this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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For me it was:

Windows (for many years) -> Ubuntu (for a year) -> Arch Linux (for half a year) -> Void Linux (literally 2 days) -> Artix Linux with runit (a month) -> Gentoo Linux (another month) -> Debian (finally, I don't plan on changing it).

Also, when trying to switch from Gentoo to Debian, I fucked up all my data with no backup.

What was your journey?

EDIT: Added Windows

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[–] Sou_Puro_Osso@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think mine went something like this: Windows (for a long time) -> Zorin Os -> Linux Mint -> Ubuntu -> Fedora (I don't remember how long I used any of them) -> Manjaro.

Here I got myself into a hole, distrohopping aimlessly, like, I kept switching from distro to distro literally every day. I was checking my emails, and discovered that I have 156 confirmation emails from the ecosia search engine, so I guess that represents the many times I distrohopped during this time (about 5 or 6 months).

I never really understood what happened there, maybe it was anxiety.

And then I finally stopped at linux mint, I've been here for about a month (more time, i made many clean installs, but always returning to mint), I don't intend to change.

Maybe I've beaten distrohopping? well, I hope so.

[–] VitabytesDev@feddit.nl 2 points 11 months ago

Exactly the same thing had happened to me. I have used Debian for about a month now and I don't think I will change it.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

Mandrake (2004) -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu (I think?) -> Arch -> Ubuntu -> NixOS -> Pop!_OS

I liked fiddling with the base system more when I was younger, but now I want at least the base system to just work. It gets old hunting through wikis to get basic functionality fixed.

[–] ulkesh@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

I’ve distro-hopped across at least 20-30 varying distros between 1999, when I began my Linux journey, and now.

From Big Box Redhat 5 to Debian to Mandrake to Ubuntu to Fedora to Mandriva (what Mandrake and Conectiva became) to Arch to Cent to insert-flavor-here and a mix of many of those over the years.

I’ve settled on Garuda Arch for the time being, and may eventually give Nobara a try once GE has v40 out and has made more progress on umu.

The one distro I’ve never tried: Gentoo. I suppose I’m okay with binaries built by someone else.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 2 points 11 months ago

Windows -> Manjaro.

Never looked back. Debian works on a laptop, amazing too!

[–] shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Windows -> Ubuntu -> Kubuntu -> Arch -> KDE Neon -> Fedora -> Arch -> openSUSE Tumbleweed

[–] choroalp@programming.dev 2 points 11 months ago

Windows -> PopOS -> EndevourOS -> Fedora(for literally 2 days) -> NixOS 22.11 -> NetBSD -> NixOS Unstable

[–] XenBad@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 -> Fedora Workstation -> Fedora Silverblue -> NixOS

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 2 points 11 months ago

Windows 2000

Windows Vista Windows 8

Trying every Linux distro under the sun for a little while in VirtualBox

Linux Mint + Windows 8 later 10 dual boot due to software required by school

Trying some Arch based systems in VirtualBox

My owm minimal Arch i3 setup + Windows 10 dual boot due to software required by school

Issues with my own setup, Manjaro + W10

Manjaro is weird, EndeavourOS + W10 (only for a short while)

Linux Mint just works (+W10, until I could fully use my own software, now it's just Mint for several years)

I'm tinkering around with NixOS in QEMU from time to time, not everything “just works” but it's okay

[–] SeikoAlpinist@slrpnk.net 1 points 11 months ago
  • MS-DOS 6.22 / Windows for Workgroups 3.11
  • Red Hat Linux 5.2
  • Slackware Linux 3.5
  • FreeBSD 3.2 -> FreeBSD 6.0
  • Kubuntu 6.06
  • Linux Mint Darnya
  • Arch Linux with KDEmod and oss4, later with awesome window manager
  • Fedora Leonidas, Constantine
  • Microsoft Windows 7
  • Fedora Goddard, Lovelock (this time with KDE)
  • OpenBSD 4.9 -> OpenBSD 7.0
  • Debian stable (buster, then bullseye, now bookworm)

I left OpenBSD reluctantly when I found that it wasn't meeting my needs anymore. I needed an iPad Pro and an iPhone to fill in the missing functionality and they don't play nice with OpenBSD for things like transferring files, photos, etc.

