My Linux preferences

Last updated : 12/5/2026 (stub/WIP) (random not‐so‐important additions)

Introduction

Welp, here I am, reminiscing over my old choices of Linux stuff.

Use cases

Before anyone starts wondering what kind of shit I use my T470 for, I shall be listing what I use it for, sorted by importance from the highest priority.

As a self‐admitted Windows user, GUI is a must for me. I will not mind using terminal, but only for as long as required and for certain tasks where GUI is not the most practical approach (like updates).
Personal data management (music, videos, pictures, etc.). USB (with read/write access) and a fully functional file manager is mandatory for this operation.
Site writing, which required a single text editor. Though Geany ended up ruining every other text editors for me.
Occasional web browsing, using Basilisk (basilisk‐bin) in lieu of the currently orphaned GTK3 Pale Moon.
Some media playback, assuming I am in the right time & place for it. Though most of the time it's on the G710EAW.

Maybe as a hotspot where I jam in an ethernet up T470 and enable tethering so I can connect stuff to that. That said, I find this impossible in connman so I reverted to NetworkManager just so I can do this.
Gaming (of any kind, whether it's native Linux games or emulated games from PSP or Windows). That said, I don't always have the time to regularly play Windows or Linux games (and I mostly play PSP on my G710EAW nowadays) so this is the least important part for me. Besides, the G531GD still handles (and torrents) Windows games so there's that as well.

Fixed vs. rolling release

To me, fixed releases & rolling releases don't matter that much as long as I can readily reproduce my computing environment with as little difficulty as possible. That said, I do have some things I could say for either.

Starting with fixed release :

Easier to dodge upstream issues, but keeping them up‐to‐date without breaking stuff isn't as easy.

And the rolling release :

I find them easier to keep up‐to‐date without breaking stuff, but at the same time harder to avoid issues coming from upstream.

Distros

For the distro, Artix is the only distro I can say I would use, even though most of the time Linux distros don't matter that much to me. That said, aside from the ones I've already written below, there are those that caught my attention the wrong way, which I listed directly below.

Nyarch Linux : Arch Linux (with either GTK4 (GNOME) and/or KDE Plasma, as of 6/5/2026) with prebuilts for weebs (including an AI assistant that runs computer commands). Not sure on how I would (let alone could, considering GTK4 and/or Flatpak) get the AI stuff (not that I wanted it, let alone need), but I can just STFW for waifu wallpapers (and Nyarch's catgirl downloader (archive.org) listed its sources) and stick it to the background (or even stick it to /usr/share/backgrounds and make it the lockscreen background); all while skipping the issues Nyarch brought in addition to Arch Linux's inherent issues.

CachyOS : Arch Linux (again) but with added optimizations. Or Manjaro with a more justifiable excuse for holding back packages (as they compile their packages with optimizations). You could get some of their special sauce by getting their kernel from the AUR, but then you should ask yourself whether the AUR is a reliable source for your kernel updates. 6/5/2026 Update : The higher‐ups of CachyOS supports age verification (substack mirror) and attacks those questioning it (substack mirror).

Linux Mint (and the distrohop fail arc)

At first (with the Dell 5485 still in my hold), I went for Linux Mint (with Cinnamon DE), as my first dive to Linux. And stuff mostly worked there... except for the touchscreen. Sure, touch input is recognized, but at that time, the cursor didn't disappear (I dunno, Cinnamon issues at that time?). And so begins my misguided distrohopping into various other distros until I crashed into Manjaro.

As for my experiences with Linux Mint, I didn't really use it all that much aside from occasionally livebooting it to fuck around with some system files.

Manjaro (and various DEs, ending with Gnome 3)

So begins my first foray into Arch‐based distros and my experiences with various DEs and their (mostly similar) interactions with the touchscreen. And, well... as far as I knew at that time, only Gnome 3 hid the cursor, which led to me falsely thinking the 5485's touchscreen fully works at that time. That said, my desktophopping (it's like distrohopping except it was the DE that changed instead of the entire distro) did come from the minimal Manjaro installation and I eventually gained enough experience to hop straight to Arch. Granted, I had the advantage of having an additional screen & 2 guides (one less verbose & more to‐the‐point than ArchWiki) to do so.

