Different Linux Distros, have you tried and decided?

General Linux Question
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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, havenā€™t missed it. I did buy this Laptop specifically after conferring with AI actually because I could imagine Linux doesnā€™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 didnā€™t want to mess with that one. By now though I start wondering if I shouldnā€™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?

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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 canā€™t even remember :grin: but still had Ubuntu as the main distro. Snaps made me to abandon Ubuntu. When I (finally) went to Debian I thought Iā€™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. Iā€™ve installed all hardware. Maybe Alpine is the only I just tried on wm.

Now?

Gentoo (OpenRC)

still learning FreeBSD

If you like Mint, use it! Itā€™s your computer :+1:

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

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

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Iā€™ve used several, including Elementary (a few releases ago), but usually come back to Ubuntu. The phrase ā€œit just worksā€ is pretty common.

Mint is good stuff too. I havenā€™t used the LMDE version but Iā€™m sure itā€™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.

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Iā€™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. Itā€™s turned off for months before i use it again often.

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

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I started my Linux journey in 2018 with dual boot of Windows and Mint. Today I am still dual booting, but now with Mint as my daily OS and I have what I call a ā€œguestā€ OS area on my PC. The current and long time guest is MX. On another PC Linux Lite is my current guest OS.

My laptop is in UEFI mode and triple boot. LM, MX, and Win.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Wifi issues moved topic

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Letā€™s see :

1995 : Slackware 3
1999-ish : Red Hat 5 and 6 (not RHEL)
2000-ish : Suse EL7 (not OpenSuse)
2004-ish : Ubuntu 4

Back then I hardly ever ran Linux desktop exclusively - I managed Linux and UNIX servers for my jobā€¦

Between 2004 and 2012 - I dual booted mostlyā€¦
In 2012 - I stopped dual-booting and ran Linux exclusively - thanks to Valve and Steam (I only kept Windows XP / 7 so I could play games)ā€¦
I havenā€™t dual booted for some 14 years or so now!
Iā€™ve nearly always mostly run Ubuntu LTS desktop, the only variation to that :
2015 - ran Elementary (5? 6?) on an Asus gaming laptopā€¦

I found elementary a bit too ā€œlocked downā€ - there was a ā€œtweakā€ tool, but every new version of Pantheon Desktop kills the old Tweak toolā€¦ So I gave up on elementaryā€¦ Itā€™s non-functional to me without a tweak tool to bypass its locked down natureā€¦

The only other variation was running Pop!_OS 22.04 for nearly 3 yearsā€¦ up until August 2025 - when I ā€œwipedā€ Pop!_OS and installed Ubuntu 24.04 ā€¦ I actually still have that Pop!_OS partition / SSDā€¦ I didnā€™t actually ā€œwipeā€ Pop!_OS, I installed a 2nd 2 TB NVMe SSD and installed Ubuntu 24.04 on itā€¦

Around 2022 - I did run Fedora for maybe 6 weeks? But got fed up of itā€¦ Jumped back to Ubuntu ā€œlandā€ with Pop!_OS 22.04ā€¦

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Ah, sucks your WiFi chipset isnā€™t working yet! Maybe a wee cheap USB WiFi adapter would suit? I nabbed one for about a tenner a few years ago after moving my Always Wired PC to somewhere without network access and itā€™s been completely plug and play with Linux Mint.

I swapped about a bit using bootable USB keys as a teenager toying with Linux; Fuduntu was my favourite back then as it felt very similar to the Windows desktop I was familiar with. And it was good fun. Also tried Ubuntu because it just seemed so ubiquitous at the time, and had a Zorin one as well. I basically inherited them all from my dad; who was also tinkering with Linux as a hobby. I dropped away from it as I got more into PC gaming as back then it was a bit of a nightmare on Linux and I was getting really into hardware and building.

Then I had a drive failure in my PC (a ten year old HDD tbf) and thinking about back ups and privacy pointed me back in the Linux directionā€¦ Iā€™m now running Mint as the daily driver. I do have Windows still on the dual-boot, but I barely touch it.

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I started my Linux journey in 2008 with Ubuntu moving from windows 7 as did not want to pay for windows 8 also did not like its look even 8.1 did nothing for me. Plus I had to learn something new.

I kept windows 7 up to 8 years ago just for web site development as getting dreamweaver to run was a pain. But then discovered WINE and a piratƩ copy of dreamweaver that ran on Linux, problem solved. Its now running fine on Linux mint debian and 64 bit. Originally it was 32 bit only.

I then set up my computer business lƩgal in france, before running it through my english company. Thats a harder path to follow, complex to explain.

