In computer science, vanilla is the term used to refer when computer software and sometimes also other computing-related systems like computer hardware or algorithms are not customized from their original form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_software

(Not to be confused with Vanilla OS - perhaps as far from the vanilla software concept as you can get..!)

I think I have been heading to this scenario for past three years or so without realising it. Having quickly settled on Trisquel after initial Linux experience with Ubuntu. Live Distro Hopping to satisfy my curiosity more than anything else. Then with Trisquel-mini 9 things started to slow down and that started me looking for a more efficient distro for my old HP G60 Laptop now with SSD. At the same time I installed Zorin on my better specification Dell i7 Laptop as it just looked so professional and had a strong reputation for stability.

I have been wrestling with the idea of the perfect or ultimate laptop Distro+DE for a few years. Let’s face it; if you ask the question on most other forums you will get the usual fanboys and groupthink suspects. You then do your own research in the swamp of the web trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. For sure you can get lucky or notice a theme starting to pervade the answers; perhaps leading you to download and trial a Distro+DE that just might be what satisfies your requirements…? Or like many; wanting a Distro but not with the default DE or any other listed, not wanting a WM window manager solution either?

By accident I discovered this YT video on Chris Titus Tech channel…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV954gxZzMk

What do you guys make of the concept conveyed in the video?

Primarily it would appear that I have been wasting my time to a large extent, yet you can interpret the video as saying that I have already got there by trial and error…!
I have a Distro with an unsupported LXDE desktop and with the aid of Synaptic fully removed all the native WMs and FMs ( Window and file managers plus any panels ) I have removed and added packages such that I now have my preferred Debian choices in place along with the ultra efficient desktop, LXDE.

I teased this pertinent question into my topic…. https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...op-4175721954/
Also note that Slackware is not considered..!

Titus is right about distro hopping. Why not get rid of all the layers and use straight Debian? It makes most DE's available with minimal fuss.

I'm suspicious of how Distrowatch gets its hits to make MX rise from nowhere to the top in so few years, after Mint had done similarly previously, and Ubuntu before that.

I tried AntiX quite some years ago, and MX several months ago, and found nothing to make MX or AntiX preferable to anything else, Debian-based or otherwise, but I didn't invest any significant time in their communities, which can make a big difference to those in frequent need of help rather than being mostly self-sufficient. Both commandeer /usr/local/, which, for me as a multibooter who uses it heavily on its own filesystem, is a complete no-go.

In my eyes, any of the distros that TDE is built for is as light as anybody needs whose hardware is less than 2 decades old and has at least 500M of RAM. Debian proper, Mageia, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS and others all qualify.

The basic concept is that instead of switching desktops by switching to a distro that installs the new desktop by default you use a distribution like Debian or Arch which has all of the desktops available. Then you switch desktops by installing the new desktop, rebooting, and then uninstalling the old desktop without having to do an entire installation.

I agree with this concept. Several years ago I used a login manager which allowed me to selectively login among several users. It also allowed each user to select which installed desktop to use. I set up the login to include me, my wife, and root as users. This was in the days before the nonsense of denying root logins became popular. Each user could log into either Gnome or KDE. I set up Gnome with easy access to programs my wife used and set up KDE with easy access to the programs that I used. Whenever I logged in as root I used KDE.

What I think that this concept means to LinuxQuestions is this: When a newbie asks what distro they should use we usually recommend one of the Debian derivative distros like Mint which is easy to install and configures a working desktop with few configuration choices. Then we tell them that after they have mastered Mint they should distro hop until they find a desktop that suits them. Using the concepts in this video we should tell them to start with Mint. Then when they have mastered Linux they should install Debian or Slackware and then desktop hop.

1 members found this post helpful.

As customisation goes, you generally can't beat a Linux distribution for flexibility. They all come with a ton more flexibility in customisation than Windows, MacOSX or Android/ChromeOS.

With that said, heavy customisation is a rod for your own back. If you can't use something in vanilla form, then IMO it is worth spending the time to learn how... lest you spend the rest of your days customising every new computer which crosses your path!

In my experience, the best solution is most often one which is deployed with as little effort as possible.

So when choosing a Linux distribution it is quite often best to choose one which has defaults that align most closely with your own needs & wants.
A bit disappointing, but for some context: At that point Slackware 15.0 had not been released and many in the Linux community had written it off because of the amount of time between official releases.

I do agree with his sentiment that there are only a couple of distributions you should really consider, but I'd have said Slackware and Devuan (not Debian) because I like stability. Slackware just keeps on keeping on. My longest running box is on Slackware (and as of today) it has been up for 818 days showing no signs of stopping. That's with 3 to 6 users hammering on it for 5 days a week.

But I digress... Slackware 15.0 in vanilla form is what I use everywhere I can. It comes with (almost) everything I need out of the box for servers and desktop use, which means I can deploy new machines in a wide range of applications very quickly and with minimal effort.