Looking back, I think I made the right move jumping off Manjaro, considering better alternatives exist even within its own niche of providing a more beginner‐friendly Arch‐based distro (Artix does them too) and the controversies surrounding Manjaro (not to mention the issues of Arch Linux that Manjaro inherited and excarberated with their delayed packages).

Arch Linux (and the end of my touchscreen era)

And we're at the final stop (would be final had Arch not stuck to SystemD, but we'll get to that). With Arch... nothing much changed, except I eventually learned to install Arch (and Artix later on) using just the default documentation (ArchWiki or Artix Wiki depending on which Arch distro I'm on).

As for the touchscreen? Welp, that thing actually wasn't as "functional" as I thought. Even with Gnome 3 (and various touchscreen setups), only one finger was recognized, which nuked my chances at properly playing PPSSPP on my 5485 with the touchscreen (which is something I LIKED to do at that time, and I mostly play Gran Turismo PSP on my G710EAW nowadays). And so, the 5485 was returned to Windows 10, where it would eventually die. That said, at that time (somewhere around 2021‐2022 I suppose?), I also started following Luke Smith, leading to me getting a Thinkpad X220 (which has since been sold by the time I wrote this, that laptop is SHIT) and diving to Artix from there.

I (and Luke Smith as well, by the way) also forgot to mention that Arch Linux (and the AUR by extension) does not separate proprietary software from the rest of their repos. For example, Arch extra contains Discord & Vivaldi; with multilib having Steam. As for AUR... I dunno. I think Chrome & Spotify topped the list but there are more I'm not aware of. But then again you can just not install them so it isn't that much of an issue.

21/4/2026 Update : Certain Arch Linux contributors (Dylan M. Taylor & Allan McRae) planned to add age tracking to archinstall (archive.org) and pacman (archive.org). In addition, some Arch Linux contributors has shown hostility against XLibre (archive.org).

Artix (Artix to Arch for me was kinda Pale Moon to Firefox for Dig Deeper)

And here we are, at the current final stop that is Artix. With the insanity of systemd, it is only inevitable that Artix would soon become the only distro I would use (sure we have other non‐systemd distros like Alpine, Chimera, Gentoo, and Void). And I did stick with Artix (and eventually made an installation guide), which says something about what the devs were doing. 21/4/2026 Update : Artix developers do not plan on adding age verification (archive.org).

That said, not all is perfect in Artix.

Most Artix resources (including the entire artixlinux.org sites) are behind the cuckflare, which is always a red flag. Fortunately, not all of their resources are, as I can still update using the Asian (Japan, Korea, Singapore) mirrors without getting stopped by the cuckflare IP blocker.
As respectable removing systemd was, elogind is shaping up to be the next big obstacle.

I was forced to dinit if I didn't specify which init I used on elogind (yes, apparently I cannot just basestrap /mnt base $init, I have to basestrap /mnt base elogind‐$init)
elogind 255.22‐1 broke user services in OpenRC.

Just like Arch, Artix doesn't separate proprietary software from the rest of the repos. That said, it is not as obvious as only Steam is currently present in lib32.

What next?

Actually, I don't think I can be sure of what's next, so I guess here's a list of what I could look forward to.

Sticking with Artix through the highs and lows might be the most probable option for me. Though time will tell if Artix (and/or Linux as a whole) either fucks up even harder (to the point this is no longer a viable option) or gets better.
If I still wanted to stick to Linux (though in this case it is now GNU/Linux‐libre) without sticking with Artix, my most probable option will be a "distrohop" to Parabola GNU/Linux‐libre, an Arch‐based distro which will also return me to OpenRC should I choose to. Setting aside my hardware woes, there's also Parabola's GNU ideology, which could get in my way (and will do if I have a wifi card from anyone but Atheros and/or Intel). And they also ship systemd as default (and requires the user to choose the nonsystemd repo), hence should I choose to.
My second most probable "distrohop" target (while still retaining the update advantages of rolling release) would be Void Linux. It has some technological advantages like LibreSSL over OpenSSL and the option between GNU & musl for libc. However, their stance on age verification seems shaky (considering only one developer said we have no plans at this time ‐ and note at this time.) and I will have to be my own package maintainer for Basilisk and/or Pale Moon as neither are officially packaged.
If I am to abandon rolling releases for fixed releases (all while still in the Linux land), the only way forward I can see would be Devuan. I see no uncucked Fedora‐based distros.
Learn & eventually master OpenBSD (or any other BSD systems) so I can be free of Linux (or GNU/Linux). Assuming I had something I could use to work on that front (other than my T470 & G531GD), that is.
Maybe look at Hyperbola GNU/Linux‐libre (archive.org) (or HyperbolaBSD down the road). GNU worship again, but at least Hyperbola strives to be their own thing whereas Parabola above is basically Arch Linux, done under the GNU ideology.

