You'll always end up on debian. You just dont know it yet

o Windows 10
|
o Linux Mint
|
|\__
|   \
|    o Manjaro KDE
|    |
o Fedora KDE
|    |\__
|    |   \
x    |    o Windows 11
     |    o Windows 11 + Arch Linux
     |    |
     o Arch Linux
     |    |
     |    |
     |    o Windows 11 + Debian KDE
     |    |

hopefully it renders well on your client :D

Copying this from another thread that was basically the same question, but didn't get much attention

Started on Arch Linux for some reason back in 2016, I just decided to throw out my Windows and install it (Don't really remember what was going through my head, or why I wanted to install Linux, other than I was reading the r/linux subreddit wiki at the time). I was trapped in a TTY trying to install the thing for maybe a week, and after 9 reinstallations, I got Arch working and got a Weston compositor session running under Wayland. After realizing Weston was more a tech-demo than something I was actually supposed to use, I installed X11 and Gnome, which was cool for approximately 3 minutes before I decided to replace it with some minimal window manager instead. Can't remember if it was i3wm or something else, but i3wm sounds right; and later I messed around with some tilers like StumpWM, ratpoison, and HerbstluftWM.

After about 3 months, something in Arch broke (systemd was not reaping processes properly was what I concluded at the time, no idea what the actual problem was but I ended up with a bunch of zombie processes), and I decided to install Gentoo as my second Linux distribution. After installing Gentoo, I entered a stage which is colloquially know as "config hell" where I overconfigured everything to the point of breaking something, and could never figure out what I actually broke because everything was so overconfigured. After recompiling the whole system, everything was still broken, so I reinstalled Gentoo, this time less overconfigured, but still somewhat overconfigured (It didn't help I was also running a full self-made custom kernel config with 3 months of Linux experience, I surprised the thing booted at all).

I lived in Gentoo for around a year using HerbstluftWM, but eventually I grew tired of how much maintenance Gentoo required and just wanted some sane defaults. This led me to installing OpenBSD, which I guess was the right decision for me because I'm still using it to this day (7 years!), and is where I gained the majority of my knowledge about using Unix thanks to the wonderful documentation. Initially I didn't like the ports system because it didn't have as many knobs as Gentoo's portage did (Gentoo's portage is more modeled after FreeBSD's ports than OpenBSD's ports it seems), but I came around to enjoying hacking ports with my own patches instead of using preconfigured knobs. Eventually my porting skills got good enough that I now officially mantain a couple OpenBSD ports (games/stone-soup, www/pipe-viewer), and that list is likely to grow. I switched between some other window managers (ratpoison, JWM, FVWM2) before settling on OpenBSD's in-house cwm. I purchased a VPS also running OpenBSD, and self host various things like email, git, ZNC, web/http, and IPsec/VPN. Eventually, I grew tired of not having games to play (OpenBSD doesn't support WINE), so I bought a Steam Deck that I use as both my gaming desktop and handheld. I also bought a Pinephone from Pine64 which currently uses PostmarketOS (I hope to run OpenBSD on it some day though).

tl;dr Use Arch as your first Linux distribution and you'll end up as an OpenBSD ports maintainer I guess

Debian -> Slackware -> Guix

Windows -> Ubuntu ->dual boot with Ubuntu-> Windows-> Ubuntu-> Fedora workstation

All of this over 20 years.

And now I really don’t plan on going back to Windows and I’m happy with Gnome and Fedora even if I’d want to try other distributions outside of a virtual machine sometimes.

And the f course there were some accidents with lost data over the years, but I always had a pretty recent backup on a drive before syncing with cloud backup became a thing.

Windows -> Fedora

Been almost 10 years and no thoughts of changing. What can I say? I lucked out first time.

Ubuntu -> Arch -> Debian (stable) -> Fedora Silverblue -> NixOS

DOS -> slack ware Linux -> win 3 -> os/2 warp -> win 98 -> win XP -> osx (several years on Mac) -> win 10 -> Ubuntu 14, 16, 18, 20 -> fedora 34, 35, 36 ,37, 38 -> Debian 12 --> fedora silverblue 40.

Ubuntu (in VM, a few months) -> Linux Mint (1 year) -> Archlinux (2 years) -> Ubuntu (1 year) -> Fedora (2 years) -> Linux Mint Debian (3 years) -> Debian (5+ years for now)

I have had a desktop PC and a laptop for a few years now. The laptop had Mint (DE) for 2 years longer.

