Which one(s)
Arch.
why?
- The Arch-Wiki
- I like pacman
- The Arch-Wiki
- I wanted a rolling-release distribution.
- The Arch-Wiki
- It just works. I had only one more serious problem in ~8 years of running Arch
- Did I mention the Arch-Wiki?
Edit:
Having said that, I have an eye on immutable distros. Maybe one day I'll try one out.
EndeavourOs makes it super simple too
So does archinstall.
The Arch wiki really is amazing. It's also still very useful for Linux stuff in general. The qemu page has come in handy more than a dozen times.
Yeah, I use Mint and the Arch wiki is still one of my first stops when I have an issue
Is Manjaro good if I want in on this Arch goodness but don't want to spend hours configuring stuff? Coming from Fedora
I haven't used Manjaro myself but I heard that it is not as good as Arch. Rumors I heard where that it is not as solid as vanilla Arch. YMMV.
I really have bad luck with Manjaro, even when I don't use the aur it always breaks on me. I just stick to arch, I started with it and I'm sticking with it.
Endeavour is better for that, after the install you'll have plain arch but with a bunch of stuff installed and already set up
@SubArcticTundra @Haven5341 I personally think Manjaro is a false good idea.
You'll have an “out of date” system (i.e., one-month-old) but packages from the AUR which are made for the up-to-date system.
Quite a nightmare to use IMO (and that's not talking about Manjaro leadership and certificates problems)
I haven’t used it personally but I’ve seen a lot of folks bad mouthing Manjaro.
Lots of complaints of instability and it being poorly run project. One of the more objective complaints I’ve read is they have a slower release process so security fixes take longer then Arch.
I've been running it on my work laptop for 6 years at this point and I've had no major issues I couldn't solve.
Having said that, I recently switched my gaming rig over to endeavour and it's been great.
I've been using manjaro for around a year. It broke on me once, probably my fault, idk. I enjoy it! I've distro hopped many places and a year is a long time for me, so much about it is right for me. You'll certainly get a worthy experience of what arch is capable of, I believe.
That being said, I plan on swapping to arch really soon.
I've been daily driving Manjaro for 4 years without any issues. Generally speaking I'd recommend seeing if there is a flatpak for an app before using AUR. I don't update as soon as updates are out though, so usually any issues there may have been have been shmoothed over before I get to it.
No. Manjaro is more likely to break than arch because they hold of updating their pakages. What you are looking for is EndavourOS. I consider it to be "the new manjaro"
you forgot arch wiki
Debian. Seemed like the most generic "Linux" there is. Nothing special, nothing weird. Just Linux. Gray, boring, system defaults Linux.
And because of that, custom configurations are wonderfully easy to make, technical issues are rare, and the few issues you do experience are quite possible to solve. Which is why I settled on Debian.
I went from years of using Arch to Debian. I've been tired of the rolling release system and their massive updates. Maybe I was using it wrong but after years my OS was a giant blob with gigabytes of updates every week. I choose Debian for the same reason as you and also because of the stability. If I want the latest version of a package I use Flatpak.
It just works! Unless there something with Nvidia. Yeah fuck them!
I miss AUR though
I settled on openSUSE Tumbleweed because it's rolling and reliable. I chose KDE Plasma long before I chose my distro.
Same. Although I am running Debian on the server.
same!
Using this right now. It’s been a little less stable then I’ve heard other people claim, I had about a day and half where I was consistently freezing up 5 minutes after login. After that was patched it has been fine.
The real test for me is if I can walk away from it for 3 weeks and update the system without the world exploding. That was what always broke Arch for me.
I used to use Leap but I switched to the Tumbleweed repos and updated with no issues. It did take a while though.
All my problems have been of my own making. Also I updated one computer after 18 months or thereabouts and it was fine although I wouldn't recommend leaving it that long on a computer you actually use!
I am now at NixOS. I like the reproducibility and immutability of the distro, but the documentation is far from great and configuring the OS you want is not that straightforward. I also don't like that even though it has a great number of packages, they tend to be slightly outdated.
I am not sure if I will stick with it, but I really like that I can create very specialised configurations that are also portable. I am currently using KDE but I am thinking of switching to Hyprland once I get more comfortable around NixOS and home manager/flakes, as nothing beats tiling managers in my opinion.
After trying out a few distros over the last 20 years or so (
openSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora and Silverblue were the ones I actively used for a stretch of time on desktop, Debian and CentOS on server), I also landed on NixOS.Who knows what the future brings, but things feel more settled to me than they ever have. Maybe that's because there's a (declarative) solution for every custom setup, it's just a function of time and profiency in Nix. Or maybe it's because I invested quite a bit of work into a trivially reproducible setup for most of my machines and workflows (all in one glorious version-controlled flake), that the sunk costs are too high to switch elsewhere.
I'm still willing to experiment with DEs/WMs, currently running Gnome on my main and Sway on weaker machines. Hyprland is a bit out there for my taste, but I'm really looking forward to giving Cosmic DE a try once it's ready.
I also settled on NixOS after Ubuntu -> Arch -> Debian -> Fedora -> Silverblue -> NixOS. Couldn't be happier and no plans to leave.
Yeah, NixOS really does not have good documentation to get you started. But once you have a system installed and you start tweaking it, it's pretty easy.
I would argue that NixOS is the most up to date OS, though. obviously you don't get new software on the stable channels, but you can always pull individual packages from unstable if needed without breaking the whole system. Most software on unstable updates insanely fast, even faster than Arch Linux. The multiple days of delay for Hydra to run is a bit annoying, though.
It is frustrating when some of the more niche software doesn't get updated on time, though, one of the downsides of having the single biggest Linux package repository in the world. It's made worse by the fact that you can't just install a 3rd party deb or rpm without some know-how.
Nixpkgs is actually one of the most up to date software repositories. (~90% according to repology)
You may be using a release channel which will only be updated for important security updates.
Did you have to learn the Nix language? I like the idea but I found all the different commands you have to use confusing...
You can get pretty far with copy-pasting. If you want to try it out, you should first realize that there's always 10+ different ways to do the same thing. Stick with what works and with what seems the most intuitive to you.
Personally, I suggest going straight for a flake-based setup. Flakes are somehow still labeled experimental, but they're actually mature and broadly adopted.
You can start with getfleek.dev and transition to nix after you settled and fleek isnt enough anymore.
NixOS/hyprland is the perfect blend of practicality and fun for me
It works pretty solidly, sometimes doing something others can do imperatively in a single command can be a pain though
Another vote for Nix!
Fedora.
(Specifically Workstation - i.e. the Gnome variant, but I've used other spins and they're also great)
Pretty up to date, reliable, spearheads new developments that go on to benefit the Linux desktop as a whole, they don't make a bunch of crazy alterations to the DEs they ship.
And to think I was reluctant to try it for ages because the name sounds like it'd be some neckbeardy distro.
And to think I was reluctant to try it for ages because the name sounds like it'd be some neckbeardy distro.
When Linus Tech Tips did their month-long Linux challenge, they vetoed a viewer suggestion to use Fedora because they thought it was a "meme distro".
