If you want to enjoy distro hopping, go find a cheap thinkpad as a secondary device, and have fun. Otherwise, you try out live discs/drives to see if you get full compatibility with your main device.
Truth is that you’ll have more difference in user experience DE hopping than distro hopping.
You only distro hop until you find what works right with an your hardware and preferred software, unless you’re doing it as a hobby. Now, the desktop environments? That’s where you’ll see the big difference.
Honestly, if Mint has been working fine then I see no reason that you’d need to switch. If you’re curious about trying out other distros, it could be worth using a program like Boxes to try out some VM’s. Otherwise, I say you keep doing whatever works well for you.
I’ve been daily driving boring Debian since RedHat Linux 8 came out 20 years ago now. I tried switching to openSUSE and just didn’t see the point after a bit, so I switched back. The only time I’m not on Debian is when I’m playing with FreeBSD or NetBSD.
Same for DE, I’ve been using XFCE for so long that I don’t get the fuss about pretty environments.
Not hopping does not mean you’re missing out, boring can be good. Things are stable and stay out of the way of you doing actual work.
There is a quote out there somewhere about how customizing FVWM can become an obsession.
There is nothing wrong about hopping, as long as you are doing it for hobbyist reasons, at the end of day the only difference is the package manager and the DE.
You’re not missing out on anything. Mint lets you install various desktop environments, they are all very well-configured and stable by default. You can just install the appropriate desktop environment meta-package using Apt:
apt install 'task-gnome-desktop’
apt install 'kde-plasma-desktop’
apt install 'cinnamon-desktop-environment’
apt install ‘task-xfce-desktop’
Then you can “hop” from one GUI experience to another by just logging out and logging in with a different session. You might have to add some additional Ubuntu repositories to your Apt config to get all of these meta-packages though.
Besides the desktop environment, the only other big difference between distros is how you use their package managers, which all do the same thing anyways, just with different CLI commands.
Probably the most important thing to consider in a distro is which versions of the latest stable releases of the big Linux apps are available in their distros. Arch-based distros (Garuda, Manjaro, ArcoLinux, EndeavorOS) are the most bleeding-edge but these operating systems tend to break after a software update if you fail to update often enough. Ubuntu and Fedora are the most bleeding-edge non-rolling release distros that I know of, and in my experience they never break after a software update.
You’re not missing anything really. For some reason some people like to say that Mint is a good distro for beginners and imply that you should change away from it when you’re more “advanced”. This is really nonsense. Mint is a good distro. I switched to Tumbleweed because I found one or two things I couldn’t do so easily in Mint, but if you’re not having trouble there’s really no reason to switch. And with tools like Flatpak and Distrobox available these days there’s even less reason to distro hop.
I’ve been using Gentoo since 2004, every now and then I pop a distro DVD ISO into a VM to see what all the hubbub is about, but I doubt I’ll ever switch to another distro unless Gentoo dies.
My point is, sans diatribe, pop a distro ISO into a VM and see if it even seems like something you’d like.
You don’t have to do any more than that, keep using what makes you happy.
Distros that just work (although YMMV): Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS with the default desktop environments. I have been using Ubuntu and Fedora both (on different computers) for over 15 years now they each always get the WiFi and BlueTooth drivers right, neither ever has trouble with audio or video, they really just work, and they both are pretty well up-to-date with the latest stable versions of the biggest Linux apps in their repositories.
I have been thinking of switching my Ubuntu computers over to Mint (Xfce edition, though Cinnamon isn’t bad), which uses the same base operating system package set as Ubuntu, but its ownership model is more collective and community-oriented. Fedora is also collectively owned, while Pop!_OS and Ubuntu are owned and operated by for-profit businesses – that doesn’t make them bad, it just might be something to consider.
Also, if you don’t mind a shameless plug, I wrote a blog post on how to choose a Linux distro, so feel free to read if it pleases you.
I switched from mint because I didn’t like cinnamon and wanted to try kde without going through the process of replacing a de. It was worth it because it like using my computer a lot more when I can make the de pretty
Well if you are doing work on you computer you find rewarding and it functions I would quit while you are ahead. Getting into distro hopping and caring about Linux internals is a bit like being a car enthusiast. You can either have a car to drive it or have a car that you fart around all the time tweaking bits, replacing it, breaking it, developing strong opionons about things almost no one cares about.
So to you want to be a driver or an enthusiast? By using Linux at all you can essentially consider yourself part of the “car club”, but there is a whole heck of a lot else to learn.
I used to be in a similar position as you. I ditched Windows about 1.5 years ago, and I hopped around several distros for a while before settling on Linux Mint. About 2 months ago, i decided that I wanted to try out something new, not because Linux Mint wasn’t working for me, but just to see if there was something else that would be fun to learn about Linux. Today, I use Arch, and my DE is basically the Linux Mint Cinnamon DE.
Definitely gnome wayland. I have tried plasma wayland but it didn’t work as well (gnome apps seem to be more touch-friendly than qt ones) and there’s no built-in virtual keyboard. I also tried a custom setup with sway, wofi, wvkbd, wlogout, and some other stuff but it kinda sucked for touch.
Linux can be a hobby, not just a tool. If you want to have fun with a new hobby, distro hopping will have plenty to keep you busy. But if you just want something to run your computer and your current distro does it for you just fine, then you’re not missing out on anything but a headache.
It’s funny, I’m in an opposite situation. I don’t want to distro hop, but my current one has some issues that I’m getting a little fed up with (issues that are a result of my hardware and use case) so I am working up to swapping distros to find something with fewer issues. For me, I just want my OS to be transparent. I don’t want a hobby. That’s why it took me so long to swap to linux in the first place.
Anyways, IMHO, unless you’re really into the idea of playing with your OS as a hobby, don’t let FOMO trick you into making the mistake of throwing out what works in the hopes of greener grass.
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