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What is/was your distrohopping journey?

For me it was:

Windows (for many years) -> Ubuntu (for a year) -> Arch Linux (for half a year) -> Void Linux (literally 2 days) -> Artix Linux with runit (a month) -> Gentoo Linux (another month) -> Debian (finally, I don't plan on changing it).

Also, when trying to switch from Gentoo to Debian, I fucked up all my data with no backup.

What was your journey?

EDIT: Added Windows

169 comments

  • Copying this from another thread that was basically the same question, but didn't get much attention

    Started on Arch Linux for some reason back in 2016, I just decided to throw out my Windows and install it (Don't really remember what was going through my head, or why I wanted to install Linux, other than I was reading the r/linux subreddit wiki at the time). I was trapped in a TTY trying to install the thing for maybe a week, and after 9 reinstallations, I got Arch working and got a Weston compositor session running under Wayland. After realizing Weston was more a tech-demo than something I was actually supposed to use, I installed X11 and Gnome, which was cool for approximately 3 minutes before I decided to replace it with some minimal window manager instead. Can't remember if it was i3wm or something else, but i3wm sounds right; and later I messed around with some tilers like StumpWM, ratpoison, and HerbstluftWM.

    After about 3 months, something in Arch broke (systemd was not reaping processes properly was what I concluded at the time, no idea what the actual problem was but I ended up with a bunch of zombie processes), and I decided to install Gentoo as my second Linux distribution. After installing Gentoo, I entered a stage which is colloquially know as "config hell" where I overconfigured everything to the point of breaking something, and could never figure out what I actually broke because everything was so overconfigured. After recompiling the whole system, everything was still broken, so I reinstalled Gentoo, this time less overconfigured, but still somewhat overconfigured (It didn't help I was also running a full self-made custom kernel config with 3 months of Linux experience, I surprised the thing booted at all).

    I lived in Gentoo for around a year using HerbstluftWM, but eventually I grew tired of how much maintenance Gentoo required and just wanted some sane defaults. This led me to installing OpenBSD, which I guess was the right decision for me because I'm still using it to this day (7 years!), and is where I gained the majority of my knowledge about using Unix thanks to the wonderful documentation. Initially I didn't like the ports system because it didn't have as many knobs as Gentoo's portage did (Gentoo's portage is more modeled after FreeBSD's ports than OpenBSD's ports it seems), but I came around to enjoying hacking ports with my own patches instead of using preconfigured knobs. Eventually my porting skills got good enough that I now officially mantain a couple OpenBSD ports (games/stone-soup, www/pipe-viewer), and that list is likely to grow. I switched between some other window managers (ratpoison, JWM, FVWM2) before settling on OpenBSD's in-house cwm. I purchased a VPS also running OpenBSD, and self host various things like email, git, ZNC, web/http, and IPsec/VPN. Eventually, I grew tired of not having games to play (OpenBSD doesn't support WINE), so I bought a Steam Deck that I use as both my gaming desktop and handheld. I also bought a Pinephone from Pine64 which currently uses PostmarketOS (I hope to run OpenBSD on it some day though).

    tl;dr Use Arch as your first Linux distribution and you'll end up as an OpenBSD ports maintainer I guess

    • It takes a special person to jump into a complicated task struggle and then pick up and even more complicated task and end up succeeding.

  • Ubuntu (in VM, a few months) -> Linux Mint (1 year) -> Archlinux (2 years) -> Ubuntu (1 year) -> Fedora (2 years) -> Linux Mint Debian (3 years) -> Debian (5+ years for now)

    I have had a desktop PC and a laptop for a few years now. The laptop had Mint (DE) for 2 years longer.

    That should be more or less it, makes about 14 years on GNU/Linux now.

  • Windows 95

    Suse Linux

    Yoper Linux

    Windows XP

    Slackware

    Windows 10/11

    Fedora Linux

    "Relapsed" to Windows for a while because I became a graphic designer and running a somewhat current Adobe suite on wine was impossible (it works now).

