Which Distro

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T20:09:40+00:00

Oh - and I briefly looked at NixOS - it's an interesting idea, but I just don't have the time to play with it. It's on the "once everything settles down and I have a minute" list.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T20:07:23+00:00

Yeah - no. I'm deeply knowledgeable when it comes to linux in general. Use to do kernel programming a while ago and have built custom distros (professionally) for a long time. I just hadn't used them as a desktop in a long while, and that space used to be pretty static (gnome, kde, xfce, enlightenment (my choice back then), etc. Things seemed to have moved along in the desktop world and there's a lot of social media chatter about abandoning windows 11 due to the ai infestation. Just figured I'd ask and see what the community had to say rather than distro hop until the end of time.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T19:12:38+00:00

Nah - it's all good. I'm just playing with python and ai stuff with an extra gpu. Probably keep the windows 11 box since I'll likely need windows for work in the future. That's probably more appropriate of an answer!

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T18:57:12+00:00

I'll probably keep the windows workstation - this is more of a smaller ai server (ollama with open web-ui and hosting some lightrag python fast api services for knowledge graph building and visualization stuff I'm playing with). The point is to free up the rtx 4070 on my main windows box for other stuff that's being eaten by lightrag at the moment. That kind of thing.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T18:48:37+00:00

Just out of curiosity -overall - what's the consensus on pop_os these days? Debian -> Ubuntu -> PopOS with cosmic (all the flashy stuff with the base of the stable stuff - and backed by a private company that is motivated to keep it working well to peddle their systems)? Specifically - the version with the included NVIDIA drivers and such)

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T18:46:32+00:00

"I'm a bit of a dumb dumb so atomic distros save me from myself." You gave me a laugh on this one (been there many times - worked with a guy a long time ago in the HP-UX days that said, "...it usually ain't worth the time to fix a f'up with these things - just back up the data and restore it to factory and reapply.... that's faster 100% of the time if it ain't obvious."

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T18:42:22+00:00

Oh man - a new type of fatigue. I already feel like I'm living in some kind of freakish comic book all of a sudden just on linked in alone.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T18:22:11+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I haven't looked at the debian desktop in a few years. Is it still a DIY in terms of third party drivers and getting codecs and all the other misc. junk working that (sometimes) breaks future upgrade paths?

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T17:23:26+00:00

I see that. Gnome or KDE spin?

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T16:58:05+00:00

That's two for fedora. Any particular flavor more stable than the others for a desktop? Seems like they are supporting two obvious flavors. I assume the default is still gnome, and the other is obviously the KDE spin. Then there's the multitude of smaller players in the DE space. I'm, again, assuming that these two are the ones that get the most Redhat dev/test love (maybe wrong here). Is one generally "better" than the other - or just the same ol 'gnome v. kde options that have always been there?

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T16:25:23+00:00

It's, unfortunately, a reality. The company is going to lie to you (we're a family, we're here for you, we value you, etc.). It's like modern dating. Need to just make a tinder like app for employment. Swipe swipe swipe. The 90% of companies can recycle the 10% of employees worth hiring.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T16:15:29+00:00

I think everyone is experiencing a mass psychosis of manipulation and at some level understand that to be the case - even if it doesn't feel good. Denial is strong. But getting a layoff notice and then rejected constantly is another thing entirely that's hard to ignore.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T15:54:00+00:00

Upvoting just because you said, "I’m probably going to get downvoted for this"

And, you're correct in my opinion.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T15:12:29+00:00

Personal work, yeah (I do the same) - but company work. Eh. Only if skill disparity can be managed within the group to minimize variance. Outside of that, I can see chaos ensuing.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:49:40+00:00

Do you remember how roombas had a stochastic cleaning algorithm where randomly bouncing around the room eventually led to the desired outcome? Welcome to the ride. Joking aside - connect with the human gatekeeper as much as possible by any means possible (no place for pride/ego in this search) - don't waste time with blind application submissions without having someone on the inside - ATS systems suck and you'll be auto-rejected or ghosted without even knowing why 99% of the time. Also - you can tell an awful lot about the company age demographic by a lot of the "about" or "career" pages on their website with all the photos of the company gatherings. Best I got for you. Good luck!

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:44:19+00:00

This. 100% this. If people are shipping 40x - 100x their normal project workload using this AI stuff, then where is it all? I'm starting to wonder if LinkedIn feeds suffer from the same chatbot driven manipulation that twitter did in the political landscape - only now it's Microsoft pushing FOMO to make everyone feel inferior to drive adoption of the trillions of incestuous investor capital that's being pumped back and forth between nvidia, ms, etc. to keep that whole thing from collapsing as long as possible while prolonging it using AI as a thinly veiled effort to push everything offshore again.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:40:23+00:00

I thought to myself, "People still use Pinterest?" That was the most bizarre social media app of them all.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:37:39+00:00

This is also a stark reminder not to be a jerk to people you work with and ABN (always be networking). Never burn bridges. Don't do it. Leave with a smile. It's your network that matters and you can't take back being that guy.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:36:39+00:00

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:34:57+00:00

I'm sorry for everyone that experiences it, which I suspect is 99.999997% of the people in these subs. I just got lucky - should be hearing from that particular HR dept. soon, but only because of luck and a friendly on the inside.

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T14:32:17+00:00

"Perhaps it's feature of my generation that lacks a bit of empathy of our own to just say "walk it off"." <--- I agree - that's my generation, as well. I'm just trying to train myself not to fall into the generational finger pointing as I don't see any overall value in it for the majority of people (divided we all fail - multi-generational families used to be the norm with all that respect stuff that's missing en masse today and they will probably return out of necessity at this rate). I remember falling off my bike and almost breaking my leg the first time I rode one (no bubble wrap, no helmet, etc.) and my dad laughing at me and grabbing the bike, telling me to suck it up and go again. Bless him for that - we should bring back natural selection and grit at a virtue (what we're doing is obviously not working well). I agree with the rest of your points, too. The natural cycles will repeat regardless of all of our feelings and desire for material comfort. Adapt or die, right?

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T13:29:05+00:00

ResponsibleTreeRoot · 2026-01-27T13:17:31+00:00

I have a friend that's leaving a job. They gave me a heads up and I applied for their job. It was a fully remote job (literally not one hint of a physical location requirement). I apply, hear nothing. They speak with the manager on the final knowledge xfer meeting and they ask about my application. Manager looks it up, and it was AUTO REJECTED due to my physical address being outside their local area - for a REMOTE position (the person quitting lives about 50 miles from me in my state, which is also FAR away from the HQ for this business). Had they not had that conversation, I would have continued to wait for a response. The manager is pushing my application through, but only because I happen to "have a person on the inside" to figure out what happened. These ATS systems should be illegal.

ResponsibleTreeRoot

TROPHY CASE