this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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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).

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I've been using Linux Mint since forever. I've never felt a reason to change. But I'm interested in what persuaded others to move.

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[–] Ramin_HAL9001@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

I had a huge problem with Arch because of the rolling release deal. I just can't handle the responsibility of updating packages every single day, even with automation.

When I install an operating system, I want it to just work, and I want their repositories to have lots and lots of software. Most distros do this, but none do it as well as one of the major Debian-family distros like Ubuntu or Mint. Fedora is quite nice as well, and I could probably daily drive it without issue, I just see no reason to change over to it since Ubuntu has me totally covered. And it is basically like this for me with every other distro: I have to think, "why would I switch? What benefit would it provide me over what I have right now." The answer is always "nothing important," so I stick with Ubuntu.

I considered using Guix because its package manager is truly a revolutionary new technology. But using it as a package manager, I can see a lot of the packages and default configurations just aren't quite to the point of "just works" yet. Still, I hope someday to switch to Guix as my daily driver.

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[–] fortniteplaya@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 years ago

I’ve messed with a decent amount, listed in my post. Most distros weren’t customized the way that I wanted them to be or I didn’t like the looks so I prefer Debian and Arch for simplicity’s sake depending on the use case and going from there.

[–] Teon@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

In 2007 I tried Ubuntu and it was weird, then again in 2008, no! In 2009 I found Mint and was really happy, until they stopped supporting KDE. Then I tried a ton of distros, Xfce, no. Lxde, no. open suse, no. fedora, no, lots of others, no. I finally found Kubuntu and I have been on it ever since. Even tested Neon lately but hated it.
Kubuntu does what I want it to do.
Linux always seems scary at first, but once you learn enough, it's super easy.

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[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly, depending on whether you count it or not, LFS. I have not tried Gentoo yet, though I want to one day, for the learning experience, and yet I already know that compiling everything is not something I enjoy.

I can get by with OpenSUSE and Void (kinda), I've used Debian for a few weeks, I've used Fedora for a month or so, I've used Ubuntu for a bit, I've tried PopOS for a week or two, I've used NixOS for a few months, and I've used Arch for most of my time on Linux.

Currently I'm on Arch, but I don't like rolling releases that much. At the same time, I am also not a fan of immutability, as there are some programs I need that cannot be installed on an immutable distro, so that's why I'm on Arch. Why am I only using these 2? Because they are the only distros that have all the packages I need (excluding the specialist software that I need for university). By the time I discovered Distrobox (which would solve this problem), I was already on Arch. I've also done some changes to my setup and as such, I'll need to wait for some new features to make their way into program releases and into the NixOS Stable repo with the following release. Until then, I'm on Arch.

[–] aard@kyu.de 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Gentoo is useless for learning how things work. Back in the 00s when I still had time to hang out at events it was always quite ridiculous at what kind of basic stuff the gentoo crowd got stuck at - and with the tooling 15+ years more polished now I'd expect what is actually going on is way more hidden than back then.

If you do want to understand how things work just build a minimal system - either on spare hardware, or qemu/kvm. Don't go with systemd, or other fat userland options - that just makes you compile a lot of dependencies not adding value for learning.

Use some lean init (or just write one yourself), and some lean shell.

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[–] people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Literally all of them have shite color management and fractional scaling that blurs everything. It's an eyesore.

I really, really want to use Linux for multimedia consumption but I can't.

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[–] phpinjected@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago
[–] paolab@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

I have tried a bunch of them: Manjaro, Fedora, Opensuse Tumbleweed, Mx Linux, EndeavourOS, Arcolinux, Debian, currently LMDE. But Fedora, the spin with XFCE not the default one, never convinced me enough to keep it., is the one that never convinced me enough to keep it.

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