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
    2·
    6 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
        1·
        8 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.

  • Trimatrix@lemmy.world
    28·
    9 days ago

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

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
    18·
    9 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.

  • deadbeef@lemmy.nz
    141·
    9 days ago

    I’ve changed distro’s a bunch of times personally and for business I have influence in a bunch of times in the last 30 odd years.

    Slackware -> Redhat -> Suse -> Ubuntu -> Debian.

    The reasons for each were ( as best I can recall ).

    Slackware to Redhat was just because a proper package manager made sense at the time. I think the Redhat releases were a bit more up to date too.

    Redhat to Suse was because Redhat stopped doing the free long term releases, the short term ones were too short to be workable.

    Suse to Ubuntu was a similar thing to Redhat with Suse trying to push you into the enterprise version.

    Ubuntu to Debian most recently was due to the Ubuntu releases coming with more and more unwanted crap, we had been running mint on desktops to avoid whatever their mutant gnome reskin was called and then their regular gnome releases, but we were still running regular Ubuntu on servers. Eventually when they started putting pretty core stuff in snaps we decided to move to Debian.

    Hopefully that is the last migration we have to do for a while.

  • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
    12·
    9 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
        2·
        9 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.caEnglish
          1·
          6 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.

  • Naz@sh.itjust.works
    131·
    9 days ago

    I wait and let everyone figure out what the least broken Linux distro is.

    Debian is stable. Stable is good, for an operating system; because I actually want to use my computer.

    Not play with the operating system for 4-6 hours per day.

    • Peffse@lemmy.world
      10·
      9 days ago

      I tried so hard to get Debian working on my new build. Problem being: it’s a new build. Debian’s glacial pacing meant my hardware won’t see support for a while. I might try again when Trixie finally releases, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

      So I guess my answer is… I’ll distro hop when stability & support reach equal levels.

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        9 days ago

        Trixie is usable right now. My server is running it. The final release is expected this summer.

  • tankplanker@lemmy.world
    10·
    9 days ago

    I moved from Redhat when they started pulling the shit around getting paid for their source. I understand why they did it, but I disagreed with that choice and I moved.

    I quit Ubuntu when I finally had enough of their insistence on their way for everything such as firefox via snap, sure I can and did work around their shit, but why the fuck should I?

    I would move from Opensuse if they did something similar, if it became unreliably maintained, or if something much better came along.

    • kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      3·
      9 days ago

      I love my Tumbleweed install. It is rolling and new while also being rock solid. But I do have the itch to try new stuff which j do sometimes

      • tankplanker@lemmy.world
        1·
        8 days ago

        Yeah I have the same impression of it, although the volume of some updates, even when I update daily, can be a little off-putting.

        I wont move unless I have a good reason to, inertia over the effort to change when bored is too high

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      would move from Opensuse if they did something similar, if it became unreliably maintained

      I saw too much while turning the corpse they kicked over the fence into a unitedLinux we could ship and support.

      The horrors.

      If the entire company died and absolutely new people made a new company by the same name with none of the former staff or principals involved, then I would consider suse. The taint goes so deep I would not consider even a new source drop with the same staff.

      • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        8 days ago

        I’m not familiar with any of what you’re saying. Would you care to expand on it a little bit? Also, which distro do you use instead?

  • Broadfern@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    9 days ago

    Similar to other users - repos go down or corporate stuff starts to creep in.

    As long as I get to maintain agency over my system I’m pretty content.

  • squaresinger@lemmy.world
    8·
    9 days ago

    The ability to wake up the laptop from sleep.

    Damn, do I regret going with Fedora. Anything newer than kernel 6.10 (which I salvaged from Fedora 39) and my laptop doesn’t wake up from sleep anymore.

    But changing distros is a hassle and idiot me went with a single partition for system and data, so migrating to another distro requires me to actually backup everything, so I haven’t done it yet.

  • MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml
    8·
    9 days ago

    I used to distro hop all the time until I settled on Tumbleweed. I used that for eight years until Suse bared their corporate teeth and I got fed up with being two generations behind on the Nvidia drivers. I’ve been using EndeavourOS for almost a year and don’t see me moving any time soon.