Regarding your post formatting, you need to put a space between the bullet point and the first character of the line:
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Regarding your post formatting, you need to put a space between the bullet point and the first character of the line:
Alpine Linux.
stable ✅
technically comparable to Ubuntu ✅
not related to IBM ✅
doesn't feature snaps ✅
KDE plasma ✅
not DIY ✅
WCGW
When you start getting super specific about which distro you want, I think you should start looking towards a DIY distro.
VanillaOS is unstable as hell. Also their atomic model is not image-based but uses a regular package manager underneath. This makes it way less controlled, transparent and resettable than Fedoras model.
I think Opensuses is similar, they also dont use images I think.
What about Pop!_OS? It fits all the criteria. It's an Ubuntu distro by System76 (known for their computers that run Linux) that foregoes Snaps for Flatpaks, so you get Ubuntu's reliability/stability without the Snaps. It does default to its own spin on GNOME, however you can install an alternative desktop environment just fine.
kde neon don't use snaps
Debian as others are saying is a great choice
But I'll still shill arch, I've literally never encountered a problem with it other than my first time installing manually being a learning experience. Not sure if it counts as a DIY distro bc you can definitely install with a script
If you use arch, you should do the "automatic snapshots" thing with BTRFS, grub and pacman hooks. That is important to have a version to rollback to, as its Arch.
@Luffy879 If someone comes from Windows and has little experience with Linux Mint LTS with XFCE4.
https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=313
With MX Linux (Debian based) you can create a live ISO with all packages and flat packs and then create a live USB stick with persistence (requires double memory on the Linux partition For the ISO)
https://mxlinux.org/
you can make installs from the usb after creating it.
Distrochooser
https://distrochooser.de/
Debian Stable as base OS, then activate unstable repos in a sandbox/container. Maybe even Distrobox for newer Apps.
disable repositories, updates https://github.com/aarnt/octopi, https://ctlos.github.io/, https://endeavouros.com/.
yes Debian, install latest MX Linux (23.2 AHS) and enjoy it, it's a great distro, up to date, well maintained. There is a KDE version where you can install latest kernel from their AHS repo (6.6.11 as time of writing)
Sorry, the closest i came up aren't good solution but may help in your search.
But the problem is that their community is very small. If you want something stable, it's better to look for bigger community so you can benefit from their support and user's problems
There is fedora kinoite but you don't want anything related to IBM. That was the best compromise i can found.
Or the same OS from my steamdeck :
If Debian is too DIY for you, then you could try LMDE with the BTRFS filesystem and Timeshift for maximum safety and far less DIY.
Linux mint. It's based on Ubuntu but they also snapped out the snaps.