[VERY] LONG VERSION / BACKSTORY (optional reading):

In my time with Linux (5yrs since I started dabbling, 3yrs since it's been my daily driver), I've found that there are a lot of people who dislike "hoppers", people who keep switching from one distro to another. Everyone is entitled to their own views and opinions, but this one so fails to resonate with me that I even outright fail to really understand it. The Linuxverse is so vast and diverse and beautiful that why shouldn't one explore and savor it?

Anyway, all that's to say simply that I guess I'd consider myself a "modified hopper", or perhaps instead "hopper adjacent". I am not one who routinely installs a distro on my main machine, wipes it, then installs a new distro and then repeat repeat repeat. Up until VERY recently, both my main laptop, and my "big rig" gaming PC both used Ubuntu Studio, and this distro was also always present on at least one device back when I was in the "dabble phase" as well. And [details available upon request] it was actually not the plan to rid myself of it, but circumstances led that way. In truth, while I would have precious little bad and very much good to say about Ubuntu Studio, even still having a tee shirt and a laptop sticker for it, I'm ultimately glad to be rid of it for now for the simple reason that I feel it a "level up" moment as a Linux user to be finally untethered from "baby's first distro". Odds are relatively high that I'll come back to it in the future on another device someday. But in the meanwhile, the distro which replaced it on my laptop was KDE Neon, and the distro which replaced it on the big rig was Garuda KDE Dr460nized Gaming Edition.

So instead of install, wipe, install, wipe, install etc on main devices like a true [quote unquote] "hopper" does, I explore the Linuxverse by way of repurposing old tech in various rooms of the house with various distros, and explore that way. I have three old (and/or entry level) laptops that I've put distros on, an old Mac mini that I wiped mac off of and put Linux on (opting for Elementary OS 7 in order to keep as much of that "Mac magic" aesthetic on it as possible), and have even started buying cheap, refurbished office mini PCs off places like Amazon and eBay to do this with as well.

I'm not gonna keep buying PCs indefinitely, of course. Once I have one at every TV and computer desk in the house is when I'll stop. Should I feel a need to keep exploring from there, then I'll start buying USB drives and set them up with persistence.

And that's how I am exploring / will continue to explore the Linuxverse. Also, trying to involve distros that cover as broad a space as possible of the various pieces of the Linux tree as well as thin and fat, beautiful and basic, and so on.

Like most people, I got my start in Linux in the safe, cozy, comfy "village" of Ubuntu. And I have more good than bad to say about it. This is no screed on Ubuntu whatsoever. But at 3/5yrs in, I'm REALLY feeling the itch of wanderlust, to leave the comfy coziness of the village, and stake out on a journey to see and experience the wonders (and possibly horrors) of the wide, wild world beyond.

When I was in the dabble phase, in addition to a larger "main" partition that I just kept Ubuntu Studio installed on the whole time, I would have a smaller "hotel" partition that I'd rotate other distros through as a way to audition them, as well as two of the aforementioned backup laptops (though one of them was so limited we're better effectively treating it like just one). The only distros to spend more than a couple weeks installed on the "hotel" were Deepin and Zorin. But even then, I didn't stray that far from Ubuntu, as Deepin, based on non-Ubuntu Debian (which from here I'll simply call "Debian") is, I think, the furthest away I travelled.

These days, I find the Arch branch of Linux to be the most exciting, as if it is the vanguard for Linuxdom in general, and I have three active installs of Arch-based distros as we speak. KDE always has been, and still is my favorite DE, and I have four active distros with it. But I also want to start emphasizing non-KDE in my travels, as well as try to emphasize distros that are based on things other than Ubuntu or Arch. To this end, I've added two Red Hat-based distros (Fedora and openSUSE), a Debian-based one (MX Linux), and hope to soon add something Slackware based, and maybe Gentoo (or is Gentoo itself Slack-based? I can't remember). I don't think I'm ready for any "expert-level"....yet. But someday, I hope.

And then yeah, someday, maybe in another 5-10 years, I hope to have arrived at a point where I feel like I've found a "forever home", or maybe two or three of them, and begin reducing complexity again to just that / those. Maybe it'll be "back in the childhood village of Ubuntu", maybe it'll be Arch or some other place I've already dabbled. Or maybe it'll be some place I've never set foot on yet, or possibly even never yet heard of. But for now at least, it's all about exploration and tourism and tasting / touching / testing as much as I can from as broad as I can.

Anyway, that's where I am. What about you?

It's been a long time (about 15 years) since I've tried other distributions except when I had to use something for a project/debugging that had specific requirements. I found out that I really dislike building custom packages – something that I need from time to time – for Debian based distros while the same thing feels very easy for Arch based distros to me.

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioIn my time with Linux (5yrs since I started dabbling, 3yrs since it's been my daily driver), I've found that there are a lot of people who dislike "hoppers", people who keep switching from one distro to another.

That's not something to which I can relate. I've never gotten that impression. Some people think that it's a waste of time – which it probably is – but there are so many things that people spend time on that seem silly to other people so it does not matter.

I'm a firm believer that there's no "one distro for all usages". That is to say, each Distro has their own areas where they shine and areas where they kind of suck too.

