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?

  • SpicyToaster420@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    3 days ago

    I’ve been in Pop!_OS for a lot of years now; and Ubuntu/Mint before that. The lack of updates in Pop!_OS (not Cosmic!) is starting to wear me thin; the U22.04 basis is starting to get a bit threadbare and their App Store has always been broken— but now it seems even more brokener.

    The Cosmic Alphas don’t work well on my machine, Wayland is still pretty unstable and some of the apps I have to use just don’t work with it at all. I’ve got way too much to do to go and try to debug it or hack it or even give up and go try another distro. When they take Cosmic out of beta, if it doesn’t work for me I’m just going to drop and go back to hopping. Or worse, I may just go back to MacOS 100% except for when I’m working on some server-side shit.

      • markstos@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        I stuck with Ubuntu over a decade, but eventually Arch had several packages I was interested in that Ubuntu did not, plus the Arch wiki. I wanted to use Sway with several rofi/dmenu type utils, and Arch had a lot more of those packaged.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      4 days ago

      Same. I had been using Ubuntu for over a decade for all of my Desktops, but had used CENTOS/Rocky for servers. Now I switched to Fedora for desktop which simplifies things since now only my Raspberry Pis use deb vs rpm.

      Snap is super frustrating and the gate-keeping of updates and features behind the Pro subscription is annoying. I don’t want to have an account if I dint have to. It’s just one more privacy violation waiting to happen with no real benefit to me even if it is free for personal use.

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    4 days ago

    I’ve been settling on Linux Mint more and more as my generic workhorse distro. I have the least amount of issues with it out of the box compared to any other desktop distro.

    It’s clean, relatively low bloat, includes codecs and drivers for basically everything I’ve ever needed to use/do, and Cinnamon’s only crime as a DE is looking kind of boring. But it’s easy to select a new theme, so not really a huge issue either.

    I use a bunch of different distros for different purposes, but if you held a gun to my head and made me pick a distro I had to use exclusively for the rest of my life, it would be Mint with Cinnamon.

    If something was to replace it, it would have to be even cleaner, simpler to setup, and have even better general stability and compatibility.

  • Trimatrix@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    6 days ago

    When the Distro starts talking about enterprise features during the installation process (looking at you canonical)

  • Abnorc@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    4 days ago

    The distro I’m on getting worse would be one. Linux Mint has been pretty stable and enjoyable though. I admit, setting up a new distro can be fun, but it comes with many annoyances too.

    I have been tempted to try KDE and Wayland though. The last time that I installed a new DE, I had all kinds of little reminders of the previous DE that would pop up. (E.g. file selector dialogue boxes.) Finding all the little config options I needed to change to make the switch completely was tricky. At this point, I’m tempted to day that it’s better just to install a distro with the DE that you want, but maybe I should try it again.

    • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 days ago

      I got the impression Mint isn’t best for KDE. For the reasons you mentioned, I guess, because it’s not been set up with all those options right for KDE.

      I’m also on Mint, and happy to stick with it for some time, but sometimes I’ve wondered about going back to OpenSUSE, or even trying KDE’s own distro. But by then I start thinking about Nix and Guix also, as well as old faithful Arch. Then it’s too much choice and I remember how nicely Mint works for me and the family!

  • pineapple@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    4 days ago

    Probably nothing. I’m currently in the process of starting to distrohop a lot. I want to try out lots of distros, for fun and in order to recommend distros to other people. I will probably eventually settle on arch or nixos though, the customization seams really awesome.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    6 days ago

    Other than massive breakage, I’m not sure. Completely reinstalling and reconfiguring my setup is a pain in the ass, in part because of my slow internet connection. But damn if Ubuntu isn’t trying to find out.

  • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    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.

      • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          3 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.