I use Fedora btw
Arch. Minimal, fast, rolling and it doesn't break. Plus, the AUR and the Wiki are unvaluable.
Had been on: RedHat (199something), Mandrake, Slackware, Ubuntu and Debian before.
Oh I completely forgot about RedHat! Yes, that was my first one too. Then Ubuntu was kinda the thing to go to and it worked for a good while until it just didn't work for me anymore.
Today I'm on Mint because it was the first distro I tried that was able to get the Wifi working on my super old/bad HP Laptop. I started to like it and then also moved to Mint on my desktop. Running it for a year now and since my PC isn't the youngest anymore, I doubt I will switch distro again anytime soon.
How is Arch “making things difficult for oneself”?
I set it up once 8 years ago and have since migrated my install across several SSDs.
Still runs like butter.
I learned, and learned, and learned, and every step led me to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Now, I’m a Debian man. If I didn’t install it, it probably isn’t on there, just like I like it.
Yeah might have gotten stuck on Debian as well if I didn't make the mistake to run stable when I first tried it. Choosing stable made sense to me since I wanted a stable os but when I was greeted by "ICE weasel" that was way behind the Firefox I got used to on Ubuntu and other software being terribly out of date I decided to move on.
Well then I got stuck on Arch.
But while it would be easy to say "never looked back" that's not true of course, these days I tun Debian on most of my machines (only that they are servers) and Ubuntu on some (like my work Laptop) my personal Desktop and laptop are Arch though and probably always will be.
Fedora atomic GNOME aka silverblue
- It has very good defaults, works out of the box, I can switch anytime to another de or a ublue image without messing around with my setup
- selinux
- podman
- flatpak centric
- auto updates
- widely used
Current Cons:
- openssl is not installed by default (for gsconnect)
- gnome-tweaks is not installed by default
- uses toolbx instead of distrobox. Toolbx is better for servers, distrobox better for desktop, imo.
- flatpak firefox isn't used
Opensuse micro has distrobox as the default shell. It still needs some work before i daily drive it tho
And it uses firefox flatpak and iirc it installes gnome tweaks by default. Opensuse does right what fedora missed until today.
But, ostree is incredible. There's no ostree on opensuse and what do I want with btrfs snapshots if I can have ostree's image based approach? I love opensuse for tumbleweed but fedora rocks with ostree. I could switch to a ublue image but I can also just overlay the packages which isn't that bad. It's just bad for newcomers. And no newcomer should have to use ublue because the official image lacks stuff. But it is what it is.
Debian. So many other distros are based on it anyway. I use it on damn near everything now.
Debian. It always works until it doesn’t and when it doesn’t there’s information at my level of understanding that allows me to correct it.
Debian: stability
Same! Distrohopped for years, but for ~15 years Debian has been rock solid for both desktop and home minimal server.
Same. After 20 years of distro hopping and living on latest releases, Debian feels like home with the least amount of broken packages and general overall panic.
EndeavourOS.
I'm naturally a tinkerer and an avid gamer, with very recent hardware so an Arch based distro fits really nice.
It has just the right amount of pre-installed stuff. Not quite as bloaty as Manjaro or most ubuntu-based distros, but not quite as DIY as vanilla Arch. I know I can install and uninstall anything on Linux but when a distro already comes with just the right baseline for me, work smarter, not harder.
Ubuntu/Debian based distros didn't quite suit me, I love the AUR to death, I love the Arch wiki (even if a lot of it can be used just fine on other distros), I love rolling release and having the latest everything. I do use PopOS on my laptop since I use it a lot less and therefore I want to update it less often.
Only issue is when they ship dumb defaults sometimes that break my workflow but I can diagnose and undo them I guess.
Was on Fedora for 3 yrs now and decided to distrohop to EndeavourOS like yesterday. Reason: jc141 releases were finnicky on Fedora; very very probably my fault lol.
Gotta say, I'm impressed with the system and makepkg is just so comfy to use wtf.
Might go back to Fedora eventually but EndeavourOS has been a smooth sailing so far. I think I'll stay a while.
Right there with ya. EndeavourOS has been my distro for at least two years now. There really isn't a reason to hop.
Also, if I need to reinstall for whatever reason (happens semi regularly because I'm a moron who moves fast and breaks shit), I just drop my package list from my home partition into the live-boot directory and it'll download all my applications during install, and I'm back to where I was in less than half an hour.
Also the extras included like the update application, and mirror refresh, are very convenient.
Mint unironically. I've reached a point where I've got a lot of things going on in my life that I don't have the time and just need something that works and I don't need to fiddle around with much.
This makes me feel better. I had the entire intention to distro hop around but mint was the first one and it just worked lol
Arch btw
Same, though I'm (sorta) not using it now, and I don't know that I could've been considered a hopper.
I started with Ubuntu then gave Gentoo a shot. Got tired of the maintenance and went with LMDE. Switched back to Windows when I switched my gaming from console to PC.
A few years ago I read about Proton and decided to check my Steam library against ProtonDB. All the games I still played (and most that I had stopped) were rated gold or higher. At that point I was done with Windows, at least for machines I own, and gave Arch a shot.
I stuck with that until my power supply died and will be going back to it once I can afford to build a good PC. For now I'm just using my Steam Deck and hooking it up to a dock when I'm at my desk. It runs SteamOS which is Arch-based but a different experience for sure. I can still use Pacman and the AUR, but with some hefty caveats that almost make it not worth it.
Servers are a different story but for Desktop, OpenSUSE.
Because:
- It's stable even on their rolling OS (Tumbleweed)
- Gaming works exceptionally well
- CUDA works with little effort
- RPM-based (personal preference)
- zypper is an excellent package manager and my experience has been better than that of yum/dnf
- Extensive native packages and 3rd party repos
- No covert advertising in the OS
- Minimal (no?) Telemetry
- Easy to bind to active directory
- it feels polished and well built
- I do not have to mess with it to make it work
Part of my transition from Windows to Linux was that basic tasks like installing software or even the OS itself shouldn't be a high effort endeavour. I should be able to point to a package file or run a package manager and be able to go about my day without running "make" and working my way through dependency hell.
I say this as a Linux user of all different flavours for well over 15 years who has a deep love for what it brings to the table. If we want it to be common place with non-IT folks, it needs to work and it needs to be simple to use.
EndeavourOS. I like the simplicity and minimalism of stock Arch, bloated distros bother me. I have been thinking of trying out Linux Mint again though, I used it for years and it was really good.
This is precisely where I am at. Endeavor for when I need a newer kernel and Mint for when I want something that just dang works without too much config and driver work. I suggest Mint to friends but love having AUR and yay.
The just dang works part of Mint is so nice. I do like learning and tinkering, but I have to say setting up my printer in endeavourOS was brutal! I had all the right software installed, but it ended up needing a single line of code pasted in to a file I never would have guessed on my own. I'll paste the info here on the slight chance it will save anyone else from the trauma I went through 😅
Reference article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Avahi
2.1 Hostname resolution
Avahi provides local hostname resolution using a "hostname.local" naming scheme. To enable it, install the nss-mdns package and start/enable avahi-daemon.service. use sudo instead of doas if that's the tool you prefer.doas systemctl start avahi-daemon.serviceThen, edit the file
/etc/nsswitch.confand change the hosts line to includemdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return]before resolve and dns. It should look like:hosts: mymachines mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] files myhostname dns
Linux Mint: Debian Edition. Love mint's cinnamon DE, and the plus of being away from Canonical's shenanigans is great. It's been stable and my daily driver for months now.
