Fedora on Ivon's Blog

Brief Review of the Beginner Linux Reference Book Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0800

Is there a Chinese book I can recommend to beginners for learning about Linux, but that is not entirely about server operations and maintenance knowledge?

Recently, while attending a Software Liberty Association Taiwan member meeting, I learned about Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes written by member Chao Wei-lun, so I downloaded it and took a look. I found it pretty well written.

Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes, written by Chao Wei-lun (bluebat, FSF member) and published by the Software Liberty Association Taiwan, is a very detailed Linux reference book. It combines a bit of computer science basics with operational knowledge of modern Linux systems, helping readers understand how Linux runs.

The subject of this book is not the operating principles of the Linux kernel. Instead, it analyzes problems encountered when operating Linux in practice, and explains how to debug system services. Compared with 鳥哥的Linux 私房菜, this book talks more about situations you encounter when actually dealing with hardware.

The book uses the latest Fedora 43 as its example, explaining the operating principles of Linux boot flow, graphics systems, audio systems, network connections, power management, and more. After briefly introducing the principles, it supplements them with actual command operations, using Systemd as the main means of system management. Users interested in everyday use of Linux free software can treat this as a practical reference book and consult it to understand what commands can help debug the system when something goes wrong.

However, the author’s explanations are still mainly command-based. Although the FreeDesktop XDG standards are mentioned, there is relatively little discussion of graphical operations in Linux desktop environments such as GNOME or KDE Plasma, which is quite a pity. And to a large extent, it still discusses operations in the X11 environment, without saying much about Wayland technology as the future trend.

The Linux desktop environment with the highest market share is GNOME. Although the GNOME desktop often randomly moves UI positions in every version update to mess with users, I think the desktop workflow has already “settled” after GNOME 40. It should be possible to explain GNOME’s characteristics a bit; there should not be too much difference caused by Linux system version updates.

This book is published in both print and electronic editions, and the full text can be obtained on GitHub. The book is licensed under CC BY-SA.

Source code: https://github.com/cc-books/testnotes

Buy the physical book: 電腦上試跑Linux: 硬體測試筆記 - 天瓏網路書店

Debian Is a Stable, Fedora Is a Toy. Also on the Immutable Distro Trend

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 04:00:00 +0800

Debian vs Fedora, which one is more stable?

The answer is Debian with stable updates; Fedora with rolling updates is a toy. Comparing the two, the answer is obvious.

I want a multifunctional and beautiful desktop as my daily system, so I have always been a KDE Plasma fan, staying away from the anti-human GNOME and refusing to use the outdated XFCE. Let me say something intense: GNOME is not the people’s father, so why does it have to be chosen every time!

People keep trying to recommend rolling-release distributions to me, だが断る！

In a previous article, Can a Linux Desktop Distribution Really Be Both Latest and Stable? Starting From Migrating From KDE Neon to Debian, I said that after these years of difficult exploration, I believe blindly chasing the latest KDE desktop plus the rolling-update Linux distribution model is a total disaster. After using Arch Linux, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Fedora (including Kinoite), and KDE Neon, I did not have a good experience.

Something breaks every month. The desktop breaks, drivers collapse, typing stutters, games freeze, horses jump. This is not something that can be solved simply by backing up and rolling back.

So I went to use Debian Stable + KDE. It does not matter that this KDE version lags upstream by one or two years, as long as Wayland is at least usable. My hardware is not very new, and I do not need to keep updating the latest GPU drivers just to improve performance by 1%. I am also not so idle that I play with the system all day; there is no need to chase the latest KDE features every month. In addition, there is no Snap to make trouble. I have used it for about half a year now, and I feel peaceful.

My life is already chaotic enough. I do not want the only operating system I can control to also be in an unstable state, requiring constant vigilance over what has broken. I want to be a user, not a tester.

Why Is Debian’s Development Model Stable?
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Given the bad experience Fedora brought me, it is hard for me to recommend Debian Testing. I naturally dislike developers treating users as lab rats. Even adding immutable/atomic mechanisms cannot solve this problem. Upstream features change all day long, and I do not have time to accompany them in this tinkering. They seem very eager to imitate Windows and build a competitive, future-oriented system, so they adopt the rapid iteration update method of commercial software rather than taking user stability into consideration.

