So with the recent drama it looks like bcachefs isn’t going to stay in the kernel for too long.

That's way too doomsaying. Even after ReiserFS' developer was sentenced in 2006, it took till 2022 for it to be deprecated. And it has only recently been left out of of the kernel.

My go to back in The Day was just Ubuntu because I was lazy.

So we have a bias towards Debian-based distros.

it’s not been playing nice with my Zen 4 desktop when it comes to ACPI power states (no sleep, doesn’t reliably turn the power off when i ask it to turn off, etc).

However, a newer kernel is definitely preferred.

is also something based on a normal distro that most people write guides for because I am a smoothbrain.

And finally, healthy access to documentation.

Based on the above, I would not pick:

• Debian Stable or any distro based on it. They ship with the 6.1 kernel, which launched only a couple months (January 2023) after the launch of Zen 4 (September 2022). I'm aware that access to newer kernels is possible. However, at that point, why even bother with Debian Stable to begin with?
• While both of Debian's Testing and Sid/Unstable branches have access to newer kernels from the get-go, distros that ship the latest kernel by default (e.g. Arch, Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweed and their derivatives) are simply better for offering an end-user product.
• Arch, Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweed and their derivatives are primarily dismissed for not being based on Debian. Though, the fact that they're more towards the rolling release side of things does play a minor role as well. By their very nature, they will change. Hence it's less ideal for "set-and-forget" setups.
• Pop_OS!' team seems to be primarily focused on delivering their upcoming COSMIC DE. For this reason, the distro has been in relative limbo. Therefore, I can't recommend it.
• TUXEDO OS is dismissed for being relatively unpopular. Lots of other Debian(/Ubuntu) derivatives are dismissed for various reasons.

Let's get to the actual recommendation, Linux Mint seems to be tailor-made for your use case:

• Based on Ubuntu, but without Snaps. While you can choose to use Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) instead, that one doesn't come with the latest kernel. So the recommendation is for (standard/vanilla) Linux Mint.
• Their forums are full with up-to-date and (relatively) well-written guides; while the excellent ArchWiki is arguably better, Linux Mint isn't a slouch either. Furthermore, as Linux Mint is very popular, you can simply expect to find solutions to most things that might come up.

Quite the contrary, the commit log on Github looks pretty healthy.

On what did you base the following:

it has not been updated since a while.

Check out the random button on Distrowatch (distrowatch.com/random.php) - it's like a Linux lottery, but you always win something weird!

Even though I'm a huge GNOME shill, I can't help but admire the allure that KDE Plasma offers to those yearning for a traditional desktop experience and (above all) its wealth of customization options readily available by default; truly embodying the FOSS spirit of user choice and freedom.

Hopefully this change will enable KDE to become the best version of itself!

Excellent write-up!

Though, it's a pity that a great ambassador of OpenBSD has stopped using it.

GrapheneOS FTW!

Unsure if you're being serious or not. Or if this is just bait. So I apologize in case I just got whooshed.

There's a decent amount of distros that don't require you to ever operate a terminal. Updates either

• happen automatically in the background
• Or, you're prompted for an update and can choose to run it
• Or, within settings or a dedicated app, you can press a button to initiate the process of updating

Furthermore, most distros that are recommended for beginners don't need regular updates anyways.

Updating isn't the only part that has been taken care of by this set of distros. Linux has become pretty smooth sailing overall.

Notable exceptions to the above are mostly tied to some janky/troublesome hardware setup. Or, if you'd like to run software that isn't easily accessible. In those cases, while a GUI-only solution may exist, it's simply a lot easier for all involved parties if a terminal solution is offered instead:

• it works on most distros; irrespective of version, DE, base distro or whatsoever. So, the one providing a solution doesn't have to create over a dozen of distinct solutions to cover all bases
• these methods tend to change a lot less frequently. Sometimes solutions are tied to DEs, and these may change how they organize stuff over time. So, terminal solutions have better longevity
• instead of moving through dozens of menus/toolbars/buttons or whatsoever, you literally copy and paste a couple of commands and you're done. I would prefer the terminal any day

OP, you did get me curious, though. Which distro do you use?

I wonder how long it will take before it will drop off the top 10.

Both Fedora and openSUSE default to Btrfs. That's all the praise it needs really.

With Bcachefs still being relatively immature and the situation surrounding (Open)ZFS unchanged, Btrfs is the only CoW-viable option we got. So people will definitely find it, if they need it. Which is where the actual issue is; why would someone for which ext4 has worked splendidly so far, even consider switching? It's the age-old discussion in which peeps simply like to stick to what already works.

Tbh, if only Debian would default to Btrfs, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) don't do under fall short of Windows. Heck, I'd argue they might even be easier.

The real issue is anti-cheat. But that's just the next hurdle we'll have to overcome.

Edit: TIL that the expression "to do under" has no place in English.

Still getting the hang of Ubuntu, but I see a lot of comments on different posts in which a majority of them point to using Mint instead.

Ubuntu should be okay; it's not necessarily a bad pick. However, the community has been upset with some of its past decisions and (more recently) the implementation of its vision, i.e. their enforcement of Snaps. This has eventually led to our current situation in which it has become popular to hate on Ubuntu.

Would the best recommendation, be to switch to Mint from Ubuntu?

Personally, I've stopped recommending beginners to Ubuntu. This is primarily for how the above mentioned enforcement has lead to broken unintuitive interactions. However, if you've already started using it and are content with what you have, then the negative sentiment by itself shouldn't warrant a switch.

