this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026
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    Distrohopping be like fr: (lemmy.zip)
    submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by Mistiygirl@lemmy.zip to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
    119 comments fedilink hide all child comments
     

    What did yall end up settling on?

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    [–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 points 21 minutes ago

    On servers: Red Hat -> Debian (with a brief detour through Ubuntu Server for a couple of years).

    On desktop: Red Hat -> Ubuntu -> Manjaro.

    Switched away from Red Hat around 2004 after RHL was discontinued and split into RHEL and Fedora. You may think Fedora would've been a more obvious choice but it was still new in 2004 while Debian had 10 years under its belt. We also migrated the servers at work to Debian around that time and I had used Debian at school in the '90s so it made a lot of sense to use it at home.

    Ubuntu on desktop was a fucking revelation when it came out (on CDs shipped free to your home πŸ˜ƒ) in 2004. Early days Ubuntu was soooo good that I stayed with it until 2020, long after the magic was gone.

    I mean I would've probably left eventually anyway given the whole snap and privacy and so on debacles but what really put me off was how it would almost never upgrade cleanly once you've added a bunch of 3rd party repos (which you wanted to do all the time on a desktop PC). Eventually I got so sick of it that I was determined to find a rolling distro where upgrades would never be a problem.

    Tried a bunch of them during stay at home during the pandemic and settled on Manjaro + XFCE on the desktop and a fresh install of Debian stable + Docker on the server as a happy medium between "hands off" and "up to date". I'm at a point where I like my Linux machines to just work and to need zero maintenance so I can put the time into other things instead.

    [–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

    Ubuntu, Manjaro, Endeavour.

    Played a bit with others before I settled, but XFCE feels like home and not having to do a system update that breaks everything every year has been great.

    [–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 points 1 hour ago

    I absolutely love the ecosystem that's sprung around Arch over the years.

    And ofc I wish the fans of the various Arch-based distros had a less antagonistic approach to each other. πŸ™„ I mean Arch's main goal is to be flexible and having a diverse family of derived distros downstream is the ultimate confirmation of that goal.

    It's also very healthy for any distro to have a big "family tree" because the upstream benefits from contributions from a larger community that may not have vibed with the parent distro otherwise.

    [–] Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

    Went back to Ubuntu after laying off of it for a while. Now that I'm used to not using Windows, I feel like trying either Arch or Cachy though everyone keeps raving about Bazzite.

    Man, I don't miss windows. My laptop works better without it. Idk what the hell windows does but my internal wifi works better than it did with windows. A 750mbps USB adapter was needed and my 1200mbps internal wasn't able to capture my 5G internet from 2 rooms away from the router.

    I install Ubuntu and I can use my laptop in the shitter/3 rooms away for the router. All or most of the streaming is 720hd or 1080hd and it loads. IT ACTUALLY FUCKIN' LOADS.

    [–] testaccount789@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

    Mint -> Manjaro -> Arch
    I also have absolutely broken Mint install that I'll probably keep using until it stops booting. I thought it would be simpler to put Mint on a headless computer and use GUI over VNC.
    Then come issues with permissions/dbus or whatever is going on.
    Couple days ago I tried to do version upgrade, but couldn't use GUI anymore due to broken permissions. One of the python scripts that do the upgrade managed to at least partially work (GUI wouldn't run as root), by which I mean the GUI package manager complaining about "corrupted" repo list or something like that. But at least it updated the repo names, and what is Linux OS other than a bunch of packages, so I just rolled with it and ran apt upgrade.
    I mean, it's running Linux mint, but the main method of connection is SSH and in case things go bad, serial port. This is already cursed.

    I am just too used to Arch. I have no idea what versions even do aside from keeping major package versions separate (which sounds like I should be able to just change version name in sources list).

    But I do cursed things often. I also have a laptop with Proxmox that I put KDE Plasma on, and pass windows from VMs using Waypipe. Yeah, similar to Qubes OS, but also unstable and less secure.

    [–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 3 points 2 hours ago

    So far my personal favourite is manjaro. I always liked Arch based distros and Manjaro has done a great job at pre configuring everything. Manjaro also came with zsh as the default shell and I really liked that.

    [–] AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

    Distro hopping sounds like too much work. I went from mint and was happy on that for years, then I went to Debian and I'm happy here. I'm curious about Fedora but not curious enough to be bothered with a new install.

    I'll live vicariously through others

    [–] dil@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

    Setlled on bazzite out of laziness, preferred cachyos

    [–] candyman337@piefed.ca 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

    Ubuntu wayy back in the day, started on mint, then nobara, then bazzite on my laptop and steam deck, then nobara to cachy os on my desktop, and I quickly switched the laptop and steam deck to cachy because I liked it so much

    [–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

    I keep coming back to Fedora and Fedora-derivatives. Loving Nobara, personally.

    The more that "just works" out of the box, the happier I am.

    Customizations are gonna be the same no matter what.

    Kde is kde. Sway is sway. Ketchup/Catsup.

