I have finally stopped distro hopping!

[Techn1976]

I have been using Linux ever since they (Microsoft) officially stopped support for Windows XP.

I started using with Ubuntu... The. Quickly moved on to Linux Mint

I have tried nearly all of the Linux distro's... Mains ones Fedora, OpenSUSE & Debian... And all the variants from these 3 big players.

And you know what? The years... Yes YEARS! I have wasted distro hoping... Installing a new distro over and over and over again and again and again!!! Shocking how I wasted my life!

But you know what I have gained some experience from all of this... And also come to a realisation... That the Debian family is the best branch of Linux to stick to. And the best distribution there's no other than Linux Mint.

I have on my main pc LMDE 3 (nice & stable PC)
And on my laptop latest version of Linux Mint.

I will never ever distro hop ever again... As the two distributions mentioned Linux Mint and lmde 3... Serves all my needs for my PC/Laptop.

The cinnamon desktop... Is very stable and works perfectly... better any other desktop environment in my own opinion.

Why have I all of a sudden falling in love with Linux mint & LMDE is because it just works! It work every time!

Whenever I try different distros something always something just does not work no matter what I do or try... This issue I have found with all sorts of distributions out there. Would never ever had any issues Linux mint or LMDE 3

You guys are not appreciated enough... You guys have no idea how much time and money you have saved thousands of people like me... Thank you so much Linux mint team.

What comes around goes around... May God bless you with all of your good and positive work.

I have finally stopped distro hoping!

Thank you Linux Mint!

Love and Respect!

*We all need to chip in to the donation bucket... To show our appreciation so this excellent work can continue.

**Please ignore the typos if you see any... It's 2 in the morning here and I'm tired goodnight.

[ajgringo619]

I wouldn't call distro-hopping a waste of time. Like you, I went through a bunch of different distros. I was away from computers (as a profession) for awhile and after getting back in the game, my first Linux try was Fedora (due to my familiarity with RedHat). I learned a lot about a lot of different package managers, desktop environments, and building software from source.

Now, all that being said, the only thing I've changed on my system lately was switching from XFCE to Cinnamon; Mint 19.1, of course. My system didn't play well with Cinnamon on Mint 18.3; it seemed that every time I updated the kernel, my Nvidia drivers would crash. I had similar problems with Fedora's and OpenSUSE's Cinnamon spins as well. But this latest version has been smooth sailing. I can't wait for the new version to come out!

[lsemmens]

Welcome to Mint! The only time I have ever looked at alternatives is when the package that I am using isn't doing what I need it to do.

[sphyrth]

Distro-hopping has many purposes. Yours happens to be finding the one you can settle to. I don't think the majority of us herewill have a problem if you went adventurous again.

And besides, you don't have to hate other distros just because you happen to find the one you love. So, I agree with ajgringo619 that your search wasn't a waste of time. (Not unless you spent it on Windows, which is the debatable part ).

Happy Minting!

[Pepi]

Sort of a hobby with me

[AndyMH]

I started with xandros and after a 10 year gap on the dark side, mint was the closest I found to its ease of use and appearance. Like others, tried all the other major distros, don't think ubuntu survived much more than an hour before I wiped it. If mint disappeared, anything else would be second-best.

[majpooper]

I like playing with different distros and DEs on live USB or in a VM but have never considered moving off of MINT (I run LMDE 3 and my wife runs LM 19.1) for over 6 years. I started out with SuSe when I took a linux course at the local Community College and then tried a few distros that I had heard about and settled on Ubuntu. After about a year running Ubuntu an IT security guy I met at a wedding reception of all places told me about Mint and the rest is history.

[Mage of Maple]

I've bounced around some and also settled on Mint. I don't know for sure it is the best, (my testing wasn't exactly scientific), but it's certainly up there. What I like is the way the devs pay attention to the tiny details other distros don't. A couple of examples. They recently added they function where programs that have a progress indicator (like a file copy) will highlight the task bar icon appropriately so that you can see the progress even when the window is minimized. That's nice and Windows has had it for a long time. Mint were the first ones to implement this. And the just-announced upcoming release has another one I've been waiting for. Clicking on the trough in the scroll bar doesn't advance a single page in Linux like it does on Windows and I find the Linux/GTK effect significantly inferior. You want to change it, you can, but it requires some web searching and finding the special text file to update and adding some strange click-warps-sliders or whatever. Something most new Linux users will probably want to change but no distro I saw had any control panel configuration to fix this. But the Mint team will now provide that, another first as far as I'm aware. So my congratulations to the team!

It seems when picking a distro, the biggest decision is what package base you want - debian, ubuntu, RPM, etc. And this is where I really become confused. Why would anyone want Arch or Gentoo or some other minority base? Aren't they just cutting down on their software options dramatically? (Unless they think compiling from source is fun.) RPM, sure, there is a ton of support for that too, perhaps as much as DEB, but it's all down-hill from there...

Cheers,
Greg

[151tom]

.

[Crippled]

It seems when picking a distro, the biggest decision is what package base you want - debian, ubuntu, RPM, etc. And this is where I really become confused. Why would anyone want Arch or Gentoo or some other minority base? Aren't they just cutting down on their software options dramatically? (Unless they think compiling from source is fun.) RPM, sure, there is a ton of support for that too, perhaps as much as DEB, but it's all down-hill from there...

Cheers,
Greg

Arch actually has the most applications in their repositories and the latests versions. How much and how well testing the Arch developers do is questionable because this affects reliability.

[Portreve]

I would second (or third, fourth, fifth...) others above who have already said distro hopping is not a waste of time or effort.

As with any area of endeavor in life, experience and perspective are absolutely critical of you want to be functional, informed, and self-sufficient.

Mind you, I happen to agree Debian is one of the best branches out there, but you would never understand how (relatively speaking) good it is without having tried "everything".

[mediclaser]

My method of distro-hopping is not what I would consider waste of time because I do it mainly for the purpose of learning more about Linux. Even though I have tried more than 20 distros so far, I only keep a maximum of 7 distros active on a multiboot setup. From there I switch between distros very 1 to 3 days.

I have narrowed my favorites down to 4 (based on my personal criteria):
1) Linux Mint Cinnamon
2) Debian (using Xfce)
3) MX Linux
4) antiX (because it is the only distro which can decently run on the very old machine it is installed in)

The following are my fallback options should Debian cease to exist (or change into something I don't like):
1) Open SUSE
2) Fedora
3) Manjaro

[majpooper]

I have to agree that distro hopping is not a waste of time.
First, you can learn from the exercise
Second, how can you legitimately recommend Mint if you are not familiar with the other distros?
Third, it's a hobby that many of us enjoy.

Not to nit-pick but isn't running several distros by definition distro hopping? I think that is a good thing because then you really know and understand the pros and cons of each. And would going from one version of Mint to another, say 18.3 MATE to 19.1 Cinnamon or from LM to LMDE really distro hopping?

[151tom]

.

[Portreve]

My very first distro was Red Hat 4.2, which a friend of mine downloaded and burned to several CDs for me. Good times...

Back in the day, I was a bug fan of Fedora when it was still called "Fedora Core". However, it's never really been stable and polished enough for me, and in time I learned about Debian. Eventually, I tried Ubuntu, which was great, and eventually I found out about Linux Mint, and I've been a fan ever since.

[majpooper]

Back in the day, I was a bug fan of Fedora when it was still called "Fedora Core".

I have never been a "bug" fan of any distro <sarc> just kidding - know what you meant - couldn't help myself - sorry