Restless Distro Hoppers

[Regenweald]

I suppose I started this thread to start a conversation on the distro Hopping condition, I'm honestly not a major hopper, but I'ts wierd when you come to the realization that you veiw OS'es as just a tool, all of them with pros and cons, you know, when installing/dual booting/partitioning/tweaking becomes a trivial 15-25 minute endeavour.

I'm currently posting in XP, will probably boot into Ubuntu later on tonight to religiously execute aptitude update and pray for something new, and I'm planning on a 640-750gig drive to try out OpenSolaris(this particular mulling started the thread) I know/ or expect that there will be limitations of OpS that i will encounter, and expect some restlesness and this is what made me realize that I view them all as tools.

So who has settled for now ? SliTaz, Lunar, Gentoo, Ubuntu Minimal(me),Ubuntu Pure, Arch, #!, Fedora .......

Do you have legit hopping reasons ? or is it just the accursed itch that makes you hop simply because you can ?

may someone have mercy on our harddrives, for we do not.....

[autocrosser]

Well--this is a recuring thread line in the cafe---I would think that most of us here (Karmic testing) "tend" to stay more with one distro--we have more of an interest in Ubuntu than hopping from one to the next........I have looked from time to time at others & tend to not invest much time in them--have been with Ubuntu from the early days (Warty) & I like to think that I have made notable contributions to Ubuntu's progress.....

I am quite sure that this thread will be moved soon--it has little bearing on Karmic development...Sorry 'bout that mate!!!!!

:D:D

I see that it has already happened as I was typing.......Cheers all!!!!!

[Sealbhach]

I've installed Zenwalk on another partition alongside my main Jaunty partition but I hardly ever spend any time on it. I'm sort of fascinated with Zenwalk and Slackware in general but a little tov lazy to try a full Slackware install.

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[eolson]

Guilty! The honest truth is that other than the interfaces they are all pretty much the same. Linux appears to be, for the most part linux, for the average user. There are differences between distros that would seem major to some, but to the average user, not so much.

[Regenweald]

Well--this is a recuring thread line in the cafe---I would think that most of us here (Karmic testing) "tend" to stay more with one distro--we have more of an interest in Ubuntu than hopping from one to the next........I have looked from time to time at others & tend to not invest much time in them--have been with Ubuntu from the early days (Warty) & I like to think that I have made notable contributions to Ubuntu's progress.....

I am quite sure that this thread will be moved soon--it has little bearing on Karmic development...Sorry 'bout that mate!!!!!

:D:D

I see that it has already happened as I was typing.......Cheers all!!!!!

Yup, as soon as i finished, i promptly reported it :) my browser defaulted to karmic as i explained to the mods....

@eolson, pretty much, now i research Unix-like. Hence my avid interest in OpS.

@Sealbach, Zenwalk is a from Scratch Distro ? I almost mixed it up with Haiku :)

[autocrosser]

Very good then---I'll be going back to my 5 boot install system---2 Karmic-testing (1 back 1 week from the other) 1 Karmic-64-testing, 1 Jaunty & the non-ubuntu for now---Foresight-unstable 2

Keeps me busy enough----):P):P

[eolson]

And that's one of the other benefits of linux ... you get to play around if you want to.

[Sealbhach]

@Sealbach, Zenwalk is a from Scratch Distro ? I almost mixed it up with Haiku :)

No, Zenwalk is easy and you get a full desktop.

With Slackware, it's a little more involved - I think you get a full desktop but it comes in 6 CDs or a DVD, and the installer is a little more challenging than Ubuntu, or in other words, it doesn't any make assumptions but asks you what you want your system to be like every step of the way.


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[unknownPoster]

I just do it to expose myself to all the options.

With the exception of Gentoo, I've installed at least every distribution on distrowatch's top 25, and about 15 or 20 others, and have kept it installed for at least a week. Some stayed on there longer than others.

When you really look hard at each distribution you begin to see the differences. To the average user, 95% of all distributions out there are essentially identical.

Then you have people like me, I've used every single "major" package manager out there. I've compiled from source many times, including Kernels, hardware drivers, etc. I've started from a bootstrap environment and build my way up.

Eventually, I'll tackle Gentoo, then I'd like to try LFS. But as of now, I'm downloading the newest SourceMage release. :) That will keep me busy.

If it means anything, my favorites have been the minimalist/DYI distributions, which include Arch, Lunar, Slitaz, etc.

