OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's surprisingly stable for a rolling release distro.

Workstation: Ubuntu approximately 18 years. (2004)

Servers: Debian approximately 25 years. (1998)

I've been on Yggdrasil Linux since 1993. Now, get off my lawn, you punks!

3 years on EndeavourOS and no end in sight

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 😛

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 settled on Ubuntu in 2008, but jumped between Gnome, KDE, Unity and LXDE. Then I got a Steam Deck last year and it became my main machine, so now I am not only with its Arch based OS, but I a secondary Arch SD card that I occasionally boot, if I need something not immediately available in SteamOS.

Servers? Debian Since 2019.

I distro hopped a lot since installing a retail red hat box bought at the store in 199something.

It's now more than 10 years that I basically only run Debian (on all my servers) and Gentoo/funtoo (on my workstations). For my partner and relatives, I install only Mint because it lacks all the cool gadgets, but it's stable as a rock, especially on notebooks, and still reminds them of Windows.

I tried Arch, btw. Nice wiki, horrible package management.

I tried Pop_OS, it's fun, it's fine, it's fresh, but tends to self-destruct if I push it too much.

I loved Elementary OS, it's really promising but always gave me the feeling to run a beta OS.

My one desktop is 5 years on Manjaro now.

Before that I had Ubuntu for 8 years across several installs, although I also dual-booted Windows back then.

But I've had a freeBSD file server for at least 20.

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

My main desktop computer had been running Ubuntu for 7 years until I had to do a full wipe and decided to move to arch to check it out. I never got the point of distro hopping myself really.

Been on Manjaro i3wm edition since 2018

Probably like half a year on Mint. Don't know for certain.
I'm currently on Tumbleweed which is pretty good, though I do have some minor issues which make me want to just switch to Debian. I do work on this machine, so even minor issues are pretty damn annoying for me.

Going on year 3 of Manjaro. Looking forward to many more.

I'm pretty new to Linux, committed to it 2021 and last changed to EndeavorOS (basically an arch installer + a few quality of life packages) around one and a half years ago. It recently broke on my desktop (btrfs disk full, though it didn't show as full, during update. And my snapshots were setup incorrectly). Looking into trying out NixOS on it now, my Laptop will stay EndeavorOS for the foreseeable future though.

I first spun up an Ubuntu live disk at.... 7.04 I want to say, and it's been my go-to more or less since 🤷

I don't do distro hopping, because I don't believe there is any significant difference between the capabilities provided by individual distro. So, I switched only when changed jobs (2000-2006 Debian, 2006-2018 various RedHat/Fedora distros, 2018- various SUSE distros (Tumbleweed, now Greybeard).

Archlinux. Many years ago, not sure exactly when, but more than 10years. Last distro I really used before Arch was ZenWalk, slackware based. Arch was the only one that after many tries and over the years remains the most consistent, simple and reliable that I can manage without much effort.

After using on my personal computers Arch I still tried and used on the work machines Ubuntu lts releases. It gave so much problems that I just now use Arch everywhere and anytime I get a new work machine it's what gets installed too.

I have to say that I was a serious heavy distro hoper back in the days and tried basically everything that existed. Just not gentoo. But fedoras, mandrakes, mandrivas, knopix, slackware, bsd, suse, etc, I regularly spent time with them all and was changing a lot and tried many new releases. The longest I've been with a distro was ZenWalk, more than a year or 2 and then Arch appeared on my radar and once I jumped ship, never got the need for anything else.

Edit: Checked some math I think I use arch more than 15years now.

I used Linux Mint for about a decade on all my desktops and laptops. When I upgraded my gaming desktop to version 21, I started having some strange visual issues which I spent a lot of time troubleshooting unsuccessfully. I took that opportunity to try something new. I started with Nobara, a gaming-focused distro based on Fedora, and enjoyed the experience. I then started to embrace upstream distributions, so I replaced Nobara with Fedora and my remaining Linux Mint systems with Debian. Had I not encountered the strange issue with Linux Mint 21 on my gaming desktop, I'd probably still be using it exclusively today.

