Is distro hopping ultimately pointless?

[CaseyMarie]

Something I've often been curious about is really just how different is Mint to a harder to use distro like say arch?

From what I understand about the GNU/Linux operating system (and if I'm incorrect please tell me because I'm really keen to learn) is that GNU was a collection of applications that were made to be as close to the UNIX originals as possible only free software rather than proprietary but they can't run without a kernel. Linux provided that kernel. Together they still don't do enough to be a fully functioning operating system so the distro developers work to fill in the gaps and package it all into an installer.

As a result every distro is highly similar to every other distro because the base parts are consistent between all of them. What the percentage is I don't know but is it the high 80s? Maybe 90s? Indeed I've heard that one of the advantages is that if a piece of software isn't in your local repository you can just grab the source and compile it and it will work (learning how to compile is something very near the top of my to-do list btw I'm hoping to take a look at the code for date, mess with it a little bit and compile it, I think that will be awesome!).

I recently spoke to someone over Facebook who poo-pooed me for using mint instead of Arch. I asked him please tell me what Arch can do that mint under absolutely no circumstances can do. I didn't really get a reply to that and I am starting to think that the kind of people who act elitist about distros are perhaps not as genius about Linux as they like to think they are.

I think I understand why something like LFS could be an exception to this. If I had a very specific reasons to set up a system for then having it only do that thing and doing it well with no overhead is probably the best way of operating. Just taking what you need seems to be the most efficient way when it comes to computing.

I believe that for someone of limited computing skills mint is probably going to be fine for me. Really I just watch YouTube and do word processing, that's about it! But if mint really is the easiest to use and it's got all the same base stuff as any other distro, wouldn't it be better to just compile the "missing" parts that you need and keep the nicer easier experience?

Thanks x

[Moem]

I am starting to think that the kind of people who act elitist about distros are perhaps not as genius about Linux as they like to think they are.

I think you are quite right. Good observation. The REAL gurus don't care because under the hood, much is indeed the same between many distros. There are some main families of distros with the same base, like Debian which is the base for Ubuntu which is the base for Mint. This Wikipedia page has an interesting family tree for all GNU/Linux based OSses.

Most differences between distros are in the layers above the kernel. And of course people can have preferences with regards to those differences. But there is no good reason to move along from Mint once you are more knowledgeable: just because it's suitable for beginners, that doesn't mean it's a simplified distro or not suited to advanced users. Mint is full-featured and pretty much anything that can be done on other distros, can also be done on Mint.

You could compare it to cars: let's say that all cars have the same engine (the Linux kernel). But there are a few different body types available (base distros). Some of those are more suitable for a certain use, some for others (racing vs. offroad, or server vs. desktop) On top of that, you can get very different interiors with different chairs and controls (distros like Mint). And then, within those options, you can choose different dashboard layouts and colours and even change those things if you want (desktop environments).
The analogy is not perfect but I hope it helps a bit.

[lmintnewb2]

Wouldn't say pointless, if you don't see what's available, really can't have an informed opinion of what you like the best. Installed Arch like 3 times and nothing against those who prefer it but think it's extremely tedious to setup from scratch. More experienced users of the distro will no doubt scoff at that though, shrugs. Came to view the install process almost as kind of an initiation.

Yeah under-the-hood, gnu/Linux is pretty much that ... all gnu/Linux. Though how the distro devs and maintainers configure xyz-distro can make a lot of difference and is an opportunity to learn from them all. Newer or older ... or more software packages on offer in whichever distro's repos. All distro's can be totally customized to x-endusers tastes, a different desktop environment installed ( or several) and tweaked to be as light or heavy as the enduser desires. In terms of starting point though, sometimes makes sense to go with something closer to the wanted end result, than to trim out a highly config'ed distro and having to really mess with it.

All of them have their place I guess, some I don't like ... Not that it matters, you're free to use whichever you prefer. Can say distro-hopping can get tedious after awhile, at least did for me. Clearly some just really enjoy it. Found my preference and mostly stick to it. Linux Mint is a good choice imo for any experience level gnu/Linux user. Not my top choice but a dang fine distro regardless.

[Hoser Rob]

... every distro is highly similar to every other distro because the base parts are consistent between all of them. ...

No. The first thing you should look at in any distro is the support site(s). Some are brilliant, most are utterly useless unless you're already an expert.

Some are brilliant if you are an expert but useless if you're a noob. For example Debian. Their support sites are brilliant. But if you ask the typical noob type question you see here or ubuntuforums they will simply suggest you install Ubuntu or Mint instead. Arch is similar. They have REAL experts but most of them don't have the patience to hold noob hands on a volunteer basis.

Mint has the opposite problem. Lots of helpfulness but they need to attract more real experts.

