The problem with package based distros (everything non-immutable) is, that a distro is very complex.

Even if you manage to “swap out” the package repositories, you usually still have a lot of remaining stuff in the background and many things tweaked by the maintainers. It’s a huge mess.

In theory, you could absolutely do that, but to be honest, why bother? You already always should have a backup of all your personal data, so why not reinstall it cleanly?

Speaking of image based distros (“immutable”), the cool thing about most is that that you can easily swap out the underlying OS with just one command.

For example, you can always rebase from Fedora Silverblue to Kinoite to Bazzite to something with Hyprland and then back to vanilla Silverblue, without any traces.

So, for example, if the guy who makes your custom image on Github stops maintaining it, you can simply switch to something else in just seconds.

Maybe this is something relevant for you :)

Yeah, +1 from my side for Fedora Atomic, especially uBlue.

For this use case, I can absolutely recommend using Aurora (KDE) or Bluefin (Gnome), especially with the gts branch.

uBlue offers different branches, namely:

• latest: in sync with the current Fedora repos, all the newest stuff official Fedora also ships, including kernel
• stable this is the default by now. You have to wait two weeks more for feature and kernel updates, but they are better tested. If something would have broken, others would have noticed and already fixed it.
• gts: this one is what I recommend for this use case. With that, you’ll get the last release.

At the moment, F41 hit Bazzite/ Aurora latest already three weeks ago when it landed, on stable, I got it a few days ago, and on gts, you have to wait another 5 months until F42 is released, and then you’ll update to F41.

gts is perfect for those who don’t need the very latest features, and want something more chill with fewer surprises.

And the other benefits of uBlue/ Atomic also apply of course, like better hardware enablement, QoL tweaks, automatic staged updates, and much more.

9.5/10, can absolutely recommend!

I recommend you Aurora. It is basically Bazzite, which you already suggested, but without gaming stuff.

Why do I recommend you that?

• The auto updates are amazing. Don’t disable them. It isn’t like on Windows, where it just randomly says “Updating, please don’t shut down your PC” midst working. They get just staged, so they are only applied passively on the next boot. You don’t notice them.
• Rollbacks: If an update introduced breaking bugs or whatever, you can just keep holding the space bar while booting, and you can select the image from yesterday. Everything is left how it was yesterday. You probably never have to use that feature anyway, the system is super reliable.
• The release schedule. This one is the most important aspect for your case. uBlue (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin, etc.) started offering different variants/ tags if the same image. There’s now a GTS variant around, which uses the last big release of Fedora, which is still kept up to date maintenance wise. So, you are always half a year behind in terms of new features, but it has been tested for half a year more than regular Fedora or the other images. When you choose the more conservative GTS variant, you’ll get way fewer surprises.

After installation, you can hop into the terminal and use the ujust rebase-helper, where you can select which image variant you want to have

• latest: synchronous with Fedora
• stable (default): features are two weeks behind
• gts: already said, last release, but still secure and more polished.

I think it is the perfect balance for you between “Debian is too stale” and “Fedora and many other distros change too often”.

Fedora Atomic, especially Bluefin, Bazzite and Aurora.

Nearly unbreakable, very reliable and stable in everyday use, needs no maintenance (updates itself, etc.) and more!

I chose to continue with my current setup until I get the time and motivation to upgrade.

I will build a new server from scratch. For that, I bought an used mainboard for a few bucks, which has 6 SATA slots.

You won’t need any additional driver, since, as you already said, it is already included in the kernel.

However, as owner of a RX6600, I can tell you that the GPU will be quite loud sometimes. I can recommend you to check out LACT, which let’s you define fan curves, which makes it A LOT less noisy.

Your case sounds like a perfect fit for Bazzite or Aurora.

• Both come already set up ootb, with all quality of life tweaks you want and need.
• They are image based distros (“immutable”), so you mainly work in your /var/ and /home/ directory, and all the other stuff is untouched and clean.
• They are very modern, getting the same updates at the same time as upstream Fedora.
• Running Ollama is just one ujust command away, many complex things are made easier with those commands
• You probably won’t get a lot more performance I believe. At least when I switched from regular Fedora/ Silverblue to Bazzite, I didn’t notice many more FPS in games for example.