Probably ubuntu from 05-16. Switched to arch around then, and been on manjaro since 2020.

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.

I started on Slackware in 1996 and was with them till about 2007. Started trying this new distro that was all the rave called Ubuntu. I was with Ubuntu till 2018 when I moved to Pop_OS because it was like Ubuntu but without defaulting applications to snap.

I still keep Slackware on a machine here, but it’s passed from my daily driver. I used to really enjoy being as close to the nuts and bolts of the OS. However now I just like having a machine I can just use and not think about. So I would say Slackware as I still keep it around in some incarnation, but probably Ubuntu inched out a bit more as my daily driver as I kept on 16.04LTS Ubuntu till about middle October 2018 when I jumped ship to Pop_OS.

I may stay with Pop_OS long term (only been with them four years so far) just for the simple energy that Jeremy Soller exudes with Pop and System76’s Rust projects. Also the lack of snaps is a bonus.

@unix_joe fedora and arch. Because anything Ubuntu based kinda sucks.

Honestly, about 4 months, and it was Arch. I've been using Linux for over a year now. Currently I'm on NixOS trying to make things work the way I want them to, but there's still some minor issues that are difficult to deal with.

I used Arch for a few years before I really got sucked into distro-hopping. Finally settled on Debian for 2 years, last year I moved to Gentoo, and I swapped to NixOS just last week. I am feeling like NixOS has the potential to stick around for the long haul, I am a big fan of the declarative nature of the distro. Still ironing out some bugs, though (I also recently switched from i3 to Hyprland, so the X->Wayland swap has been an additional hurdle.

Started with Gentoo. Used it until dependency hell broke my system hard enough that I had to reformat. Since I’m a PowerShell developer, I went with Ubuntu since that gets official support. I’m sure I’m missing out on a lot of cool stuff, but it’s a stable system with an excellent package selection.

Linux Mint, 7 years. If it ain't broke....

Linux Mint for some years now, generally in the ubuntu ecosystem for a long time

I only just started using linux on my laptop like a year and a half ago, I hoped around at first but then around a year ago landed on Fedora with KDE, and haven't used anything else (besides SteamOS) sense

I'm not sure how long, but I bet Mint is my longest distro. Next would probably either Manjaro or SUSE.

Host system is Ubuntu LTS, and unless they do something stupid like for example making snaps mandatory I can't see myself switching. Only used it for a couple of months though, before that I was on windows, but I've been using Linux VMs since 2008.

Lets see. Debian since 1997... so 26 years. Back then you had to order 12 CDs through the post.

On servers I've stuck with Ubuntu LTS's since 2017. They've always been rock solid, even if the 2-4 year upgrade can be time consuming, it's not often enough for me to try something else. The support and documentation is excellent. I find it hard to think of a single reason to even try something else.

On the desktop I probably have spent most time on Ubuntu, or Ubuntu derivative like Kubuntu, but I now use EndeavourOS and I have no plans to switch or hop or try anything else. So I'll likely end up on Endeavour far longer.

I've really enjoyed mint XFCE. I originally started with cinnamon, then tried XFCE, but then bounced to other light weight distributions (lubuntu, puppy Linux, and general Ubuntu as well) before settling once again with mint XFCE for about a year and a half now. I've thought about trying to go through the process of making a lightweight arch installation but for a simple "it just works" philosophy my current distro does just that in spades.

Two decades.

Linux Mint for 6 or 7 years.

About two years, running Manjaro KDE. Runners up are Linux Mint, every major flavor of Ubuntu, and I briefly tried elementary OS. Manjaro has been my favorite for a while now!

I think I started using Linux a bit over 4 years ago. I've been using Bedrock Linux for almost that entire time, around 3 and a half years.

I’ve been on Fedora for about 7 years. My server flips between Ubuntu and CentOS every couple of years.

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.