I'm right with you. I started with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn in 2007, and I've tried a bunch of distros since then. Mint requires the least amount of fussing with out of the box for standard functionality. I've also recently moved to the Debian Edition and very happily. I believe it is the future of Mint.
I settled on two.
-
Arch for my desktop, because there I like having an always up-to-date system with the latest drivers and libraries so that I can always try the latest versions of whatever it is I want to play with next. Pacman is also a pretty good package manager, and almost any piece of software that is not in the default repos can be found in the AUR. For the rest, I also like that Arch just gets out of your way and lets you configure your system how you want.
-
Debian for anything that runs unattended, like all my homelab services. It's well tested, offers feature stability, has long-enough support, and doesn't do weird things every other release like forcing snaps or netplan or cloud-init on you. Those "boring" qualities make it the perfect base to run something for a long time that doesn't scream for attention all the time.
-
A mixture of NixOS and Debian, depending on the machine. NixOS is trivial to maintain and to keep predictable and tidy. When its weirdness is a problem, Debian is my answer. It doesn't get more normal than Debian.
Debian, settled down few years ago and my fallback would be Fedora.
Nice thing about Debian is, I can use it for servers, desktop and raspberry pi on am64, arm7 and aarch64. This is a real killer feature for me, because I'd rather do interesting things with my devices instead of learning n different ways to accomplish the same tasks. (e.g. using different distributions for server/desktop/pi and having to figure out 3 times the names of the same packages or where the configuration file in which version is expected.)
Fedora, it just works. I've considered going back to Arch for the AUR several times, but I just don't want to deal with it at this point
Distrobox is a god send tool for using AUR stuff in any distro.
EndeavourOS is good for having arch, without having to deal with having arch
Ubuntu -> Pop!_OS -> EndeavorOS
Either Debian or Fedora + flatpak & KDE. I'm familiar with both and they just work for me. Distrohopping and messing around with my computer feels like a chore more than anything else these days.
Mac OS.
Debian for my servers though.
Debian, because it is boring, predictable, and I know how to tweak it to suit my use case
I think GNU Guix System scratches all my itches:
- Committed to being 100% free software even at the kernel level (I know this is controversial)
- Focus on reproducible builds
- Atomic updates that can be rolled back if something breaks
- A package manager that makes it relatively easy to package software (there are importer commands that can import from language-specific package managers such as pip and cargo) and makes it possible, as a user, to apply transforms to packages (i.e. build with X commit or with Y patch)
- Per-user profiles (in addition to the root profile and the system profile) allowing user to install software without requiring root. Users can even create separate profiles as well as throwaway profiles for running scripts or one-off commands (i.e. a python or bash script can use
guix shellas its interpreter listing all the packages it requires).
Previously I used Ubuntu from 2008 to 2009, Trisquel from 2009 to 2014, and Debian from 2014 to 2019.
Like everyone i started on Windows.
From there -> Mint -> Ubuntu 16 -> Fedora -> Ubuntu 18 -> elementary -> Ubuntu 18 (again) -> Ubuntu 22 -> EndeavourOS
I've god damn I love EndeavourOS. Now just hop between the supported DEs instead :)
Debian. I've been using Linux since 1999, and I've tried everything under the sun. Back then, I was a Red Hat person, then an ubuntu person mostly, but Debian is where there's stability that doesn't mess with your mental health. It just works, and that has more value than being pretty or having the latest bells and whistles.
Settled on Linux Mint Debian Edition.
I just want reliability, a beautiful desktop and great support. Plus 100% community based - Debian + Cinnamon.
No corps like canonical or red hat and no heavy maintenance routine like Arch.
Stopped hopping when I realized most distros are just debian with certain things pre-installed or pre-configured. Decided to compare base distros, and settled on Gentoo for its powerful features, transparency and customizability.
Linux Mint, I wanted Manjaro with KDE to work so much. But the issue I had with it, and no not the in general complaints about Manjaro, was how annoying it is to set up again. Rebuilding a machine or an install was just such a hassle, that I wanted to move to a Ubuntu/Debain based distro, where everything was already made for it.
If my current build of Linux Mint dies, then I'd probably move to the Mint DE and remove the Ubuntu part.
Troubleshooting is easier, finding apps is easier, and outside of advance user packages like MangoHud and XPadNeo where I needed to build from source (not fun). It's been a painless experience.
I switched to guix and haven't looked back.
Mostly because:
- I like the idea of functional package managers
- I like guix's dedication to making every package buildable from source (thus the no non-libre code rule)
- I like the expressiveness of scheme vs Nix's package description language
Guix is the smoothest time I've ever built packages for a distro before (well outside arch). Which is good because there's a lot of out of date and unadded packages for potential.
there's a lot of out of date and unadded packages for potential.
The main reason why I'm running nix over guix. I need it to freshen up Debian packages, and it's giving me even older ones.
The close runner up was horrible prebuilt bin coverage(a year or two ago). I had to separate browsers into a manifest of their own, because Firefox didn't get a prebuilt even days after the update. It's not fun having to leave your browser compiling over night with 100% CPU fans as a lullaby.
Up until last year I would have said Ubuntu. It was qualitatively the best desktop choice when I started with it in the aughts, and is still one of the few distros that has a reasonable out of the box install option with LVM. But I recently tried a Silverblue variant and NixOS, and I like what I see. Once I'm comfortable enough I will switch, I'm tired of the ensnapification and the Pro nag screens.
Ensnapification is hilarious lmao
I think I'll settle down with Void + XFCE
I've only hopped from Ubuntu to Arch. I'm currently messing with debian in a vm.
Staying on Arch because I love pacman+paru
AUR is also amazing
Using pacman is basically using the AUR. I should've clarified that I love the AUR because you can search for any packages you want in your terminal in paru. It's so convenient and amazing. In ubuntu you gotta search up what ppa repo it is or succumb to using flatpak.
I have to say I dont get the AUR I have been using Debian for the past 20 years and have tried Arch based out on my steam deck and in Distrobox on my sid gaming PC and I just don't get it.
I hear all these great things about the AUR but when I tried it. It didn't seem to be that much easier than building a Deb pkg or doing a make install from source. the way I hear people talk about it I figured it was just like installing from a source Repo on Debian.
please note I'm not saying anything bad about Arch I personally love the arch wiki it's great to even fix things in Debian. I just personally don't get it. maybe I'm not using it right or distobox does not give me the full experience. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
GNU Guix
peak hackability while also having binary downloads
I do love it, I just wish it was easier to update package recipes. I have open patches since over a year.
Why not nix?
I ask because I've been thinking of trying Guix or Nix. I lean more towards nix due to popularity but also because theoretically a language tailored for package recipes may do better than guille.
They are way different, different licences, different language, different init by default.
I like guile and shepherd much better than nix and systemd.