I started doing more computer repairs, installations, upgrades, back to my technician origines getting my hands dirty. But had a bad expƩrience with Ubuntu and a clients machine. So looked at an alternative and in 2010 discovered Linux mint but prefered the look and feel of the mate version. Most of my clients were windows users and came to me with virus issues after removal when they returned with yet more problems I moved them to Linux again mint and mate.

My standard offer was then Linux Mint Mate. It worked fine on all the tower or laptops that came across my path never a issue. Plus If they called with a question I could advise on the phone as all the screens looked and felt the same. Only problem was language as most were french and so printers became imprimer and browser became Google.

Even converted Apple users to Linux mint.

About 3 years ago I decided to upgrade my own computer and mate did not install (never worked out why think faulty usb key) so downloaded LMDE both 64 bit for myself and 32 bit for very old computers. Now standardised on that and WINE with dreamweaver 32 bit running on 64 bit version.

I no longer do windows installs, if the virus issue will not go then its Linux or nothing, if they insiste then send them to a computer shop about 20 km away and tell them 130 euros for windows at the shop or 35 euros with me for Linux. Their choice.

Done over 300 Linux mint installs over this time period and very happy.

Yes done a few xfce Linux mint for netbooks with 2gb memory and not upgradable.

I have a copy of puppy on an emergency usb which comes out very rare. Also did lubuntu for a short while again for limited spec computers but bit by bit moved them with an upgrade.

Once you have a winning formular why changƩ, also running it as a business time is money you need something that just works first time everytime. Client satisfaction and easy to upgrade as Mint looks and feels similar to windows no giant leap just a few colour changes is how I sell it.

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I started off with SuSE 7.2, a long time ago.
Did a Linux From Scratch (LFS) using Suse as a base. That was quite fun actually, but I found it too much of a hassle to maintain, so I switched to Gentoo Linux.

I stuck with Gentoo for quite a while, thinking it would be useful as a coding platform, as I had the ambition to become a programmer. As it turned out, nothing came of that ambition.

After years of working with Gentoo, I switch to Solus Linux. I liked it, but it has its issues. Both Gentoo and Solus were rock-solid, though.

On a blue Monday after working with Solus for a while I tried PCLinuxOS, but soon discovered that distribution has very little support.

From PCLinuxOS I wanted to go back to Solus, but at the time that distribution was facing a massive crisis. They have recovered since, but Iā€™m still uncertain about that distribution.

So, finally I went for Linux Mint. I never looked back. Itā€™s great in all actuality. Solid Ubuntu base, without the problems of Ubuntu. That made me very happy.

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You have moved in the opposite direction to most users?
I think most start with easy distros like Mint and move later to more complicated distros like Gentoo.
I dont know how you can make a firm decision like that ā€¦ to abandon programming. ā€¦ I tend to hang onto the hope of doing things even if I never get there. I do still do a little programming, but my skills are fading.

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Not true in my caseā€¦

I started with Slackware - which was somewhere between Arch and Gentooā€¦ e.g. if you wanted ethernet or soundcard support - compile a new kernel and install itā€¦

Now - I just want it quick as possible ready to go with my zsh shell setup and my private cloud sync storage and my game libraryā€¦ Ubuntu does that for meā€¦

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I am with that thought

I used to teach programming and thought it was a skills to pass on but then realised in my own life i really had no reason to continue, i was not capable of writing a wordprocessing system which was on my exam paper in my final year of uni, yes I could write stock control systems and error checking but the move towards grapical interfaces and mouse screen positions no

Depends on your need and if its for pleasure or for work.

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I used programming as a calculator for most of my working life.
I also used it to manage data.
Today, R does most of what I want. It is sort of half way between a spreadsheet and a C program, and a bit of both.

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20 posts were split to a new topic: Wifi issues moved topic

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Well, the only reason I was interested in programming was so I could fulfill my fantasies regarding gaming. As it turned out, gaming is a baaaad idea for me. That means no more game development.

Later it turned out programming had the exact same effect on me as gaming, so no more programming.

The question then became: why run Gentoo? I saw no point anymore in compiling everything from source. That meant I had no more need for Gentoo, even though its plumbing is excellent.

I ended up at Mint because I concluded myself more of an end-user, rather then a developer or tweaker. Iā€™m happy with that situation.

That being said, what I learned from LFS and Gentoo I did not forget. My experience has been helpful when doing bug-reports, though.

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Yes, experience is nearly everything.
I dont use my Gentoo muchā€¦ partly because it is on the spare PCā€¦ but I learnt heaps from setting it up and from @4dandl4 helping me.
What works best for me is Void.

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Yes, Mint is a great choice for an end user as @callpaul.eu has found out with his customers.

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