I’m looking to finally wipe my final Windows machine and install Linux. I would like the root filesystem to be ZFS so I am looking for distros that include ZFS as an option during installation of the OS.
I know Ubuntu had this in the installer at some point, but took it out. Same with PopOS (I think?). I have gone through the process of installing ZFS Boot Menu and got it working, but I do not feel like I understand well enough how it works to use it for my semi-daily driver.
Coming from TrueNAS/Proxmox on my servers where ZFS is either the default or a common choice, it feels like there aren’t many “desktop” distros with really good ZFS support.
The installer option is still there in Ubuntu, you just have to look for it. I don’t really recommend Ubuntu with a ZFS root unless you’re doing zfsbootmenu, though.
If you want a ZFS root on a Linux desktop, it’s a bit weird but I’ve seen quite a few people report successfully using Proxmox this way. If you go through the Proxmox installer, you end up with essentially Debian on a ZFS root, and you can essentially just ignore the web-based VM administration stuff and install a desktop.
A final option, if you’re considering a walk on the slightly wild side, is GhostBSD. GhostBSD is a FreeBSD child distro, not a Linux distro, but it’s a pretty nice way to get a quick and easy ready-to-go desktop on a ZFS root.
Keep an eye on Ultramarine Linux (basically Fedora with better defaults and additional repo). People behind it mentioned a possibility of including first-class ZFS support and they do already have their own installer. Unfortunately, I don’t expect such release anytime soon, but I hope it will happen eventually.
I’ve pulled together an installation script for ubuntu zfs on root at the link below. It uses rEFInd + zfsbootmenu and has options for desktop environments. It might be useful if you are finding the default installer options limited.
If you really want a zfs root & like Arch Linux - CachyOS’s installer with systemd-boot seems to work (only played around with it in a vm) - they compile the zfs modules the same as Ubuntu.
Personally I’ve run EndeavourOS for about 5 years on a btrfs root & more recently stopped taking root snapshots altogether (as I never needed them - when grub breaks snapshots will not save you) - & just mount zfs datasets in my /home. I maintain arch-sign-modules for extra security & build my own kernels for a hard to guess randomised kernel address space with module signatures enforced. I build linux-hardened && linux-lts kernels as zfs lags a little bit behind the latest kernels.
For around 8 years I’ve never had a problem with encrypted zfs on top of a fully encrypted btrfs (including /boot which systemd-boot does not support yet)
If newish to Linux you can’t go wrong with Xubuntu (I ran Debian based systems for about 15 years). I prefer the speed & freedom of Arch & don’t mind fixing the occasional issue. If you want to learn more about how Linux works Arch is a good choice. I’ve always run XFCE on the desktop as it never crashes.
Nowadays container (LXD / Podman) performance is very good on zfs with native overlay supported.