Different Linux Distros, have you tried and decided?

[youniversalis (Pawn)]

How many distros have you tried? Which do you like most? There are quite a few, I have used Ubuntu years ago I think 18.0 was recent then, last year I installed elementary OS8 on my dying Asus Win10 where the battery seemed dead, many other errors till I installed that Linux distro. It is an operating system with a UI like Mac has.
For about two months I have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon on a Dell 7490 which I explicitly bought to try Linux distros, and I am very glad I left Windows behind me, haven’t missed it. I did buy this Laptop specifically after conferring with AI actually because I could imagine Linux doesn’t work with all hardware the same way.
Now I am considering making my actual great Laptop a dual boot machine, I have an Acer with double the RAM, Oled screen and even still guarantee which is a reason I didn’t want to mess with that one. By now though I start wondering if I shouldn’t just use that one, e.g. with dual boot as mentioned.

Is such a laptop supported just as good, the hardware drivers and such? Should I best take this same Linux Mint built? Any tips? I appreciate any feedback and am curious if you simply installed one distro and stuck with it, or actually like a less well known better?

[ihasama]

Well I switched to Linux when Win XP was still alive. Ubuntu was my choice because it just worked. I tried the BSDs too but they had problems. I tried so many distros I can’t even remember but still had Ubuntu as the main distro. Snaps made me to abandon Ubuntu. When I (finally) went to Debian I thought I’ve seen them all. Nixos was too much off the line. Crazy that Debian was one of my last ones like Mint, Void and Arch. I’ve installed all hardware. Maybe Alpine is the only I just tried on wm.

Now?

Gentoo (OpenRC)

still learning FreeBSD

@youniversalis

Is such a laptop supported just as good, the hardware drivers and such? Should I best take this same Linux Mint built?

If you like Mint, use it! It’s your computer

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

We did have a topic which made a list of distros in order of difficulty

How to choose your next Linux distro?

One of the things that seems to characterize most Linux users is that ‘we all like to move on’. That might mean waiting for a new release of our favourite distro, or using a rolling release, or looking to change distros. If we are going to change distros that might mean better fit to our hardware provides some desperately needed software philosophical issues like systemd or rolling provides some new mental challenge If we are looking for a challenge, it is important to do it in small step…

My first Linux was Debian … but before that I used FreeBSD. Now I favour non-systemd distros and rolling release.

[pdecker]

I’ve used several, including Elementary (a few releases ago), but usually come back to Ubuntu. The phrase “it just works” is pretty common.

Mint is good stuff too. I haven’t used the LMDE version but I’m sure it’s just as good.

Make a bootable USB and see how well the hardware is recognized and if the drivers seem to work. Then you can think about something more permanent. Dual boot has worked for me for quite a while, but I did that on an older computer with a standard BIOS and not UEFI. Some have said that makes a difference.

[youniversalis (Pawn)]

I’ve had some troubles with elementary os with updates, had to do some repairing via the terminal there after several failed updates. Is that maybe due to the fact that i use it rarely? The laptop with that OS is in another country in an apartment my wife kept in her homecountry. It’s turned off for months before i use it again often.

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@youniversalis

maybe due to the fact that i use it rarely

I seem to have less trouble if I do updates frequently. I think that applies to all distros, but especially to rolling release distros.