Distrohopping

[Bazon]

Why I started:
I like Gnome Shell. Mostly because of its ability to be modded by extensions. But this bug (and some other things...) made me think I can't get a real good vanilla Gnome-Shell by Ubuntu...


The differences I discovered:
debian
feels like good old ubuntu, I really like it. Most things added to ubuntu (unity, software center) are not interesting for me.
BUT:

• Adding a printer was a bit harder, I needed an online connection to do that.
• bind mounts in /etc/fstab are shown in the system monitor as mounted devices. that's not sooo bad, but as I bind many folders from the same drive in my home-directory, it is really redundant information.

But overall a good experience. Gnome-Fallback-Mode is also more beautiful than in ubuntu. (In debian, it looks more like Gnome-Shell with two panels...)

fedora:
I started with Fedora, because the live-USB was amazing fast. I never had such a fluid live-system!
But the disappointment began soon:

• At the first boot, the system ended in a black screen. I found out that was because of my TV attached to the HDMI port in my Nvidia Card. Disconnecting the TV, rebooting, getting the proprietary nvidia driver solved the problem, but that really wasn't a good first impression...
• the bind mounts-problem is even worse than in debian: In Fedora, the bind-mounts in fstab are even shown in nautilus! (left column, under "devices") unfortunately, they are completely useless there, clicking them leads to nothing....
• And finally: The font rendering in fedora is really bad, especially in Firefox. I tried several tricks, from editing .fonts.conf (which helped a bit) to installing addition fonts-packages, looking at that pixelated font-rendering is just depressing.

Why I stay with Ubuntu:
The worst thing in Fedora were really the fonts. I really have to say to the debian/ubuntu guys: Good job! Fonts are important, it's the thing you look to with the highest optical concentration.
OK, that wasn't a problem in debian, but anyway, the thing that bothered me in ubuntu is easily solveable by going a bit in dconf, for the bind-mounts thing, I haven't found a solution yet...

I really didn't thought fonts can be so important to me! (Although in 2006, when I last tried fedora, fedora had the same problem which kept me from trying on with fedora...)


What are your experiences?
I mean apart from obvious things like .deb vs .rpm and different desktop environments.
And, additionaly: Do you know the reason for the bind-mounts problem I described or the fonts-rendering problem in fedora?

[GreatDanton]

I didn't try Debian, but I have the same experience like you. Ubuntu 12.04 was not working very well (because of the graphic drivers), so I decided to try Fedora 17. Live usb, was impressive. Everything was so fluent. After I installed it (very fast boot) the first thing I noticed was ugly fonts. After a while I installed Ubuntu fonts (but font was different than in Ubuntu 12.04) and Gnome tweak. I was playing with Gnome tweak (I don't remember where and what I changed, but it was under Fonts tab.) and at the end I was able to use nice Ubuntu font.

I was using Fedora for few months, but then I decided to test Ubuntu 12.10 (Alpha 2). I was lucky because almost everything was working out of the box, so I decided to stay on Ubuntu 12.10.

Regards.

[Bazon]

I also tried to get the fonts better with the gnome-tweak-tool in fedora, but it didn't affected Firefox! I was only able to control Firefox rendering by .fonts.conf...

A, but there is one thing which was really better in Fedora:
The Gnome-Bridge-Theme, which gives GTK2-Applecations a nice Adwaita-Look, works very good in Fedora but very bad in Ubuntu. Whyever.

[Cheesemill]

I switched to Arch on my home workstation because I was getting tired of the whole 6 month upgrade cycle. I was using 12.10 before this but when they switched to gnome-shell 3.5 it obviously broke all of my extensions.

Arch uses unpatched source direct from upstream to create its packages so it's as close to a 'proper' gnome-shell distro as you are going to get.

I still like the Ubuntu look though so I have the Ubuntu fonts and Ambience theme installed.

[warm cardigan]

Until 11.10, I used Ubuntu exclusively. After the untimely demise of Gnome 2, I tried many other distributions, eventually settling on Xubuntu 12.04. I'm happy now

[MarjaE]

I tried Xubuntu 11.10 a while ago. The installer crashed partway through. I managed to get it kinda-sorta running only to find it had no way to disable the malfunctioning touchpad.

Does Xubunti support laptops yet?

[BigSilly]

I'm using Gnome Shell on openSUSE 12.2. I recognised a while ago that Shell wasn't that good on Ubuntu. Personally I much prefer openSUSE's Gnome to Fedora's, it just feels more solid and polished to me. And I prefer the tools (YAST is more sensible in Gnome than KDE, which already hosts a lot of the tools YAST has). I have used Shell on Ubuntu in the past but it doesn't feel loved in the same way, often missing a lot of features as you say. Maybe that will change with the new Gnome Shell remix, but I think it may take some time. In the meantime, I'm happy to stick with openSUSE, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for high quality Gnome Shell experience.

[exploder]

I run Ubuntu 12.04, Mint 13 and PCLinuxOS KDE. Ubuntu 12.04 has become quite the favorite with all of the improvements that have come to Unity. Cinnamon in Mint 13 is every bit as interesting to me as Unity. PCLinuxOS always works on my hardware, it's a rolling release and the mylivecd tool is simply the best default tool on the planet. I recommend all 3 of these distros depending on what the user is interested in.

[Peripheral Visionary]

I hopped along with my "Linux mentor" whenever he hopped, because he made it sound so fun and exciting! It was totally foreign to me that computers could be exciting, especially changing the operating system. But Robin made it sound like I was missing out on the best fun ever. Except for dancing, maybe.

By the time I joined the fun, I had a chance to play (on his computer) with Mint, Crunchbang, Phoenix (One of PCLinuxOS' lightweight versions), Mepis, Debian, SalixOS ("for lazy Slackers"), and now Xubuntu.

Robin is with the angels now, and probably has them hopping along with him from distro to distro and from one percussive dance routine to another. And I must admit, without him I'm not so inclined to hop. I inherited his old computer which had Xubuntu 10.04 on it (still Beta at the time), and I was so afraid to change anything! But when the new LTS came out and was a couple of months old, I followed my former teacher's advice for "casual users" like me:

• Stick to LTS versions
• Don't upgrade 'til they're a few months old
• Upgrading is never mandatory
• Write down every change you make so you can change it back or get help here on the forums
• Always keep it simple and fun.

I may never hop again, except of course, in dances. Robin's choreography is full of jumps and hops and spins. But I do cherish the memories of distro-hopping and the joy that my teacher and friend took in doing so, even when things went badly wrong.

[vexorian]

I was planning to move to Debian. But now that I tried 12.04 for real and I like unity I will have to wait for them to support unity well. To be honest, it is pretty irrational of them to give more care to that lacking gnome-shell rather than in making unity available for the freer world.

I used to collect live CD/USB distros. Puppy Linux is still the most useful thing ever for emergencies. Also liked Slax back in the day.