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submitted 1 year ago by unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml

This is kind of the anti-distro hopping thread. How long have you stayed on a single Linux distribution for your main PC? What about servers?

I've been on Debian on and off since 2021, but finally committed to the platform since April of this year.

Before that I was on OpenBSD from 2011 - 2021 for my desktop.

Prior to that, FreeBSD for many years, followed by a few years of distro-hopping various Linux distros (Slackware, Arch, Fedora, simplyMEPIS, and ZenWalk from memory).

How long have you been on your distribution? Do we have anybody here who has been on their current distro for more than a decade?

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[-] KelsonV@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My main desktop has been upgraded continuously from RHL5 (no E) in ~1999 to Fedora 38 today.

Well, almost continuously. I've done at least one fresh install, when I switched from 32-bit to 64-bit hardware.

Edit: I have used a lot of other distros on other boxes, both physical and virtual - I've just stuck with Fedora on that one.

[-] pascal@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

I distro hopped a lot since installing a retail red hat box bought at the store in 199something.

It's now more than 10 years that I basically only run Debian (on all my servers) and Gentoo/funtoo (on my workstations). For my partner and relatives, I install only Mint because it lacks all the cool gadgets, but it's stable as a rock, especially on notebooks, and still reminds them of Windows.

I tried Arch, btw. Nice wiki, horrible package management.

I tried Pop_OS, it's fun, it's fine, it's fresh, but tends to self-destruct if I push it too much.

I loved Elementary OS, it's really promising but always gave me the feeling to run a beta OS.

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[-] Glome@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's surprisingly stable for a rolling release distro.

[-] michael@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, I was a distro hopper up until I tried Tumbleweed for the first time. Been using it for two years now, hopped around for a year prior.

[-] JRepin@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Couldn't agree more. Probably because they have some automatic QA going on on their CI and if some package does something wrong that this QA catches the package does not get included into update until it passes. Also if there would be something that would go wrong you still have automatic BTRFS snapshots created before and after and update and a boot entry automatically added to GRUB so you could simply reboot into old working state in such an unfortunate case.

[-] unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

How long? I remember seeing some people have used it since the mid-2010's on the same install.

[-] oldfart@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I used Kububtu between 2008 and around 2013, then got so fed up with KDE4 bugs I switched to Xubuntu, and am using that ever since.

So that's 10 or 15 years depending how you count.

When I want to play, I start a VM, base OS needs to be rock solid.

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[-] ClarkNova@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Workstation: Ubuntu approximately 18 years. (2004)

Servers: Debian approximately 25 years. (1998)

[-] Nerdfest@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Been using Ubuntu, or more recently, Kubuntu since 2006. Not sure that counts as a distro change. Can't say enough good things about KDE these days though.

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[-] Efwis@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I originally started with Knoppix in 1998 used that unitl i9 switched to ubuntu warty warthog and following versions until unity came out in then I switched to mint as unity constantly crashed my machine. stayed with mint for like 5 years, then moved to fedora for a year, switched to tumbleweed because I got tired of the SELinux in fedora causing issues.

Been on endeavourOS for a year now, and if i do decide to migrate a gain I will be going full vanilla arch.

[-] unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

What would be the difference between endeavor OS and vanilla arch?

Just the setup, or is there more to it?

[-] CjkOvPDwQW@lemmy.pt 2 points 1 year ago

Void linux been using it now for 2 years on my laptop

[-] RadicalEcologist@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks to this post i just realized I've been using arch for 9 years. I did hop DEs a bunch up till about 3 years ago when i settled for plasma on Wayland (on? with? Idk), but the arch ecosystem has proven the perfect balance of flexibility and stability (yes i find arch very stable). Before arch i distro hopped almost annually since about 2006.

[-] JRepin@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Been disto-hopping a lot before ending up in openSUSE Tumbleweed (with KDE Plasma desktop). Now using it for about 6 years as my main desktop/laptop distro.

[-] words_number@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Debian (testing) at least since 2018 and I don't plan to switch. Before that I was hopping a bit between ubuntu based distros and manjaro. On servers I always use debian stable.

[-] vext01@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

I've been using OpenBSD on my desktop since about 2006ish.

[-] Uno@monyet.cc 2 points 1 year ago

I've been on Ubuntu ever since I switched to Linux 7 months ago, tbh I don't understand distro-hopping. I'm not any tech wizard, and Ubuntu fulfills all my criteria: worked out of the box, worked faster than Windows, hasn't broken yet 👍

All I do is run Firefox and Steam on my laptop anyways :/

[-] pinchcramp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I started with Linux like many, I guess, by distro hopping. My first experience was with Knoppix in the late 2000s (because I didn't know what a live CD was), then I tried OpenSuse, went on to Fedora (is SELinux still such a pain in the ass as it was back then?) and then to Kubuntu.

If I remember correctly I switched to Arch some time after Plasma 4 came out. About 11 years ago. It was, back then, one of the only distributions that shipped the newest stock KDE that "just worked". Actually that might be wrong, but I didn't know what I was doing with Linux anyways and somehow I liked Arch enough to stay. I used it at home, for work (software development) and at college. And it serves me well in all those areas (minus some minor hiccups).

It's still fulfilling my needs but lately I've been flirting with NixOS. I might change my daily driver once I get a new laptop (still rocking a Thinkpad T430 from 2012 but it's starting to show its age).

