OpenSuse (back then the "normal" one, then Leap and now the rolling release Tumbleweed). It just works really well and keeps on trucking. Updated my old machine for ten years through all the openSuse releases without reinstalling. The repositories are very well kept in order and the build service easily provides anything I might find lacking.

Also, I quite like using Yast for system administration. There are many areas that I rarely touch and having a GUI available is super helpful.

Age. I'm old now.

I do it once in a while, to feel young, but not benefit all that much. (Having said that about my daily desktop, I do have multiple machines and VMs that run all sorts of distros)

My journey was:

• Mandrake/Mandriva
• Debian (v2.4)
• Ubuntu (v6.04)
• Debian (8)
• Arch Linux
• NixOS

I left Debian for Ubuntu when it simply worked better and left Ubuntu when it became too restrictive and weird. I need a working system but my freedom to experiment. Then I discovered arch and never looked back. Still kept Debian on servers.

Currently using arch on desktop machines and nixos on my servers. But I use nix for Dev environments and dotfiles even on arch.

Not sure if I'll stay with NixOS but for now that seems like the direction I'm going to. Still love Arch Linux for it's freedom though, but I'm getting older and don't have the time to fiddle with everything.

openSUSE Tumbleweed, because real life got a little too much and I wanted something that just worked.

Ubuntu-kubuntu-mint-debian-manjaro-opensuse tumbleweed-Fedora. Been on fedora for a few years, anytime I try something different I come right back. I want to like openSuse but I ways seem to have some weird ass issues with it

Windows

GNU Guix

peak hackability while also having binary downloads

I think I'll settle down with Void + XFCE

Pop!_OS. I previously got stuck on tiling window managers, but I found that they have prohibitively large amounts of setup involved. It's also not uncommon for support applications to be poorly maintained or to have a poor UX. Pop!_OS's desktop gathers everything together very nicely into a working shell with minimal setup, but still has that sweet, sweet tiling WM.

Arch, cause it has everything I needs + I don't have to reinstall between big updates (Arch is Rolling release)

Gentoo.
Everything just works and I can configure everything the way I want.

Thought I settled down with EndeavourOS.. then I got into ricing and the urge to move to void or alpine is strong

Ubuntu.

I jumped from Ubuntu to Fedora to Netrunner to Arch to Gentoo to Mint then back to Ubuntu.

Did I regret it? Nah, I learned alot with my adventure but these days I just prefer the common distro denominator. Although to be fair my Ubuntu isn't exactly a vanilla Ubuntu as I did add some changes I see fit.

Arch for my PC and laptop, Debian for all my servers, VMs, LXCs, etc.

Ubuntu -> Fedora -> Debian stable (and lots of flatpaks) for my desktop. Ubuntu has only gotten worse with age, and I got tired of being on the leading edge and just want stuff to work (and I use ZFS so I don't want rapidly upgrading kernels). For my home server Ubuntu -> Centos -> Almalinux

Not sure if it qualify as distrohopping, but for a long time I tried to test every major Linux distro release, and they all had problems with sound, but when Ubuntu 5 came out everything worked out of the box, so I switched my desktop to Linux. A couple of years later, Ubuntu began some introducing some (IMO) questionable things, so I tested the main distros again and landed on Debian, most of all because I knew the system relatively well from Ubuntu.

The first desktop distro I tried was Mandrake (back in 1998), but since I use my desktop for making music, it was just too much work every time I wanted to record something back then.

As for servers, I have always just used what the customer wanted or had, and for most parts it was Red hat.

Fedora Secureblue Kinoite (based on ublue, based on Fedora)

Before:

• Linux Mint (crashed randomly)
• Manjaro (was awesome, convinced me of KDE)
• MX Linux (why the hell is this so recommended??)
• Kubuntu (broke)
• KDE Neon (broke)
• Fedora KDE (broke)

Mandrake > Ubuntu > Debian > Mint > Arch > Artix

Settled on Artix for openrc and all the aur goodness

Archlinux, probably 15 years ago already. Before it tried it all.

At beginning only my computers. After a few years when working still insisted on using ubuntu lts versions and others because "oh stable for sure", but they got very broken and software was not updated enough to use things I needed. It was mess of Frankenstein systems with ppa for hardware support and other random programs.

