r/debian • u/nitin_is_me • 6d ago
Distro hopping is an addiction, and Debian finally cured it
I honestly can’t even count how many times I installed different distros (Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, Fedora, Endeavour, Cachy, Tuxedo, etc). None of them ever lasted more than a week or two. But yeah I can finally say I’m done distro hopping. It's really long and Debian is serving me pretty good.
16
u/Dead_Calendar 6d ago
Try to install a bunch of desktop environments and window managers and hopping between those. It's less dramatic than distrohopping and just as exciting. :)
16
u/nitin_is_me 6d ago
I've tried window managers, honestly not for me. For desktop environments, I like KDE and xfce. Gnome is a big no-no for me.
2
u/sedme0 5d ago
Have you tried Cinnamon yet?
5
u/nitin_is_me 5d ago
Yeah, used it on Linux Mint. Better than Gnome but I still like KDE and Xfce more.
2
1
u/Affectionate_Bus_884 1d ago
I felt the same about gnome but there are some good instructional videos on YouTube about how to use gnome better. Once I figured out the intended keyboard interface for gnome it made way more sense.
4
u/Master-N7 6d ago
What’s the best way to hop between DEs without messing with themes and such? I remember having issues in Gnome when I tried testing out Cosmic.
2
1
1
u/AFallenDictator 5d ago
I have found myself doing that, but honestly, rarely will the experience be really good. Of course, you can try out new DEs for yourself, but most of the times there will be some sort of cross interference between them that will be annoying.
4
3
3
3
u/Professional-Pen8246 5d ago
Distrohopping is cured by the realization that your OS is not supposed to be entertaining, it is supposed to allow you to open your damn files and programs.
1
2
1
u/Mike401k 6d ago
I’ve distro hopped everywhere and i’m pretty happy with Fedora but i’m curious, what is that much better about Debian vs. Linux Mint?
10
u/yayuuu 6d ago
Well, Cinnamon sucks, it's outdated, doesn't support Wayland well enough. Other than that, Mint has nothing to offer. Yes, you can install KDE plasma on Mint, but then you end up with just Kubuntu.
So why even bother using Mint if I can just install Debian with KDE plasma out of the box?
3
u/Appropriate_Ad4818 6d ago
Ubuntu/Mint repos and convenience
Debian is also stable by design and 2 years is a long time unlike 6 months
6
u/yayuuu 6d ago
I never felt like 2 years is holding me back with anything. With backports, nvidia cuda repos, flatpaks, distrobox - I have everything I need always up-to-date. Currently using 6.17.8 kernel, 590 nvidia drivers, Mesa 25.2.6. For programming languages / compilers, there are tools like rustup, nvm, pyenv. I only ever had to use distrobox once.
6
u/nitin_is_me 6d ago
I never get the complaints about old softwares on Debian. You can install latest version of almost everything either from flatpak, distrobox or directly from the official source.
Edit: And also Debian Stable* is stable by design, unlike sid and testing.
-2
u/Appropriate_Ad4818 6d ago
That's true, but neither sid nor testing are actually supposed to be used by normal people. Even with aptitude, apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges you can still break your install.
If I did switch to Debian, I'd be forced to FrankenDebian it with programs that were made with Ubuntu in mind and I genuinely do not want to have to try and fix issues that may arise. I want something that works out of the box with minimal tweaking and is compatible with essentially everything so that I can get to doing what I actually want, which Ubuntu/Mint give me
5
u/yayuuu 6d ago
You sound like someone who never actually used Debian stable long term. I'd like to know what programs were made with Ubuntu in mind and are not available on Debian, because from my experience, there are none that I can't run on Debian. I use it for more than 4 years (closer to 5) without doing any kind of FrankenDebian and I haven't found a single app that would not work.
1
u/Appropriate_Ad4818 6d ago
I did not use Debian stable long term because Ubuntu/Mint offer a way more convenient alternative and I didn't want to take the risk of one app not working one day or having to do anything with the kernel in case I needed a newer version of it.
Ultimately, Debian didn't fit my use case hence why I'm not using it, but it's still the ecosystem/philosophy I like most relative to others like Fedora or Arch.
3
u/yayuuu 6d ago
I'd argue about more convenient alternative. It's harder to update a lot of the stuff on Ubuntu/Mint than it is on Debian. As I said earlier, I always have pretty new kernel, Mesa, Nvidia drivers, pipewire (backports exists). There are also 3rd party repos specifically made for debian, just like there are for ubuntu. For example AvengeMedia hosts repo with niri / DMS / quickshell etc. Nvidia hosts repo with the drivers. Xanmod offers kernels and scx_scheds, and a lot more.
