We all accumulate tweaks, customizations, and maybe some cruft over time in our Linux setups. Sometimes it’s interesting to imagine wiping the slate clean and building from scratch with everything we’ve learned. If you had to rebuild your Linux system from zero today, what would you do differently this time around?
I’ll go first… soo, last year I actually did start fresh. I moved off Kali and installed Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with GNOME and kept it mostly stock. I only depend on 2 or 3 extensions now instead of the 8 - 10 I had installed before.
Over time I realized the same principle that applies to servers also applies to desktops: the closer you stay to default, the smoother everything tends to work together. I still use a tiling style workflow, mainly for fast workspace switching, but without heavy customization.
Ubuntu LTS with the free ESM subscription also means I now have a stable workstation that should stay supported for many many years.
Same goes for my Linux servers. These days it’s mostly Debian or AlmaLinux with a minimal setup. Configure it well once, then largely set it and forget it.
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@hydn nice point!
I am pretty abitudinary person, I think if I need to go with Linux Distro I’m pretty sure I’ll go with a Debian based distro with XFCE desktop.
For example yesterday I nuked my modest Intel 8° generation and 16gb ram Notebook and I decided to go with Linux Lite, which is a simple distro based over Ubuntu LTS and with a bit riced version of XFCE, which I thought is one of best distro for this old hardware. 
I’m also everytime very undecided on which OS go on my main desktop, I was stuck with Debian stable for nearly 3 monts, recently I switched to a clever and debloated Windows 11 setup 
But yes, my virtual machines are surviving for a couple of years now, they are tailored for my personal workflow, I never considered to nuke them.
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I think for me the windows 11 laptop I was using for school which is a HP Elite book 840 G5 it just seemed slower and slower even when I upgraded the ram to 32GB, So after my professor talked up linux and using manjaro i decided to nuke my laptop and install linux mint which I will say it felt faster after that and more responsive. Then after some research and youtube videos I nuked it again and went to CachyOS and the difference was night and day everything was super responsive no lag what so ever but like @ricky89 i am also very undecided on what to stick with for my main desktop that I have recently upgraded I did a fresh install of windows 11 de-bloated it and I still hate it, as of right now I have CachyOS installed on a different drive since I have test drove Linux mint, Manjaro, Endeavor, Bazzite even Void Linux, but nothing just seems as snappy or responsive and CachyOS.
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I know Windows 11 tent to getting slower in time.. For now I’ve just debloated the system and giving costantly maintenance, for example deferring Windows updates just once at month, disabling hibernation, moving pagefile on a secondary hard drive, disabling some various softwares autoupdates etc etc.. let’s see.
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If I rebuilt my Linux system from scratch, I’d keep it minimal, reproducible, and easy to recover instead of heavily customized.
Thanks