[Regenweald]

Very good then---I'll be going back to my 5 boot install system---2 Karmic-testing (1 back 1 week from the other) 1 Karmic-64-testing, 1 Jaunty & the non-ubuntu for now---Foresight-unstable 2

Keeps me busy enough----):P):P

Ridiculous :) Meet you in karmic in a few more months, or when i make some space on this machine.....


No, I think you get a full desktop but it comes in 6 CDs or a DVD, and the installer is a little more challenging than Ubuntu, or in other words, it doesn't any make assumptions but asks you what you want your system to be like every step of the way.
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They say faster, but is it really ? Or just another distro ? i like the more involved installers though, Less work to do when you're live..

[unknownPoster]

No, I think you get a full desktop but it comes in 6 CDs or a DVD, and the installer is a little more challenging than Ubuntu, or in other words, it doesn't any make assumptions but asks you what you want your system to be like every step of the way.


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That's not true at all. Zenwalk has a LiveCD from which you can install. I've installed Zenwalk from the first CD, full XFCE GUI and everything(firefox, pidgin, etc)...nothing was missing.

It's like Debian, there are tons of CDs to be had, but you only need the first one to install it...

[DeadSuperHero]

From an idealistic standpoint, I'd like to end up with gNewSense on both my laptop and desktop. However, it'll be some time before I can get the appropriate hardware, and it may be an equally long time for the community to get full 3D support for Nouveau. I figure I'll wait it out on here for the time being, but I'd very much like to have a totally Free Software system someday.

[ronacc]

Ubuntu is my day to day system but I will admit to d/l'ing and trying others , the ones I watch most closely are OpenSuse , sabayon and puppy .

[sgosnell]

I hopped for several months. I agree the OS is just a tool, but I like to use the right tool for the job, and I had no idea which one was best for me. I tried most of the major distros over the course of a few months, and finally decided on standard Ubuntu. It does what I need with minimum fuss and bother, and has superior support. This is one of the more active forums I've found on any subject, and there is a ton of help available. The great thing about Linux is that there is something available for everyone, no matter what your tastes are, and it's all free for the downloading. I think everyone should try out different distros and see which one works best for them in the long run. It's really easy to install on a removable drive, and boot from that, trying out different things as you go without affecting your computer's main OS. I used an SD card, and just used gparted to reformat it as necessary as I changed the OS. With something like a 16GB card, you can put several distros on it at the same time, using the same home partition for all of them, and boot whichever one you like whenever you want.

[pbpersson]

I tried most of the major distros over the course of a few months, and finally decided on standard Ubuntu. It does what I need with minimum fuss and bother, and has superior support. This is one of the more active forums I've found on any subject, and there is a ton of help available.

I have looked at Mint, Mepis, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu

I have spent actual time on all of those except for Mepis

I have spent the most time on OpenSUSE, Mandriva, and Ubuntu

The only nagging thing in the back of my mind is.....what is happening to those other distros while I am here in the Ubuntu world? Are they introducing new features and passing Ubuntu like it is standing still?

I like having a distro where I can install it and start working without a great deal of time spent fixing problems. I want to be productive on my OS and I think Ubuntu is great. :D

[Regenweald]

I haven't actually used SliTaz yet, but it looks to be a nice fast OS on a disk. Nvidia and AMD seem to have some really nice developments on the way, AMD especially, and Noveau is coming along nicely so some users may be ably to rid themselves of their 'binary blobs' come 2010 and go full gNUSense.

For a while I was seriously contemplating Gentoo because of it's 'USE Flags' feature. But i decided to put that off till i build a quad/hex core machine. For compiling reasons ;)

[unknownPoster]

For compiling reasons ;)

That's my only major complaint about compile from source distributions.

To get to a working system on my Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM, it takes roughly 4-5 hours of compile time. (Xorg, DE of choice, Firefox, etc.)

[Regenweald]

That's my only major complaint about compile from source distributions.

To get to a working system on my Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM, it takes roughly 4-5 hours of compile time. (Xorg, DE of choice, Firefox, etc.)

We need us one uh them thar new Phenom II's or i7's. I'm certainly not trying it on my little Athlon 64 4000+ with 2 gigs of memory.

[CJ Master]

I distrohopped until I found Arch. I fell in love. :P

Nevertheless, I find it unhealthy to stick to one distrobution for too long, even one like Arch. I get too rusty, you know?

