Please note the subject - this is not a comlaint, but an honest question
I got a new laptop a couple weeks ago - a Lenovo Legion 7 2024 with dual graphics, Intel and NVIDIA. I have been a (very) long time Debian user (both stable and testing), but decided to go with openSUSE Tumbleweed to get new software faster. Also, I have seen a lot of very positive reviews of Tumbleweed, especially noting how solid and stable it is, despite its rolling nature.
Now a few weeks later, I must say: In all my years with Linux, I have never experienced so many issues. If it weren’t for snapper and rollbacks (thanks!), I would have skipped openSUSE already.
Some of the issues I have experiened so far:
letting YaST install proprietary NVIDIA drivers v550 at first run resulted in a system that randomly froze (I rolled back to nouveau and Mesa, but could not get my NVIDIA GPU to run with Steam)
installing NVIDIA drivers v555 the hard way resulted in GDM / GNOME not being able to run Wayland, during debugging I set my BIOS to discrete graphics / NVIDIA-only (then I switched to SDDM and KDE Plasma to get Wayland back - suspend/resume and fingerprint unlock does not work, but stable for a few days otherwise)
Now after the latest updates with Plasma 6.1 Firefox has started crashing randomly and often with an error about Explicit Sync (my current state; usable but very annoying with all the crashes)
Tried to switch back to GDM/GNOME yesterday, and then Wayland did not start…
So the question is: What is causing this and how common is it?
Have I just been unlucky with the timing of many features centered around graphics (Mesa 24.1, explicit sync in NVIDIA 555 and Wayland, Plasma 6.1 supporting this, …), and should patently wait a few days/weeks for things to settle down?
Is my hardware not properly supported?
Is this normal for Tumbleweed and I should find another distro?
I only use the official repositories and packman essentials (NVIDIA repo is not enabled). I otherwise like openSUSE, and also enjoy the fact that it a european distro But at the end of the day I need more stability than I’ve had so far…
@Jaybe Hi. Maybe I’m biased: I’ve always really liked openSUSE. I use in vm with windows 11 host some openSUSE, a linux Mint xfce and a MX linux xfce. I’m certainly no expert but I use very little and don’t know much about APT systems; they are great systems but I prefer openSUSE Leap 15.6, slowroll and TW. in bare metal I have Leap 15.6 xfce in an old laptop. If I were to compare Debian or MX linux to an opeSUSE product I would look towards Leap. TW is excellent and very stable even for me as a newbie. I have extensively tested Fedora, Debian, Mint and others but have never felt satisfied. The only problems I’ve had with TW have honestly always been my own mistakes. Look around: openSUSE has many internal alternatives. Besides openSUSE there are many good distros…
You have been a bit unlucky being new to Tumbleweed just when Plasma 6.1 and Mesa 24.1 hit the repos. Seasoned TW users know that a major Plasma version may have hiccups, especially if you heavily customize it, and may defer upgrading on critical systems for a few weeks until major issues have been ironed out.
Some HW may be supported less well than the mainstream HW most developers apparently use; the recent Mesa problem affected only AMD/ATI HW, but TBH it was ironed out in 3 days or so, so if you have a critical system watch out for the Forums or mailing lists before upgrading: unless there are critical security fixes there is nothing bad about upgrading once a week or twice a month.
Anyway what we have seen in the last few weeks was not “business as usual” here.
Personally I experienced no show stoppers in 3 years or so with TW, but my main workhorse is a 8 yr old Intel/Nvidia mainstream laptop and 8 years ago I had to tweak a lot until the kernel and the default distro config caught up with my then-new HW
If stability is your primary need, then I would recommend not using a rolling release distro like Tumbleweed, at all. However, out of all the rolling release distros, I think Tumbleweed is the most stable – apart from Slowroll, which will ultimately dethrone it I guess (haven’t yet tried it).
Personally, on my work laptop, I use Fedora. Because that’s what I decided on before Slowroll was a thing – though I might switch one day. Fedora is up there in terms of stability, but I really dislike the fixed releases, since I have to manually fix some things after every major version upgrade, which I therefore have to do on my vacations.
And even though the AMD mesa driver had some pretty crazy issues recently (which is extremely rare), I would still recommend buying a laptop with an AMD or Intel GPU over NVIDIA next time, just because F NVIDIA.
On my last machine, I also had an NVIDIA GPU and always had problems, regardless of the distro – even on PopOS, which marketed itself as the NVIDIA Linux OS…
All in all, I really love OpenSUSE and it has become my main Linux branch, so to speak. Maybe try Slowroll and see how it compares.
I wouldn’t say stability is primary - especially when you have snapper. I want current software on my workstation, which is why I am looking elsewhere from Debian (testing/rolling, BTW). I am a bit surprised, though, that I haven’t really had a single solid configuration with “everything working” yet.
I have an external NVME for testing, and I will be trying out Nobara Linux (Fedora with graphics/gaming tweaks added), and perhaps within a week or so decide on way forward.
Perhaps I will lok into Slowroll or even Leap, as well. Not sure yet - I appreciate the openSUSE community though!
But at the end of the day I need more stability than I’ve had so far…
