If you were to ask me right now which Linux distribution is gaining the most popularity, my answer would be without hesitation. GarudaLinux. I could be wrong, because it is a personal impression, but in the last few weeks I have read a lot of comments about this project and everything that is said about it is good. In addition, I myself have tried and have been using Garuda for a few weeks now, and I liked it so much that I am clear that it is my next destination when I decide to take another leap in my distro hopping.
Garuda Linux is a young project. It comes to us from India, and it looks like one of those projects that are born thinking about solving a problem or improving something that already existed. They don't agree when they were born, but they just celebrated their third anniversary. It's only available for computers, and I'm only mentioning this because in the last few years almost every project has also released an ARM version of their operating systems.
Garuda Linux approaches the Top Ten of popularity
To know the popularity "real", see the quotes, which has an operating system, the best we can do is take a look at the ranking of DistroWatch. In this list we find the most popular distributions, and it is based on the clicks that the community makes on the different options. At the time of writing, Garuda Linux is ranked 12th, which doesn't make it to the Top Ten, but it's close. Ahead we find almost all heavyweights such as Debian (5), Fedora (7), Ubuntu (8) or openSuse (9). Very popular systems appear in the rest of the positions, such as MX Linux (1), EndeavorOS (2), Linux Mint (3) and Manjaro (4), so it will not be easy to climb much higher.
But popularity is not synonymous with quality, and being so close to the Top Ten at just three years old is already an achievement.
Its strongest points: design and performance
Although it can be used for any other purpose, Garuda Linux is said to be a distribution designed with gaming in mind. That has forced its developers to do something nice with good performance. The design looks like what we would get if we put macOS and an RGB component in a blender gamer, with its dock at the bottom, the upper panel in which the menus appear in compatible applications and some of the most varied colors. But we can get that image in any KDE distro, although we would only get that, the picture from Garuda Linux.
The other strongest point is already somewhat more difficult to copy, at least for the user who does not already have an advanced level. It is the performance, and in Garuda Linux it is the result of the combination of various packages. Among them, the most obvious are the zen kernel and the Btrfs file system.
The Zen kernel is a modification of the original made by hackers to prioritize performance. He btrfs file system it is CoW (copy-on-write), faster. Right now, most Linux distributions use EXT4, but, like Wayland, many are already looking to a future where they use Btrfs. Garuda already does it, and in addition to the improved performance we can also make use of snapshots. Everything working after the installation from scratch.
Other reasons to use Garuda Linux
base arch
The base can be the least or the most important thing. In general, I think there is no bad base, but the Arch ensures that we always have the latest software and access AUR. Also, a lot of software is in the official repositories, and the one that is not, is in AUR. At first it may be strange for Debian/Ubuntu users who are used to downloading DEB packages if they are not in the official repositories, but it is the same or better. Or that's my opinion.
Tools to do all kinds of management
As we have explained above, Garuda Linux seems to be designed with fixing problems or improving the existing in mind. One way to solve some problems is to create tools to manage any configuration, and Garuda has tools to install software, to check disks, for backup copies, a section for games... Everything.
Snapshots – Backups from the kernel
That it uses Btrfs allows you to create backup copies in the purest style restore points Windows. For example, one will be created when installing a package, and if something goes wrong we just have to reboot and choose a previous point where everything worked as expected. This is very important in Linux, since freedom allows us to break anything, and I even believe that it is life insurance that makes it not possible. such a bad idea recommend Garuda to non-advanced users.
These snapshots They're not as spectacular as those of macOS Time Machine, but they are better: although we can't get into that kind of time machine that Apple presents on its desktop computers, they don't take up space. macOS backups, if nothing has changed in the last few years, are done on an external drive. Those of Garuda are at the root of the system.
Worth do not include that folder in applications that analyze disk space like Filelight, because they go crazy and don't measure it well.
gamer zone
Less advanced gamers will appreciate the gamer zone of Garuda. It does not offer anything that the most experienced users or those of us who know this world do not know, but it does help those who do not. From this area we can install emulators to play any classic console, although I think they should update it and change EmulationStation by EmulationStation Desktop Edition.
Garuda Linux for beginners?
With beginners you have to go with lead feet; We don't want them to leave terrified after stumbling over their first stone on the road. So it's a difficult question to answer. Yes I think it's better than Endeavor OS for beginners if you want something based on Arch, since its assistant helps us with the installation of software and also to know different options. But the speed of the updates can play a trick on us. It may never happen, but it is a possibility.
For the average user, I I have no doubts that it is something that must be tried. Its design and performance put it on a par with macOS, if we like the slightly more festive image. And I won't say much about Windows because I don't want to attack it, nor is it something I've used extensively for many years.
Garuda Linux is on the lips of many. And if this article failed to make you understand why, you just have to try it yourself.
I met her by chance, because from time to time I read her name somewhere, until the last time my curiosity piqued me and I entered her website, and the emphasis they placed on aspects such as performance, or the recommend installing it only on physical machines since its full potential was not displayed in virtual machines... in addition to all the software and design offer that it brings, these details attracted my curiosity so much that I decided to try it on my laptop. And how to say it, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was capable of optimizing performance, I noticed the system was more agile and not only that, but I also noticed how the battery life was significantly longer compared to other distributions I had used before . So I suppose that this magic will be the mix between the magnificent Zen kernel + the Btrfs file system + the less visible tweaks (like zram) but that surely will also contribute to its good performance.
I thought it would only last a few days with it, which is how long "test" distros usually last me, and I've been using it for 4 months now and with no sign of changing at the moment, because as I said, the performance has pleasantly surprised me and It has also allowed me to discover very useful tools for system maintenance that I was unaware of until now. So my thumbs up to Garuda.
Very good review, until I had to go outside the text to look in the dictionary for tweaks. What did it cost to put "adjustments".