For example, I wouldn't try to run a web server with a SteamOS base!

For my own workstation/computer: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

This distro actually works really well[1] as a workstation and handles both my gaming and my work load well.

For actual work, it includes all I need, from virtualization tools through to development tools and more.

It also has snapper rollback which can perform a partial rollback if things break.

Finally, because it's a rolling release, I don't have to stop every so many months to re-install or upgrade the OS, just keep installing updates and I'm set, that's useful when you have a busy work life like me, where you may not get time to do big upgrades.

[1] Except for the fact it's currently sitting asking me to update 2,207 packages, even though I only updated yesterday

My laptop: Fedora 38 Kinoite

My laptop doesn't need to do quite anywhere near the work level of my workstation, nor the same level of gaming. It does however need to be a good machine to quickly get back online if something goes wrong and be able to perform some work tasks. It needs to be solid and reliable, while also up to date.

That's where Fedora Kinoite comes in, it's an immutable Linux, that's a perfect match for my laptop, as using rpm-ostree I am able to install the exact things I need, along with flatpak packages. It's unlikely to break, and even if it does break, it's a quick to reboot to a working version. Considering the laptop is only powered up for occasional maintenance, outings and/or emergencies, it's important to be able to install updates quickly without side-affects.

Steam Deck: Well, this runs SteamOS. I was going to try other distros on it, but I just never got around to doing that, I keep getting distracted by games.

Servers and other business computers: A mix of RHEL, CentOS, Rocky, Debian

I won't go into detail for each of them, but to summarise these systems need to do a specific task, in some cases be powered on 24-7 and "just do it". That's where these distros come in. On these systems rebooting every day for updates would be a royal PITA.

Last edited by BlackBloodRum on 8 April 2023 at 2:47 am UTC

I ran a few distros on my main PC at the same time back then, Arch Linux and Linux Mint specifically but there were others too. I later deleted all but Arch then switched to Garuda. I also had an Arch install on an external HDD but the HDD is reformatted. I'm glad I now run only a single distro.

Quoting: mr-victoryI ran a few distros on my main PC at the same time back then, Arch Linux and Linux Mint specifically but there were others too. I later deleted all but Arch then switched to Garuda. I also had an Arch install on an external HDD but the HDD is reformatted. I'm glad I now run only a single distro.

Yeah, as I had alluded to in my big post, I do suspect that in time, complexity will begin reducing again, and I'll end up back on just one (or at most two or three) distros(s). Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to that day. When I was in my early 20's [I'm in my early 40's now], like most people that age, I loved to party. But even that early, in the back of my head, I still looked forward to living the quiet life of an older man, his partying days more or less behind him. However, that didn't mean that I didn't like the partying at the time, right? :-)

Perhaps not a perfect metaphor, but I think it works. I do look forward to simpler, more settled days ahead. Truly. But for now, I'm also enjoying all the fun I'm having "chasing the everything"!

My desktop and laptop both run Manjaro. It's my first Arch based distro and I've been using them for about a year. Previously, I've used OpenSuse Tumbleweed, and a variety of debian based distros.

My home server is running debian stable. It's the original install from 2007/8 (although every part of the server has been upgraded since).

My router runs IPFire, which I believe might be LFS based (not sure on that). It's actually running on the server's original hardware (minus a new hard drive)

I can't say anything bad about them. I have much less time to tinker then my younger days, so I generally prefer a distro that gets me doing what I want faster, gaming usually, and are pretty easy on the maintenance.

I run Fedora/Gnome, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint on various computers. I like to keep up to speed on various DEs and distros. I did dabble with Arch (Manjaro, really), but that was a hassle, so I'm not bothering anymore.

Garuda and Debian, usually flipping between KDE / Gnome randomly. Though generally prefer Gnome, because Kmail still kind of sucks.

Quoting: GuestCurrently installing FreeBSD, I mean installation is done, but I need a kernel module that's GPL and because BSD can't ship GPL code in the kernel, I need to recompile. I tried with MidnightBSD but I dont recommend 0/10 poor bsd distro.

I feel like BSD is something I'll like to try at some point, but I'm not sure I'm there yet.

The very superficial grasp I have from the very limited reading I've done paints a picture of a system that is very similar to Linux (which makes perfect sense considering they're both UNIX-derived. What I read implies that your typical BSD does "general computing" much more quickly than Linux, and has a Linux compatability feature / layer (whatever the more appropriate term would be) so that you still have access to the Linux software library, but that it runs
those Linux apps much more slowly than actual Linux would. I also understand that most, or possibly even all Linux DEs will work with BSD as well, and in fact, I am unaware of any DEs that are BSD-specific.

It seems like it'll make a fun playground someday, and there's also a feeling, with it being so niche of being "more punk than punk" insofar as being a Linux user in a world of Mac and Windows is "punk", anyway. :-)

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioI am unaware of any DEs that are BSD-specific.

yes there is Lumina DE

Ah! Well there ya go! So, that means if/when I ever get around to trying BSD, for a more novel and unique experience, I'll have to remember to give Lumina a look. :-)