It really has nothing to do with the world wide popularity of any Linux distribution but rather with the number of times users click on a specific distribution at the distrowatch site. As explained at the link below, it is not meant to be a poll.

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

@rkelsen

Now I'm curious I never get past 5, 7 or 10 days with needing to reboot from getting updates
How is that done ?

An oddity I have yet to learn ?

Given the amount of bloat and web developer power browsers have accumulated over the decades, it would surprise me if simply opening a browser provided by a distro could touch a URI of the distro's choice without any ordinary user knowing about it.

Hey Guys – seasoned LQ members with Linux knowledge – thank you for your interest and valued input.
It would seem that you guys are agreed that this popular Linux Youtuber, Chris Titus, has made an important statement. Even if you put distro hopping to one side for a moment, he is correct in saying; know or find your base core system along with the software packages you need, then just add your favourite DE. Once you are happy with that you should delete and purge all unnecessary other DE or WM remnants leaving you with YOUR ultimate personal distro

I am not sure that I have the skills, knowledge or experience to grapple with such an installation of a core or net-install of Debian or Arch let alone with the legendary difficulties of Slackware.
I have taken the easy way with Debian using Antix to do the difficult tasks in expert manner then adding my preferred but unsupported DE before rejoicing in the deletion of all those WMs and FMs.
I did a similar exercise with Arch, using Endeavour to sort the installation of Arch then adding my DE. However I got tired of the continual update notifications which made you feel the need to update there and then but wondering how none Arch distros could cope successfully without updating every five minutes.

Thanks to all

It depends upon what you want from the hardware you're installing it on. Realistically, though there are only 3 real "base cores" as you put it:
- Slackware
- Debian/Devuan
- Red Hat/Fedora

Almost every other distribution has roots that can be traced back to one of those 3.
Again, it depends upon what you want... what functionality do you need? How will your machine be used?
It's really not that difficult. Don't build these things up in your mind to be something that they're not. I'd suggest that you try and practice with different distributions using Virtual Machines.

When I hear a phrase like "The Ultimate Solution", my skin crawls...

Yes, I think most members understand this. For my own usage I treat it as an indication of current interest over past month or year whatever but nothing more than that.
In a 2023 DistroWatch poll, about half of the responders maintained that they were running either Arch (17%) or an Arch derivative (30%). As of 2023, Arch also enjoys the highest average user rating of any Linux distribution on DistroWatch with a rating of 9.34

Possibly a better indication of popularity would be the number of users who took the time to vote and comment. Some Distros MX, Mint, Manjaro had thousands whilst others had about 200 with some with just 3 repondants.

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?re...ing&sort=votes

As for me one of the tweaks that I always make right off of the bat is to download I zip file called hosts.zip from mvps and modify the file by removing the junk at the top of it and copying and pasting the information from the modified document into a session of whatever text editor is available so that I can drop the modified contents of the HOSTS file into the /etc/hosts file.

1 members found this post helpful.

Which one of those three can Arch be traced back to?

Can Slackware be traced back to Softlanding Linux System (SLS) one of the first Linux distributions?
Slackware started as a cleanup of SLS by Patrick Volkerding.

You say: "It's really not that difficult. Don't build these things up in your mind to be something that they're not. I'd suggest that you try and practice with different distributions using Virtual Machines."

I hear what you say but tried installing Antix core and failed Never bother with VMs as I am only interested in how a Distro+DE is going to perform for real on my hardware - live distros are perfect for this

Perhaps you should re-read my post. This is the critical part:

"Almost every other distribution..."
Yes, we're well aware of history, thank you.
It's all about your attitude to learning new things.

The software has no emotion or ability to think. It won't bend to you, you'll have to learn how it works if you want to use it... or you can just give up if you're not willing to learn. That's always an option, but from what I see in life generally (not just software), successful people are usually the ones with the right attitude.

You can't fix an engine unless you know how engines work...
That is a shame. Back when I was experimenting with different distributions, I would've loved to have had access to VMs. Yes, they existed, but required hardware that was much bigger and more expensive than the average home rig. These days, you have many different free options which will let you try a new distribution without needing to reboot your machine or risking making permanent changes to it... why would you be so quick to dismiss that? Again, it's down to your attitude I guess.

From a recent post on this forum: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/the-l...er-users-those

Take what you want from that article, but in my case I can be counted among the (many, apparently) happy Slackware users. My computer does exactly what I want it to. Nothing more and nothing less... and it does so with very little customisation.

Just one more minor thing: Further to Jan K's post from above, given that certain events of the 20th century are still in people's minds, would you mind editing the thread title to remove the last 3 words?

I gave up on Debian and it's brethren earlier this afternoon because I'd had enough being that I had cut my Linux chops on Debian and its re spins and how they just keep on sprouting new heads like a giant game of wack a mole. I've now chosen Rocky Linux because I wanted the Stability and reliability and I have to say that so far I like the user interface that Rocky Linux has to show minus having to add a few repositories in order to install Xfce.