I would try Sabayon if that darned liveCD worked...

[unknownPoster]

I would try Sabayon if that darned liveCD worked...

That one was a pain in the neck for me when I tried it last. It worked but was horribly slow...

[cariboo]

I have two 50 disks spindles full of distro's I've tried over the years, I finally got to the point where I'd rather not bet setting up a new distro more than every month or so. I'm currently running Januty and Karmic, but I spend most of my time in Karmic.

[Sealbhach]

That's not true at all. Zenwalk has a LiveCD from which you can install. I've installed Zenwalk from the first CD, full XFCE GUI and everything(firefox, pidgin, etc)...nothing was missing.


Sorry, yeah, I meant Slackware.

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[gymophett]

Distro hopping is quite fun after a while.

[super.rad]

I tend to distro hop quite a lot, at the moment I triple boot. Have arch as my stable everyday install, ubuntu karmic just for testing and foresight linux, which i might soon replace with opensuse 11.2 alpha

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

used to. but right now, i am completely satisfied with Lunar as my main linux distro, and sorcerer and crux for testing.

[Screwdriver0815]

And that's one of the other benefits of linux ... you get to play around if you want to.
I agree on that! This is one thing, Windows or Mac can not deliver: choice

I distro-hopped too but not so much.

I tried:

- Kubuntu Hardy
- Ubuntu Hardy
- Ubuntu Intrepid
- Ubuntu Jaunty
- Kubuntu Jaunty
- Xubuntu Hardy
- Fedora 9
- Fedora 10
- Mint 6
- OpenSuse 11.1
- Debian Lenny
- Mandriva 2009.1
- Centos 5.3

... always searching for Style, Grace and Pace. All the time I realised that something like Ubuntu is the distro which fits my needs. Until I found that KDE 4.2 also fullfills the Style-requirement ;) So I ended up with Kubuntu Jaunty on the Desktop and Mandriva 2009.1 on the Laptop.
Here the requirement was simple: "bring KDE 4.2 on the Laptop with fully working WLAN and all the other stuff" Kubuntu Jaunty failed, Mandriva did it.

So now I am in the mood to say that an OS is just a tool because I found what I need. But maybe I will distro-hop again in the future.

[snowpine]

Y'all really need to install Virtuabox, then you can test as many distros as you like (at the same time!) without burning CDs or repartitioning your hard drive.

Oh yes, and I am a restless distrohopper too. :) Ubuntu was my first.

[The Real Dave]

Im not so much a distro hopper, just much as just being fasinated by the sheer number of various distros available, and wanting to try them all. I have about 80 various operating system disks, every Windows from 95 up to Vista (95,98,98SE, Me, 2K, 2K Pro, 03 Server, XP Home, Pro and Media Centre, Vista Anytime Upgrade disc-most thanks to the great people at TPB) and countless Linux distros, Damn Small being my first encounter with Linux, the Ubuntu's from 8.04 up (and a 5.10 disc), a Knoppix, CDLinux OS, PC-BSD, openSUSE, FreeNAS, Puppy, Arch, Sabayon etc etc :D :D I just love trying out a new distro, seeing if its better than the previous, and trying to find what best suits my machine and needs.

But, I'm not a text-book distro hopper. Many of these distro's dont get any farther than a VM, and those that do, are installed on a seperate harddrive, so as not to mess up my existing multiboot :D It's exactly what I need right now, and I'll prob stay in it for quite a while yet :D

[Didius Falco]

As a fairly new linux user (just under 2 months), I've been using Ubuntu the whole time.

That said, I'm currently running:

Intrepid 8.10 32 bit
Jaunty 9.04 32 Bit Live CD Builder install
Jaunty 9.04 32 Bit
Jaunty 9.04 64 Bit
Jaunty 9.04 32 Bit Ubuntu Studio
Karmic 9.10 Alpha

The one I've actually had the most fun with is the Studio build. It started life as 8.10 Gnome, then I upgraded with a Kubuntu 9.04 ISO and un-installed Gnome. Tinkered around with KDE for a few days, decided I didn't like it, removed KDE and replaced it with Gnome again. Then I wanted to try Studio, so I downloaded the DVD ISO, extracted all the files, moved all the packages to one directory and did a


sudo dpkg -i *.debfrom that folder. Tinkered around with it, cleaned up a bunch of leftover cruft and it's running better than any other install for sound and video.