There are exactly two distros I'd recommend to Linux beginners. Ubuntu and Mint.

[Pjotr]

The Linux kernel, Firefox, Chromium, Libre Office, Thunderbird, the GIMP, you name it.... All the distro's have it. Cherry-picked from upstream. Ultimately, no real differences there.

What differs is the quality of the "glue" the distro's use to glue all those upstream building blocks together, in order to make 'em run reliably and stable. And design choices: what desktop environment to cherry-pick from upstream, what icons, etc.

Linux Mint happens to be a rather fortunate selection of upstream software, well glued together, with the stability and reliability of a ship's diesel engine.

Also it puts the immense riches of the vast Debian/Ubuntu software repositories at your disposal. With some neat extras like Mint's unique Update Manager (the jewel in the crown!) and a couple of other nifty tools of its own.

Furthermore, Linux Mint has a healthy careful approach regarding innovations and is tweaked to be very user-friendly. Without taking away the possibilities for advanced users, to hack it to their hearts' content. Which suits me fine, as I'm very lazy by nature.

All in all, I think Linux Mint is currently still the finest that desktop Linux has to offer. Which position it has had for some years now: quite a feat, given the amount of competition.

I'm an experienced Linux user, and I can probably handle all distro's. Many years ago, I tested a great number of them, just out of curiosity. But I simply don't see the point of doing so anymore.... Mint suits me fine.

The only exceptions are some *buntu's, which I give a spin now and then, in order to stay informed about their developments. And openSUSE, which I keep an eye on in order to keep abreast of developments in the rpm ecosystem.

[Lysander666]

... every distro is highly similar to every other distro because the base parts are consistent between all of them. ...

No. The first thing you should look at in any distro is the support site(s). Some are brilliant, most are utterly useless unless you're already an expert.

Some are brilliant if you are an expert but useless if you're a noob. For example Debian. Their support sites are brilliant. But if you ask the typical noob type question you see here or ubuntuforums they will simply suggest you install Ubuntu or Mint instead. Arch is similar. They have REAL experts but most of them don't have the patience to hold noob hands on a volunteer basis.

Mint has the opposite problem. Lots of helpfulness but they need to attract more real experts.

There are exactly two distros I'd recommend to Linux beginners. Ubuntu and Mint.

This is an excellent post, with each point correct and obviously drawing from experience.

I think there are two points the OP is making here, one is about distro-hopping, the other is about elitism.

No, distro-hopping is not pointless. Elitism, on the other hand, is. The reason for the former is that the user can settle on a distro which is near perfect for him/her if enough research is done: endless hopping from one distro to another as a hobbyist can be fun but also frustrating or, at worst, bemusing. The reason for the latter is that there are no elite distros as such.

I started with Ubuntu and hopped over more than 20 distros. The reason for this was because I was looking for a stable distribution with a DE that I really liked, but also one which taught me something about Linux and which was built and managed ethically. I settled on Debian after a while but it took a bit of effort to get over the learning curve.

Distros in Linux range from the beginner-friendly [Ubuntu/Mint], to the intermediate [Debian], to the advanced [Arch/Slackware] and to the expert [Gentoo/LFS]. None of these distros is better per se than any other, they are only better for the user. Yes, in order to know Arch or Gentoo one needs to know - and learn - Linux relatively well, but that is only useful if that is in the user's interest. Using Arch is not in the interests of a productivity machine, or, e.g. an academic researcher who needs a stable OS with no conflicts.

Ubuntu is a great distro, it's what I started with and I've always sung its praises. Mint is solid as well. But neither of these are for me - I have my own reasons. I am, however, very happy that I put the time in to distro-hop and to experiment. Arch is great if the user wants bleeding-edge tech and a more granular experience. Gentoo is great for a user who wants total mastery over every element of their OS. It's all relative.

To conclude, distro-hopping is never pointless. It is an exercise in learning more about Linux. However, it can be bewildering and frustrating, and the user can always be tempted to move on to find "the perfect distro" when there is no perfect distro - but there is a distro which allows you to do what you need to get done and which fits in which the cultural ethics of the Linux world that matter to you as a user. Elitism is largely pointless and only exists so that the elitist himself can sermonise and feel superior.

[CaseyMarie]

I agree, a novice friendly community is huge! It can be scary running Linux sometimes, you really do feel that you are closer to the computer than you would be with Windows and as such the master of your own disaster. This is why I try and force myself to use the terminal from time to time. I know it's where the true power of the machine is and with great power comes great responsibility and I want to be careful but I also don't want to be afraid of it

I understand the sentiment of finding a base that is closer to your needs then building up from that is easier than trying to make mint be something other than what it is out of the box it's a good point however just how different are other distros? As Pjotr says we are mostly using the same upstream applications at the end of the day for probably 90%+ of our daily computing.

