I will simply list a couple of the images^[1]^ I've used over time and provide some personal insights (in alphabetical order):

• Alpine; when I'm restricted in bandwidth and/or disk space. FWIW, apk is even faster than whatever is found on Arch.
• Arch; if I just need a certain package and can't be bothered to look up if it's available on any of the others. Yup, the AUR strikes yet again. Furthermore, if I'm troubleshooting and I find myself on the ArchWiki, then in order to prevent edge cases from happening and thus the provided solutions to not work on the non-Arch distrobox; I rely on the Arch distrobox. It doesn't hurt that pacman (or any of the AUR helpers) are blazing fast. However, if I intend to rely on said AUR packages over longer periods of time, then I often do look for an alternative distrobox to grab the package from instead. While the AUR is excellent for the amount of packages it has, the security standards aren't the best. Thus, if you're security-conscious, then it's better to rely on AUR packages sparingly, unless you're willing to get into the nitty gritty and check how they're built, how the package is maintained and if its maintainer(s) is reliable.
• Bazzite-Arch; my go-to for gaming.
• Fedora; as I'm already on Fedora Atomic, relying on Fedora distroboxes makes the most sense security-wise. Fedora is also known to take security very seriously themselves, so in general this is just very pleasant to rely on for security reasons. The only reason why one should not rely on Fedora for security reasons would be if they're already on something from openSUSE (like Aeon/Kalpa/Tumbleweed etc). In that case, going for an openSUSE distrobox makes more sense for security. Furthermore, if the package I need is one that's widely accessible, then I also rely on Fedora distroboxes. Lastly, currently, my development environments are all Fedora distroboxes. I might eventually change these to Wolfi distroboxes or simply rely on Nix, but that's still WIP for me.
• Ubuntu; I've had to rely on these a couple of times to use software that's known to target Ubuntu. Most recently it was with Matlab IIRC.
• Wolfi; For the security-conscious, this is probably the best choice. Unfortunately, I've only experimented with it so far without too much success. Thankfully, the Bluefin project has made some good use out of it. So I'll try to emulate their ways in the near future.

Notable mention goes out to Davincibox. Unfortunately my laptop doesn't have a dedicated GPU, so I can't make use of it. But it's something I'm keeping my eyes on.

NixOS is not a supported container distro, but I do have Nix installed through The Determinate Nix Installer. It's somewhat underutilized currently, though 😅.

1. The images will be the toolbox ones if available.

Preface:

• Last summer I tried dualbooting Windows 10 and Fedora Silverblue and succeeded. So I will be sharing my experiences based on that. I don't know if doing this with Windows 11 will be different and/or more challenging (or not).

It’s also got an Nvidia GTX 4060 in it, which will probably not be optimal from what I hear (so any tips on that are much appreciated as well!).

Yup, the gist of it would be that Nvidia's proprietary drivers are not found in the native repos of most distros. This also applies to Fedora. However, you should be able to acquire the proprietary drivers by following the instructions found on RPM Fusion. But, Nvidia's proprietary drivers are known to not play nice and might require you to get into the nitty gritty later down the line to save your system. Don't get me wrong; some people never have issues, but unfortunately this doesn't apply to everybody. Therefore, it's very good to approach this cautiously. If, instead, you'd prefer a managed solution; so one in which your input is left to a bare minimum but somehow Nvidia's proprietary drivers are installed and (at times) fixed by some black magic shenanigans (or just good engineering) going on in the background, then look no further than uBlue's Nvidia images. Delving further into what uBlue is and why IMO you should consume Fedora Silverblue through it would be out of scope for this comment.

How would I go about actually shrinking Windows 11 down to make space for Fedora? Is “partitioning” the right word to use here?

So, unfortunately I don't quite remember what I did exactly. But I can't imagine I would do anything beyond the following two scenarios:

• I just did what I always do and used GParted to shrink the size of the Windows 10 installation.
• I used Windows' own tool to do the shrinking (assuming they even offer something to that effect).

After I shrink the partition, is it then just a matter of running the installer and using automatic partitioning with the unused space left over after shrinking Windows?