I've since converted the family to Debian stable. Backports and flatpak make it incredibly reliable. We can do everything from here and its well documented for every use case. Video chats, zoom conference calls, file sync/sharing, bluetooth music through Spotify, etc. Started with buster when it was the stable distro; jumped early to bullseye during the freeze; and now holding onto bookworm.

[–] mrbn@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Windows 98 -> Slackware dual boot (with big ol' red grub screen) -> windows up to win 10 -> debian(laptop) win10 (pc)

Gonna try getting a new m.2 drive and dual booting soon to test playing the games I like on Linux. If all goes well, I'll be moving away from windows

[–] misterj05@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Windows (XP to 10), Manjaro, Arch, Artix, Alpine (for like a week), NixOS (for like 2 weeks) and finally think I have settled on openSUSE mainly because of the curated rolling release and already setup snapshots. (I was swapping back and forth between Windows for all of these)

Distros I've tried but not really used: Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora, OpenBSD and FreeBSD (not really linux but you get the point).

NixOS was actually my favorite of the bunch, it was like linux on easy mode, just type in some config and the system manages the rest for you.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

DOS/Win 3.1 -> Win95 -> Win98 SE -> windowXP -> open?SuSe(1 week) -> Mandrake -> (a month) -> WindowsVista -> Debian(a couple years) ->Win8(a few months) -> Ubuntu/Kubuntu (a couple years) -> Pop_OS! (currently). I still have a windows vm installed but it rarely gets used.

That's kind of the highlights sort of how I remember it. It's been a long time . 15-20 years of gnu/linux usage. I've also been using a raspberry pi with raspbian/raspberry pi os since the first gen device was released, too.

at the time I installed Mandrake it was one of the only distros that had a graphical installer besides Red Hat. I remember that was a driving factor for my decision making back then.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Debian from woody until systemd, gentoo since.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Windows -> Ubuntu -> Xubuntu -> Arch -> macOS -> Windows 10 -> Arch -> Xubuntu and Windows 10 and probably back to Arch some day.

[–] kionite231@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

I have distrohoped a lot that I don't even remember the sequence of the distros I have used.

[–] TeddyKila@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Win7 > Mint XFCE > win10 > Fedora > Endeavouros > Tumbleweed

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 months ago

I used to enjoy Arch when I was 16 maby

[–] Shimitar@feddit.it 1 points 11 months ago

I started with an ancient redhat, moved to Linux From Scratches, landed in Gentoo 25+ years ago and never hopped anywere else since...

[–] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 1 points 11 months ago
  • Red Hat Linux 5.1 - 7.x
  • Slackware 7.0 - 12.0
  • Ubuntu 6.10 - 9.10
  • Slackware 13.37 - 14.1
  • Mint 16 - 17
  • Arch
[–] AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
  • Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7 spanning a decade and a half.
  • Ubuntu 10.04 going up to the release where Unity became the default DE (11.04, I think). Came back to 10.04, as it was an LTS release.
  • Linux Mint Maya because of Cinnamon, and it was terrible.
  • Fedora 16 to 25 or 26.
  • Linux Mint 19

Been with Linux Mint ever since. It just works. LM19 was also around the time when I stepped into Apple’s walled garden with iOS and macOS.

[–] Marty_TF@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago

kubuntu 2 years windows 10 2 years Ubuntu 1 month kubuntu 2 years fedora 2 years everything for about a month fedora for a year arch since february

[–] robojeb@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago
  • Windows (various versions on and off like 95, XP, 7,8,10)
  • Fedora core 6
  • Ubuntu 8.O4-10.04
  • Fedora again I think beefy miracle
  • Arch
[–] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

On my main computer: Ubuntu (@2005) -> Gentoo (for years) -> Arch (for maybe 6 months) -> Gentoo (for years) -> Debian (for years) -> Gentoo (until now)

[–] Templa@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago

Windows (many years) -> Dual boot w/ Ubuntu for a few years -> Windows + WSL (Ubuntu) for many years -> Arch Linux (laptop) + EndeavourOS (desktop) for a few months now

I think I will stick with Arch Linux for new installs, I didn't have any issue that wasn't solvable by reading the wiki

[–] macabrett@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

I used Ubuntu for a long time, because it was easy to use and I wasn't really a power user on linux (was just using it on a cheap laptop for classes a long time ago). When I built a server for myself recently, I didn't really explore distros and plopped Ubuntu on it.

