I’ve been using Linux as my main OS for a couple of years now, first on a slightly older Dell Inspiron 15. Last year I upgraded to an Inspiron 15 7510 with i7-11800H and RTX3050. Since purchasing this laptop I’ve used Manjaro, Debian 11, Pop OS, Void Linux, Fedora Silverblue (37 & 38) and now Debian 12. I need to reinstall soon since I’ve stuffed up my NVIDIA drivers trying to install CUDA and didn’t realise that they changed the default swap size to 1GB.

I use this laptop for everything - development in C/C++, dart/flutter, nodejs and sometimes PHP. I occasionally play games on it through Proton and sometimes need to re-encode videos using Handbrake. I need some amount of reliability since I also use this for University.

I’ve previously been against trying Arch due to instability issues such as the recent GRUB thing. But I have been reading about BTRFS and snapshots which make me think I can have an up to date system and reliability (by rebooting into a snapshot). What’s everyone’s perspective on this, is there anything major I should keep an eye on?

Should also note I use GNOME, vscode, Firefox and will need MATLAB to be installed, if there is anything to do with those that is problematic on Arch?

Edit: I went with Arch thanks everyone for the advice

  • superkret@feddit.de
    2·
    1 year ago

    So fixing it is literally just what you’d have to do before reinstalling anyway. Reduce your root partition from a live system, increase swap partition, re-initialize swap. Done.

    Also, the Debian installer tells you how big a swap partition it creates and asks you if that is what you want twice.

    • Ban DHMO 🇦🇺@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Are you talking about the Graphical Installer?

      I’ve installed it on other machines since and it only confirms stuff for you if you decide to deviate from the defaults

      • superkret@feddit.de
        1·
        1 year ago

        Oh yeah, I always use the graphical expert installer. If the normal installer defaults to 1GB of swap without telling you, that’s pretty bad.
        1GB swap is pointless IMO. Either make the swap space twice your RAM or don’t bother.

        Still don’t know how that could fuck up drivers though. On a normal system, I don’t even use swap anymore.