Nix syntax is just... strange, and undiscoverable to me. Coming from a emacs/lisp background, Scheme was just easy to understand, and there was no ambiguity in contructing grammars out of thin air.
Ubuntu-kubuntu-mint-debian-manjaro-opensuse tumbleweed-Fedora. Been on fedora for a few years, anytime I try something different I come right back. I want to like openSuse but I ways seem to have some weird ass issues with it
OpenSuse (back then the "normal" one, then Leap and now the rolling release Tumbleweed). It just works really well and keeps on trucking. Updated my old machine for ten years through all the openSuse releases without reinstalling. The repositories are very well kept in order and the build service easily provides anything I might find lacking.
Also, I quite like using Yast for system administration. There are many areas that I rarely touch and having a GUI available is super helpful.
My journey was:
- Mandrake/Mandriva
- Debian (v2.4)
- Ubuntu (v6.04)
- Debian (8)
- Arch Linux
- NixOS
I left Debian for Ubuntu when it simply worked better and left Ubuntu when it became too restrictive and weird. I need a working system but my freedom to experiment. Then I discovered arch and never looked back. Still kept Debian on servers.
Currently using arch on desktop machines and nixos on my servers. But I use nix for Dev environments and dotfiles even on arch.
Not sure if I'll stay with NixOS but for now that seems like the direction I'm going to. Still love Arch Linux for it's freedom though, but I'm getting older and don't have the time to fiddle with everything.
Mint. Because apparently "task bar and start menu that looks like gnome 2 and/or xp" is heresy in modern ui design (although maybe kde would also work? Had some papercuts that put me off it last I tried though).
Also, it turns out that getting a full time job really kills your desire to tinker and mess around with your personal system. I just want something that works.
Because apparently "task bar and start menu that looks like gnome 2 and/or xp" is heresy in modern ui design
You get that with pretty much any DE. I think KDE even let's you choose between xp and 11 style of start menus, but I can't remember windows details. I've even seen GNOME configured that way in the previous version of nobara, but I'm guessing that would take a while.
Arch, cause it has everything I needs + I don't have to reinstall between big updates (Arch is Rolling release)
Pop!_OS. I previously got stuck on tiling window managers, but I found that they have prohibitively large amounts of setup involved. It's also not uncommon for support applications to be poorly maintained or to have a poor UX. Pop!_OS's desktop gathers everything together very nicely into a working shell with minimal setup, but still has that sweet, sweet tiling WM.
This kind of setup works best for me, a desktop environment with a tiling window manager on the top, that way I can use it like a normal desktop for most things and can hop back and forth between apps I use a lot all on the home row with the window manager.
Yeah, I've really liked the flexibility it gives me while leaving behind hassle. Before I had tried XMonad and AwesomeWM with various tray apps for things like wireless networking. I enjoyed using them, but I did not enjoy the amount of work I put into set up. Sure I like tinkering, but there's a certain level where I just want to have a dependable, working system so I can get on with my day.
openSUSE Tumbleweed, because real life got a little too much and I wanted something that just worked.
Age. I'm old now.
I do it once in a while, to feel young, but not benefit all that much. (Having said that about my daily desktop, I do have multiple machines and VMs that run all sorts of distros)
Arch for my PC and laptop, Debian for all my servers, VMs, LXCs, etc.
Thought I settled down with EndeavourOS.. then I got into ricing and the urge to move to void or alpine is strong
I don't know if I'm a "hopper", because I haven't used that many. But I started with Slackware in the late 90s. I put Red Hat on a friend's computer (and was promptly unable to help with it) somewhere around 2001.
Around 2010 or so I switched my desktop and laptop from Slackware to Kubuntu. I was just tired of dealing with package dependencies. Maybe 6 or 8 years ago I switched my server from Slackware to Debian for similar reasons.
Right now my plan is to switch my desktop and laptop to Debian. I haven't yet because I want to reconfigure some disks on the server (need more space on /var and less on /home), then move a service that's currently running on my desktop to the server (Home Assistant), then install Debian on to my new nvme drive on the desktop and go from there. There's a whole upgrade path, basically. It has been a slow process because I have to do the space reconfiguration on the server itself - I can't log in remotely and do it - and the server is located in the basement, without a monitor or usable keyboard hooked to it... but there's also no deadline either, so no need to rush on it.
I've been using Ubuntu since 12.04 LTS, and old habits die hard. There have been many attempts by my peers to steer me toward Arch and NixOS, but Ubuntu suits my needs and I am used to it after a decade
Bookworm
Arch ecause of the large amount of software available on the AUR.
I set it up with SwayFX, Alacritty Firefox & Sway Lock. Slap your favourite text editor on there and you've everything you need.
Ubuntu -> Fedora -> Debian stable (and lots of flatpaks) for my desktop. Ubuntu has only gotten worse with age, and I got tired of being on the leading edge and just want stuff to work (and I use ZFS so I don't want rapidly upgrading kernels). For my home server Ubuntu -> Centos -> Almalinux
Gentoo.
Everything just works and I can configure everything the way I want.Archlinux, probably 15 years ago already. Before it tried it all.
At beginning only my computers. After a few years when working still insisted on using ubuntu lts versions and others because "oh stable for sure", but they got very broken and software was not updated enough to use things I needed. It was mess of Frankenstein systems with ppa for hardware support and other random programs.
Started using arch on work computers too.
Never needed to change afterwards. All my computers both personal and work have it.
Not sure if it qualify as distrohopping, but for a long time I tried to test every major Linux distro release, and they all had problems with sound, but when Ubuntu 5 came out everything worked out of the box, so I switched my desktop to Linux. A couple of years later, Ubuntu began some introducing some (IMO) questionable things, so I tested the main distros again and landed on Debian, most of all because I knew the system relatively well from Ubuntu.
The first desktop distro I tried was Mandrake (back in 1998), but since I use my desktop for making music, it was just too much work every time I wanted to record something back then.
As for servers, I have always just used what the customer wanted or had, and for most parts it was Red hat.
Mandrake > Ubuntu > Debian > Mint > Arch > Artix
Settled on Artix for openrc and all the aur goodness
Oh I forgot about Mandrake. I did dabble with that a little bit back in the day.
It was before I had a CD writer (or DVD drive!), and it came with Linux Format magazine. I think it was the easiest and most user friendly way of getting started at the time.
SuSE Linux (a German distribution), some niche, single CD distrubution, Debian for a while and, finally, since ~2006, Gentoo on my servers and since ~2015 Gentoo as my desktop.
Debian and its derivatives never felt right for me. I find too many drawbacks with binary packages (non-configurable build options, therefore dependencies that can't be disabled, relying on humans to keep ABI compatiblity, trouble integrating my own packages or unstable versions) and I just don't like systemd.
It's weird, I've seen more than enough of those "Install Gentoo" memes, but I find it the most pleasant system to run in the long term.
I always preferred gentoos layouts over everyone else’s. I was a long time Sabayon user so other side of the house. Interested in trying out the Gentoo Binary’s here soonish
I hopped around in Debian-Land for a while before switching to Manjaro, converting it to Arch later on.
Now I stay with Arch because it just works and doesn't break on me.
