This is kind of the anti-distro hopping thread. How long have you stayed on a single Linux distribution for your main PC? What about servers?
I’ve been on Debian on and off since 2021, but finally committed to the platform since April of this year.
Before that I was on OpenBSD from 2011 - 2021 for my desktop.
Prior to that, FreeBSD for many years, followed by a few years of distro-hopping various Linux distros (Slackware, Arch, Fedora, simplyMEPIS, and ZenWalk from memory).
How long have you been on your distribution? Do we have anybody here who has been on their current distro for more than a decade?
My main desktop has been upgraded continuously from RHL5 (no E) in ~1999 to Fedora 38 today.
Well, almost continuously. I’ve done at least one fresh install, when I switched from 32-bit to 64-bit hardware.
Edit: I have used a lot of other distros on other boxes, both physical and virtual - I’ve just stuck with Fedora on that one.
I’ve been on Fedora Linux for almost a year now. Considering that I started using Linux when the pandemic started, you can figure out that it’s my distro of choice now. Also, I like that Fedora is, for the most part, quite developer friendly and had great packages and software installed when I first started using it.
I’ve been on Ubuntu ever since I switched to Linux 7 months ago, tbh I don’t understand distro-hopping. I’m not any tech wizard, and Ubuntu fulfills all my criteria: worked out of the box, worked faster than Windows, hasn’t broken yet 👍
All I do is run Firefox and Steam on my laptop anyways :/
I’ve been on Yggdrasil Linux since 1993. Now, get off my lawn, you punks!
I’ve been using OpenBSD on my desktop since about 2006ish.
MX and Opensuse
When Mint had a KDE version I used that for almost four years. Then went to KDE neon and found that to be unstable. Hopped hither and thither, finally made it back to mint.
Having used Linux for 15 years, I just want stable now. Even user cinnamon mint was getting glitchy and updating too frequently. So I’ve been using the mint Debian edition for more than a few months and love it. IF I had to switch now, I’d just go to Debian.
head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log[2014-10-11 14:33] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -r /mnt -Sy --cachedir=/mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg --noconfirm base base-devel'Almost 9 years it seems
I was on the same distro for ~10 years, roughly 2010-2020, before I got pulled into the “Apple ecosystem”. (Still use Linux on all my servers, though!)
I use(d) Arch, btw 😛
I’ve been using Ubuntu LTE for over 10 years now for servers. However, for personal machines I’ve been distro hopping every few years. Currently using Manjaro on both desktop and laptop now. My only gripe is recently it took them longer to release the latest gnome version than Ubuntu (it’s usually the other way around being a rolling release distro).
I have only gone full-linux for two years now. Before that I was on Mac for 10 years and before that Windows. I have had various machines that ran either Ubuntu or Debian that were not my main machine, but mostly backup or file servers.
I am generally happy with Ubuntu, although sometimes I feel like a more bleeding edge distro could be nice when I am looking for more up to date packages with the latest features. It is somewhat annoying having to go beyond the main package manager to install these newer packages, because installation instructions are not always available. E.g., a make file is available but there are no instructions on dependencies. At this point I am not/no longer looking to switch distels.
@unix_joe fedora and arch. Because anything Ubuntu based kinda sucks.
Probably 6 years, on FreeBSD. (Not a Linux distro, but I count that). Now I’m 3 years on NixOS, but I’m booting FreeBSD here and than.
My dad used to hope distros constantly. He would read distrowatch and want to try the latest and greatest out.
I’ve been with Ubuntu server since 1404. Not always the smoothest road but it’s worked for me. Snap is ridiculous though.
Ubuntu from 2006 right up until they replaced the firefox deb with a mandatory snap, whenever that was. Then I was on Pop OS for about 6 months, and now Fedora, which I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.
I tend to stick with one distro for a while but use it across multiple uses (my home PC as a separate boot partition to Windows, and within Virtualbox as a guest in windows and also in linux itself). I find it easier to stick to one Distro and get used to the distro’s paradigm.
At the moment I’m using Mint and have done for a few years. I used Lubuntu before that. I’ll be sticking with Mint until I next decide to refresh my PC and will revisit what’s available at that time; maybe stick with Mint or move to something else if something is appealing.
