Eleven: Confessions of a DistroHopper

DistroHopper

“someone that keeps switching from one linux distribution to another, not with the intention to just test a certain Linux distribution, but with the illusion to find the perfect Linux distribution that suits all his/her needs and to install that as his/her main Operating System. Ofcours [sic] that distro does not exist.” (Urban Dictionary)

Why I distrohop(ped)

What is the point of distrohopping? Why not just get used to one Linux distribution and stick with it? I have a few reasons.

Problem 1: The jump from Windows/MacOS to Linux

I have been a Windows user my entire life. I am familiar with MacOS, but I am very used to Windows being my daily driver. However, it is clear that Microsoft has chosen to pursue profit instead of customer data privacy, now that ads are being displayed in more and more spots in the Windows ecosystem. I personally like the Windows operating system a lot but this is a massive step in the wrong direction. I would perhaps switch to MacOS if the prices weren’t absolutely astronomical (i.e. $2,500 for a 13 inch M2 Macbook Pro … with 8GB RAM ????). The next choice is, of course, Linux. A treasure trove of free, open source, non-spyware (mostly) distributions which empower the end user and allow for more control. Unfortunately, as a longtime Windows user, I would prefer to have a somewhat Windows-similar experience, but without it looking like a Windows copy (cough cough anything KDE cough cough). The thing is, in my opinion, most Linux distributions look pretty ugly. This is of course customizable via window managers / desktop environments. The recent GNOME versions have looked pretty solid in my opinion, but the really beautiful ones (highly customized swaywm, hyprland, etc.) take a bunch of work to look pretty and function, and frankly have more bugs than I’d like as an end user. Unfortunately, at the end of the day (for the most part), you can’t beat the ease and plug-and-play ability of MacOS and Windows, not to mention software compatibility. Most applications are made first and foremost for MacOS and Windows. In essence, I want the pros of profit-driven development without its cons. It is not logical.

Problem 2: Bleeding-edge vs. comfort

The main distros I hop between are the bleeding-edge and the comfort distros. By that I mean the ones that are highly customizable and constantly changing (bleeding-edge) and the stable distros that are easy to set up and use (comfort). The bleeding-edge for me consists of NixOS and Arch, while the comfort is all Debian-based (Ubuntu, Debian). As of writing this, my site runs off a Debian machine. I am no longer really interested in Ubuntu, and I have limited experience with other distros (RHEL, Fedora, PopOS, xSUSE, xBSD, etc.). Comfort distros are great because you don’t have to think all too much about how you customize your OS. You can just install Debian, run GNOME 43, and use the default shell, terminal, web browser, etc. However, with bleeding-edge distros that I referenced, it’s much more of a hands-on effort. You can make the operating system that is meant for you … so long as you have the time and skill to do it. With NixOS, you get the beauty of a fully declarative, functional, and reproducible operating system, with the complexity of custom-making your own flake or configuration.nix; which is fine, except for the fact that it means that you have to learn how to do that first. Once you learn it, it’s wonderful! But you have to do that first. With Arch, you install most everything yourself and build it from the ground up. You trade off ease of access for a perfect personal fit.

My situation

Currently, I am sticking with Windows, because I’m lazy. In the future, I will probably switch to NixOS with GNOME or something. Now that I have done a little distrohopping, I think I know what I need, even if it’s not 100% what I want.