Ubuntu.
I jumped from Ubuntu to Fedora to Netrunner to Arch to Gentoo to Mint then back to Ubuntu.
Did I regret it? Nah, I learned alot with my adventure but these days I just prefer the common distro denominator. Although to be fair my Ubuntu isn't exactly a vanilla Ubuntu as I did add some changes I see fit.
Ubuntu -> Crunchbang -> Arch -> Parabola -> Debian
I went more hardline FOSS and stuck to FSDG/DFSG distros. Debian runs everywhere—my phone, tablets, armbook, server—eventually I found myself typing apt commands in my remaining Parabola installs, so I just went all in. I have sid on my former Parabola devices.
I do really like the Social Contract.
my phone
How?
Mobian on a Pinephone
Probably android
Beginning: mint.
Later on: bunch of Debian and red hat based distros. After that: arch (4 years straight).
Now: debian kde.
Here's summary of my 8 year of Linux distrohopping. why? Because "I'm tired boss"Windows -> MacOS -> Manjaro -> Arch
I'm in love with arch so I won't be switching anytime soon.
I distrohopped so many times I can't even remember everything I used.
Now I'm just on Fedora for my desktops, and Rocky on my server. Everything (mostly) works, so I'm fine with it.
Fedora Secureblue Kinoite (based on ublue, based on Fedora)
Before:
- Linux Mint (crashed randomly)
- Manjaro (was awesome, convinced me of KDE)
- MX Linux (why the hell is this so recommended??)
- Kubuntu (broke)
- KDE Neon (broke)
- Fedora KDE (broke)
TinyLinux (booting from DOS), Slackware, Debian for many years, Ubuntu, Debian, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch for 10+ years.
RH/CentOS/Amazon Linux for work these last 20 years.
I switched to Arch because ubuntu & debian started asking too many interactive questions when upgrading packages, instead of just upgrading. Arch gets out of my way, and has great documentation if something unexpected should break.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop. On my desktop mainly due to newest drivers. I had bought a very new AMD GPU at the time and Tumbleweed was one of the first distros to support it. Switched my laptop to it because of familiarity.
I started my IT career on Debian servers and so my private servers are on Debian too. They were on OpenSUSE Leap for a while but I switched when the future of Leap became a bit uncertain.Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, Suse, Gentoo, Sourcemage, etc...
I've settled for Manjaro 6 years ago and never saw a reason to change. I'm also super happy with Debian on my server.
Don’t see Sourcemage mentioned very often. I was a Lunar Linux user for a very long time. I wish they had binary’s. Really awesome distros they are.
Give OpenSuSe Tumbleweed a go. I found it to be a more adult version of Arch with their build system instead of AUR.
Right now I am using Debian as well for my servers/workstation.
Proxmox; you continue distrohopping but with less issues
How are you using it on your desktop?
I don’t have a normal desktop flow, most of the time I’m just rdp’ing to Linux from other different machines/tablets. I used to have a native Ubuntu install with a lot of dockers and my programming job. Now I have a vm for the dockers, and a vm for work. But I’ve notice that I still like to distrohop and I’m continuously just downloading new distros to test. Just the vm is more convenient, and after some time you forgot they are virtual because everything works.
Beginning: Ubuntu.
Until today: ArchWhy? I found in Arch updated software that I was interested at that time, I liked the rolling distro, minimalism, AUR.
I'm happy with my TWM (DWM) and multiplexer (tmux).
I did install other distros in old hardware like Slitaz, Debían that needs 32 bit.
I'm interested right now in things like Alpine and Void, because small and functional in Termux or older hardware. And some distrobox (similar to proot-distro in Termux).
Now learning a little bit of Groff with markdown (pandoc) to create PDF, for a small and fast typesetting. I haven't found a way to convert markdown to pdf using MOM macros in Groff.
Windows
Fedora and I can't point down a specific reason other than it kinda just works. Their jank, because every distro has some time of "jank", feel more reasonable than other distros jank.
Debian Woody > Red Hat 7.0 > Slackware 9.0 > Slackware 10 > Debian > Ubuntu > Mac OS > Ubuntu > Arch.
At least for desktops and laptops.
For servers I'm still primarily running Debian (and one instance I'm running Arch).
The reason why I settled on Arch is primarily because the combination of bleeding edge and being stable enough for daily driving it. The AUR also adds sooo much, that there is nothing I really don't need to manually install anymore.
For servers, I basically want a rock stable system. Hence why I've chosen Debian Stable.
Am I the only one who doesnt distrohopp?
Installed debian for homelab and bam it works. Installed PopOS on desktop and bam it works.
Many years ago I tried ubuntu and didnt like it, this time I was thinking Ill just switch distro until I find the right one, but it happened sooner than expected 😉
Distrohopping sounds exhausting. I don't know why people bother.
How people can just wake up one day and go, "Man, FUCK all my apps and settings, today I want to reinstall and reconfigure 70% of them and then find and learn alternatives to the 30% that aren't transferrable, and completely disrupt my workflow for several weeks" is utterly beyond me.
It's like a miniature version of people who get tired of living in a place and just... move. For no reason. All that effort, selling your home, finding a new one, finding a new job, just because you're... bored?? I am not knocking it, I just can't relate at all.
I started my Linux life in Ubuntu MATE, and then to Debian when I figured I no longer needed Ubuntu's handholding and I was tired of dealing with MATE's abysmal lack of community resources and documentation. Unless and until Debian either becomes antagonistic to me or their support for new software becomes severely crippling, I have no intentions to leave.
It just works. Leave it be. This is my home.
I've seen a lot of Debian mentions on the Linux communities here, lately. More than usual, lol. Maybe I should give it a good try with Flatpak to handle non-system packages.
I feel that Debian has been having a painfully slow stable cycle, but now that it just tipped over into a brand-new stable release people are checking it out again. You can reasonably try it out and expect it to just work on new-ish hardware, without having to hunt down hardware enablement kernels or whatnot.
Nobara because I primarily game but need some tools that are only available natively for Debian and Fedora based distributions.
I am a Linux novice, but have been dabbling for a long time. I had to laugh at myself when I realized I was “distrohopping” because I wanted to try out different DE’s. I just made the connection that rather than hop, I can simply install a different DE.
I'm in the same boat as you but haven't figured out how to install different DEs yet. Did you find a good guide for installing/uninstalling them?
Started with Mint with Cinnamon on the desktop since that's the "beginner" distro. Then FOMO about Arch (btw) made me switch to Manjaro with KDE.
Then I got an older used server with 64 GB of RAM. I started the server journey with Ubuntu Server, which was fine. But since I was running everything in containers anyway and wanted to experiment, I switched to Proxmox and I love it. It is flexible and fun. All of my production LXCs run Ubuntu LTS for ease and consistency in updating, but I have a couple of other VMs for experimenting with other distros and dealing with FOMO. I also installed Proxmox on an old gaming PC I had lying around, so now I have a homelab cluster. Why? Haha, why not! Proxmox is a distro-hopper and tinkerer's playground.