If memory serves me right, automatic partitioning by Fedora's Anaconda installer was for some reason undesirable. I don't remember the specifics, but it's likely either one of the following:

• It straight up took hold of the entire disk and thus wanted to remove Windows.
• Issues related to the bootloader; either it just forgot about it or tried to coexist with Windows' bootloader or tried to hijack Windows' bootloader. Nonetheless, all of these might result into some issues later down the line. Therefore, ideally, it should have its own separate bootloader (or at least one it shares with other non-Fedora(-based) distros).

Therefore, I did something slightly different. If I recall correctly, one should adhere to the following instructions:

1. After you've shrunk the Windows partition, make a new partition (preferably using GParted) with the following specifics:

   • 512MB (in size)
   • Set as file system "fat32"
   • Give the partition the "boot" and "esp" flags

2. Reboot into Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite's installer and when you get to the screen found below:

   Click here to reveal image of the screen

   
   First select the disk you'd like to perform the installation on and then select Custom (optional: you're free to choose the "Encrypt my data" option as well). After you've done this, press "Done" in the upper-left corner.

3. A new screen should appear, in here I selected "Click here to create them automatically.". This should apply the default partitioning on the empty disk space. However there are a couple of things to keep track off:

   • Ensure that nothing from your Windows partitions is touched.
     • This includes the EFI partition of your Windows; if Fedora wants to do anything with it, then ensure it remains untouched.
   • By default, at least in my case, a new EFI partition specifically for Fedora Silverblue wasn't made. This is where the earlier created partition using GParted will play an important role;
     1. Select the earlier created 512MB partition
     2. Mount Point: change it from blank/empty to /boot/efi
     3. File System: Set it to EFI System Partition
     4. Ensure the checkbox with "Reformat" that's found to the right of the selection box for "File System:" is enabled/blue/checked
     5. I don't recall what I did exactly with the selection box under "Device Type:", but it likely was Standard Partition. I didn't encrypt it.
   • (Optional) You should have noticed that this screen also enables one to create partitions. There's a chance I created mine using this instead of GParted, but that would mean I would have departed from my ways. If the method in which the partition is created with GParted didn't work and you don't know why, then it's at least worth trying to create the partition here instead.

4. After you're done with the previous screen, select "Done" in the upper-left corner. This should prompt a popup screen that summarizes the changes. Ensure that this doesn't do something strange to your Windows partitions and make sure that it looks otherwise as you'd expect. If you're done, then select "Accept Changes".

5. The rest of the installation should progress like how you'd expect from there.

6. (Post-install) Depending on how you'd like to have GRUB (read: default bootloader on Fedora) configured, you might have to do a thing or two to ensure you can access both Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite and Windows however suits you best.

I’d also love to know what kind of issues the docs are actually warning about as far as dual-booting. Will Windows wipe the bootloader on update or will Silverblue / Kinoite wipe Windows out somehow? If it’s Silverblue wiping Windows out, that may cause me to go with a different distro - but if Windows wipes Silverblue, it’ll be annoying but not a deal breaker

As long as the EFI partitions are separated, there's nothing to worry about. And if anything, it's Windows that might wipe out whatever Linux distro you're dualbooting.

I plan to use Silverblue / Kinoite for development exclusively, so everything will be on GitHub.

Perhaps it's worth mentioning one of uBlue's most ambitious projects; Project Bluefin, or to be more precise; the Bluefin developer experience.

General tips:

• Grab a USB with enough capacity (8 GB at the bare minimum), and use Ventoy to create a bootable USB drive out of it. Then, put the .iso files for both GParted and Fedora Silverblue (or uBlue) into the designated location (read: partition called "Ventoy").
• Regarding Ventoy, ensure to set it up specifically for your needs (GPT vs MBR, SecureBoot or not etc).
• I recall to have greatly benefited from this excellent video guide on dualboot and multiboot by DorianDotSlash when I did my first dualboot ever. It's very likely that I even watched it in its entirety before doing my most recent Windows 10 + Silverblue dualboot.

Please feel free to inquire if you so desire!

Nah, no need to worry. I've got a friend that was bad at math and therefore dismissed a career as programmer initially. Eventually, he just couldn't ignore how much programming interested him and did start a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science (after disliking his first year of Finance). A couple of years later and he's the proud owner of a Master's degree in Computer Science while still being relatively bad at math, but it didn't stop him. Nor should it stop you.

