Hi, I just want to share / get some opinion.
I started using Linux 2 years back. I was dual booting back then and after a year switched to Linux completely.
I started out using Ubuntu, hated it, installed Manjaro after a week and when pacmac broke the thing within 2 months, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, read the arch wiki and installed arch. Things were going great except for some Nvidia issues (I am using an Optimus laptop) but utt was running smoothly. Then decided that I want to build a game engine and the nvidia issues were significant. So I read somewhere that Fedora has great nvidia support and I installed it and everything worked. I installed Fedora 39, and it worked. When Fedora 40 came, I upgraded no issues, Fedora 41 came, no issues.
But just a few days back when I had vacation, I decided my system was getting bloated and I didn’t manually want to uninstall apps, I decided let’s format it. But I thought… Arch might take up less space on my disk(1 have a 512gb nvme, and t 2tb hdd, but I like to put things like games and projects I am working on, on the nvme). So I installed arch and loving the experience. I installed Nvidia-open drm drivers and it just works.
TLDR: Is it normal to distro hop after being using a distro perfectly for so long?
PS: I used archinstall because I didn’t want through the lengthy process again. And archinstall works great.
Distrohopping is just a symptom of FOMO (Fear of missing OpenSUSE)
I mean I love OpenSUSE TW. Been using it for well over 2 years. One of the best distros I used. But I am slowly looking to try something new. Its all fun and games 😄
The distro that cured my distro-hopping was Slackware.
It taught me that you can do anything Linux can do in any distro, no matter how obscure or simplistic.It also taught me that there is no reward waiting for you on the other side for making your own life difficult.
Went back to Debian knowing I could do it all myself manually, but I don’t have to.
For me it is just trying different flavors. They are all unique in their own right. I have not used Slackware yet. Might give it a go though.
I had tried opensuse tumbleweed and absolutely loved the way it did things, my perfect balance between fedora and arch, but there were Teo problems that I couldn’t get over.
- Zypper is slow.
- I couldn’t get it to do parallel downloads packages.
But it’s a great distro nonetheless.
Also it has a similar problem with fedora that arch doesn’t. VIDEO CODECS. I don’t understand how the USA messes with my ability to play a video and I am seriously annoyed by it.
I started using Linux 2 years back.
Here’s the cause and it’s normal.
I remember going through a lot of hopping the first 3 or 4 years but have been settled on Arch since then.
Every distro hopper eventually settles on either Arch or Debian.
Well, I settled on a Ubuntu derivative so I guess it’s in the family. It could just as easily have been Fedora though.
Or both! Debian on my server, arch on my desktop, btw
Bold of you to not run to assume I don’t run Arch on my server too (but with all the services inside containers (which are arch images))
Btw
Nah its normal, been hoping since 6 years. I keep an external hard drive with important info, so i can nuke my system without worry.
So I read somewhere that Fedora has great nvidia support and I installed it and everything worked
OK maybe I’ll try Fedora or Arch, cuz Mint is being weird about my video card.
I’ve also hopped distros on a scale of several years at a time. Loved Arch before I was living on an awful internet connection; did Ubuntu until they messed with snaps; loved Tumbleweed for a few years, but the volume of updates was getting a bit much; nearly learnt Nix but a trial run of Home Manager went up in flames, then I realised multiple layered package versions wasn’t worth the ‘stability’; now Mint’s been doing the job nicely, but I’m tempted to try KDE’s new distro someday.
Yeah, it’s normal. There are so many flavours of Linux out there, why wouldn’t you want to try some of them?
In the current landscape of the distro wars, admitting you just jumped sides is grounds to call forth the raiders from your old distro, they know the distro specific vulnerabilities and will unleash a fury of which you have never seen. The first sign will be a blinking hard drive light…
Not normal, you are a weirdo.
I use W11 bloat edition, BTW
I recommend distrohopping to check out Vista and iOS. It’s easier to get started with if you dual boot them on your W11 netbook.
Every Linux user has to go through a period of compulsive distro hopping. Don’t worry, eventually you’ll grow tired of it and just settle on one workhorse distro.
Are you even a real Linux user when you don’t switch distros every day?
Personally I’m usually content for a long time. Although my ideal distro still doesn’t exist and probably never will with the way the meta is currently going.
But you do you. You know how hard/easy it is to reinstall so as long as you’re having fun just experiment away.
What would your ideal distro look like, and what’s missing currently?
At the moment I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed but it’s a little too conservative in my opinion. I can manage it but I miss Debian automatically enabling and restarting services on install/update and management of user groups and other little helpers.
I’d love to have a Debian based rolling release distro with the same quality control as Tumbleweed. Not Sid, that’s too much tied to Debian Testing’s release cycle and doesn’t get security updates in a timely manner.
That used to be my holy grail, too. At some point I realized I do pretty much the same tasks on my PC now that I did 5 years ago.
So if 5 years of software upgrades don’t change the utility of my PC fundamentally, then I can live with Debian Stable.I like flapjack* for the occasional programs I want the newest version.
*Sure, autocorrect, let’s call it that now.
Oh yeh, totally normal. I switch distros roughly once a year and if I have more than one device on the go then I almost always have different distros on each of them. I think I was with Linux Mint the longest, but even then I switched DE at least 3 times.
I have 4 Linux devices on the go at the moment. My desktop is on OpenSuSE, my laptop I recently moved from windows to OpenSuSE, my HTPC is on Nobara and I have a Raspberry Pi on Raspbian.
I’ve also used Mint as my main before OpenSuSE and still use Mint in KVM on my desktop to run Virutal machines. My most used VM is for Servarr / torrent use - nice to run it in a contained sandbox with its own VPN.
TLDR: Is it normal to distro hop after being using a distro perfectly for so long?
I have used the same distribution (Debian) for over 20 years when I decided to change distributions and switch to NixOS. Debian was - and still is - a very fine distribution. I just needed something radically different.
So, to answer your question: yes, it is perfectly normal. Two years isn’t even long.
It’s pretty normal as far as I am aware.
I have another friend who uses Linux and he also disro hops, same as me.
We’ll try out a distro and if it turns out we don’t like it, doesn’t suit our needs, doesn’t support something we want to do or it just breaks then we try another.
I started on Ubuntu many years ago and grew to dislike it. I stay away from Debian for the most part these days. Tried Kubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Mint etc.
I tried Manjaro and hated it. It stopped working when my monitors went to sleep, could not bring them back. Also had some PC freezes. Tried another installation of it and same thing.
I tried Garuda, did not like.
I tried Pop!_OS but I don’t recall much about it.
I’ve now settled on Fedora based distros. Fedora is quite nice but my main one is Nobara. I’m currently playing around with Bazzite.
I’d like to see what Steam OS is about when they do some releases for their current version. I think I played around with a very old version years ago.
Never tried Arch, I might do it just because or so I can say I did.
I’ve probably forgotten a few others between.
It’s normal. As is to stick to one distro for ever. It’s great to have options, no?
back when i started with Linux, i would distro hop in the beginning since i was trying out different ones, making mistakes, but taking that knowledge with me onto the next one. Then i discovered Manjaro, then EndeavourOS and have been on it for years now
Have thought about reinstalling EOS once i rebuild my computer, but see how that goes -