Windows -> Mint -> PopOS -> EndeavorOS
I tried Mint for a few days, enjoyed it but wanted something a bit more gaming focused. Tried Pop, had issues getting it set up, got it set up and didn't like it. Moved to Endeavor, and after a brief learning period, its been everything I wanted in an OS.
I fucking love EndeavorOS
Xubuntu... It's light weight and pretty much everything is kind of Debian or kind of redhat anyway...
The charm of rolling my own died off when I got old enough to buy better hardware if I wanted to go faster...
Gentoo for personal experimentation
Mint for work & recommending to beginners
Debian for personal production, work, & pretty much everything else
I used Void Linux for a while, but now I am staying on NixOS. It's got great features that I'll probably miss on other distros.
I am running Debian / KDE with a lot of KDE adjustments/configuration. Debian to ditch snaps, KDE because I can 'adjust' it to my liking.
Desktop? I settled on Arch and Fedora.
Server? Debian. Although technically I never distrohopped on servers, been using Debian since the beginning of time.
Ubuntu > Sabayon > mint > Arch > Mandriva > CentOS > Debian testing & Arch ( just the best ones )
Ubuntu > Fedora > Ubuntu > Arch > Ubuntu
arch with gnome. arch because pacman and AUR, gnome because I messed around with tiling window managers for an unnecessarily long time but I don't have infinite time to customize and personalize every aspect of my computer and map every action to a keyboard shortcut and memorize them :) I need to det stuff done. I sort of forced myself into using the least amount of customization. that's why not KDE.
Which one(s)
Unsure if distrohopping the dualboot counts, but if it does, then the following was my path (note that after Fedora Silverblue was installed, it remained on the system; the two distros in between the two Silverblues were dualboots):
Fedora Kinoite -> Fedora Silverblue -> EndeavourOS -> Nobara -> Fedora Silverblue
why?
I started with Fedora Kinoite after spending 1-2 weeks on gathering information on distros. During the research-phase, I learned what distros are, their components, how to analyze the differences between distros, which components are ultimately more beneficial for me and thus slowly but surely the distro that would suit me best started to take shape.
My switch to Linux was on the basis of privacy concerns and Windows 10's mishaps on my laptop were what pulled the trigger, which in retrospect were probably caused by hardware faults. Regardless, as privacy was my main concern, security became paramount; as there's no privacy as long as access to your data is not secured off. Therefore Qubes OS, while not necessarily a Linux distro, would have been my first choice. But, unfortunately, my system wasn't capable of running it.
Therefore, I had to settle with something else. As my endgame is Qubes OS, I wasn't very interested in getting into the nitty gritty of Linux for the virtue of hardening it. Instead, I opted to rely on a distro that would do the heavy lifting for me. Such a distro wouldn't only have to be known for taking security very seriously, they also required an excellent track record. As such, I landed on Fedora, Kicksecure and openSUSE. Other projects that are known to take security seriously like Whonix and Tails aren't suited for general use. Furthermore, they're ideally used in conjunction with another system; Whonix as a VM and Tails accessed on a USB-stick whenever you require an amnesic operating system.
Choosing between Fedora, Kicksecure and openSUSE was hard based on these criteria only. The third and final criteria to seal the deal was atomicity. Like I mentioned earlier, my laptop had issues; it could randomly turn off. So I needed a robust system that could handle such disturbances and not die in the process. This is where the aforementioned atomicity comes into play, this ensures that the system either updates or not; no in-between messed up state due to a power outage or whatsoever. At the time, only Fedora had a somewhat mature system capable of atomic upgrades; namely Kinoite and Silverblue. The differences between these two were about their respective desktop environments. I hadn't experienced either of the two previously, but went initially for Kinoite for how KDE Plasma reminded me more of what I was already used to (i.e. Windows).
Fedora Kinoite came with its sets of troubles. It was still a relatively young project; it was the first release in which it was officially supported. As I knew how easy Fedora's Atomic distros made switching from one base to another, I just rebased to Fedora Silverblue with the
rpm-ostree rebase fedora:fedora/35/x86_64/silverbluecommand and went on with my life 😜.After this came the honeymoon-phase and I was really positively surprised by how well everything was going. From all the things I had done for the sake of privacy, switching to Linux was (and still is) my favorite. But as I was ever expanding my Linux workflow to include everything I did on Windows, I happened to reach a (seemingly) insurmountable obstacle; Davinci Resolve. No matter what I did on Fedora Silverblue, it was always functioning less performant compared to Windows; which in retrospect seems to be related to the fact that Davinci Resolve requires a dedicated GPU on Linux (though some workarounds do exist). In hopes of resolving this issue, I tried to install Arch as a dualboot. As this was pre
archinstall, this was a miserable experience. And after a few tries, I still wasn't content with what I got and instead opted to install EndeavourOS.EndeavourOS was pretty cool. I already liked what I saw from Arch within Distrobox and EndeavourOS was able to deliver an excellent experience (at least initially). Davinci Resolve worked better here than it did in Fedora Silverblue. And it was overall a pretty snappy experience, so I returned to it occasionally for other things (like gaming) as well. Until..., one day..., it just stopped working 🤣. Perhaps I could have done a better job by installing Snapper/Timeshift, but I didn't and didn't care enough for it to reinstall...
Of course, the departure of EndeavourOS did leave behind a void, so eventually I tried Nobara as I believed it might be capable to provide a similar experience. And I did like it, though not to the degree of EndeavourOS. Eventually this one also passed out 🤣.
Currently, I've just dismissed the idea to run Davinci Resolve on Linux and I'm more happy ever since 😜. For better performance during gaming, I've since been resorting to bazzite-arch and Conty. While performance shouldn't be as good as native CachyOS or other highly optimized gaming distributions, it's more than fine as is and the sub 5% performance/fps I'm missing out on is not worth for how much more convenient my current setup is.
FWIW, I do see myself utilizing Gentoo and NixOS in their designated qubes whenever the switch to Qubes OS occurs. But until then, I'm making the best out of Fedora Silverblue.
Startend with ubuntu, didnt like "appy", mobile feel of gnome, switched to manjaro KDE, loved it but kept breaking and I wasn't smart enough to fix
Settled on good Ol Debian KDE, miss the AUR but things are stable and working
Still got a win pc to play league, work with office and make music though.
EndeavourOS might be worth a try if you miss the AUR, but if you don't like the maintenance associated with Arch's rolling release strategy then I'd stick to Debian.
I went from Windows XP -> FreeBSD -> Debian -> several Ubuntu flavors -> MacOS -> Manjaro on my desktop. I ended up switching to MacOs after countless upgrade and graphics card issues in the early 2010s but switched back to Linux again after getting tired of Apples more and more restrictive environment.
For servers I've switched around between FreeBSD, Debian and Ubuntu at home and various Redhat based distros at work.
Right now I use Ubuntu because it just works for my Kubernetes home cluster and Redhat at work because its well supported for commercial software.
Started with Gentoo. Early 2000's. 24 painful install. Moved to fedora shortly after. Keep going back between Arch and Ubuntu over the years. It's all so easy and accessible now.
Nowhere. I install whatever will actually get through the installation process without fucking itself up on the hardware that I'm using.