See if I can fuck up MacOS to my liking. At least that won't be as bad as Windows (or ChromeOS for that matter), but then I'm under Apple's mercy for this one (and fuck them for telling me I'm using Apple crap wrong). And I won't be able to readily replicate my modifications, especially considering Apple doesn't publish MacOS outside their zoo.
Fuck up Windows even harder and hope it does not backfire on me any more than it already has.
In any case, I expect everything to just work, as much as reasonably possible.

Init system

systemd

The init system everyone inevitably starts with whenever they run into Linux because most known distros stick with it. Though I personally do not have much to say as I do not interact with systemd that much (except in Arch but I didn't really pay attention aside from the necessary parts for getting Arch running).

That said, systemd worsened nowadays, as Poettering (and Dylan M. Taylor again) added age tracking (archive.org / archive.fo) and made sure it stuck (archive.org / archive.fo). In addition to the crap on systemd (which I will not bore you with as there are plenty around on the internet), I do not justify having that crap up my systems.

runit

For the first time I'm on Artix, I went with runit as I was following Luke Smith at that time. That said, I didn't like runit's services commands (which I felt was not as familiar as systemd at that time), so I eventually switched to OpenRC. I also found out runit is the largest init (in terms of file size) for Artix so there's that as well (yunno, the minor nitpicks).

With Void Linux only supporting runit as init, I will have to see if I can run PipeWire there, in case I distrohopped to Void.

OpenRC

After runit, I switched to OpenRC (and stuck with it for the longest). I found OpenRC to be the most convenient option, giving me something reminiscent of systemd's more familiar commands on services. And I ran it for what I think was 2 years, giving me confidence to continue running OpenRC... at least until one elogind update (along with some self‐inflicted injuries) fucked everything up & forced me to play with some other init.

That said, with OpenRC now supporting user services, I will return there if I went for Parabola. As for whether I get audio (through PipeWire) running there... only time will tell.

Dinit

As of the year I wrote this (2026), I switched to dinit (with some haste from being forced to switch by OpenRC breaking & not having the time to try out s6 before I finalized my options). Initially, I'm a bit on the fence with dinit, since it was forced on me by elogind (base). The different commands for enabling services depending on conditions (as user, as root, or in chroot) threw me off for a bit (though I did manage to get used to 2 out of 3 conditions). And what really threw me off my rocker (at least for the first times) was dinitctl starting the service as it got put into autostart, which got me stuck in LXDM as I started it before properly configuring it, requiring me to ctrl+alt+f2 back to the terminal & configure stuff.

Setting aside those speedbumps, I can only say that I will stick with Dinit for as long as I stick to Artix, and the odds of me switching to any other init (aside from systemd) will depend on me switching from Artix in the first place. After all, if it wasn't for dinit I wouldn't have Pipewire running.

Desktop environments / toolkits

As for X11 / Wayland, I have nothing to add aside from being in X11 because XFCE still relies on it (though XFCE seems to be working on Wayland support). That said, Dedoimedo made a better argument from an end user's perspective and also solidified my switching to XLibre over Xorg.

XFCE / GTK3

Mostly because I do not have the time to learn other desktop environments.