Refer to the lengthy Debian package lifecycle in the Debian Handbook, and you will know why Debian is so stable. On my main computer, I would rather use Debian KDE than Fedora KDE.

A development process that easily causes misunderstanding: Debian Sid -> Debian Testing -> Debian Stable. This development process easily makes people think all three are developed separately for a period of time before being passed down, right? No. Debian Sid is updated almost every day, with no version-number distinction.

From KDE Neon to Debian + KDE: Chasing The Latest and Stable KDE Desktop

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0800

Can a Linux Desktop Distribution Really Be Both Latest and Stable? Starting From Migrating From KDE Neon to Debian.

Is there a Linux distro with latest and stable Plasma desktop?

I have had enough.

Everything around me is full of things I cannot control. At least let me have absolute control here!

Recently, the KDE Plasma desktops on both of my computers (KDE Neon/Ubuntu & Fedora) have been in a very unstable state, so I started thinking it was time to return to a stable system. Recommended KDE Plasma Linux distribution? I think my answer now is Debian.

I know, I know I have let you down. (Komm Süsser Tod)

1. Beginning
#

My desktop used to be KDE Neon (converted from a Kubuntu installation using PPA). Because it is rolling-updated, a KDE minor version may last only one month, and then a new version appears the next month. On top of that, I update the system once a week, so I always receive the latest updates. But this frequent update speed simply cannot ensure stability. Maybe KDE 6.4 finally becomes relatively stable, then it updates to KDE 6.5, and then a pile of programs cannot open. This repeats over and over, in a process of constant fear.

Finally, I replaced this fake Ubuntu system that had been installed for a full year with Debian.

On the other hand, I switched my laptop, which had Fedora Workstation installed for six months, to Fedora Kinoite and continued using it after reinstalling. This system partition remains unchanged, so I should have a hard time breaking the system, right? Compared with uBlue Aurora, Fedora Kinoite installs fewer things by default and requires manually adding a pile of overlays.

Oh~ toolbox is more capable than I thought. toolbox (Toolbx) is a tool specifically for running Linux containers, where traditional DNF can be used to install software. Since rpm-ostree is so troublesome, why not stuff everything in here? It can actually run ADB inside. As for when to use rpm-ostree, it is really slow. Even installing a simple small package, even with apply live, takes a long time, because everything has to be rebuilt. Although command-line tools should be operated inside toolbx, I really am not used to this containerized development that cuts off both arms.

Although the system is immutable, that does not guarantee stability. KDE still randomly crashes. This repeats over and over, often in a process of constant fear.

In the end, I changed that to Debian too, temporarily giving up on rolling-release distributions.

2. The Contradiction Between Latest and Most Stable
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In the past, I thought “I use Arch btw”; this sentence also applies to other rolling-release versions, but… so? Pursuing the latest Linux software is great, but how do they ensure system stability?

Why Choose Mainstream Linux Distros Over Niche Ones?

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0800

Why Do I Recommend Choosing Mainstream Linux Distributions? Niche Distributions Have Plenty of Problems!

What Linux distribution do I recommend? I can only say that people should use mainstream Linux distributions more.

The longer I use Linux, the more I want to solve fragmentation through dictatorship. Yet free software can never be unified.

The deeper I go down the FOSS rabbit hole, the more I gradually discover that I am standing on the anti-diversity side.

There is a joke that it is hard for Linux computers to get infected because there are too many distributions, and every system’s libraries are different, so viruses easily show no such file or directory when executed.

To solve this problem, all we can do is call on everyone to think clearly about what they are pursuing.

I have no decision-making power over the Linux community. These are only my own thoughts. This is yet another rant.

Diversity for Diversity’s Sake
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Let’s start with an article: Grub & Systemd, A FOSS Monopoly. Am I the only one that sees Linux Unity as a bad idea?

Seeing this, I could not help thinking of the meme: “Can you be smarter than the ancestors? Zhang Xianzhong.jpg”

People who refuse to accept change and casually bring out the “Unix philosophy” to pontificate need to change. Even now, there are still people opposing Systemd, deliberately choosing distributions with other inits. Their reason for insisting on this, “do one thing and do it well”, looks more ridiculous as time passes. The same applies to other new Linux technologies, such as Wayland, Pipewire, Flatpak, and so on. These things are slowly becoming the standards of the next-generation Linux desktop. Although they are not perfect, we should remain optimistic. Yet there are still many people who do not criticize the progress of these things from a technical perspective. Instead, they rely on mockery and insults (just think of the ranting tone of 4chan /g/ users), believing everything is a RedHat conspiracy to rule the world. Someone even created a flatkill.org website to attack Flatpak.