MOST of the time that ends up being Mint because the developers aren't idiots. SOMETIMES it's Ubuntu. But neither wants to install properly every time, because of course not.
SUSE -> Mageia -> Ubuntu -> Manjaro -> Mint -> Manjaro. Been on Manjaro for 4 years now.
I went Ubuntu -> Xubuntu -> Debian -> Manjaro -> Arch -> Nix
Arch is still the longest lasting and I'm dual booting with Nix right now, but Nix has been a dream when it comes to gaming stability and I think if it continues I'll stay.
Keep distrohopping. I think I cannot settle.
Arch Linux (Endeavour OS if you are scared of the terminal) for personal use. It's almost all the software you want one click away, plus the best documentation ever.
Debian on my company's computer because Debian.
Crux. Simplest package building system out there, and the core is just out of the way completely, giving you the keys to setup your system just the way you want it.
Started with OpenSUSE because it supported our Proprietary CAD software ( Choice was Redhat or SUSE ) As a bonus nVidia hosts its own repo for SUSE and OpenSUSE so no graphic issues with CAD. Then Arch because of the buzz. Manjaro EndeavorOS Ubuntu PoP!_OS Clear Linux Mint ElementaryOS Fedora NixOS
Now main machines run OpenSUSE and wifes 12 yr old laptop is NixOS.
Why? OpenSUSE is really dependable and updates are flawless, if i tinker and break something a rollback at boot is a quick fix, which is imortant since it is my daily work work-station. While you could set up btrfs and grub snapshots in other systems, I like that it comes baked in, and all the EFI/ TPM / Secure-boot stuff works with no messing around.
As for wife's machine , she is not tech savvy and Windows was too complicated for her (and so damn slow), so GNOME on NixOS (fast) is a clear workflow; and since she likes things exactly the same in order to comprehend a system , the config files make it easy to re-replicate the exact setup.
I tried Fedora, Centos, Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and Mint. Finally settled on Arch Linux about 15 years ago. Never looked back.
Debian for most of my machines, rock solid and works. I've had 0 problems with Debian on any computer its downloaded on. And I personally don't need very up to date packages.
On my main computer (currently Windows due to hardware compatibility issues on Linux), I've flip flopped between Pop and Fedora depending on how much I need 3D graphics applications.
Kubuntu on some machines, KDE Neon on others. Ubuntu Server on my home servers.
Opensuse tw
Debian + Gnome: I don't game and have a limited wifi connection and Debian gives me stability, ease of use and I don't need to run an update more than once a week
Windows -> macos -> pop os -> debian -> fedora ↓ Now
- linux mint(desktop)
- slackware(laptop)
- arch linux(Kvm/Qemu for gaming)
- Netbsd(older hardware/for fun)
do you get good battery life with slackware?
Sorry for late reply
For about 4 hours i beleive. Though it used to be longer as i have had it for over a year and the battery not like it used to be.
Kde is the default desktop eviornment.
It helps that its a non systemd init system so it doesnt pull as much resources on the backend since systemwide is controlled via scripts.
If i were to run a lighter one such as xfce, qtile or dwm it would run longer(varies on configuration though)
Fedora
Windows, then Ubuntu when I started Computer Science, then Linux Mint, and I've been hopping back and forth between both but mostly Mint, then for a while also KDE Neon, then I decided to leave my comfort zone and tried Fedora, and never looked back.
I tried a ton, and I settled with Fedora just for the mix of stability and support. Though, with Red Hat being asses I might have to mix it up.
RedHats influence is mainly infrastructure and legal support. The project itself is independend, although of course not entirely.
It's been over like 10 years but it has gone something like this Windows -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Mint -> Windows -> Ubuntu -> Solus -> Fedora -> Arch -> Manjaro -> Windows -> POP_OS -> Arch -> Manjaro
Fedora silverblue or rather the ublue image.
I am not a power user and do casual gaming, document reading and processing, mail checking and video watching so the ublue main image provides the simplicity and stability I need.
Mandrake > Debian > Ubuntu > Mint & Arco Linux & MX Linux.
These three distros are the chosen ones in my case. I've been using them in my main computers for a couple of years now. It's the right mixture.
Never really distro hopped. Went from DOSLinux to Slackware and stayed put as my main. Having multiple machines, some multi booters, meant I had/tried a bunch of others. Vector Linux, Xubuntu, Debian Wheezy, several Arch-based (up to Garuda), various BSDs, and two unices (OpenSolaris/OpenIndiana, IRIX). Got an old ancient ToughBook (Pentiun II, 192MB RAM) with Arch before systemd collecting dust.
[ Those machines had multiple Windows versions also from Win2k to Win7 including XP x64 Edition ] Dem were da days. 🥰
Currently, Main laptop: Slackware. 2nd laptop: MX Linux, Void Linux, OpenBSD. Mini PC: Slint (Slackware-based).
Well, for the mini PC I did distro hop. Went through a lot trying to find the right one. Most were Arch-based (but not Arch itself) and they would indeed break at the worst time. Nature of bleeding edge rolling release I guess. Mostly I was looking for something non-systemd. Eventually settled on Slint.
I've settled on openSUSE and Fedora. All my personal systems are currently on some version of openSUSE but zypper sucks so I'm considering the move back to Fedora. Oh and my son and wife's laptops are on Fedora just cause I never moved them to openSUSE.
@tet my first computer was a ubantu mini PC I have used almost every major distro and now I use fadora because I like gnome on my laptop
OpenSUSE -> Ubuntu -> Windows for like a decade -> MacOS -> Arch -> Manjaro -> Arch -> Debian -> NixOS -> Nobara
Currently running NixOS on my laptop, Nobara on my Desktop, and Debian on my VMs under Proxmox.
I'll probably jump from Nobara to Bazzite as soon as I start to have problems.
I'm gradually settling on immutable distros.
I was on Ubuntu, then I switched to Debian, then Mint. Then I was like wow if this is so good I'm gonna try some more, and I dove headfirst. I didn't run a distro more than a couple hours sometimes, never more than a week.
Then I found Manjaro, which I tried and liked well enough except for all the Manjaro shit. I decided then that I could install Arch, how hard could it be? So I did, it took me like 3 days and I broke it dozens of times but I eventually got there (with sound even!) shortly before they brought back the install script. I want to try Gentoo but I don't have time to compile everything, I understand they ship binaries now which I think is sweet but I'm happy with Arch.
I like Arch for it's KISS philosophy, the DIY attitude with which you approach it, the fine-grained control over every (most) part of the system, the AUR. But my favorite thing about Arch is the Wiki. It's such a great resource, and yeah it applies to more than just Arch but like ... why?
I use Arch btw
Ubuntu, Arch, Manjaro and now Guix as my hopefully permanent home. Guix is one configuration file, and zap! the system configures itself from that. There are oc a lot of other goodies..
I hopped 10 times in 6 months. Settled on Manjaro for latest gaming related software like drivers, kwin, etc and and it's package manager gui, which is horrible but it works. Easiest distro to game on for me.
Might be OT since I never was much of a distro hopper.
Got introduced to Linux with SLS, used RedHat until it became too commercial for my taste. At that time, found gentoo and stuck with it hard. It allows me to have completely custom packages fully integrated with the system package manager, that's the top killer feature for me.
