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?

  • KelsonV@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • michael@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • RadicalEcologist@mander.xyz
    3·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • words_number@programming.dev
    2·
    1 year ago

    Debian (testing) at least since 2018 and I don’t plan to switch. Before that I was hopping a bit between ubuntu based distros and manjaro. On servers I always use debian stable.

  • Uno@monyet.cc
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been on Ubuntu ever since I switched to Linux 7 months ago, tbh I don’t understand distro-hopping. I’m not any tech wizard, and Ubuntu fulfills all my criteria: worked out of the box, worked faster than Windows, hasn’t broken yet 👍

    All I do is run Firefox and Steam on my laptop anyways :/

  • pinchcramp@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    2·
    1 year ago

    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).

  • ckeen@lemmy.ml
    2·
    1 year ago

    20+ years on openbsd and debian evenly spread out on different machines, also 5+ years of arch usage.

  • tristramr@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • pascal@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    I distro hopped a lot since installing a retail red hat box bought at the store in 199something.

    It’s now more than 10 years that I basically only run Debian (on all my servers) and Gentoo/funtoo (on my workstations). For my partner and relatives, I install only Mint because it lacks all the cool gadgets, but it’s stable as a rock, especially on notebooks, and still reminds them of Windows.

    I tried Arch, btw. Nice wiki, horrible package management.

    I tried Pop_OS, it’s fun, it’s fine, it’s fresh, but tends to self-destruct if I push it too much.

    I loved Elementary OS, it’s really promising but always gave me the feeling to run a beta OS.

    • unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Sams Teach Yourself Linux in 24 hours. Christmas 1998. Red Hat Linux 5.2.

      I upgraded a struggling 486 from Windows 95 OSR2.1 to Red Hat and Afterstep, and never really looked back.

  • s_s@lemmy.one
    2·
    1 year ago

    My one desktop is 5 years on Manjaro now.

    Before that I had Ubuntu for 8 years across several installs, although I also dual-booted Windows back then.

    But I’ve had a freeBSD file server for at least 20.

  • halo5@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    I only ever run Debian on my servers (around 15 systems) since about 2010, and I run (a modified version of) Ubuntu on my desktops. Although my desktop decision may change pretty soon if they keep pushing Snaps. Although I run ubuntu, I am thankfully Snap-free…

  • Aras@feddit.de
    2·
    1 year ago

    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.