[-] Justaregulardude2001@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

I've been on Fedora Linux for almost a year now. Considering that I started using Linux when the pandemic started, you can figure out that it's my distro of choice now. Also, I like that Fedora is, for the most part, quite developer friendly and had great packages and software installed when I first started using it.

[-] Kovu@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

3 years on EndeavourOS and no end in sight

[-] pfaca@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I switched from Manjaro to EndeavourOS more or less a year ago and I'm not leaving any time soon.

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[-] runningman@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

I've had an HP Dev One with Pop!_OS for right about a year now. I've done plenty of hopping and testing of other distributions prior to last year, but started with Ubuntu in 2009/2010 and have always felt most comfortable with Debian based OSs.

[-] tsl@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

I've settled on Ubuntu in 2008, but jumped between Gnome, KDE, Unity and LXDE. Then I got a Steam Deck last year and it became my main machine, so now I am not only with its Arch based OS, but I a secondary Arch SD card that I occasionally boot, if I need something not immediately available in SteamOS.

Servers? Debian Since 2019.

[-] megatroid_skittles@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I've been on Yggdrasil Linux since 1993. Now, get off my lawn, you punks!

[-] RedditExodus@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I downloaded Ubuntu 5.04 and have mostly stuck with Ubuntu for almost 20 years. I've tried other distros over the years but I've always come back to Ubuntu.

[-] tristramr@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I stopped having time (or inclination) to mess around with multiple distributions after getting out of college and into real life. So... Since at least about 2002, with Debian.

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[-] fugepe@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

MX and Opensuse

[-] Zaphodquixote@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Ahhh, when did Windows 10 come out? I've been on mint since then, though I've tried live discs/drives of the major distros here and there. I like mint, it works for me.

[-] Octorine@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

I was on Debian from around 1996ish to 2019.

Been on Pop OS since then.

[-] PanaX@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

When Mint had a KDE version I used that for almost four years. Then went to KDE neon and found that to be unstable. Hopped hither and thither, finally made it back to mint.

Having used Linux for 15 years, I just want stable now. Even user cinnamon mint was getting glitchy and updating too frequently. So I've been using the mint Debian edition for more than a few months and love it. IF I had to switch now, I'd just go to Debian.

[-] raktheundead@fosstodon.org 1 points 1 year ago

@unix_joe: I've been using SUSE with KDE since SuSE Linux Personal 7.0. So, 20+ years?

[-] 3laws@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Fedora 30 to 38. Whatever that amounts. Staying on Arch indefinitely.

[-] Romdeau4@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I’ve been on Fedora for about 7 years. My server flips between Ubuntu and CentOS every couple of years.

[-] SpaceCadet2000@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log

[2014-10-11 14:33] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -r /mnt -Sy --cachedir=/mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg --noconfirm base base-devel'

Almost 9 years it seems

[-] k-tec@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Lets see. Debian since 1997... so 26 years. Back then you had to order 12 CDs through the post.

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[-] Dracocide@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure how long, but I bet Mint is my longest distro. Next would probably either Manjaro or SUSE.

[-] deliriousn0mad@feddit.it 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

openSUSE Tumbleweed KDE since 2019, it never breaks and if you break it you can easily roll back. Yes, there are a lot of updates, but I have a secondary system that I upgrade only once every six months and it works like a charm!

[-] jokro@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Same, Tumbleweed GNOME since 2019

[-] V6277@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I was on Arch for a couple of years on and off (had only 256 GB of storage on my old laptop, so I didn't dual boot), stopped using Linux for around a year, and now I've been on Fedora for a year and a half.

Though I thinking of going back to Ubuntu on their next LTS release, part of the reason I wanted cutting-edge distros was because I wanted updated packages, especially Gnome as every update brought big (positive) changes. Most of it seems to have stabilized with only small creature comforts being added now, so I want a stable distro that doesn't cause Windows to ask me to enter my encryption key every couple of weeks due to a kernel update.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Fedora for the last 4 or 5 years

[-] dfi@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 year ago

My longest was when i went 100% Full time on my main machine (no dual boot), I stopped distro-hoppping. I Installed Debian stable when it first came out (Jessie) and stayed with it until it shifted to "old-stable" which was a little bit over 3 years.

A lot of people give Debian stable a hard time but i found it worked well. Most software that i needed to be a little bit newer i could get from the backports repository. It was only at the end of it's lifecycle that i noticed started running in to software being a little to old for what i wanted to do. Then i went back to distro-hopping for a while until i found my next home. :-)

[-] brunox@feddit.cl 1 points 1 year ago

I have been on Archlinux since the end of 2008. I've only installed it three times though. So i guess i fit the more than a decade thing

[-] eyolf@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I installed Arch in 2004, and I haven't hopped since. I was trapped in Ubuntu for a short while once, when I had a new work laptop where for some reason I couldn't get Arch installed, but when I tried again a couple of months later, it all worked. So I guess the answer is: for 19 years.

[-] infinitevalence 1 points 1 year ago

Been on Manjaro for about 4 years for my gaming PC but been running a Debian flavor for servers since Woody.

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[-] case_when@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Linux Mint since 2018. Everything has worked so smoothly, I've never felt the need to change.

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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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