One question I have though is with the thousands of different distros out there all with the same base do we often run into duplication of effort and how is that managed?

[MintBean]

One question I have though is with the thousands of different distros out there all with the same base do we often run into duplication of effort and how is that managed?

In many cases it isn't managed. There's nothing stopping you taking Mint, replacing the branding with your own, changing a few wallpapers and releasing it as a new distro. Of course, some teams do decide to collaborate on common interests.

Arch users (and I realise I'm over-generalising a bit here) are extremely enthusiastic but also a bit blinkered in that many of them think that Arch is the only way. I have used it and it's certainly not for beginners. There are some spins that come with a graphical installer and a newbie probably could get them installed, but then there would be considerable work to do installing basic applications and adding extras to improve the integration of the desktop (things that Mint has out of the box.) The beauty of Arch is that it gives you absolute control to tweak all the building blocks of your system, but realistically it's beyond the level that most users would care to explore. The downside is that it's more prone to breakages with updates and you will not get your hand held when it does. It's really for enthusiasts that enjoy playing with and learning about operating systems rather than just using them. After I tweaked my Arch install I ended up with something to all intents and purposes that looked like Mint because that is what I like but I realised it was ultimately pointless after a couple of weeks. I would never be confident enough to make it my main system because of the likelihood of breakages and it was pointless running two operating systems in parallel, so I just dumped it and returned to Mint.

[MintBean]

Oh, and on distro-hopping- no it's not pointless. You might find a better distro or one you like better, and even if you don't, you might learn something along the way. They may all share a lot of components, but the devil is in the details. Mint is the most polished for my money, which is why I always come back.

[Citizen229]

As an XFCE user distro hopping is pointless. Most all XFCE distros are the same. Its the distros unique feature that draws the user in to trying it. For me its MX16's way of doing a back up by turning you drive into an installable iso. Its a darn nice feature i wish we had on mint. Yet with the rest of the distro being pretty much the same, no sense in switching to a distro with a smaller support base for a single feature.

[Lysander666]

As an XFCE user distro hopping is pointless. Most all XFCE distros are the same. Its the distros unique feature that draws the user in to trying it. For me its MX16's way of doing a back up by turning you drive into an installable iso. Its a darn nice feature i wish we had on mint. Yet with the rest of the distro being pretty much the same, no sense in switching to a distro with a smaller support base for a single feature.

This is fallacious thinking and needs to be corrected. How a system installs software varies widely regardless of DE. You must install software differently on e.g. Xubuntu in comparison to XFCE Debian or XFCE Slackware. Systems are also tested differently: there is a world of difference in an XFCE system when used with Debian Stable as opposed to Unstable.

As well as that, there's also the ethics of the OS to consider. Xubuntu is tied to Canonical whereas XFCE Debian is not. Also, not only is Slackware not tied to a corporation, it is non-systemd. Therefore it is not only incorrect, but potentially dangerous to inform users that "all XFCE distros are the same" when they differ in operation, in installation procedure, in stability, in ethics and in culture.

[Flemur]

Something I've often been curious about is really just how different is Mint to a harder to use distro like say arch?

They're all linux, so they're all very similar.

I fiddled with a bunch, include Arch, and the main differences were:
- the "desktop environment", which really doesn't depend on the distro.
- the "package manager" or how you install software. Debian/Ubuntu/Mint has the best set of tools.
- some distros have slightly newer versions of some software.

[Pjotr]

As well as that, there's also the ethics of the OS to consider.

Too much ado about ethics these days, in my opinion, with crazed SJW's running amok all over the western hemisphere of our poor tortured planet....

So ethics aren't relevant for me, in choosing a Linux distro. If I want ethics I'll read the Bible. For a Linux distro, I just want high technical quality. A good reliable Linux, as user-friendly as possible for a lazy guy like me.

I've found that with Mint. Me happy.

[stormryder]

Indeed I've heard that one of the advantages is that if a piece of software isn't in your local repository you can just grab the source and compile it and it will work

In my experience this is not entirely accurate. When compiling software you have to provide all the dependencies needed by the package you are trying to compile, but if those dependencies conflict with ones that may already be installed its unlikely to work. For instance I tried to compile the latest version of audacity on mint 17.3 but it required gcc-4.9, i believe, and gcc-4.8 was already installed. I could have removed 4.8 but I didn't know for sure what else might depend on it and I knew for sure at least one other program I have compiled requires 4.8 so I didn't proceed to build audacity.