    Slackware has been amazing, but having to built so much stuff from scratch takes too much time nowadays.

    And those first Suse years were too rough to keep using it as a daily driver.

  • Slack, mandriva, Ubuntu, gentoo, arch, xubuntu, knoppix, mint, QubesOS. In that order.

    Currently at Qubes and I can't imagine downgrading to any OS that doesn't have these VM-level sandboxing features built-in

  • warning: some non-linux included below

    • minix
    • slackware
    • early Debian
    • FreeBSD (ftp installs instead of 20 floppies! OMG!)
    • Debian
    • Crunchbang <-- loved that original project
    • Solaris (friend gave me a Sparc 5)
    • DSL, Puppy linux (had a tiny netbook)
    • **Debian on workstations and servers since ~2014 **
    • various debian-based distros on RPI

    I do spin up other distros in a VM from time to time to see what's what. Most recently NixOS since people won't STFU about it. :-)

  • Windows (~6 years) -> Mandriva (Mandrake? For I think 2-3 years) -> Ubuntu (1 day) -> Suse (2 days) -> Slackware (2-3 years) -> Gentoo unstable (2-3 years) -> Gentoo stable (2-3 years) -> Arch (9 years and counting)

    The only span I'm sure about is the last one. When I started a job I decided I don't have the time to compile the world anymore. But the values after Windows sum up to 21, should be 20, so it's all more or less correct

    • I’ve never had gentoo before, but what I’ve heard from other people might explain that part of your journey. You went from unstable to stable to Arch, which says something.

      • Gentoo unstable was a little bit tiring in the long run. The bleeding edge, but often I needed to downgrade because the rest of the libraries were not ready

        Gentoo stable was really great. Back then pulseaudio was quite buggy. Having a system where I could tell all applications and libraries to not even link to it (so no need to have it installed at all) made avoiding its problems really easy
        But when my hardware got older and compilation of libreoffice started to take 4h, I remembered how nice it was on Slackware where you just install package you broke and you're done

        Arch looked like a nice middle-ground. Most of the things in packages, big focus on pure Linux configurability (pure /etc files, no Ubuntu(or SUSE?) "you need working X.org to open distro-specific graphics card settings") and AUR for things there are no official packages for. Turned out it was a match :)

  • I am not sure that I can really call what I did distrohopping, but

    Mint w/ Cinnamon (several years ago on an old junker laptop and never ended up using it as a daily driver) -> Manjaro w/ KDE Plasma (daily driver for 1 year) -> Arch w/ KDE Plasma (2 years and counting).

    I have also used Debian with no DE on a file server I made out of an old thin client PC and I have used Rasbian on a raspberry pi.

  • It all started with SuseLinux with KDE2. Then a long while it was Windows only. In 2021 I dabbled with Elementaryos, because it damn looks beautiful. In 2023 then I took the plunge. Started with Garuda Linux. Then KDE Neon then Fedora, then OpenSuse, Fedora Silverblue, then Nobara Linux, Fedora Kinoite, then back to Mint, Garuda and now've I settled on Nobara KDE.

  • Windows 10 years -> macOS 6months -> Windows 10 years -> mint 1 week -> Ubuntu 1hr -> Garuda 30mins -> endeavor 1hr - > arch 1 day (I got filtered) -> manjaro 1 year -> fedora 1 week -> nobara 6 months.

    I did manage to install arch on an old chromebook but I find configuring things from scratch annoying and I like it to be configured well be default and I'll change it if I want to.

  • Slackware(1995?), Yggdrasil, Redhat/Fedora/Mandrake, SuSE, Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

    Probably some others I have forgotten, and there was a lot of back and forth at various times but I settled on Debian based because at the time APT was the best package manager. I mostly use Mint or straight Debian now because familiarity makes it the simplest for me after all these years.

    not Linux but also Solaris, SunOS, &amp; AIX

  • I tried one distro and now the other distros confuse and scare me.