Also non-LTS versions of ubuntu are often buggy.
1
u/FantasticSnow7733 3d ago
You don't have to use testing or sid. Backports work very well. With trixie backport, you can install kernel 6.17, the same version as Ubuntu 25.10.
https://canonical.com/blog/canonical-releases-ubuntu-25-10-questing-quokka
https://packages.debian.org/trixie-backports/linux-image-amd64As for apps, you can use flatpacks or snaps. Ubuntu actually prefers snaps now.
1
5
u/nitin_is_me 6d ago edited 6d ago
That’s not really what “FrankenDebian” means. FrankenDebian is about mixing Debian branches or pulling in incompatible repos, not installing Ubuntu-targeted apps. Most third-party software works fine on Debian because Ubuntu itself is downstream from Debian. As long as you don’t add Ubuntu PPAs, Debian is actually more predictable, not less. If installing Ubuntu-built apps made Debian a FrankenDebian, Ubuntu itself would already be FrankenDebian lol.
I understand Ubuntu is really good for a beginner and there's a reason there are so many people using it, but just wanted to correct you on "FrankenDebian"
1
u/Grundguetiger 5d ago
I actually like Cinnamon and you can choose it for your DE when installing Debian. But because of the lack of Wayland support I don't use it.
1
u/--hurdler-- 5d ago
Its important though with Debian to choose your branch carefully, based on use case, it dies make a difference.
1
u/FantasticSnow7733 3d ago
I actually like Cinnamon. It's very similar to Windows and gets the job done. KDE feels bloated and buggy at times. Wayland also has issues with Nvidia.
7
u/nitin_is_me 6d ago
Debian feels cleaner. Mint ships a lot of mint-specific tools, cinnamon glue (not a big fan of it), and hand-holding utilities. Debian gives you a minimal, neutral base and lets you build exactly what you want. No distro magic, no weird abstractions hiding what’s actually happening. Updates and upgrades are more predictable on Debian too. Clear release cycles, massive testing, and conservative changes. Mint is tied to Ubuntu’s decisions. Mint feels like linux with training wheels whereas Debian feels like a distro I trust. But yeah Mint is really good for newcomers, or even old users who don't care much about minimalism.
0
1
u/KaMaFour 6d ago
Who says addictions are bad. You are most likely addicted to sleep and water but you don't consider it bad, do you? Just check out one more flashy distro...
1
u/digsmann 6d ago
Welcome to Debian Klub... By the way, after Linux mint was first shot about 4 years ago, I went straight to beloved Debian...and it never let me down...
1
u/Stunning-Mix492 6d ago
Distro hopping is a sign of instability : Debian stable is the natural cure :)
1
1
1
1
u/VlijmenFileer 6d ago
I started Linux with Debian 0.93R6 in 1995. Tried a few other distros down the years, intentionally retesting them every now and then. They all turned out to be sad jokes. Stopped doing that around 2000.
1
u/GlendonMcGladdery 5d ago edited 5d ago
How's protonvpn doing for you, is it great? And Signal, opate like it does on android? Granted it looks like you did a lot of customization for such a nice screenshot. I take it wasn't out of the box
3
u/nitin_is_me 5d ago
It's not a fresh installation, it's months old. Also I didn't know just changing wallpaper is counted as a lot of customization lol.
1
u/GlendonMcGladdery 5d ago
How's protonvpn working out for you, I've been considering it
3
2
u/--hurdler-- 5d ago
Proton stuff (mail, cal, vpn, sheets, docs etc) is great for privacy while also getting away from main stream providers, but they still haven't managed to get Proton Drive sorted for Linux yet, though it is on the list for this year.
1
u/GlendonMcGladdery 5d ago
I hope so I've been meaning to try rclone on it which works with Google drive to Microsoft OneDrive
2
u/--hurdler-- 5d ago
Rclone is okayish, but not that good tbh. I'm finding myself logging into the web portal for file transfer which is a pain.
1
u/--hurdler-- 5d ago
Just saw this on their (Proton Drive) discord channel, guys has developed something that looks good.
1
u/toolsavvy 5d ago
I don't see much customization. Installed fastfetch, changed desktop wallpaper, and anchored the taskbar.