By the end, I was actually kind of trying to really break it, but it refused to die. <G>

I'll probably branch out and try other distros eventually, but I want to get a firm grounding in the basics of linux first.

Regards,

Didius

[Polaris96]

Started in old fashioned BSD terminal UNIX back in college (I'm not that old but my college was POOR). Got plain disgusted with windows about 2001. Switched to Debian in 2003. Stayed with Debian until Etch couldn't drive the graphics on my new PC (I mean REALLY couldn't drive it - couldn't even configure X properly), so I moved to Kubuntu.

I'm comfy, but I do confess a desire to try one of the Red Hat flavours and also Gentoo (which I own but haven't installed, yet). So far as VMs go, where do we stand on "VM SUSE on an Ubuntu Dom0"? Is that considered trying another flavour? The more I think about that question, the trickier it gets...

[Regenweald]

Just read in BillGoldberg's thread that FED11 is one day away. I REALLY need to re-organize my hard drives. The only distros I'd say really excite me are Fedora (Bleeding Edge) OpenSolaris (Uber Tech) and Gentoo (Pureness). Arch does not attract me for reasons unknown....

As for collected Distros, I've got Ubuntu :8.04-9.04 & Minimal, OpenSolaris 2008.05-2009.06, Vista Ultimate, XP Sp3 and Debian NetInstall for now.

[tcoffeep]

The distro I've settled on, after 3 years of hopping, temporarily settling on Arch, and then jumped back into the game, is Gentoo. I've been using it for a month now, and I'm loving it. At the same time, I'm building a LFS system, just to try. And am considering dipping my toes in Slackware ( the only big distro I haven't tried yet ).

[t0p]

I am a distro non-hopper (or should that be non-distro hopper?) I first installed Ubuntu back when it was 5.10... Busy Bee? Boastful Bison? I forget... I drifted away for a little while, trying Open Suse, Fedora, what's that other one called, Mandrax? :p Then I returned to Ubuntu with 7.04, and I've been here ever since.

I've also tried Xandros (when I bought an Eee PC), but right now I've got Hardy on my desktop machine, Jaunty NBR on my Eee, and I'm not planning to try any other distro soon. If I come by some random distro's Live CD I will probably try it out - and who knows, if it's absolutely amazing I might install it - but I've been a happy ubuntero for a while now, and a happy ubuntero I expect to remain.

[H2SO_four]

I am like most of you, and VirtualBox is awesome for checking out distros. I hate having to nuke a machine that is fully functional to "just" try something new.

[SuperSonic4]

I used to distro hop on the desktop until I plucked up the courage to install arch. Ironically it was a much easier decision for me to pick a DE than it was to pick a distro.

The laptop is also running arch although that changes a lot - I like arch because it's easy to put a number of DE/WMs on it.

[0per4t0r]

I'm staying with ubuntu. It's the easiest, and in my opinion, the best. The only time I used another distro is when I used a liveCD for debian to run gParted.

[handy]

Ex windows tech', upon retiring dumped windows, joined the Linux crew, quickly found Ubuntu, learned enough to start distro/BSD/Solaris/AROS hopping, found Arch & was at last satisfied.

I dual boot Arch on an iMac that also runs Leopard. Leopard is used when I stuff up Arch, & for website work. I can do everything that I can do in Arch on Leopard, except update all installed software, as Arch can do so easily.

My 2nd machine had multiple identities, it was for hopping, it has 3 drive drawers installed, & these days I can slip a couple in & it is a FreeNAS server.

Only last night I installed Mint-Xfce (on a drive for the 2nd machine), which I had not looked at for a long time. I really like Mint-Xfce, I can see it remaining as my 2nd machines main system for a long time; it will be used for reference when I need to fix Arch; it will also be used for ripping DVD's with DVDShrink & burning them with NeroLinux.

I have considered my disto hopping days over for nearly a year now, ever since I found Arch.

[RedSquirrel]

I went through a round of distro hopping last month, but I have settled on Gentoo once again.

I think it's a good idea to try out other distributions for the learning experience and to see if something is a better fit for you. For me, Gentoo is a good fit, and I have lost the urge to hop.

It's been my habit to play with each new Ubuntu release for a few days when it first comes out. I'll likely do that with 9.10 as well, but that's a few months away. ;)

[HappyFeet]

I distro hop (on spare drives) because I like to try new things, and to see if there is anything out there that is as good as ubuntu. So far no luck.