    [–] FrederikNJS@piefed.zip 14 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

    Ubuntu -> Debian -> Linux Mint -> Fedora -> Arch -> Manjaro -> EndeavourOS -> SuSE Linux -> NixOS

    I'm pretty happy on NixOS now...

    [–] rethnor@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

    I'm close to you, skipped a few intermediate steps though. Ubuntu -> Mint -> Manjaro -> CachyOS

    [–] Elting@piefed.social 71 points 16 hours ago (9 children)

    Am I the only one here that uses their computer instead of fucking with it?

    [–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

    I settled years ago on a setup I like, but until that point I bounced around like a rubber ball. That said, my current setup is built on Ubuntu and I think it's about time to switch to Debian to get rid of the corporate bullshit.

    [–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

    Ubuntu -> Mint.

    Mint works for me. So, I use Mint.

    I suppose it's partly because I'm old and have built something like nine PCs for myself over the years, and the novelty of all that wore off long ago. I just want something that works.

    [–] itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

    I'm a big fan of boring, tbh. It works. What more could I need.

    [–] this@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 hours ago

    I used to distros hop a bunch, not so much anymore.

    Not really much point for me these days, arch based distros are so well documented that I can change basically anything I want without reinstalling the os, and Debian is similar for my homelab servers.

    [–] Dialectical_Specialist@quokk.au 25 points 15 hours ago

    Most kids these days use em to fuck, I hear

    [–] daggermoon@piefed.world 5 points 12 hours ago

    I like to do both.

    [–] FishFace@piefed.social 8 points 14 hours ago

    When I was a kid I just fucked with it and had a great time, now I'm too old for that

    [–] Mistiygirl@lemmy.zip 9 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

    I mean... uh... no comment.

    [–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 5 points 11 hours ago

    Found ninajirachi's alt account

    [–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 9 points 11 hours ago

    Debian for the 72fth time.

    [–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 74 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

    The seventy-tooth

    [–] fartographer@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

    I can't tell whether this is hilarious or I'm exhausted, because I'm crying from laughter

    [–] Sammirr@aussie.zone 8 points 12 hours ago

    No hopping. Debian.

    [–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

    Off and on with Linux since 2003 until I went full conversion in 2018. I know red hat, ubuntu and mint were all in there as well as others that I can't remember. In 2018 I went through EndeavourOS, and Manjaro then settled with simple wonderful Arch like 5 years ago.

    [–] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 20 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

    I started on pop!_os and now 6 years later im on... pop!_os

    Yeah, I didn't really do any distro hopping :p. Though I've tried a bunch of distros in VMs

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    [–] ItsAlwaysDNS@sh.itjust.works 7 points 13 hours ago

    Ubuntu -> Mint -> Arch -> NixOS

    Ubuntu really drove me away for some time. Only when I got to Mint, I felt that Linux could be a daily driver. Arch made me strangely reinstall it every few days. Not by not working but by having the feeling of dirtying the machine on use.

    NixOS is really what I want to use the rest of my life. Very complicated on first use but definitly worth it (for me).

    [–] sculptor0725@sh.itjust.works 5 points 13 hours ago

    Why settle? Software is a continually evolving ecosystem and grafting yourself to a certain distribution model or distribution team doesn't really make sense when you consider that. Some distribution might have the best things for you, today. Tomorrow, another may come along and do it better, or your current distribution may shift to not be to your liking anymore. Be flexible, but don't change for the sake of change. Change for a good reason.

    [–] FishFace@piefed.social 7 points 14 hours ago

    Redhat > fedora > Debian > Ubuntu > mint > fedora. Been there for years now.

    [–] bold_omi@lemmy.today 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

    *72nd

    [–] FloatingAlong@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago

    Seventyseconth is a perfectly cromulent number.

    [–] Magister@lemmy.world 12 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

    I started with like, nothing, linux 0.99 on 8 floppies and X11 on like 12 floppies... then some kind of LFS, then Debian, then Ubuntu, then Mint, then MX with Xfce (since almost 10 years)

    [–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 points 49 minutes ago* (last edited 49 minutes ago)

    I'd forgotten about LFS. Not sure if it should even count, for me at least, it's not like I actually used it to daily drive. But I did use the knowledge from it to make a mini bootable "rescue" distro that I would put on backup disks so they'd be self-sufficient.

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    [–] fdnomad@programming.dev 12 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

    Mint > Ubuntu > Lubuntu > Arch (desktop) / Debian (server)

    I switched away from Canonical the first time I saw an ad when running apt update & apt upgrade, fuck them forever.

    I'm sticking to Arch because its easier to install something myself than to rip apart something prepackaged.

    I'm curious about trying Void.

    [–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 hours ago

    That's exactly what I ended up with, Arch on my gaming laptop, Debian on the server.
    It is weird not having a desktop computer, but the laptop plays all the games and the server does all the rest.

    [–] daggermoon@piefed.world 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

    I used Void for a bit. I wouldn't recommend using on your main system unless you really hate systemd for some reason. Try adding the CachyOS kernel and repos on your Arch system. It will be like having a newer better Arch. No reinstall required.

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