cuz this is basically (at least for me) most of uBlue’s schtick:

“No more building drivers on your laptop, dealing with signing, akmods, third party repo conflicts, or any of that. We’ve fully automated it so that if there’s an issue, we fix it in GitHub, for everyone.”

And the way it’s setup, is so that you don’t get the broken update ever on your device in the first place.

So, contrary to what you might expect, this black magic (or just excellent engineering) somehow does exist.

But they rely on rpmfusion, an external repo packaging the proprietary NVIDIA stuff for Fedora. The repo is not supported by Fedora, and the drivers cannot be fixed by anyone.

Not sure what you’re trying to say here. Would you mind elaborating? FWIW, Bazzite’s model (by default) allows automatic fixes to be applied to a broken driver without requiring any manual intervention from its user.

In your case it’s still an excellent choice.

Though, other opinionated images by uBlue (like e.g. Aurora and Bluefin) do deserve a mention. I’m on Bluefin (through secureblue to be more precise) as I desired more hardening than what Fedora offers by default.

The excellent part is also that it’s possible to rebase to another branch without reinstalling. So, let’s say you’re actually interested in experiencing these different images without going through the installation process over and over again. Then, you simple enter the following command:

rpm-ostree rebase ...

With ... being replaced by whatever is required for the image and/or branch you’re interested in. Then, simply reboot, (pro-tip: make a new user account and through the new user account) experience the other image. Rinse and repeat to your heart’s content.

Why are you even considering Manjaro?

If gaming is the priority, then I honestly don’t think anything out there can beat Bazzite in terms of ease of use, ‘hands-off’-ness, robustness and stability.

Honorable mentions include: Nobara and Pop!_OS.

Update 2: After trying out EOS, Arch, Manjaro, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Universal Blue, among many other options, I’ve come to the decision that I’m okay with sticking to Mint for now on my main desktop and setting up UBlue Aurora on my work laptop, but might consider switching to Kubuntu or Fedora if I want something similar at work and at home (one of my main draws away from Mint was that it didn’t offer a KDE option), or to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed if I must have a rolling distro for some reason. Thank you all for your guidance, and happy distro hopping!

Thank you for the update!

Could you elaborate upon your decision-making?

You can divide distros into two categories:

• Independent distros; these are not forks of other projects (at least not in their current iterations). We may also refer to these as upstream-projects.
• Derivative distros; these are forks from the earlier mentioned projects. We may also refer to these as downstream-projects.

E.g. Zorin OS is a derivative of Ubuntu, which itself is a derivative of Debian. After the gargantuan effort it takes to make Debian possible, Ubuntu’s maintainers ‘grab’ Debian, apply a set of changes and ship it as Ubuntu. After which, Zorin OS’ maintainers grab Ubuntu, also apply a set of changes and ship it as Zorin OS.

Of course, not all derivatives are created equal; sometimes a single change is applied that by itself constitutes the fork. And other times, the changes are so massive that they blur the lines between independent and derivative; Ubuntu’s changes to Debian is a good example of this.

Derivative distros can’t simply change everything as they see fit; some things are simply essential parts. In most cases, these include:

• the release cycle of the base; rolling-release vs point-release, but also LTS vs bleeding edge and everything in between
• the (base) packages of the base

But what other factors/aspects that are important for the average user to know about each ‘base’?

I was about to write a long ass dissertation, but it became very unwieldy. Consider asking for specific bases and perhaps I will respond for those.

On a final note, it’s worth mentioning that differences between different distros have never been as blurry as they’re today. With e.g. Distrobox, one can install whatever package from whichever distro they want. Thus, we aren’t as tied to the packages provided by the base distro as we were used to. Furthermore, most distros have different ‘variants’ that allow access to different channels or release cycles. E.g. for those who want Debian packages but bleeding-edge; there’s Debian Sid etc.

Sure, a lot more can be said; like how corporate interest plays into all of this. But what has been mentioned above should suffice for now.

Fam, with all due respect, reconsider how you go about interacting with the community for support.

We love to help, so don’t get me wrong. But you have to allow us to help you. Paramount with this is communication; so consider responding to questions asked by those who reach out to help.

Like, I’m not exaggerating when I say that your issues would have already been resolved if you had been (more) responsive.

There’s also the herd mentality; i.e. peeps like to up vote something that has already been up voted and down vote something that has already been down voted. I was the first to up vote; with my vote it became +2 -7. So, since then, it has received 4 up votes and 6 down votes. Which is at least an improvement.

The point I wanted to make is that there’s more to it. I wouldn’t simply refer to it as symptom of toxicity and call it a day.

TIL. Thank you!

If it is the default on the distro they intend to use, then, by all means, they should definitely go with it. Btrfs has been really stable for a pretty long time anyways. Just don’t use it for RAID 5/6 and you’d be absolutely fine.

Would you mind elaborating?

I’m aware that MX works on a lot of excellent GUI tools that are shipped with it. Which is great, but perhaps necessary; because they ship a systemd-less distro. Which, in the end, might cause more work than it should. (I’m aware this is in part caused by software just assuming that systemd is installed by default.) And while I think it’s a noble endeavour to maintain a relatively easy systemd-less distro, I don’t think it’s enough to justify a recommendation to a relatively new Linux user. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on this?

True. But Debian Testing and Unstable do exist. Which should be primary candidates for where Ubuntu gets their packages.

But Debian does get security updates backported, right? Like, is Ubuntu actively preventing you from getting these?

So, would it be fair to say that their packages suck and they’re desperately fundraising money through ads in hopes of fixing it?

I’m very unfamiliar with Ubuntu, so I apologize for my ignorance. Is universe their AUR, COPR, OBS? I thought that PPAs were Ubuntu’s user repository.

Question: Do you intend to play games with high-fidelity?

Like, the latest gen iGPUs from both AMD and Intel are capable for light gaming (as can be seen on the many pc-handhelds). But, is that sufficient for you? Or, do you need more raw power on your device?

Thank you for some much needed background information (and perhaps even some of Ubuntu’s justification)!

There is literally not a single useful comment here.

That’s a bit harsh 😜. Though, I agree the ‘f*ck-Ubuntu’-circlejerk is very present.

It is an optional service, they warn you that you use outdated packages, and offer a solution.

I guess it’s wishful thinking to argue that they should have included the security patches from the get-go.

Thank you for clarifying.

I’m not very familiar with how stuff works over at (open)SuSE. However, for Fedora, we know that they’ve gone against Red Hat’s policy more than once. At the end of the day, it is (at the very least in name) a community distro.

But, I think we can at least agree on the fact that Canonical’s influence on Debian is definitely less than Red Hat’s influence on Fedora or SuSE’s influence on openSUSE.

Btw, consider conveying this better next time 😅. I think most others, like me, misunderstood you 😜.

Have a nice day!

Thank you for answering!