[HappyFeet]

I am like most of you, and VirtualBox is awesome for checking out distros. I hate having to nuke a machine that is fully functional to "just" try something new.

But virtualbox doesn't give you the true experience. It is a controlled environment where the hardware always "just works". I just unplug my main drives and plug in my test drive. A real install is always best to evaluate. Sure, virtualbox is great, but for testing, not so much. Almost every distro works great in vbox, but when you do a real install, the little demons tend to rear their ugly little heads more often.

[sgosnell]

Maybe somebody can 'splain me what I'm missing here. I see a lot of Arch users on here, for some reason. What's the deal? Why here, rather than on the Arch forums (assuming they exist, and if they don't that would appear to be a serious shortcoming)? I visited other forums when I was trying out other distros, because I think that's a part of learning the distro, and I was also looking for solutions to problems or better ways of doing things. After deciding that Fedora (for example) wasn't for me, I quit visiting that forum, because I had little or nothing to contribute, and I certainly wasn't going to hang around and knock Fedora. I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to hang around forums discussing something I have little interest in. Yet the Arch adherents are all over the Ubuntu forums. I admit they don't seem to be fanatics about it, nor do they seem to hate Ubuntu, I just wonder what the attraction of the Ubuntu forums for them is.


:popcorn:

[tcoffeep]

I don't suscribe to any singular distro. Ubuntu is a great distribution, but I prefer a lean machine that I can control from the get-go. I use, primarily, Gentoo. Arch and Ubuntu ( albeit the Crunchbang descendent more than the official Ubuntu distro ) are my secondary and third choices.

I visit the Ubuntu community because it is a great community. In fact, it's one of the reasons I tried Feisty Fawn in the first place ( my first distro ).

[snowpine]

Maybe somebody can 'splain me what I'm missing here. I see a lot of Arch users on here, for some reason. What's the deal? Why here, rather than on the Arch forums (assuming they exist, and if they don't that would appear to be a serious shortcoming)? I visited other forums when I was trying out other distros, because I think that's a part of learning the distro, and I was also looking for solutions to problems or better ways of doing things. After deciding that Fedora (for example) wasn't for me, I quit visiting that forum, because I had little or nothing to contribute, and I certainly wasn't going to hang around and knock Fedora. I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to hang around forums discussing something I have little interest in. Yet the Arch adherents are all over the Ubuntu forums. I admit they don't seem to be fanatics about it, nor do they seem to hate Ubuntu, I just wonder what the attraction of the Ubuntu forums for them is.


:popcorn:

A lot of people start with Ubuntu and then switch to Arch. I for one am grateful to this community for getting me started with Linux, and still use Ubuntu sometimes, so why not log on here, help some noobs, and contribute to the discussion? Arch forums are very active and informative, but there is something just plain entertaining about UbuntuForums. :)

[handy]

Maybe somebody can 'splain me what I'm missing here. I see a lot of Arch users on here, for some reason. What's the deal? Why here, rather than on the Arch forums (assuming they exist, and if they don't that would appear to be a serious shortcoming)? I visited other forums when I was trying out other distros, because I think that's a part of learning the distro, and I was also looking for solutions to problems or better ways of doing things. After deciding that Fedora (for example) wasn't for me, I quit visiting that forum, because I had little or nothing to contribute, and I certainly wasn't going to hang around and knock Fedora. I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to hang around forums discussing something I have little interest in. Yet the Arch adherents are all over the Ubuntu forums. I admit they don't seem to be fanatics about it, nor do they seem to hate Ubuntu, I just wonder what the attraction of the Ubuntu forums for them is.
:popcorn:

Something you may be too young of an Ubuntu user to appreciate, is the fact that Linux is supported by Canonical.

Many of us here use a variety of distro's & yet still support the Ubuntu community, even though in the last year or so, the Ubuntu administration has dropped its support for us.

So before you make your broad sweeping comments, it may be wise for you to do some research, because take it from me, you do have a LOT to learn on this subject.

[Edit:] Looking back at this post I see I came on a bit stronger than necessary. Sorry about that.

You were doing exactly the right thing asking questions, & your observations regarding Arch users were pretty close to the mark.

Many of us have made community connections here in the past; when the forums had much fewer users & there were other sub-forums available & the Code of Conduct was more lenient in the now defunct Backyard sub-forum. This all helped nurture a community spirit.