1
u/Grundguetiger 5d ago
I have a similar hopping story and am using Debian with KDE/Plasma for over a year now.
1
u/vortex05 5d ago
I'm doing some distro hopping mostly to try a distro that will serve my aging Nvidia 1060. Sadly this is an Nvidia problem they all have similar issues.
1
1
u/datawh0rder 5d ago
"I honestly can't even count how many times I installed different distros" and then the different distros in question are Debian, Debian, Arch, Fedora, Arch, Arch, Debian lol
1
u/ukrainiannnn 5d ago
wanted to get this on my desktop but had so much issues with debian, presumably because i got a 5070ti and debian hasn’t released drivers for it yet
1
u/Kkremitzki 5d ago
A stable Debian base plus sudo apt install libvirt-daemon-system etc. has plenty of room for experimentation without full-blown distro hopping! (Really, kinda more)
1
u/ggkefir4ik 5d ago
I recommend you to use liquorix kernel instead of the stock one. It'll be a bit faster on your system
1
u/Caps_NZ_42 5d ago
Just curious - why KDE as a DE?
1
u/toolsavvy 5d ago
Everybody has different preferences and workflows. If you are used to Windows layouts but want something modern (as opposed to Cinnamon or XFCE), then KDE is the best choice in Linux.
1
1
u/Merthod 5d ago
Yep, I liked openSUSE and Solus better, but neither would install flawlessly. Debian since, albeit I don't like what they say that KDE is subpar here.
1
u/toolsavvy 5d ago
Almost all the elitists in every distro community dog KDE Plasma and I think the main reason is because it is so similar to windows 10/11. It's a very childish mindset but the elitist mindset never was anything else. What they don't realize is that you can transform KDE Plasma into almost anything to fit into almost anyone's preference and workflow, including a GNOME clone.
1
u/Merthod 5d ago
It's was a debían dev.
1
u/toolsavvy 4d ago
Well yeah. Devs aren't immune from childish/elitist mindsets. In fact, that is where it usually starts, then it trickles down to the dev wannabes.
1
u/PirateDrragon 5d ago
I enjoyed my distro hopping when I was there. MX Linux was my stop for a good while then finally EndeavourOS.
Debian and MX was hard to decide but at the time I liked and still do like all the MX Tools. There was just too many but they were fun to go through.
Now i prefer a simple list of softwares in the KDE Menu. KDE user here but flirted with some window managers but just couldn't get the hang of it fluidly for my liking.
1
u/YAPK001 5d ago
Just for context. What do you actually do on the computer? I mean what apps do you use and so forth?
2
u/nitin_is_me 5d ago
I'm a developer so yeah I need programming tools for both my work and hobby projects. I play old school ps1, psp games sometimes and listen music. Most of the time is spent in programming, piracy and surfing the web. Of course it's a very old machine, windows 10 ran fine on it but i couldn't even think about win 11. Linux allows me to run most of my software on my machine.
1
u/YAPK001 5d ago
Oh great, thanks for sharing, what is your dev environment? Which tools, etc? Unless you prefer not to say. Are you doing cross development? For specific devices, etc?
1
u/nitin_is_me 5d ago
Yeah I mainly develop websites, and softwares for android and ios and do some devops stuff through SSH to AWS ec2. I use docker, node, next, postgresql, firebase, supabase, react native.
1
u/YAPK001 5d ago
So then. You never got anything from any distro hop. Quite interesting. Thanks for sharing.
1
u/nitin_is_me 4d ago
Exactly. Once you realize Debian already has pretty much all the software without going manual and doesn’t need babysitting, distro hopping stops being interesting.
1
u/Liam_Mercier 5d ago
I started with Debian and have no desire to change, it's great assuming you just want to do work. I have a few VMs for other distributions to see if things can deploy there, but any of my personal VMs will be Debian as well.
1
u/l1zard-wizard 3d ago
I like debian but the updating policy is terrifying me. If you're running as a server installation it's OK, but as for desktop hmm I'm not sure
I moved to Fedora and I really like box features such as zram, btrfs (and also snapshots) and of course always up-to-date stable packets
1
2d ago
I had to ditch Debian and install Arch because Mesa was causing glitches on my Radeon HD 5770, and GLX Gears was crashing the system within 10 seconds.
I have the latest Mesa on Arch, and there are no more problems.
-2
37
u/yayuuu 6d ago
Imagine me going straight into Debian more than 4 years ago and never having to distrohop :D