also seen mention of another candidate - Nobara

I have not tried that one.

I have been using Bazzite for about 3 months now, it has worked quite well for me on my two desktop systems.

I can not use the SteamOs mode on my Nvidia system, but it still works decently well as a normal desktop running steam.

my AMD desktop system does use the SteamOs look mode.

I was using Holoiso last year, but had numerous issues, so gave up on it. The other similar distros, I recall testing, and not lasting a day with them for various reasons.

So for now Bazzite is my go to.

Side note: just noticed on reddit the /r/Bazzite sub is now banned for being unmoderated.

Not that there was a lot of traffic there anyway, but that is a major issue with Bazzite, it’s a bit fringe, and while a lot of silverblue stuff does apply, it’s still a small community it seems.

tip: don’t install fish or whatever, change your default shell, THEN uninstall fish because you don’t like it.

Change your default shell back first.

I have seen way too many support posts where people paint their self I to a corner doing that.

or just don’t change the default shell.

run fish as needed, then exit back to bash when done.

I have

I am reminded of the ability MANY years ago to write the kernel file directly to a floppy disk, or start of a hard drive and somehow being able to boot that way.

I just can’t recall how I did it, or WHY I did it.

Back when the kernel would fit on a floppy disk. I am truly showing my age.

6 yr old grandson found a box of old floppy disks and was asking what they were. He started stacking them up making card houses and roads for his matchbox cars. Glad he got some use out of those recycled AOL floppies.

Been playing with that Bazannite (sp?) Variant, it works fine, but i am still undecided if learning the ins and puts of it are worth the switch from my Pop_os install.

There was a little bit research and learning to do some tasks, but nothing surprising.

it does seem it boots much slower than my pop_os install, but I think I have it installed on an internal Hybrid HDD that i not yet replaced with a SSD, so that may be the cause.

pop_os boots amazingly fast, not sure what they do to it.

and having to reboot to get stuff updated/installed is a bit annoying, the ability to roll back is the trade off I guess.

However I can’t really think of a time that I needed to roll back, perhaps I am just lucky. So the entire roll back feature is something that I don’t know if I will ever actually use.

good luck.

but they have an APK for the file manager ‘index’. so that’s what’s confused me.

I thought KDE was working on some cross platform programs, but I can’t recall the name of the project or the tools, they had a file manager, and a few other things. I thought it included a basic terminal emulator.

I may be thinking of the following project.

https://mauikit.org/apps/

it shows screen shots for ‘station’ on mobile, but I can’t find a .APK for it.

determine is the XFCE system is using sddm, lightdm, gdm3, there are other login managers as well, but those 3 are the most common.

you can then setup the same login manager kn the other system.

unless they are the same and it’s just a scaling issue due to the monitor resolution.

then I guess you could try the alternative login managers, and see if any look better.

ages ago I used various Hp (and other) calculator emulators for some tasks I needed to do.

they had more features than any of the calculator programs I had checked out.

But that was many many years ago.

also saw some options mentioned here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/nxnycv/calculator_with_mathematical_notation/

you could use MXlinux and it’s remaster tools/feature to build your own custom USB/iso.

MXlinux makes such a task rather easy.

remove stuff you don’t need to get it as small as you desire.

for testing, and no, no issues at all with the various dot files.

Cluttered app menus, and an occasional “default open with app” setting changed is about the only issues.

I have 5+ DEs on my pop_os install, you don’t lose files in your users home.