[excollier]

I just use Mint - although I do dual boot with Debian , Mint is my daily driver for the bulk of my work.
I don't have time for complicated procedures- I just want a computer that is stable and easy to maintain, (and not Microsoft or Apple) for me, life is too short to fight with complicated stuff.
If I want to try out distros, it's usually in a vm

[CaseyMarie]

In my experience this is not entirely accurate. When compiling software you have to provide all the dependencies needed by the package you are trying to compile, but if those dependencies conflict with ones that may already be installed its unlikely to work. For instance I tried to compile the latest version of audacity on mint 17.3 but it required gcc-4.9, i believe, and gcc-4.8 was already installed. I could have removed 4.8 but I didn't know for sure what else might depend on it and I knew for sure at least one other program I have compiled requires 4.8 so I didn't proceed to build audacity.

This might be a dumb question, but could you install 4.8 and 4.9 at the same time or would it necessarily have to replace 4.8? I'm sure I've had different versions of the same software installed at the same time before but when it comes to the technical files like library and programmery stuff can it be problematic?

[stormryder]

This might be a dumb question, but could you install 4.8 and 4.9 at the same time or would it necessarily have to replace 4.8? I'm sure I've had different versions of the same software installed at the same time before but when it comes to the technical files like library and programmery stuff can it be problematic?

Some things it seems can't be installed together, synaptic will usually throw an error when trying to install incompatible dependencies.
Gcc is actually a compiler and I remember reading that I could force the system to use it and its possible that I could have compiled audacity and pointed the system back to 4.8 but then I am not sure the compiled version of audacity would have worked. Audacity is in the repository anyway and I was just trying to build it to see if I could so I didn't really pursue it much further.
This page gave instructions for upgrading to gcc-4.9 but as I said I never followed through:
http://www.techerina.com/2015/04/instal ... chine.html

Beyond that I have also run into problems with compiling some software because the dependencies aren't available in the repository so you have to compile them but the dependencies for those dependencies aren't available either so...you get the idea.
I have read some things that indicate that some distro's like Gentoo require quite a bit of this building the tools to build the tools to build software. This may be preferable to an expert who may want to customize the tools to suit their needs but for a novice like me its much easier to use the precompiled tools available with mint.

[kdemeoz]

Yes, i think that distro hopping is ultimately pointless, in the same way that i think that life is also arbitrary & pointless. However, given i'm stuck with the latter til something better comes along, i need stuff to fill in the time. Being chronically technically curious & keen to try to keep learning & growing, i credit distro-hopping as being an excellent hobby which ticks such boxes. Not only have i found it to be intellectually nourishing, but also immensely pragmatic. Had i never bothered exploring alternatives via d/h, i'd have never:
1. Experienced for myself just how hideous Gnome3 is [for MY needs], rather than just read about it. Thus no distro running this DE is a good fit for me.
2. Learned that MATE & Cinnamon DEs are interesting but just not my cup of tea, whilst Xfce is very good & any distro sporting this DE could easily have been "my" distro, until i discovered...
3. ...KDE4, & later Plasma5 DEs. Hence by d/h exploration i came to learn that KDE is the DE that floats my boat, rings my bell, insert tired aphorism here.
4. Knowing my ideal DE via d/h, more d/h thereafter allowed me to discover & test multiple KDE-based distros. Once i was on Mint 17.x KDE4, & the time eventually came to move up to Plasma5, if i did not do any d/h then i'd have passively just migrated from Mint 17.3 KDE to Mint 18 KDE & simply accepted its foibles & faults as being "just how it has to be". Without d/h i'd not have found that Neon was better for me than Mint 18 KDE, that Maui was better for me than Neon, that Kubuntu is ghastly for me, that KFedora was pleasantly impressive given Fedora is otherwise G3 [ugh], that KaOS is pure & quirky & fascinating but ultimately not quite right for me, etc etc etc... & ultimately then i'd never have found openSUSE Tumbleweed Plasma, which makes me feel happy.

I completely understand that for many reasons d/h might seem pointless or time-wasting for others, & i respect that. However for those of like mind, IMO it's a quite wonderful thing. I think it's fab that we have so much interesting choice, & so many vibrant helpful skilled communities.

Qualifier: I am probably not a "real" distro-hopper, as almost all the shenanigans i described above, were done in VMs. I've actually only changed my on-SSD Linux distros a few times ... Windows 7 to Mint 17.x KDE4 to Mint 18 Xfce to Maui to oS TW... spanning 3 & a bit years. It was the d/h in VMs that allowed me to then make informed choices for the distros i put onto my SSDs.

[Faust]

Yes
No
Could you repeat the question ?

Sorry , don't mean to be flippant , but I'm a former distro hopper
.... now in recovery !

[catweazel]

could you install 4.8 and 4.9 at the same time

Yes.