Just like social activists who desperately insist DRM is a bad thing, they emotionally say, I oppose it! But if they cannot offer a better solution (such as making something like LibreDRM), then it is just blind opposition.

Although open source community fragmentation has long been in the genes of Linux distributions, and some users deliberately love promoting weird distributions just to be different, even claiming diversity purely for the sake of being different, some things really should be standardized. This solution will not satisfy everyone, but at least the result will not be too bad.

What Counts as a Mainstream Linux Distribution
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Now to the main topic.

My view of non-mainstream Linux distributions is shown in the image below. This image is truly hilarious. Hannah Montana Linux, made for the TV series Hannah Montana, is absolutely one of the most famous meme distros. And this thing wants to fight other distributions?

Distro-hopping Notes: Reviews of openSUSE and Fedora

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 12:01:30 +0800

Linux distro-hopping is here again, just like how Android gets flashed once or twice a year. Distro-hopping has made me put all important computer files on an HDD and in the cloud, so I can reinstall the computer at any time.

1. Arch Linux Is Not for Me
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I used Ubuntu on and off for four years. I once distro-hopped to Arch Linux, but just setting up the desktop caused all kinds of crashes, and I did not know how to set up the input method either. So I switched back to Ubuntu 20.04, and upgraded to 22.04 in 2022.

Later, after learning some system concepts, I realized the crashes were probably the fault of Nvidia’s open source driver, and I also learned to switch the input method to Fcitx5. However, on Arch-based systems, even Manjaro, when software is missing you have to install it through the AUR. There was even a situation where SELinux functionality affected Virt Manager’s access to an NTFS hard drive, requiring a manual switch to another kernel to solve it.

So Arch-based systems are probably not suitable for me. I tried Debian in 2022. Too old school. Even USB drives had to be mounted manually. On Android’s Termux, because there are many packages, Ubuntu and Debian are still suitable for testing all kinds of miscellaneous things, and many lazy scripts are also designed around Ubuntu.

But on the computer side, I wanted to switch again. The main reason is that Ubuntu aggressively pushes Snap. I prefer Flatpak and AppImage, and forcibly uninstalling Snap can make the system unstable. In search of excitement, the next thing to look for was a distribution from a different family, rather than one based on Debian or Ubuntu.

Now my desktop uses openSUSE Tumbleweed (KDE), and my laptop uses Fedora 36 (Gnome).

Because I have become familiar with the concept of package managers, jumping between common commands is not a big problem. There is also no situation where common software is unavailable on some platform. If you ask, Flatpak solves it. These two distributions are both very close to the rolling distro model, but they are not as aggressive as Arch-based systems, because they are mainly maintained by commercial companies.

Also, even without an Nvidia graphics card, Wayland still has piles of problems under the tuning of these two companies, so I will keep watching for now.

2. Review of openSUSE on the Desktop
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Originally I used Leap first, but this stable release model is just like Ubuntu. I did not think that would work, so I jumped to Tumbleweed. Every few weeks when I boot and see that the kernel version is always the latest, it feels great. Also, I heard that SUSE plans to end Leap’s release model and replace it with ALP.

openSUSE is ready to use after installation, and the file system is Btrfs. I think it integrates well with KDE. However, the default looks too much like Windows, so I put the panel at the top, making it look like XFCE. But I was probably influenced by Windows color schemes; I think the combination of white application colors + a black panel is the most harmonious. Also, KDE lets you switch to the next virtual desktop by scrolling the mouse wheel over the panel, which is very useful.

Fedora on Ivon's Blog

Brief Review of the Beginner Linux Reference Book Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes

Debian Is a Stable, Fedora Is a Toy. Also on the Immutable Distro Trend

Why Is Debian’s Development Model Stable? #

From KDE Neon to Debian + KDE: Chasing The Latest and Stable KDE Desktop

1. Beginning #

2. The Contradiction Between Latest and Most Stable #

Why Choose Mainstream Linux Distros Over Niche Ones?

Diversity for Diversity’s Sake #

What Counts as a Mainstream Linux Distribution #