Started using arch on work computers too.

Never needed to change afterwards. All my computers both personal and work have it.

Fedora. I love Debian as well, but both of my computers needed more recent libraries, and now I'm curious to see how far I can take these installs.

Arch ecause of the large amount of software available on the AUR.

I set it up with SwayFX, Alacritty Firefox & Sway Lock. Slap your favourite text editor on there and you've everything you need.

SuSE Linux (a German distribution), some niche, single CD distrubution, Debian for a while and, finally, since ~2006, Gentoo on my servers and since ~2015 Gentoo as my desktop.

Debian and its derivatives never felt right for me. I find too many drawbacks with binary packages (non-configurable build options, therefore dependencies that can't be disabled, relying on humans to keep ABI compatiblity, trouble integrating my own packages or unstable versions) and I just don't like systemd.

It's weird, I've seen more than enough of those "Install Gentoo" memes, but I find it the most pleasant system to run in the long term.

I hopped around in Debian-Land for a while before switching to Manjaro, converting it to Arch later on.

Now I stay with Arch because it just works and doesn't break on me.

Am I the only one who doesnt distrohopp?

Installed debian for homelab and bam it works. Installed PopOS on desktop and bam it works.

Many years ago I tried ubuntu and didnt like it, this time I was thinking Ill just switch distro until I find the right one, but it happened sooner than expected 😉

Bookworm

I've been using Ubuntu since 12.04 LTS, and old habits die hard. There have been many attempts by my peers to steer me toward Arch and NixOS, but Ubuntu suits my needs and I am used to it after a decade

Ubuntu -> Crunchbang -> Arch -> Parabola -> Debian

I went more hardline FOSS and stuck to FSDG/DFSG distros. Debian runs everywhere—my phone, tablets, armbook, server—eventually I found myself typing apt commands in my remaining Parabola installs, so I just went all in. I have sid on my former Parabola devices.

I do really like the Social Contract.

I don't know if I'm a "hopper", because I haven't used that many. But I started with Slackware in the late 90s. I put Red Hat on a friend's computer (and was promptly unable to help with it) somewhere around 2001.

Around 2010 or so I switched my desktop and laptop from Slackware to Kubuntu. I was just tired of dealing with package dependencies. Maybe 6 or 8 years ago I switched my server from Slackware to Debian for similar reasons.

Right now my plan is to switch my desktop and laptop to Debian. I haven't yet because I want to reconfigure some disks on the server (need more space on /var and less on /home), then move a service that's currently running on my desktop to the server (Home Assistant), then install Debian on to my new nvme drive on the desktop and go from there. There's a whole upgrade path, basically. It has been a slow process because I have to do the space reconfiguration on the server itself - I can't log in remotely and do it - and the server is located in the basement, without a monitor or usable keyboard hooked to it... but there's also no deadline either, so no need to rush on it.

Ubuntu > Fedora > Ubuntu > Arch > Ubuntu

TinyLinux (booting from DOS), Slackware, Debian for many years, Ubuntu, Debian, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch for 10+ years.

RH/CentOS/Amazon Linux for work these last 20 years.

I switched to Arch because ubuntu & debian started asking too many interactive questions when upgrading packages, instead of just upgrading. Arch gets out of my way, and has great documentation if something unexpected should break.

Proxmox; you continue distrohopping but with less issues

Beginning: mint.
Later on: bunch of Debian and red hat based distros. After that: arch (4 years straight).
Now: debian kde.
Here's summary of my 8 year of Linux distrohopping. why? Because "I'm tired boss"

I distrohopped so many times I can't even remember everything I used.

Now I'm just on Fedora for my desktops, and Rocky on my server. Everything (mostly) works, so I'm fine with it.

Nobara because I primarily game but need some tools that are only available natively for Debian and Fedora based distributions.

I am a Linux novice, but have been dabbling for a long time. I had to laugh at myself when I realized I was “distrohopping” because I wanted to try out different DE’s. I just made the connection that rather than hop, I can simply install a different DE.

Windows -> MacOS -> Manjaro -> Arch

I'm in love with arch so I won't be switching anytime soon.

Desktop? I settled on Arch and Fedora.

Server? Debian. Although technically I never distrohopped on servers, been using Debian since the beginning of time.