  • Windows 95 -> 98 -> SuSE ...9? -> XP -> Ubuntu 10 -> Windows 7 -> Windows 10 (alongside a bunch of Debian servers) -> MX Linux -> Debian

    Also went Windows 10 -> Kubuntu -> VanillaOS -> Kinoite on my laptop for what it's worth.

  • I started with Corel Linux, moved to Mandrake and then began an 18 year distro-hopping journey. To keep it interesting, I rolled a d100 on distrowatch.com and installed whatever I landed on. About 6 years ago I landed on openSUSE Tumbleweed and haven't hopped since if you don't count a brief dalliance with endeavour on my laptop.

  • 98-02 Slackware

    02-24 Gentoo

    Im currently fixated on nixos and it's likely to get gentoo's spot when I need to replace this workstation

  • Vic20 😆 -> C64 -> AmigaOS -> MacOS -> Slackware (much frustration!) -> MacOS -> Ubuntu -> EndeavourOS

  • Windows (up until windows 8 came out) -> Ubuntu for about a year -> Manjaro for about 6 years -> Arch so far for 2 years.

  • MS-DOS up until about 1995 or 1996. Slackware until 1997. Debian until 1998. Slackware again until 2000. Debian again until 2005. Gentoo until 2012. Arch up to the present.

  • For me it is like this: Window-->ubuntu(a month)-->kubuntu(a week)-->Opensuse tumbleweed

    I also tried Nobara, zorinos, arch and bazzite but never actually use them

  • Desktop: Windows Vista Home -> Windows 7 Home -> CentOS 7 -> Debian 8 -> Arch Linux -> OpenSUSE Leap 15 -> Debian 10 -> Slackware

    Slackware is probably where i'll be for the rest of my time on Linux, as unlike other distros, I have no major complaints.

    I've always hosted stuff at home, even as a kid, so for my homeserver:

    Server: Windows XP Pro -> Windows 7 Pro -> CentOS 7 -> CentOS 8 -> Artix Linux -> NetBSD -> OpenBSD -> SmartOS

    I don't miss the days of using WAMP on windows lol

  • Here's my distrohopping journey (including non-Linux OS)

    • Windows 7 →
    • Windows 10 →

    Mid 2021, I tried Fedora Linux in a VM and was unable to install it, but I liked it regardless.

    So, a while later I decided to try this "Linux" thing on my computer.

    • Linux Mint (late 2021) →
    • Arco Linux (arch felt too intimidating) →
    • Debian (stability = good?) →
    • Debian Sid (stability = boring) →
    • Artix Linux OpenRC (omg i hate systemd so much!1!!) →
    • Void Linux →
    • Artix Linux runit (it didn't work) →
    • Arch Linux (how do i use systemctl wtf) →
    • Void Linux again (ah, ln -s /etc/sv/something /run/service/)→
    • NixOS unstable (since January 2024)

    Honestly, I'm just glad I found something I liked, as NixOS is perfect for tinkering.

    During all that distrohopping, I "DE-hopped" even more. Currently I run SwayFX, but I've used Cinnamon, XFCE, Plasma, GNOME, AwesomeWM, i3, bspwm, dwm, swaywm and Hyprland.

    edit 1: add Artix Linux runit

    edit 2: remove NixOS stable from the list

  • I started with an openSUSE dual boot with KDE. I didn't use Linux a lot at that point. Later, I switched to Ubuntu on a laptop for about a year and used that until I bought a MacBook. Eventually, I returned to Linux by running Pop!_OS on my desktop, but games were a bit choppy, and I really wanted to just run Wayland. I also started to use RHEL at work for our servers. So now I'm trying to switch to Fedora. I still have some issues with the Jagex Launcher, but aside from that, everything seems to work great now.

    At home, I have also had an Ubuntu Server for many years, and I also run Ubuntu Server on my VPS.

