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 used Kububtu between 2008 and around 2013, then got so fed up with KDE4 bugs I switched to Xubuntu, and am using that ever since.
So that’s 10 or 15 years depending how you count.
When I want to play, I start a VM, base OS needs to be rock solid.
KDE 4 really, really set the Linux desktop back for years, at a time where we could have made a strong push into the mainstream market.
Yeah, it looked really modern and was great when it worked, which wasn’t too often.
Been on kubunu since 2008 on LTS versions. Rock stable 99% apps support and most have a ppa. Other distros nowhere near as stable and no package repos. Flatpak is changing that and not a big fan of snap though. We will see what might break my streak.
KDE4 was stable for you? You have hit the jackpot, then, for me it froze pretty regularly, I’ve had artifacts, and of course there was Akonadi with high cpu and disk use.
I started with Linux like many, I guess, by distro hopping. My first experience was with Knoppix in the late 2000s (because I didn’t know what a live CD was), then I tried OpenSuse, went on to Fedora (is SELinux still such a pain in the ass as it was back then?) and then to Kubuntu.
If I remember correctly I switched to Arch some time after Plasma 4 came out. About 11 years ago. It was, back then, one of the only distributions that shipped the newest stock KDE that “just worked”. Actually that might be wrong, but I didn’t know what I was doing with Linux anyways and somehow I liked Arch enough to stay. I used it at home, for work (software development) and at college. And it serves me well in all those areas (minus some minor hiccups).
It’s still fulfilling my needs but lately I’ve been flirting with NixOS. I might change my daily driver once I get a new laptop (still rocking a Thinkpad T430 from 2012 but it’s starting to show its age).
Thanks to this post i just realized I’ve been using arch for 9 years. I did hop DEs a bunch up till about 3 years ago when i settled for plasma on Wayland (on? with? Idk), but the arch ecosystem has proven the perfect balance of flexibility and stability (yes i find arch very stable). Before arch i distro hopped almost annually since about 2006.
I was on the same distro for ~10 years, roughly 2010-2020, before I got pulled into the “Apple ecosystem”.
I use(d) Arch, btw 😛
I’ve been using OpenBSD on my desktop since about 2006ish.
I’ve been using openSUSE since it’s early days when it was S.u.S.E. I started using it in the spring of 1998… so what, 25 years? I’ve used other distros on a second machine, but my main machine has always been SuSE in some form or another. Today it’s openSUSE Tumbleweed.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It’s surprisingly stable for a rolling release distro.
Yes, I was a distro hopper up until I tried Tumbleweed for the first time. Been using it for two years now, hopped around for a year prior.
I originally started with Knoppix in 1998 used that unitl i9 switched to ubuntu warty warthog and following versions until unity came out in then I switched to mint as unity constantly crashed my machine. stayed with mint for like 5 years, then moved to fedora for a year, switched to tumbleweed because I got tired of the SELinux in fedora causing issues.
Been on endeavourOS for a year now, and if i do decide to migrate a gain I will be going full vanilla arch.
What would be the difference between endeavor OS and vanilla arch?
Just the setup, or is there more to it?
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 Yggdrasil Linux since 1993. Now, get off my lawn, you punks!
20+ years on openbsd and debian evenly spread out on different machines, also 5+ years of arch usage.
MX and Opensuse
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 :/
Linux Mint since 2018. Everything has worked so smoothly, I’ve never felt the need to change.
