this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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What are the worst distro-specific problems you have faced? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago by TheTwelveYearOld@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.world
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More specifically, issues for one distro (or maybe family of distros if applicable) and not other distros.

I'll start: NixOS. I love how I can have my whole operating system configuration defined deterministically with configuration files, but what I believe is a serious flaw, is when you choose the "unstable" channel, the channel for receiving the latest packages rather than ones up to 6 months old: stable. Unstable package often build dependencies on device, and I've often faced build failures, why are new package versions given if they fail to build?!

Why can't Nixpkgs backend ensure that new package versions build successfully before shipping them to end users?! It would take a lot of work to do so, but I can't think of any other distros that have this problem: where installing a new package version that came out a few days or even a week ago, has a chance of failing after its made available in the distro's official package manager.

There are a handful of workarounds for your NixOS configuration in this case, but it happens too often for me and I shouldn't have to edit my config for to work around it.

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[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 9 points 2 days ago

Am I reading this wrong or are you complaining that the unstable channel is unstable?

[–] turdas@suppo.fi 7 points 2 days ago

I don't think I've ever faced a distro-specific problem when I really think about it. I've had headaches with SELinux on my Fedora Server machine, but those aren't really a Fedora problem.

Packaging might be the only thing that qualifies, so I guess the only thing would be the occasional package conflict I'd get when I used RPMFusion's Mesa builds and they fell behind the main Fedora repo's dependencies.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Arch: malware in the AUR..

I've been using Arch for years, it can be a pain in the ass to know what extra things I need to install, like for laptop graphics drivers etc.

Sometimes things break for no reason. Usually it's an easy fix but it takes time.

Ubuntu: ppas. What a pain in the ass, I'd rather read diffs and use the AUR

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Every PPA is a repository you add and that was a traumatic experience (I used Ubuntu as first distro for straight 13 years or so). Because they can all have their own dependencies and need to be the right compatible one for your Ubuntu version, which also meant that upgrading Ubuntu was a pain too. Oh I hated it so much... honestly worse than Snaps! No wonder that Canonical pushes so much for Snaps.

[–] rozodru@piefed.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

audio on Void.

Installing Endeavour via Ventoy, same with tumbleweed

picking the wrong "spin" with Fedora, trying to remove said spin without removing the entire distro, breaking Fedora

being unstable on NixOS and updating only for a dependency not being updated along with the package. looking at you Krita and Steam. That being said it's very easy to circumvent. for Krita and Steam I just keep them on stable

updating Ubuntu. installing something and it sneaks in the snap version. basically Ubuntu overall.

Rest of them haven't had any major problems with.

Now if you want to talk about a non linux OS then man FreeBSD is a LOAD of issues but those issues are actually fun and interesting to try and tackle.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

Installing Endeavour via Ventoy,

What exactly was the problem?

[–] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I've never really seriously used any of the distros that do anything particularly unique.

So, while I can't think of any specific issue, probably the worst "distro specif ic" issue I've run into is the occasional need to use back ports on Debian stable to get more current software.

[–] SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

Most of the issues I've faced are during the live install phase where some .iso weren't optimized, also during the partitioning process, they reported errors that makes me unable to install the distro.

[–] measureyoucanpleasure@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 days ago

I've been using the unstable channel and am rarely seeing packages being built locally. But yeah, there's no negative caching, if it's something that fails to build in NixOS CI, local build will be attempted and will fail again.

Package update must build successfully before it's merged to git, and a git master must build basic system successfully before it's pushed to unstable channel. Requiring all packages to build successfully is infeasible for unstable, that's what stable releases are for.

Do you have this problem with some particular packages, or is it always something else?

[–] mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud 2 points 2 days ago

The vi/vim key bindings on Debian always catch me out, so I've started uploading the old centos config

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

When I think back what issues distro-specific was, I can only think about repository and package management problems. So things like Ubuntu: PPA, Snap and Manjaro: Pamac, AUR and so on. Because most of problems and issues aren't caused by your distribution, it is hard to find something that is and knowing it is caused by the distribution.