More recently, I got a new laptop and ended up installing Fedora on it. So far, I like Fedora a lot. I know there's probably a better distro out there for me, but this one worked without fiddling and I'm liking it a lot more than Ubuntu. Ubuntu snaps kinda screwed my server for a year or so. I need to replace Ubuntu on that soon, I'm just not looking forward to dealing with that so it silently stays Ubuntu.

[–] GustavoM@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

ZorinOS > Ubuntu > Debian and then Arch. I even tried Alpine linux recently but got "filtered" by the lack of gpu packages. Looks like I need to get my "googling" improved a bit.

[–] pmk@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ubuntu (2007) >> Arch (2009) >> Debian (2014) >> Fedora (2024)
Plus now and then installing OpenBSD for fun for a couple of months at a time.

[–] wasabi@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 months ago

Windows for until 8 => various Ubuntu Flavours for a while => Manjaro for a couple Weeks maybe => Arch for 5+ Yeats => fedora since maybe 2 months

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Windows -> Ubuntu 10.04 ... 11.10, -> Kubuntu 12.04 -> Debian 7 (stable)... 8 (testing... stable) ... 12

Mint->arch->nixos

[–] Ozzy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Ubuntu VM (~2 years) -> Debian VM(1 week) -> Arch VM (1 month) -> Arch

[–] ricdeh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Windows -> OpenSUSE Tumbleweed -> Ubuntu -> Debian GNU/Linux -> EndeavourOS

Currently using Debian and EndeavourOS in parallel as the distributions I have settled on.

[–] fin@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

MacOS (old one like around 2012 or so) -> Windows 8 -> Windows 10 -> Several Linux on VM(Kali, Ubuntu(s), Fedora…) -> WSL1(Kali, Ubuntu) -> MacOS (with a newer OS) -> NixOS -> Void Linux ->

Now I’m currently using Void Linux, Windows 11, MacOS Sonoma.

I’m planning to put ~~Fedora~~ Debian (because it’s well supported by linux-surface community) on my Surface Laptop 1st gen which I’m not using right now.

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Windows XP -> Windows 7 -> Windows 10 -> Linux Mint -> Manjaro -> ArcoLinux -> Arch -> Arco -> Arch -> Arco -> NixOS -> Arch -> Ubuntu (beginning of 2023) -> NixOS -> Arch -> NixOS (summer 2023) -> Debian (for a month when beginning University), -> NixOS -> Arch -> NixOS -> Fedora (in Jan/Feb 2024, seems like it could be the one) -> Void (wanted to love it but I hated my few days in it) -> Arch (temporarily, waiting for the COPR repos on Fedora to update its packages for F40) -> Fedora 40 (where I still am)

Going from Windows XP to Linux Mint took over a decade. Going from Mint to Fedora 40 took about 2 years.

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Was a Windows user up through Win 7.

I started to play with Raspberry Pis and mostly Raspbian on the side largely related to my amateur radio hobby.

My laptop died, I bought a new one. Windows 8.1. Figured I'd rather use that slow-ass single core Pi 1 running Debian Wheezy than this.

First I tried Ubuntu Unity. I thought "Okay this could work, let's keep shopping."

Next I tried Mint Cinnamon. "Here we go."

I've taken a look at Manjaro a couple times over the years. I have stopped this.

I briefly tried to run Pop!_OS when I first built my desktop, that lasted 3 weeks.

My desktop and laptop run Mint Cinnamon, I've got a tablet running Fedora Gnome. I kinda found my home fairly quickly and I'm not really interested in moving out.

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