These days, due to there being so many users, the administration had to make tough practical decisions & cut parts of the forum off. The growing popularity of Ubuntu really has created a monster of a forum. :)

[Screwdriver0815]

regarding distro hopping:

for me the distro hopping recently has brought one result: back to start.

On the Laptop I first had Intrepid Ibex but this had an annoying flicker-bug in the Nvidia driver in combination with compiz. Okay, there is a workaround but in some conditions the display still flickered.

So I thought: "lets get Kubuntu Jaunty on it." Because: in KDE there is Kwin instead of Compiz and additionally in Jaunty the bug should be solved.

Result: the KNetworkmanager did not manage to get a WLAN connection established. After searching and reading I decided to search for another KDE distro, even when I could have installed the Gnome Networkmanager on Kubuntu... but for some reason I was not in the mood for that.
So I switched over to Mandriva on the Laptop. It was quite good. But I also realised that after some updates the system got really slow. Before the updates it also was not really fast but then it was annoyingly slow.
Additionally I also was not so impressed by the stability and energy-consumption.
Putting a bit load on the system... it gets even more slower and moves hand over hand on the edge near the crash.
And the system was eating the battery when running without cable. There were some more issues like the speakers which were not switched off when plugging in headphones... a strange mixer adjustment which resulted in a really silly, loud and ear-destroying beep-tone in the speakers when the system woke up from hibernate... and so on.

Additionally I found that KDE is not so good for me on the Laptop as it does not fit to the display size as good as Gnome. So I wanted something different.

I tried Fedora 11 in virtual box and found: too much programs I would never use anyway. So I would invest lots of time to get rid of the stuff. This does not mean that I think it is bad but I am simply not member of the targeted audience.

after asking in the forum for suggestions, I tried Crunchbang... not my piece of cake. The user interface is too strange for me.

so finally: I went back to Ubuntu with Gnome: Jaunty. Jaunty runs on the Laptop like both (Jaunty and the Laptop) were designed for each other. This is really amazing.
Battery-life is much longer as with Mandriva, the flicker-bug is gone, WLAN is no problem at all (just a mouseclick and typing in the auth. key), its fast like a rocket, its stable even with the highest load I could put on it... the audio settings are right out of the box, there is no extra-configuration to be made to get it run like intended... and so on.

So I ask myself: why do I always get back to the thing I started with? I always want to test something new and I am also open-minded and so on, I also want to learn and to find out solutions in different systems... I also actually want to do configuration work and I also want to search for solutions...

But in all the distros I have tried, after a while of using it I asked myself: "why?" And I found that some things work better for me in Ubuntu but I never found things which work better for me (personally) in the respective distro than in Ubuntu.

Same with Arch: I searched for some information and found that I am too lazy for that. The result would be that I have a system which exactly fits my needs, regarding installed programs and so on.
But whats the effort for that? The installation guide sounded to me like "sitting a couple of hours to do the installation while deciding which way to go" - sure, its great... but I don't get the point for my individual situation.

why do I always switch back to Ubuntu then? Is it just because Ubuntu fits to my needs? Or is it the same as with a Windows user who tries Linux and says "its not for me" and switches back to windows? :confused:

Should I simply stay with Ubuntu and refuse to think about testing other distros? :D

[XubuRoxMySox]

Should I simply stay with Ubuntu and refuse to think about testing other distros? :D

Hop and explore as long as it is fun and educational to do so. Just play, and learn! When it isn't fun anymore, stop hopping and settle down for awhile. 'Til the urge strikes again. Why not?

I've learned a lot just by playing, experimenting, breaking stuff and learning how to fix it, customizing this'n'that, tweaking and peaking and customizing Linux 'til it's perfect "just for me" on whatever computer I'm using.

There's nothing wrong with hopping as long as you're doing it for fun and to learn. When it gets frustrating and you're dissatisfied with everything, just go "home" to whatever you've found is most comfortable.

-Robin

[koshatnik]

I've installed Zenwalk on another partition alongside my main Jaunty partition but I hardly ever spend any time on it. I'm sort of fascinated with Zenwalk and Slackware in general but a little tov lazy to try a full Slackware install.

.

Slackware and Gentoo are two great hobby systems. Get some old hardware, stick either on and just play. You'll learn more about linux from doing that than reading any book. I have a slackware hobby box, and its awesome. One day, when I have time, I'll do a full on Gentoo install, with everything compiled from source. At the moment, I have a life, so that won't be happening for awhile.

