This is kind of the anti-distro hopping thread. How long have you stayed on a single Linux distribution for your main PC? What about servers?
I’ve been on Debian on and off since 2021, but finally committed to the platform since April of this year.
Before that I was on OpenBSD from 2011 - 2021 for my desktop.
Prior to that, FreeBSD for many years, followed by a few years of distro-hopping various Linux distros (Slackware, Arch, Fedora, simplyMEPIS, and ZenWalk from memory).
How long have you been on your distribution? Do we have anybody here who has been on their current distro for more than a decade?
My main desktop has been upgraded continuously from RHL5 (no E) in ~1999 to Fedora 38 today.
Well, almost continuously. I’ve done at least one fresh install, when I switched from 32-bit to 64-bit hardware.
Edit: I have used a lot of other distros on other boxes, both physical and virtual - I’ve just stuck with Fedora on that one.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It’s surprisingly stable for a rolling release distro.
Yes, I was a distro hopper up until I tried Tumbleweed for the first time. Been using it for two years now, hopped around for a year prior.
Couldn’t agree more. Probably because they have some automatic QA going on on their CI and if some package does something wrong that this QA catches the package does not get included into update until it passes. Also if there would be something that would go wrong you still have automatic BTRFS snapshots created before and after and update and a boot entry automatically added to GRUB so you could simply reboot into old working state in such an unfortunate case.
How long? I remember seeing some people have used it since the mid-2010’s on the same install.
I used Kububtu between 2008 and around 2013, then got so fed up with KDE4 bugs I switched to Xubuntu, and am using that ever since.
So that’s 10 or 15 years depending how you count.
When I want to play, I start a VM, base OS needs to be rock solid.
Been on kubunu since 2008 on LTS versions. Rock stable 99% apps support and most have a ppa. Other distros nowhere near as stable and no package repos. Flatpak is changing that and not a big fan of snap though. We will see what might break my streak.
I stopped having time (or inclination) to mess around with multiple distributions after getting out of college and into real life. So… Since at least about 2002, with Debian.
Wow, more than 20 years on the same OS.
I would have stayed with FreeBSD or OpenBSD but eventually my requirements outgrew what they could provide.
Now I’m on Debian. You chose … wisely.
Once I fully embraced the DontBreakDebian way of doing things, I haven’t looked back. I have 3 desktops and 3 laptops on cycles of testing, stable, and testing again depending on the current state of the testing distro. Debian + Flatpak meets most of my needs. Also, not having the latest, shiniest version isn’t always a bad thing. I have only had one major item break in testing and it was fixed within 3 days.
I started with Linux like many, I guess, by distro hopping. My first experience was with Knoppix in the late 2000s (because I didn’t know what a live CD was), then I tried OpenSuse, went on to Fedora (is SELinux still such a pain in the ass as it was back then?) and then to Kubuntu.
If I remember correctly I switched to Arch some time after Plasma 4 came out. About 11 years ago. It was, back then, one of the only distributions that shipped the newest stock KDE that “just worked”. Actually that might be wrong, but I didn’t know what I was doing with Linux anyways and somehow I liked Arch enough to stay. I used it at home, for work (software development) and at college. And it serves me well in all those areas (minus some minor hiccups).
It’s still fulfilling my needs but lately I’ve been flirting with NixOS. I might change my daily driver once I get a new laptop (still rocking a Thinkpad T430 from 2012 but it’s starting to show its age).
Thanks to this post i just realized I’ve been using arch for 9 years. I did hop DEs a bunch up till about 3 years ago when i settled for plasma on Wayland (on? with? Idk), but the arch ecosystem has proven the perfect balance of flexibility and stability (yes i find arch very stable). Before arch i distro hopped almost annually since about 2006.
I’ve been using OpenBSD on my desktop since about 2006ish.
Been using Ubuntu, or more recently, Kubuntu since 2006. Not sure that counts as a distro change. Can’t say enough good things about KDE these days though.
I remember trying and liking the last KDE with 3.5x around that time. There was a .deb to install the Kickoff menu from openSUSE. Solid, ruined by the 4.0 transition. Good times.
I’ve been on Yggdrasil Linux since 1993. Now, get off my lawn, you punks!
I hopped on Manjaro back before people started flaming it to kingdom come. I’m still using it 4 years later and still loving it 😊 I play with other distros on another computer for funsies, but my home rig stays the same
Workstation: Ubuntu approximately 18 years. (2004)
Servers: Debian approximately 25 years. (1998)
I’ve been using linux for a long time. Typically stuck with Ubuntu and upgrading when the next LTS was released. I did try other flavors like ubuntu budgie as well. Also liked ZorinOS for a year or two.
Then things like elementary were fun to use, but for a daily driver, I like a little more main stream OS and desktop experience.
Currently using Fedora cinnamon for the last year. I have some VMs that probably stay the longest, but for my personal laptop, I usually spend a year or two on it.
I’m pretty new to Linux, committed to it 2021 and last changed to EndeavorOS (basically an arch installer + a few quality of life packages) around one and a half years ago. It recently broke on my desktop (btrfs disk full, though it didn’t show as full, during update. And my snapshots were setup incorrectly). Looking into trying out NixOS on it now, my Laptop will stay EndeavorOS for the foreseeable future though.
I’m not sure how long, but I bet Mint is my longest distro. Next would probably either Manjaro or SUSE.
Void linux been using it now for 2 years on my laptop