Though, granted, (I think) most Linux users have indulged in distro hopping; some have even made it their hobbies. So you shouldn't feel bad about switching either. Though I implore you to practice best practices while at it:

• Keep using your home base until you're certain of the switch.
• Don't nuke your home base to experience another distro. Make ample use of live USBs, VMs and dual booting instead.
• Try to understand the difference between the fundaments and the auxiliary when experiencing new distros; i.e., what is and isn't possible for you to import to your home base without outright switching.

Maybe PikaOS?

But, IIRC, they are not innovative like CachyOS is; CachyOS actually tries to push performance enhancements forward. PikaOS, on the other hand, only implements the improvements found by others (like CachyOS).

Initially, I was drawn to KDE Plasma for familiarity. Therefore, when installing Linux for the first time, I chose a distro with KDE Plasma. Which happened to be Fedora Kinoite 35, a very new distro at the time. It was clearly buggy and after fiddling with it for some time, I just had to rebase to Silverblue (and GNOME) for the lack of alternatives.

Thankfully, I actually happened to really like GNOME. This was on a laptop and GNOME's touchpad gestures just felt very satisfying and intuitive; much better than anything else I had experienced before. Its (intended) workflow also made a lot of sense that way.

GNOME has really grown on me ever since. And while I've revisited KDE Plasma to see what I was supposedly missing out on, I simply stuck to GNOME as it felt cleaner and more elegant.

Thanks for answering!

xubuntu

I've only started to use Linux after Snaps were introduced to Ubuntu. As the community has been pretty vocal in their disdain, I lost any inclinations to test out Ubuntu or any of its flavors from the get-go.

Though, I have used Zorin lite; which is Ubuntu LTS with Xfce by the Zorin OS team. Which is probably the closest I'll get to Xubuntu. From what I recall, it was pretty neat. I did use the terminal, but it was more out of convention. Therefore I don't really recognize myself in the following sentiment:

it still forces you to learn how to use it!

Would you mind elaborating?

should I be looking at any other distros?

From what I can tell,

• containerization is appealing to you; almost all of them employ this to some degree, but some more than others. More on that later.
• your preference goes out to (closer to) stock experiences rather than opinionated ones

I take it that you'd rather stick to the (relatively-speaking) more popular options. Not that popularity is necessarily good, rather not used by anyone else is bad.

Then, the following are worth looking at as well:

• NixOS; it's quite different to all the others, perhaps we may call it obtuse by comparison. But, it has been going at it for the longest; heck, it's older than Ubuntu. And, in my humble opinion, is one of the main inspirations for the others. But, contrary to the likes of Fedora Atomic or Vanilla OS, it doesn't go all-in on OCI. Therefore, it might not be as smooth of a transition.
• Guix System; the answer to "What if we had FSF-compliant NixOS, but with actually good documentation?" Jokes aside, this is a cool and underrated distro.
• openSUSE Aeon; relatively new still, but perhaps already offers the most secure OOTB experience. However, from what I can tell, in terms of transition to OCI, it doesn't strive to be very revolutionary (as of yet). Fedora Atomic seems to be a relatively significant (and IMO exciting) departure from traditional Fedora. By contrast, openSUSE Aeon seems more like a revolution with a (very) small r. Though, one may argue this is mostly due to maturity. Consider openSUSE Kalpa if you're feeling particularly adventurous.
• uBlue's base images; Aurora, Bazzite and Bluefin are built from these. These are vanilla images with only hardware enablement, codecs, other RPM Fusion goodies and more that anyone installing Fedora Atomic would want on their systems anyways.
• Create your own; See this link if you know how to write containerfiles. See this link if you prefer yaml (.yml to be more precise) instead. The previous links were more focused on Fedora Atomic, this link offers Vanilla OS' answer.

Other distros found on lists like this one didn't make the cut for various reasons; sometimes it's just because I haven't heard enough of it.

Do I need to shift my expectations of an immutable distro even more?

Uhmm..., I don't know exactly what your expectations are 😜.

FWIW, from what I gather, either (something based on) Fedora Atomic or Vanilla OS should be right up your alley.

Best Distro

Needs dictate preferences. An objective assessment isn't possible even on an individual level, as circumstances change over time. Linux Mint serves as a common starting point, with many users eventually 'graduating' to other distributions. The opposite is also true; many eventually return to low-maintenance distros like Linux Mint, preferring something that 'just works'.

I’m very curious of which distro users loves the most that they have it on their daily hardware?

I daily drive secureblue.

We were able to, up until Riot chose to mess it up for everyone (including us).

I love both GNOME and automatic/dynamic tiling. So Regolith should have been a match made in heaven. However, unfortunately:

• It's not found in the repositories of any major distro. You know it's messed up if it's not packaged as a nixpkg!
• If you can look surpass that, it's still intended only on Debian/Ubuntu. While the AUR package exists (and even RebornOS -an Arch-derivative- offers it in their own repos), you're simply out of luck outside of that. So, as a Fedora enjoyer myself, this unfortunately applies to me as well.

Consider giving devices offered by NovaCustom a look.

When it comes to Linux-first laptop vendors, it's definitely my favorite out of the bunch.

On purchasing one of their devices, they offer:

• 3 years of warranty
• 5 years of firmware update support
• 7 years of (guaranteed) spare parts availability

I'm simply unaware of any other (Linux-first) firm that can compete regarding the above.

And I haven't even mentioned how vast their customization options are, or how well-praised their support is.

I'm actually stunned why it's not mentioned more often in these conversations.

Btw, I'd actually recommend you to consider the whereabouts of the respective support centers before you buy a device. You never hope to be in that situation, but it makes a real difference when it matters. So, in case you're unaware, AFAIK:

• NovaCustom; Netherlands. But as long as you're in EU mainland, it should be good enough.
• Star Labs; UK. EU outside of Great Britain is OK.
• System76; USA.
• Tuxedo; Germany. Again, EU mainland is fine.