  • Risc_os>win95-xp>Ubuntu>mint>Ubuntu>win8.1-10>manjaro>mint>popOs>fedora>fedora silverblue>bazzite/aurora

    1. (Some years, Childhood), Windows XP laptop with games on it, Windows 7 on some Minecraft PC lol. (3 years) Windows 10 on a Thinkpad T430, really nice laptop, but the OS was boring and kinda bad
    2. (3 days) Linux Mint, secondary drive. Had random blackout crashes that were not hardware related (still use that SSD today). Also wasnt impressed by the UI, but a very interesting experience of "the Linux"
    3. (Few weeks) Manjaro, awesome KDE experience and theme, really really nice. But had a bad reputation, so went looking for other KDE Distros
    4. (Few months) MX Linux, damn Distrowatch rankings. Got an error and my University IT people told me my Nextcloud client was too old, but the conky manager was awesome.
    5. (Half a year) Kubuntu, with Backports, then switched to KDE Neon. Began nice, then went more and more unstable and broke
    6. (Few weeks) Fedora KDE, finally dared the move to a "less known OS", but it broke too. I guess that Plasma 5.2x phase was just messy
    7. (Over a year) Fedora Kinoite, uBlue, secureblue, Aurora. Tried the Kinoite prerelease for Plasma 6 and now for 6.1, finding some bugs.

    Now happy part of the Fedora Community, rpm-ostree is just so good and makes Linux usable for me.

    Also experimenting with GNOME, COSMIC, Kinoite-prerelease and CentOS-Stream in VMs or external drives. Also experimenting with minimal, bloat-free KDE Plasma, as it is actually really light and simply the best supported modular desktop environment.

  • My full journey was Ubuntu, Manjaro, Debian, Arch. I would still consider myself a noob but know I don't break stuff as often.

  • Windows ->

    Fedora Kinoite: A relatively mature atomic/immutable distro combined with excellent security standards and that resembles Windows' workflow. Unfortunately, it broke almost immediately. Though, to be fair, it was a known issue with the ISO back then. As a newb, however, I couldn't be bothered with it. ->

    Fedora Silverblue: Well..., I didn't have much of a choice 😜. Or I had to forego Fedora Atomic altogether. However, I actually really enjoyed GNOME's workflow. I used this as my main system for about year. Until I found a related project... ->

    Arch: The memes got me 😅. In all honesty, though, it was mostly curiosity. Still, I didn't intend to throw away my working Silverblue installation for the sake of quenching my thirst for experiencing Arch. So, as dual boot, I tried to install it. This was pre archinstall, so it took a couple of tries before I booted into GNOME. However, I guess I did mess up something as I don't recall ever booting back into that system 😅. So, what if I want Arch, but don't want to spend more time with the installation... ->

    EndeavourOS: Yup. I actually enjoyed it. I also took the opportunity to install another DE; KDE. Tried out the hardened kernel. Was able to make Davinci Resolve work, which just caused a lot of trouble on Silverblue. Access to AUR. It was cool, really. And, for some time, I was actually pondering to dismiss Silverblue altogether in favor of EndeavourOS. But, I started to miss the 'stability' that I was used to from Silverblue. Though, I don't exactly recall if it was the fault of being based on Arch, or rather linked/attributed to KDE instead. Regardless, I noticed that (over time) I spend more and more time on Silverblue. At some point, booting into EndeavourOS didn't work any more. It had broken. I did engage in some troubleshooting efforts, but to no avail... ->

    Zorin OS lite: On backup laptop; the poor thing couldn't run Windows but (even today) it's still kicking on Linux ->

