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

AVincentInSpace, 1 year ago

The time I spent “distro hopping” back in high school was because I didn’t have the balls to commit to a single distro. Even then the only time I actually switched was when I made a config change that blew up in my face so badly I needed to reinstall anyway.

If you’ve found a setup you’re happy with, by all means, stick with it. You’re not missing out on much by not voluntarily erasing your boot drive and installing an entirely new OS every week or so for no reason other than it looked cool.

(If you’re about to suggest dual booting multiple Linux distros, no. Just stop. I tried that once. You would not believe how many issues are caused by sharing a ~/.config between two systems with slightly different versions of the same software.)

TCB13, 1 year ago

There’s Debian and Red Hat Enterprise, everything else is pointless. Enjoy.

ulu_mulu, 1 year ago

Distro Hopping seems to be such a big part of the “Linux experience.”

It’s not, it’s just a way to find the distro that suits you best.

If you’re already satisfied with what you have, there’s no reason to change and you’re not missing out on anything. If you’re ever curious about other distros, install Virtualbox and try them in a VM.

I stopped distro hopping years ago when I started using Linux MX (Debian based), I’m so happy with it that I have no intention to change ever again.

The only other distro I really like is LMDE (Mint based on Debian instead of Ubuntu), so I put that one on my laptop (MX on my gaming desktop).

ReakDuck, 1 year ago

I guess this is to figure out what is also possible on Linux, and getting to know that not all problems or missing features apply to other distros.

Sometimes you can lwarn amazing stuff, like a KDE distro can be customized to your liking while a Gnome desktop is a nearly forced workflow and design but can be slightly changed with buggy extensions.

Paragone, 1 year ago

If it works for you, stick with it.

Works is a feature, not a bug.

_ /\ _

therealjcdenton, 1 year ago

Don’t. Arch, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE, and Fedora are used in the exact same way. Pick one of them and then trf different desktop environments, if you want you can download the configurations for distro from their source code

therealjcdenton, 1 year ago

The only distro that is unique off the top of my head is NixOS since you use it and think about it backwards

Octopus1348, 1 year ago

You should only hop if you know what you’re missing out on, if you don’t and don’t have any distro-specific problems, it’s just unnecessary. But if you really feel like it and have enough disk space, you can try dual-booting another distro and see which you like better.

I hopped because I wanted immediate updates and easy compiling (AUR) so I picked an Arch-based OS.

Distro hopping is pretty similar to changing instances on Lemmy. If you don’t have a reason, just keep using your current account.

noddy, 1 year ago

You can always distro hop inside a virtual machine if you have the time and nothing to do.

possiblylinux127, 1 year ago

It sounds like you need distrobox and KVM.

MiddledAgedGuy, 1 year ago

You are. Reformat and install the first hardware compatible distro you find on distro.moe right now. Don’t think too much about it, just do it! /s, probably?

If checking out a different distro sounds interesting and/or fun then you should. If not, then don’t. Whatever way you Linux is the correct way for you.

Cowbee, 1 year ago

The goal is for it to work. If it works, you’re doing it right. For some people, Mint isn’t enough. For many, it absolutely is.

KarnaSubarna, 1 year ago (edited 8 months ago)

If your use cases (a.k.a. requirements) are met by your current distro, never switch.

If you are satisfied with stability, availability of support, quick availability of security patches, never switch.

This is particularly important when you are using your Linux desktop as your daily driver.

Most you can do is to check what additional features other distros are offering (rolling release, hardened/zen kernel, x86-64-v2/3 support, file system type, user base, availability of packages, package formats, overall documentation etc.), validate if you really need those features.

If you are interested or just curious to test those features, install that distro on a VM (QEMU/KVM) to try it out first safely. Use it on VM for a while, make yourself comfortable with it. Once you are satisfied with it, only then switch.

lemmyreader, 1 year ago

Arch Linux, rolling Linux distribution, would give you the newest stable software, with probably new application features, but you can use distrobox, podman-toolbox, VirtualBox, KVM (QEMU) or a live Linux cd image to play with Arch Linux every now and then, without having to install it :)

not_amm, 1 year ago

I used to “virtual distro hop” because I tried a lot of distros in VMs before dualbooting. I installed Tumbleweed and haven’t changed ever since.

I don’t regret keeping my distro, I’ve been curious, of course, but I think i already have it all:

• Stability
• The newest updates
• I know my system very well
• By knowing my system, I can fix most problems and I know where to go if I can’t.

I sometimes try distros in VMs, but with that and Distrobox I think I already have everything I could need to learn and try them in case I need to work with them in the future :)

Rossphorus, 1 year ago (edited 8 months ago)

I was surviving with Ubuntu, I had my complaints but I figured ‘that’s just how it is’ on Linux, that it was the same everywhere. I didn’t even realise what I was missing until I switched.

I got a hardware upgrade at one point, so in order to get those new drivers ASAP I tried an Arch-based distro, with plans to switch back once drivers became available. I never moved back.

The two big reasons I stayed was ironically enough the lack of good Ubuntu documentation, and the PPA system. Ubuntu is used a lot, but there’s not really formal documentation anywhere, only random tutorials online (most likely out of date and never updated) and people on forums talking about their problems. By contrast the Arch wiki is the gold standard of Linux documentation, there’s just no comparison. Even on Ubuntu I found myself using it as a reference from time to time.

Regarding PPAs, the official Ubuntu package list is strangely small so if you’re like me and find yourself needing other software, even mainstream software like Docker, you’ll be faffing about with PPAs. So if you want to install Docker, instead of typing sudo apt install dockerYou instead have to type:

<span style="color:#323232;"># Add Docker's official GPG key: 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo apt-get update 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg 
</span><span style="color:#323232;"># Add the repository to Apt sources: 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">echo  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu  $(. /etc/os-release &amp;&amp; echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" |  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null sudo apt-get update
</span>

These are the official install instructions, by the way. This is intended behaviour. The end user shouldn’t have to deal with all this. This feels right out of the 90’s to me.

Instead of PPAs, Arch has the Arch User Repository (AUR). Holy moly is the AUR way nicer to work with. Granted, we’re not quite comparing apples to apples here since the AUR (typically) builds packages from source, but bear with me. You install an AUR package manager like yay (which comes preinstalled on my flavour of Arch, EndeavourOS). yay can manage both your system and AUR packages. Installing a package (either official or AUR) looks like yay packageNameHere. That’s it. A full system upgrade like sudo apt update; sudo apt upgrade is a single command: yay -Syu, a bit cryptic but much shorter. The AUR is fantastic not just for the ease of use, but for sheer breadth of packages. If you find some random project on github there’s probably an AUR package for it too. Because it builds from source an AUR package is essentially just a fancy build script based on the project’s own build instructions, so they’re super easy to make, which means there’s a lot of them.

You might argue ‘but building from source might fail! Packages are more reliable!’, which is somewhat true. Sometimes AUR builds can fail (very rarely in my experience), but so can PPAs. Because PPAs are often made to share one random package they can become out of date easily if their maintainer forgets or simply stops updating it. By contrast AUR packages can be marked out of date by users to notify the maintainer, and/or the maintainer role can be moved to someone else if they go silent. If a PPA goes silent there’s nothing you can do. Also, since an AUR package is just a fancy build script you can edit the build script yourself and get it working until the package gets an update, too. PPAs by comparison are just a black box - it’s broken until it gets updated.

Moral of the story? Don’t be afraid to just give something a go. Mint will always be waiting for you if you don’t like it.