The issues you're experiencing are peculiar for sure. Though some of the things you've mentioned do ring some bells for me; specifically from the time I was new to Linux and installed a bunch of (random) stuff to get more battery life out of my laptop.

First of all, unfortunately an all-encompassing software that ensures optimal performance at all times simply does not exist. Your best bet would be running a distro that does a lot of heavy lifting to ensure a good experience regardless of your hardware. So let's start with a healthy dose of questions to make sure we're all on the same wavelength:

• Could you inform us regarding your hardware specifics?
• What distro do you run?
• How long ago did you install the distro?
• Did you ever install software that was not available in the official repositories and is not otherwise delivered as a self-contained package-deal (read: flatpaks, snaps, appimages etc)?
• Were the issues there from the get-go? Or did you do some things that might have triggered them? And if so, do you have any suspicions on what that something might be?

P.S. if it isn't khamzatsmom 🤣🤣. Welcome to the better platform 😉! Btw, I'm not surprised to hear that you're met with random issues if you continue to run more niche distros for the heck of it 🤣🤣. Sure; you're free to do whatever you want, but running a sane distro as a start will make a huge difference.

How many members does the development team behind Nitrux consist of? I think it's a very cool project, but I tend to be cautious with distros that aren't safe from the bus factor. While googling for answers; I've only seen the primary/main developer being named. Can anyone provide a conclusive answer on the matter?

First of all, thank you for replying 💙 !

Can’t install a new system package for most immutable distros without going through some magic incantation

blendOS: Replace sudo pacman -Syu with system install

Fedora's 'immutable' distros: Replace sudo dnf install with rpm-ostree install

openSUSE's 'immutable' distros: Replace sudo zypper install with sudo transactional-update pkg install

While Guix and NixOS offer somewhat similar functionality with their guix install and nix-env -iA commands respectively, usage of said comments are rarely done by advanced users as other means to install packages are more sophisticated. And in terms of how sophisticated installing a mere package can get, one might argue that Guix and NixOS are to 'immutable' distros what Gentoo is to mutable distros.

And with that we just went over the 'immutable' distros that are prevalent in 95% of the discourse (besides Vanilla OS; but that one's in a major overhaul) and none of the commands found above strike me as particularly hard. Though, of course, your mileage may vary.

then doing a reboot

I'll just briefly mention that --apply-live exist for Fedora's immutable distros if you like living on the edge. Furthermore, both Guix and NixOS don't require a reboot in most cases. Finally, while the soft-reboot feature from systemd benefits all distros, one can't deny how impactful it is to 'immutable' distros in particular.

an inflexible immutable distro

Besides the somewhat unfortunate and false 'immutable' name, what makes them inflexible according to you?

Yup, we've even been able to engage (to some extent) with it for the last couple of months.

It does require some know-how to set up, at least if you're unaware of uBlue; a community project that is set on offering said OCI images of Fedora Silverblue (batteries included) with different desktop environments (even those that aren't offered by Fedora (yet)). Bazzite, that has received some significant traction and exposure since it's very recent 1.0 image, is just one of the provided OCI images.

They even offer a very easy way for everyone to engage in building their own custom OCI image. I got mine spin up within two hours or so without knowing how git or containerfiles worked beforehand, it's that simple.

In the past year or so, literally everybody and their mother, decided to join the immutable bandwagon that has been going strong for quite some time. About half of these rely on Distrobox (or very similar solutions) to ensure the desired feature set functions properly. Unsurprisingly, it has also been featured on conferences.

Furthermore, Distrobox itself has been featured in some capacity in a lot of different Linux-related news outlets. And I haven't even mentioned how many times Linux content creators on YouTube have featured it in their videos.

It would be awesome if people that are still bereft of the features that are provided through Distrobox would somehow get to learn about it. Today has been 'your awakening', so feel free to spread the good word and perhaps others will follow suit.

I just started using Linux

Welcome!

I have not tried running WINE yet but I plan on doing so soon.

Don't feel pressured in any way to use Wine. Sure; if you're in need of certain software that's only available on Windows, then feel free to engage with Wine to get said software working on your system. However, note that a lot of alternatives exist, so make sure to check them out through something like alternativeto.net before getting involved with Wine.

