I feel like I'm missing out by not distro-hopping

I’ve been dailying the same Mint install since I gave up on Windows a few years ago. When I was choosing a distro, a lot of people were saying that I should start with Mint and “move on to something else” once I got comfortable with the OS.

I’m comfortable now, but I don’t really see any reason to move on. What would the benefits be of jumping to something else? Mint has great documentation and an active community that has answers to any questions I’ve ever had, and I’m reluctant to ditch that. On the other hand, when I scroll through forums, Distro Hopping seems to be such a big part of the “Linux experience.”

What am I missing?

rodbiren,

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.

cmat273,

not really unless you’re trying something relatively unique like nixos or void etc. you can do most things on any distro

heygooberman,
@heygooberman@lemmy.today avatar

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.

Stillhart,

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.

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

Pros: you might find something you like more.

Cons: You’ve spent a bunch of time installing OSes you might not like, and you have to set everything back up again. Also if you didn’t back up your data you’re probably going to delete it.

Do you value time fucking around with your computer, or are you happy with how it works currently?

Also distro hop in a VM first, you’re probably not going to like most other things, or it might not be worth the time to migrate all your shit over to it if you find something you like more.

JoeKrogan,
@JoeKrogan@lemmy.world avatar

Unless its NixOS or something like silver blue or QubesOS they’re all basically the same. If you want to mess about try some different ones in a VM or on a live CD or USB. That way you still have your daily driver working when you need it

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