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Thoughts on distro hopping? I'm wanting to settle down

Jul 23, 2009  By zaine_ridling
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Since 2006, I've bounced from one distro to another, never choosing a favorite. However, I'm wondering if it's not time to settle into a distro for 2-4 years and really dig in. I've used well over a dozen different distros, but keep coming back to the top 4-5 on DistroWatch. What is your recommendation for or against distro-hopping?

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I do lot of distro hopping

jetwings's picture
Submitted by jetwings on Sun, 02/28/2010 - 04:58.

I do lot of distro hopping too ;)
Currently I am on Ubuntu.
Others in the recent were: Fedora, Debian, Linux Mint, OpenSuse...

I used to hop too...

Jerry McBride's picture
Submitted by Jerry McBride on Mon, 01/11/2010 - 12:30.

A long while back I started my Linux experience with Caldera Open Linux 1.3... I fell in love with it from the get-go... When the product hit 2.4, my then employer dumped all his OS/2 investment and a few windows boxes in favor of COL 2.4, then on to COL 3.1 both in desktop and server use. I was responcible for purchasing in excess of 100 COL certificates. Those were some of the best days of my Linux career...

When Caldera sold out and became a thing from the slimey pits of hell... we decided it was time to "roll our own" and began the distro hop routine getting a feel for what was out there... Eventually it all stopped, like a wheel of fortune, at "Linux From Scratch" then finally settling on "Gentoo". We literally, rolled our own... Best way to learn Linux and best way to get exactly what you want on your laptops, netbooks, desktops and servers.

Jerry

---- Jerry McBride

If Ain't Broke Don't Fix It

Mitch Frazier's picture
Submitted by Mitch Frazier on Fri, 07/24/2009 - 10:05.

Guess that "title" could be interpreted in different ways:

- If distro-hopping works for you and doesn't hinder your usage, then keep hopping.

or

- If you find one that works, use it and increase the depth of your knowledge rather than its breadth.

In the end there's no wrong choice, except of course, re-turning to the dark-side.

Mitch Frazier is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal.

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