That should be more or less it, makes about 14 years on GNU/Linux now.

Windows -> Ubuntu -> Arch Linux

Windows (2015-2021) --> Manjaro (2 Weeks) --> Arch (2021-today)

Windows 95

Suse Linux

Yoper Linux

Windows XP

Slackware

Windows 10/11

Fedora Linux

"Relapsed" to Windows for a while because I became a graphic designer and running a somewhat current Adobe suite on wine was impossible (it works now).

Slackware has been amazing, but having to built so much stuff from scratch takes too much time nowadays.

And those first Suse years were too rough to keep using it as a daily driver.

• In the 90's: Slackware, then RedHat, then Debian, then Progeny (Debian based), then shortly Mandrake (RedHat based)

• Early 2000's: RedHat Japanese edition, TurboLinux (because I was in Japan and Japanese IME was almost impossible to get working on non-Japanese distributions)

• Then I had fun with Gentoo looking at my terminal compiling stuff everyday and fixing broken package because I followed advices to activate crazy compilation flags

• 2004: Ubuntu, that I used for nearly 20 years

• Last year: switched to Fedora

Slack, mandriva, Ubuntu, gentoo, arch, xubuntu, knoppix, mint, QubesOS. In that order.

Currently at Qubes and I can't imagine downgrading to any OS that doesn't have these VM-level sandboxing features built-in

Desktop: Macintosh (<X) -> Windows (XP-10) w/occasional Ubuntu dual-boot (various DEs) -> Debian + Gnome

Server: Ubuntu LTS -> Debian

I’ve also had a number of used thinkpads over the years where I mostly ran Xubuntu and crunchbang.

I still boot into Windows every month or so if I need to model something in Rhino (CAD). Couldn’t get it working in Wine and my 12 YO computer isn’t performant enough to run it in a VM. The last thread remaining and waiting to be cut…

Mint -> Arch

Windows -> RedHat -> Windows -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> RHEL -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Arch

Over about a decade: Win7 -> Mint -> Manjaro -> Mint -> Endeavour

Eyeing Nix atm, looks cute, might hop later

Windows (~6 years) -> Mandriva (Mandrake? For I think 2-3 years) -> Ubuntu (1 day) -> Suse (2 days) -> Slackware (2-3 years) -> Gentoo unstable (2-3 years) -> Gentoo stable (2-3 years) -> Arch (9 years and counting)

The only span I'm sure about is the last one. When I started a job I decided I don't have the time to compile the world anymore. But the values after Windows sum up to 21, should be 20, so it's all more or less correct

warning: some non-linux included below

• minix
• slackware
• early Debian
• FreeBSD (ftp installs instead of 20 floppies! OMG!)
• Debian
• Crunchbang <-- loved that original project
• Solaris (friend gave me a Sparc 5)
• DSL, Puppy linux (had a tiny netbook)
• **Debian on workstations and servers since ~2014 **
• various debian-based distros on RPI

I do spin up other distros in a VM from time to time to see what's what. Most recently NixOS since people won't STFU about it. :-)

Windows (for my entire life) -> Ubuntu (for half a year) -> Kali (for a year; yes, I was that kid) -> Manjaro (half a year) -> Windows (for a short while, my Manjaro broke and I had school) ->Arch (past 4 years) -> now trying out NixOS

My journey was Windows-> Ubuntu -> Mint -> Fedora -> Arch.

(Infuriatingly i still use windows for gaming, but nothing else.)

Did i mention that i use arch?

More importantly:

fucked up all my data with no backup.

One time i messed up a script and accidentally copied 40,000 mp3s to the same filename. 20 years of music collecting, literally going back to Napster, all gone.

Well, not completely gone. I've got everything uploaded to iBroadcast, and I'm pretty sure i can download my library. But I'm not sure i deserve to.

I tried one distro and now the other distros confuse and scare me.

Windows 95 -> 98 -> SuSE ...9? -> XP -> Ubuntu 10 -> Windows 7 -> Windows 10 (alongside a bunch of Debian servers) -> MX Linux -> Debian

Also went Windows 10 -> Kubuntu -> VanillaOS -> Kinoite on my laptop for what it's worth.