After years of stable distros and dealing with outdated software, and years of arch and dealing with updates causing me to fail to boot, I've recently hopped through every popular distro and landed on MX+Nix.
It solves both of my problems. The system is rock solid thanks to Debian, and I still get bleeding edge userland packages from nix unstable.
Arch. Or, rather EndeavourOS. I've lived with several distros (daily driver desktops, laptops, servers) for years: debian, Ubuntu, Gobo, gentoo, Redhat, CentOS, Arch, Artix, and EndeavourOS. Redhat was my least favorite, and EndeavourOS probably my most.
I'm currently running Endeavour on my desktop, Artix on my laptop, and vanilla Arch on several servers and ancillary devices. All of the Arches are basically the same day-to-day, except Artix; Artix is the lightest, but also the most work, and I probably wouldn't choose it again.
I like Arch because - for me - it's been stable and pain-free from dependency-hell, of which Redhat distros were the worst. I will not go back to any point release distro - rolling release has been so much better for me. The Arch wiki is the best source of Linux information on the internet, and the AUR has almost everything in it, and is easy to contribute to. PKGBUILDs are easy to write; it's hardly any more work to put one together to install something and have it managed by the package manager, than to not.
I'm interested in playing more with some of the source-based distros like void, alpine, tinycore, venom, and kiss; my experience with gentoo leads me to believe I won't be happy with any as daily drivers.
However, I'm very interested in Chimera.
Started with Arch for 2 years -> Fedora Workstation for 1,5 years -> Fedora Silverblue until now
LXQT on Arch
Manjaro KDE. It just has a good setup out of the box. The AUR as well as the other packaging formats makes it very easy to install applications that I need.
At 1st it was arch, used it for about a year and a half, but dropped it after they broke grub. Then I went to fedora for a while, which I like a lot, however I'm running Gentoo atm
I'm probably going to stick with Arch, or maybe EndeavourOS.
I've hopped from distro to distro but I always keep coming back to Arch. The reason I use Arch is that it's my weird sweet spot of "DIY" and "it just works". It gives me a blank slate at first, but it lets me paint the canvas with whatever I want, however I want. It allows for some weird setups (like VFIO, for instance) and the wiki really helps with that. I don't really use the AUR nowadays unless it's for a package only available there, so I can't say anything about that. I use Flatpak nowadays. Some people might prefer the AUR, that's good for them! Right now it's just not for me.
If I do distro-hop again, I'll probably go for EndeavourOS just to have an Arch install that leans heavier on the "just works" side of things.
ubuntu -> kali -> lubuntu -> debian -> rhel -> arch -> gentoo + alpine -> alpine (-> openbsd + freebsd)
I consider things not in brackets 100/100 trashes (alpine is 1/2, gentoo is 3/4), in experience (because they don't help me to learn anything, I'd take openbsd on platform that X11 support is broken, for example Alpha, than anything not in brackets on amd64. Of course, that should be a personal machine for learning.)
Way back when I think it was SUSE for me after BeOS went under. Ubuntu, debian, arch, and then nixos maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Back to ubuntu for work for a few years, but nixos full time now.
Slackware. It didnt abstract anything from me and lets me help myself. Unlike ubuntu, that keps getting in the way.
Bodhi Linux (when trying out on a 32 bit laptop) -> Xubuntu (main laptop) -> Linux mint (the distro I've used for the longest time, both on main laptop and a desktop got along the way). On the side, I briefly tried Arch first on a wm (as well as Haiku and TempleOS), and later, debian on that 32 bit laptop for earlier. That's when I first went for a minimal install with i3. Later switched to Arch with i3 on tower, and just yesterday, Debian, also with i3 on main laptop.
My reasoning behind using these two different distros for essentially the same type of setup is that my laptop is more likely to be the only computer I have at my disposal when I urgently need it, so stability is more important, I can't run the risk of having an update break it. I can be bolder and test more stuff on my desktop knowing I have a backup if mess up. Arch on my desktop is also partly because I use it to play games on Steam, and since SteamOS is based on Arch, I figured it'd have better integration.
- Ubuntu
- Opensuse
- Linux Mint
- Fedora
- Manjaro
- Endeavour OS
I was never distro-hopping much. Switched from Debian only when I got a job with Red Hat, and then switched to openSUSE when I switched to SUSE. I have actually switched recently to my own semi-distro https://sr.ht/~mcepl/moldavite/ (basically MicroOS with sway).
I've been hopping between Arch and NixOS for about a year, and I've been on Arch For a few months before that (wirh the exception of a few short-term hops to Ubuntu, Fedora, Starting off with Mint and ArcoLinux, And I almost stayed on Tumbleweed about a week ago but I couldn't figure out dnf5 (a few days later I was told that installing dnf was installing dnf5 so I just had to configure it properly). So right now I'm on NixOS, where SDDM broke last night and I had to switch to GDM, and with my recent switch to Emacs, NixOS keeps on throwing issues at me (and here I was, thinking NixOS could be my forever distro). Tumbleweed is missing a lot of packages I use, I'm tired of Arch, and I feel like NixOS is giving me problems every time I try it, so at this point, I'm at a loss.
Like, I'm seriously considering abandoning Wayland and everything, and just switching all the way back to AwesomeWM (my first window manager) with Jonaburg's fork of Picom (to give me Hyprland-like animations, rounded corners and floating bars) on Debian and sticking with it until we get Hyprland on Debian and then sticking to that. Alternatively, Fedora (even though I felt dirty using it after the whole redhat debacle, and hyprland and waybar weren't working the way they were supposed to). I don't know. I'm tired, I want all my stuff on a distro that I can just not update for weeks, because I'm often too busy or just forget, and where things just work (tm). So... yeah. That's the crap I'm dealing with.
TLDR: The only distros that have all the packages I need (I really, REALLY, don't want to compile anything if I can avoid it) are either, broken and problematic (NixOS for some reason), have slow package management and are missing packages (Tumbleweed) or do not have a stable branch (Arch AND Tumbleweed), meaning that when they aren't updated for weeks (as it often happens with my system), they can break (Arch).
So I distrohop cuz NO distro out there meets my criteria and works well for me. I just want Debian's stability with Arch's repos and AUR, so I can get Hyprland and all my (often not very popular) software I use, from the regular ol repos so I don't have to compile.
So there's no more or less stable distro based on arch?
Yes, Manjaro. But you have to stick to a LTS kernel (or at least keep a LTS kernel installed as backup), not install things from AUR that can take your machine down if they break, use their way of installing drivers (particularly graphical drivers), don't switch to the testing or unstable branch etc.
They also offer BTRFS now for the system partition and integrate it by default with Timeshift so you automatically get recovery snapshots you can boot into from Grub if anything bad happens.
All of the above is default so you don't have to do anything to attain stability, just not actively ruin it. But as you'll see from some of the comments around here there are people who just can't help themselves. 😁
I've been using it as main desktop system for about 4 years now and I'm super happy with it. I've also installed it for some relatives (without sudo rights), I manage it remotely over Tailscale and it's been working perfectly.
