this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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I guess it depends on how you define "learn Linux". I "distro hop" repeatedly every day since we use a mix of ubuntu and rhel "at work" and I use a mix of debian and fedora "at home". Except for that one vendor's server that runs (REDACTED).
And the vast majority is the same regardless of distro. Sure I might never be able to remember the package manager flags for each distro and need to figure out where config files are stored but all of that is a quick google away. Because I "learn(ed) Linux" in terms of how to read an error message and search for the appropriate terms. Similarly, some number of months back I ran into an issue with a game but was knowledgeable enough to realize it was a Wayland compatibility issue and did a mess of generating config files in x11 so that I could play the game "normally" after that.
But I guess I take issue with your depiction of this. Mostly? You found shortcomings in distros and picked what you like. Good. But you are more describing "learn openSUSE" or "learn Fedora" as opposed to "learn Linux".
My understanding of "distro hopping" is reinstalling the OS to try something different, not just using something different throughout the day. I also use a few different distros for different reasons (openSUSE Leap for my NAS, openSUSE Tumbleweed for my desktop/laptop, Debian for my VPS, Alpine for containers, etc). The package manager is the main important difference between them, and that's really easy to look up as needed.
To an extent. A lot of people recommend "distro hopping" to try a different desktop environment or something, and I've always just configured those within whatever distro I'm using at the time. I only switch when I either need to reinstall anyway, or something with how the maintainers handle packaging annoys me enough to try something else.
So yeah, I only recommend "distro hopping" when first trying Linux because hopping is fun, but once you see what's available, I think it's counter-productive unless you have a clear reason why your distro won't work with what you want.
My point is that I will "never" learn a particular distro. And I very much argue there is no point. If you focus on learning all the quirks of Linux Mint then you are screwed if the team behind Mint make choices you disagree with. And if that sounds impossible because Linux is open source and people will just fork it and blah blah blah: Canonical. Or even the shitshow that is Centos/Rocky and RHEL.
I've worked with people who insist they are an expert server admin. And, when push comes to shove, they lose their mind over the idea of not running Debian Server or RHEL. That means they are who we call if we have an issue with one of those specific distros but they are pretty much worthless in day to day because they don't really learn how to debug or "learn" and instead just memorized all the quirks that one team have turned into Features.
Agreed. The only people who should "learn" a particular distro are the distro maintainers and support people. Everyone else should just learn Linux generally, and ideally get some exposure to a few different distros if they'll be doing anything admin-y. But "regular users" are fine sticking to one, provided it solves their problems.