What are some really important basic commands I can use to start branching out into Terminal command structures and learning more about how I can edit and customize my computer?

Broad question; arguably it makes sense to start out with something like linuxjourney.com if you haven't yet. After which, you might proceed to plunge deeper into some of the subjects that have been introduced through more expansive resources. Assuming that you might prefer something like a video guide of sorts; it's worth pointing out that the videos made by the Learn Linux TV channel on YouTube are excellent. One might argue that the ArcoLinux distro might be worth exploring as a platform to learn Linux on; it's literally one of its design goals. Though, once again, you shouldn't feel pressured in any way to use a certain distro to learn Linux on. We'll delve into distros later on.

And if Cinnamon has shortfalls or weaknesses that I may run into eventually, what are some good alternative distros that I could leapfrog to eventually?

Cinnamon is just a Desktop Environment, and it happens to look and function close to how Windows does, which is one of the main reasons it is often recommended to newer users that seek a familiar experience. There's nothing necessarily wrong with Cinnamon, really. Though, it's worth pointing out that it's not one of the top dogs in the realm of Desktop Environments; those would be GNOME and KDE. Those two have put in considerable work and effort to have proper Wayland support, which we'll call the 'successor' of X11; this is a very oversimplified description and thus somewhat false, but it would be out of scope for this comment to delve deeper into this. What's worth pointing out is that Cinnamon -due to its reliance on X11- is (very likely) to be deprived of features like HDR support and superior security standards as long as they don't put in the necessary time and effort to get proper Wayland support for themselves.

In case your question was meant to ask if Ubuntu LTS is the best platform/distro to learn Linux on, then the only correct answer would be that it depends on your needs. Ubuntu is definitely a decent choice, but you're not protected from unintentionally borking your system when you try to install Steam. Jokes aside, even though Pop!_OS is only based on Ubuntu and thus I don't know for 100% sure if said bug stems from Ubuntu or Pop!_OS, it's still worth pointing out that this is not necessarily a very bad showing for Ubuntu or Pop!_OS. Unfortunately bugs happen, though it's great to have a system that might be better protected..., though unfortunately nothing comes without a cost... compromises... compromises...; moving on.

In case you're interested to explore other distros, perhaps take a look at distrochooser.de. It's not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, but it's decent as a first orientation. If you share your result, then we might even give our opinion on the matter based on said results. If you do end up sharing the result, consider answering the following questions as well (feel free to give non-binary answers):

• Sane defaults or Blank slate?
• Full control or Little to no control?
• Secure or Convenient?
• Tool to get work done or Tool to explore/play around?

any great tips?

You might come across a piece of software that's not available within the repo of your distro. However, if you know that it's available in another distro's repo, then perhaps you should use Distrobox (or similar container-solutions) to access said software. Refer to videos on YouTube if you're interested to know how it works, though its documentation is quite excellent as well.

The author of the blog post likes X, that's why distro A ~~is~~ might be the perfect distro for them. While I like Y, which is why distro B is the perfect distro for me etc. What makes Linux -in a sense as a platform- ~~perfect~~ great is that it allows one to either find/install/build/configure the perfect system for them^[1]^. Some prefer to be in full control from start to finish, while others just like sane defaults. The fact that Linux allows for such diversity is almost mind-blowing.

The degree of that diversity will only increase as time goes on and very likely at some point (purely as a side-effect of further diversification) very 'dumped down' versions of Linux might -and perhaps already have- arise. This is inevitable and -perhaps to a degree- essential. And no matter how 'dumped down' some Linux distros would have become by then, you can still bet your money that distros like Gentoo and Slackware will continue to do what they always have. So that everybody and their mom, but also the tinker-loving you, will be able to have their perfect distro.

Therefore I don't see any merit/benefit in contributing to gatekeeping, elitism or whatever this is supposed to be. Instead, we should contribute in more meaningful ways; e.g. like by maintaining some packages you need in your perfect distro. And perhaps those changes will actually contribute to it becoming the perfect distro for others...

1. I'd argue Linux isn't quite there yet, unfortunately. As some highly specialized systems just don't exist yet... Regardless, l would reckon it allows one to get the closest to such systems.

I prefer Flatpaks by a wide margin. This presentation by openSUSE's Richard Brown is a great watch for those looking for a thorough comparison.