GNOME demands systemd and GTK4 is meaningless for those not on GNOME.
Almost every MATE program depends on mate‐desktop. Convenient if I'm already running MATE, but when I don't it is dead weight.
Just like MATE (through mate‐control‐center), Cinnamon requires AccountsService (but so does almost everyone). As I don't have any use for it I don't want it on my system. Granted, XFCE may also require this if whiskermenu plugin (xfce4‐whiskermenu‐plugin) is installed (and I did not).

adding age tracking

archive.org

There's CAFE desktop, forked from MATE; with their own GUI toolkit (CTK, forked from GTK3). I don't know anything else about this one, except for the lack of available packages.
LX(DE/Qt) could be an attractive solution considering its lighter resource use, but the lack of customizations rubbed me the wrong way.
Cosmic... not sure. Aside from Rust & Wayland but those weren't the right selling points to hook me in. Vaxry of Hyprland also spoke against it in 2024 (archive.org).

Speaking of Hyprland, it seems to be an interesting Wayland compositor (and Vaxry seems to be an interesting fellow, though that is a separate matter). That said, I do not have the expertise and/or time to set up Hyprland and I may have to find Wayland alternatives for the programs of my choice (especially the browsers, considering the UXP folks don't support Wayland), so this mention will have to do for now. Also qt6.
KDE Plasma is on its way to demand SystemD, with drkongi already doing so. Also Wayland, but Trinity (which I think is the "Pale Moon equivalent" to KDE Plasma) SonicDE (the X11‐only Plasma?) exists.
Lumina is qt5 and AFAIK was packaged only for Hyperbola GNU/Linux & Void Linux (before I count any of the BSDs I am yet to use or the Wild West known as the AUR). Setting those nitpicks aside, Lumina's avoidance of Linux‐based tools (like DBus, polkit, & systemd) is enticing.
EFL (Moksha) is... I dunno. But I see no point in moving there if I had to reinstall some (if not all) of my GTK programs (and that's before I get to triple dip into qt).
As for GTK2 (the one GUI toolkit favored by Dig Deeper's community), I'll probably need to research this further, away from a rolling release distro (because I may be forced back in GTK3 when I explicitly tried to get GTK2‐only). 6/5/2026 Update : A Devuan user (archive.org) brought back GTK2 as gtk2‐ng and brought it to AUR.
As efficient tiling windows may be (i3, hyprland, Sway) I am more of a traditional desktop user (from a Windows user background) so I'm not sure if I want to go for tiling.

double‐dipping gtk&qt ?

Not sure. Personally, my reservations against qt mainly lies in keeping my systems running on one GUI toolkit and keeping the system theme as unified as possible (which is easier under one GUI toolkit). Then again, I readily list these use cases.

If I ever thought of playing emulated games (mgba and/or ppsspp) on my T470, maybe I would. But then again, those were the only use‐cases I can think of that would justify me adding qt5 to my GTK3 setup and AFAIK I am not much of a Game Boy Advanced player (not to mention PSP is already covered).
If I switched to a qt‐based desktop environment like Hyprland, Lumina, LXQt, Plasma, or SonicDE. But then I am forced to double dip for reasons that I list below.

Artix doesn't provide a Qt (or Enlightenment for that matter) GUI for connman. Thus, I will either be forced into NetworkManager (which KDE will do anyway); deal with the AUR just for those Qt GUI; or use the GTK GUI. Of course, there's always the terminal if I don't mind overcomplicating (for me, not the machine) something that was as supposedly simple as network management.

Certain stuff are GTK‐only or qt‐only. I could probably find qt alternatives for Geany & Pragha if I want to, but the browsers (Basilisk / Pale Moon) lack acceptable qt equivalents. And the same also applies to qt6 with OpenSnitch topping the list (where GTK3 lacked a functional application‐aware firewall and/or network monitor other than GUFW).

If I found a personal use case for dual (GTK & qt) toolkit programs and needed the program in my T470. Currently, the latest versions of Audacity & Tenacity are here thanks to their suil dependency which requires qt5‐base & qt5‐x11extras. In addition, a bit of STFW seems to show Audacity having plans to switch to qt6 by v4.0.

TL;DR

Straight to the point? Alright then.

Fixed vs. rolling release don't matter to me.
Distros don't necessarily matter. That said I'm on Artix.
My Linux journey looked a bit like this : Various Windows > Linux Mint > random Linux distros & DEs > Manjaro > Arch > Artix
Dinit as init for now. Though on the long run I steer clear of systemd.
As I'm on XFCE (as offered by Artix) I glue myself to X11 (XLibre) & GTK3.

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