this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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Just curious to know if anyone has been using the same distro for multiple years/decades and what or if you have it takes for you to want to switch to a different distro?

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[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I've been using openSuSe Tumbleweed on one device or another for quite a while now. Recently I switched my last device, so I'm officially 100% Tumbleweed. NGL, feels pretty good. I would, however, switch under a few circumstances:

  • openSuSe releases Tumbleweed clone with systemD alternative (like runit). I've tried Void repeatedly, but unfortunately never really fell in live with it.
  • openSuSe releases NixOS style immutable distro (not the current aeon or kalpa) based on Tumbleweed.

Honestly, Tumbleweed is nearly perfect for me. It's just that I've tasted what life without systemD can be like, and I goddamn miss it... I'm totally hooked on openSuSe products though.

[–] mholiv@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Out of curiosity how is life without systemd better? What does it taste like?

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Boot times. I am the kind of person who shuts my computer (may it be a laptop or desktop) down, whenever I'm not using it. With systemD, boot times are generally kind of annoying; runit, however, completely changes this. It really feels amazing to turn a Void Linux system on, and have it boot in seconds, with just one screen of logs. On top of that, if you're doing a arch-style install (like the Void Linux minimal install), runit is just much nicer and more ergonomic. The main point is really boot time though, which I think is improved due to adhering to the Unix philosophy and having much less bloat. Using a runit system reminds you of how bloated and slow (and kinda convoluted) systemD is.

I'm also the kinda guy who spends hours optimizing my neovim config (~80 plugins, including LSP) for 20 millisecond start-up times. In the end, I still use Tumbleweed though.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Boot times.

I love how you chose one of the prime advertised features of The Cancer -- and my rhel6 could boot faster than rhel7 every day.

By comparison, Systemd feels like jumping on the back of a charging gazelle and hitting it with a salmon in the hopes it'll go the other way, all the while it's bleating and emitting and defecating from its regular port and a whole new journald port of its own choosing. And often tripping.

Runit has been solid and fast. I've seen it on several projects - I want to say alpine and proton/vm and gitlab's own weird setup - and it's never let me down. I wish rh could have seen that instead like I wish they picked James over Mike for automation.