I started with Corel Linux, moved to Mandrake and then began an 18 year distro-hopping journey. To keep it interesting, I rolled a d100 on distrowatch.com and installed whatever I landed on. About 6 years ago I landed on openSUSE Tumbleweed and haven't hopped since if you don't count a brief dalliance with endeavour on my laptop.

I am not sure that I can really call what I did distrohopping, but

Mint w/ Cinnamon (several years ago on an old junker laptop and never ended up using it as a daily driver) -> Manjaro w/ KDE Plasma (daily driver for ~1 year) -> Arch w/ KDE Plasma (~2 years and counting).

I have also used Debian with no DE on a file server I made out of an old thin client PC and I have used Rasbian on a raspberry pi.

Windows 10 years -> macOS 6months -> Windows 10 years -> mint 1 week -> Ubuntu 1hr -> Garuda 30mins -> endeavor 1hr - > arch 1 day (I got filtered) -> manjaro 1 year -> fedora 1 week -> nobara 6 months.

I did manage to install arch on an old chromebook but I find configuring things from scratch annoying and I like it to be configured well be default and I'll change it if I want to.

Slackware(1995?), Yggdrasil, Redhat/Fedora/Mandrake, SuSE, Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

Probably some others I have forgotten, and there was a lot of back and forth at various times but I settled on Debian based because at the time APT was the best package manager. I mostly use Mint or straight Debian now because familiarity makes it the simplest for me after all these years.

not Linux but also Solaris, SunOS, & AIX

It all started with SuseLinux with KDE2. Then a long while it was Windows only. In 2021 I dabbled with Elementaryos, because it damn looks beautiful. In 2023 then I took the plunge. Started with Garuda Linux. Then KDE Neon then Fedora, then OpenSuse, Fedora Silverblue, then Nobara Linux, Fedora Kinoite, then back to Mint, Garuda and now've I settled on Nobara KDE.

Apple IIc > Windows 3.1 > Windows 95 > Windows 98 > Windows XP > Brief experiment with Ubuntu in the REALLY purple and brown era > OS X > Elementary > Fedora > Endeavour > Fedora > Silverblue > ublue > NixOS

(not counting numerous VMs with everything from Debian to Linux From Scratch)

15 years Windows -> dualboot everything -> Ubuntu -> Fedora -> Ubuntu -> opensuse -> arch -> popOS -> arch -> fedora -> arch -> -> popOS -> arch -> nixos

I'm sure there's a ton more hopping around in the middle that I can't remember, but this is a good summary.

Mine was not really long and stretched out over multiple devices. First Ubuntu Server, on my server, then a Kali dual boot on my main PC (which was actually useful), then PopOS. Then Ubuntu/Debian, after some time LFS and finally Arch on my old laptop. Then Arch on my PC too, and my new Laptops, and finally Arch on all devices.

Mine was Windows XP -> Ubuntu -> Xubuntu -> Windows 10 -> Kubuntu -> KDE Neon -> back to Kubuntu -> Manjaro -> Endeavour OS -> Fedora -> Debian -> NixOS

I also have a separate Laptop for financial things running Alma Linux and a Gaming PC running bazzite

Risc_os>win95-xp>Ubuntu>mint>Ubuntu>win8.1-10>manjaro>mint>popOs>fedora>fedora silverblue>bazzite/aurora

Desktop: Windows Vista Home -> Windows 7 Home -> CentOS 7 -> Debian 8 -> Arch Linux -> OpenSUSE Leap 15 -> Debian 10 -> Slackware

Slackware is probably where i'll be for the rest of my time on Linux, as unlike other distros, I have no major complaints.

I've always hosted stuff at home, even as a kid, so for my homeserver:

Server: Windows XP Pro -> Windows 7 Pro -> CentOS 7 -> CentOS 8 -> Artix Linux -> NetBSD -> OpenBSD -> SmartOS

I don't miss the days of using WAMP on windows lol

• Windows (family PC)
• a BUNCH of Ubuntu-based distros (Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio (which was awesome btw), Mint,... ) on my first own PC
• Arch for years and years and years
• NixOS

I wouldn't count the last switch as distro hopping though. It was a calculated decision after months of deliberation and trying things out. And now that everything is set up, I am very certain that I'll never switch to another distro again, Nix is just too good.

For me it is like this: Window-->ubuntu(a month)-->kubuntu(a week)-->Opensuse tumbleweed

I also tried Nobara, zorinos, arch and bazzite but never actually use them