askchapo

IMO distrohopping is something n00bs do just to get a feel for the ecosystem and how it all works. Nothing wrong with that. The only way you can learn is by trying it yourself, right?

Ultimately though the goal should be to have a long term, stable, daily driver. It takes some people longer than others to find it, and that's OK!

If you're wondering (you're not) I use Neon. Why, you ask (you didn't)? It's the distro produced and maintained by the good folks who make the KDE desktop environment itself!

KDE is love. KDE is life.

Depends on what you need it for and whether it's working for you.

Some people are really specific about workflows or they need particular functions. If you're a fairly typical PC user then you probably don't need either.

My advice would be that if you're content with your current distro then adhere to the "if it ain't broke" principle. You can always dual-boot or boot into a live USB to try out a new distro but honestly you're probably better off getting more familiar with the intricacies of Linux and your current distro and putting time into making it work well for you. Distro hop if you want to or if you have the need to but don't let others convince you that it's necessary or that it's a "higher level" of being a Linux user. It's a bit like the near-competitive customising of a distro's appearance (you know what I'm talking about - I'm not going to use the racist shorthand term the Linux community uses to describe this); it's cool if that's your thing but it's entirely optional and you should treat it as such.

Life is short, to-read piles are long, and the list of organising tasks are never ending. Do what makes you happy but you're probably not missing out on much, aside from needing to learn the ins and outs of a new distro.

it satisfies The Itch

The biggest difference are defaults and package managers. Linux is a big system, and different distros have different features enabled and exposed in userland.

There are really only a few package managers out there, apt, dnf, pacman, nix are the big ones.

Debian/Ubuntu: apt

Fedora: dnf

Arch: pacman

NixOS: nix (though nix can be used in any distro)

Any distro just has different window managers, default shells, and pre-configured packages. Most are downstream from one of these big ones too.

You can also install almost anything on any distro, but if you're obsessed with configuration just use Gentoo and spend the next 10 years compiling all your own packages and kernels.

Big reason to distro swap while a newbie is to get a feel for the different configurations that exist without having to go through the installation processes yourself. Which is why just using a VM or live USB is best.

I change distro because I get bored and it also gives me a chance to clean up loose files

You can change desktop environment whenever you like because it isn't linked to the actual os (I like kde plasma)

Mint is my personal favorite tbh and I swapped back to it like 30 minutes before my pc decided to shit itself and stop working (not a common issue with mint no idea what caused it but it seems to be bios)

If you like mint stick to it unless you dont want to just make sure to back up all your files before you do and leave the files on the drive you backed up to for a couple of boot cycles no matter what

The point is finding something you vibe with, and exploring options/differences. LiveUSBs make this super easy. Fwiw, I've been using Linux for almost 20 years, and Mint (Debian edition, cinnamon desktop) is my go-to for myself and others.

I'm considering distro hopping off PopOS for a while at least, because it's in kind of a weird place right now. The previous version isn't getting the latest MESA updates, and the new version, while real neat and all, isn't 100% ready to go by my standards. I've had some game crashes and weird behavior, and Chinese input doesn't seem to work right yet.

If you're happy with what you've settled on then that's best for ya! i stuck with my first distro for a while, then hopped a bit, then seemed on fedora.. but others will never settle on anything

Lots of reasons you might try out other distros:

• Boredom / curiosity
• Your current distro has a problem or doesn't fit your needs (this is usually why I have distro hopped)
• You want to learn something that a distro focuses on. Atomic updates, reproducible builds, compiling software, etc.

But you can also just sit and be happy with what you've got!

Distro hopping is just finding your groove with different package managers and package types. You'll eventually find one you like. Also some distros just don't have the absolute latest package versions outside of the testing repos

As far as desktops go, you can pretty much pick one regardless of your distro unless you pick a distro that is purely made for a single desktop environment. Even then you can still use whatever you want you'll just have to jump through a few more hoops.

There's also distros who aren't using Wayland by default. These are still on xorg but also often offer the option to use Wayland.

I've been running fedora universal blue on desktops as a really like the immutable rootfs and latest kernel with the added bonus of using btrfs snapshotting so you can roll back to your last good working setup if you break something

Yeah like what other people said, if the distro doesn't satisfy your needs. For me, I was at Pop!_OS before I got KDE-brained and switched to Kubuntu, then I got Arch-brained and switched.. to shocker: EndeavourOS (i joke sometimes about being an arch user, which is true kinda, but also lying in that I used Endeavour when I installed it the first time)