    Nobara: So, I guess I did miss some of the functionality provided by EndeavourOS; running Davinci Resolve being the primary one. But, I didn't want to pass out of the opportunity to try something else. Back then, Nobara was released relatively recently and was received very positively by the community. And had even a special guide/tutorial to make Davinci Resolve work on AMD devices. Nobara was cool. But, it didn't feel very special. I actually enjoyed EndeavourOS a lot more. It was mostly utilized for Davinci Resolve and for gaming if Silverblue wasn't fit for the job (for whatever reason). Unfortunately, even this one broke at some point 😅. I could still boot into it. But, the system just didn't do what it's supposed to do. I tried troubleshooting. But, once again, to no avail. ->

    uBlue; Silverblue image: Through all that was previously mentioned, I had stability in Fedora Silverblue. It was reliable. I could trust it. Well..., most of the time 😅. Decisions related to mesa or video acceleration in browsers definitely felt more like misses rather than hits. I can't blame Fedora as they're legally restricted. But, shouldn't we be able to do better? Enter uBlue. It seemed like some black magic shenanigans. The earlier issues would have never occurred (nor did they occur) on uBlue. This 'managed' aspect of uBlue was clearly, at least for me, the reason to consider it over regular Silverblue. And so, I parted with regular Silverblue and started using the Silverblue image provided by uBlue. Not long after, I even had my own (hardened) custom image. But, eventually (to be more precise; about half a year after switching to uBlue), keeping up with hardening took up too much effort for me to bear. But, thankfully, I had already found the perfect solution... ->

    secureblue (based on the Silverblue image): This was Silverblue hardened by someone that actually knows their shit. And, thankfully, I didn't have to maintain this myself. I used this for a couple of months until the next best thing... ->

    secureblue (based on the Bluefin image): Currently on this for I think half a year now. It has just been a lovely experience through and through. Everything I could have asked is provided.

  • Back when I was a kid, I was using Ubuntu. Ubtunu 14 and 16.

    At some point I got really into Elementary OS and Pantheon

    Then I rejected clone distros and embraced the mother distro, Debian.

    In college, I experimented a bit, like most people. I tried various DEs and WMs on Debian. I tried Arch. I tried PopOS. I tried Gentoo. Man, Gentoo is the WORST. Compiling stuff takes WAY too long and even after using it for 6 months it never got better. Worst distro on the planet. No one should ever use it. Eventually I settled on Arch.

    I stayed an Arch i3 guy for 3.5 years, but eventually I got fed up with it.

    I then finally gave Fedora a try, and I thought it was great. It was up to date like Arch but unbreakable. At the time I was also looking into BTRFS and immutability and making my own distro, and Fedora is great for that bc of CoreOS and Kinoite and all that stuff.

    While on Fedora I did a lot of weird things in search of my goals. Like I figured out how to install Pacman and get AUR applications working on Fedora, notably archiso which I was using to build my own immutable, declarative OS that would be AppImage-based and utilizing an AppImage package manager and store front I wrote myself.

    But then, about a year in, I discovered NixOS. It's the best thing ever. It solves all the problems I had with other distros that I thought I'd solve on Fedora or Arch with programming. It's everything I could want in a distro and then some. I've now been on it longer than I was on Fedora, and there's no sign of switching to anything else.

    Parallel to all this is various tool hopping. For instance, trying GNOME/KDE/Xfce/i3/Sway/Hyprland/etc at various times with various setups as well. Or bash vs zsh. Etc

    Currently, I'm on NixOS with Hyprland, and it's great. I've also used it with i3 and with GNOME + Pop Shell 2 for tiling which are both solid as well.

    Now, that's my daily driver and gaming machine. I use other OSs on other computers.

    I have a computer for music production that got Fedoraized when I was a Fedora fanboy for a year. I don't change it bc it doesn't need to change. It just needs to run Ardour, yabridge, etc and maintain my system audio configurations that I don't remember how to set up now. If it ever gets messed up, I'll switch to a fork of my NixOS configuration and refigure out my audio settings and put them in a configuration.

    I have a home nextcloud server as well. It also was once Fedoraized, but I gave up on that and went to Ubuntu bc that's the only thing that should ever run a Nextcloud server. It just does not work correctly if it's not on Ubuntu, at least that's my experience. I've tried hosting on Arch, Fedora, Debian, PopOS and more, but only Ubuntu works well for Nextcloud, so Ubuntu it stays.

    Windows -> RedHat -> Windows -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> RHEL -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Arch

169 comments