[Simian Man]

I'm staying with ubuntu. It's the easiest, and in my opinion, the best. The only time I used another distro is when I used a liveCD for debian to run gParted.

If Ubuntu is pretty much the only distro you tried, how much is your opinion on it being the easiest and best worth?

[monsterstack]

I'm somewhat guilty of distro-hopping. But I haven't strayed beyond Debian-based distros except for the beautiful, majestic and Godly OS that is Slitaz. I've experimented somewhat successfully with Gentoo and less successfully with Sabayon. Other than that, I've tried all of the Debians from Etch, Lenny, Squeeze, and Sid, as well as Sidux, and then Ubuntu, Knoppix and a few others. Debian Lenny was probably my favourite out of all of them, when she was still in testing. A real, usable, and perfectly stable rolling release distro. No matter which distro I try out, I always find myself coming back to Debian's testing.

[Screwdriver0815]

Hop and explore as long as it is fun and educational to do so. Just play, and learn! When it isn't fun anymore, stop hopping and settle down for awhile. 'Til the urge strikes again. Why not?

I've learned a lot just by playing, experimenting, breaking stuff and learning how to fix it, customizing this'n'that, tweaking and peaking and customizing Linux 'til it's perfect "just for me" on whatever computer I'm using.

There's nothing wrong with hopping as long as you're doing it for fun and to learn. When it gets frustrating and you're dissatisfied with everything, just go "home" to whatever you've found is most comfortable.

-Robin
hmm... maybe it sounds strange but I have an attitude that everything I do must make any sense. So when I do distro-hopping it makes no sense at all from the neutral point of view. Because I already have an operating system which works... why then testing another one?
Yeah, for testing and learning and so on. This is a good reason. But not from the neutral point of view. Thats why I always ask myself "why do you do that?".
The more strange thing about all this is: I never found a Distro which fits my needs better than Ubuntu. Of course this does not mean that others are bad but they do not really fit my needs.
As I switched to Linux, I did no big research which Distro to choose - I just gave Ubuntu a shot.

So I wonder what would have happened if I would have choosen Suse or something else as "starting point" for my Linux-career... and I hopped over to Ubuntu... would I then also always switch back to Suse? I don't know... Distro hopping is fun but strange to me too. :D

cheers
Steffen

[NightwishFan]

Distro hopping used is a big problem for me. I have mostly settled on Ubuntu now OpenSUSE has failed me, and now I switch between GNOME and KDE weekly... I always think well KDE does that better, or GNOME can actually make an archive when you right click and not have to include every sub-directory... It comes down to KDE is the future and GNOME is right now..

[ukripper]

Do you have legit hopping reasons ? or is it just the accursed itch that makes you hop simply because you can ?

may someone have mercy on our harddrives, for we do not.....

Main reason: just got an itch time to time.
Secondary reason: Testing for alphas and betas :popcorn:

Current condition: running Jaunty, Karmic, Arch and Debian unstable

[dontgetshocked]

Wow,as a distro hopper myself,I have installed and or booted into Mandriva,Fedora,OpenSuse,Xandros,Ubuntu,Mint,Linsp ire,Knoppix,Puppy,Mepis,Zenwalk,PCLinuxOS,Ulteo,an d many more,my brain hurts trying to remember!Anyway sometimes my reasons are legit and sometime not.Always looking for something better,faster,more bells and whistles and of course stable.Hop on my friend hop on!

[Shining Arcanine]

I haven't actually used SliTaz yet, but it looks to be a nice fast OS on a disk. Nvidia and AMD seem to have some really nice developments on the way, AMD especially, and Noveau is coming along nicely so some users may be ably to rid themselves of their 'binary blobs' come 2010 and go full gNUSense.

For a while I was seriously contemplating Gentoo because of it's 'USE Flags' feature. But i decided to put that off till i build a quad/hex core machine. For compiling reasons ;)

My laptop has an 1.86GHz Dual-Core Intel Core Duo T2400 Yonah processor with only 2GB of RAM and it does compilations without significant problems a problem. It runs Gentoo Linux ~x86.

By the way, if distribution hoppers are never satisfied with Linux distributions, why not switch to another UNIX OS, like FreeBSD? It is supposed to be better designed than Linux distributions, although its marketing leaves something to be desired.