9 ms·

The flaws of distro hopping and asking other people about their OS of choice

47 points by WhyNotHugo 5y ago

kstenerud 5y ago
> When a friend of mine started his first business a couple of years or so ago, and he asked me for advice regarding the choice of operating system for the company service and product, I recommended a specific Linux distribution with a very high level of control, i.e. you need to set everything up yourself (no gui click-click solution) This is terrible advice. Fiddling with system files in an OS is not their core business, so why would you ever recommend they waste precious business time & effort doing so? The most important questions to consider when installing an operating system for a business are: Does it run the software I need stably, how much work is it to set up & maintain, and what kind of support can I get/buy? As for the rest of the article, distro hopping is a great way to "shake out" various operating systems to discover what you like and what you don't like about each. Reading the brochure is not enough; you want to get opinions and advice from various sources (even Reddit) to build a narrowed down list of promising avenues, and then test drive a few until you find one that you can be overall comfortable with. It's a lot like buying a car. Maybe a distro won't work with the hardware you need to use. Maybe a feature you need is broken or unavailable with no estimated fix date. Maybe it's too bleeding edge and suffers more breakage than you're comfortable with. Maybe the distributed software is too old and updates too slow. Maybe it's too much work to maintain. Maybe it won't let you customize the things you care about.
rvz 5y ago
Yet another reason why Linux and BSD distros, were never taken seriously on the Desktop. Alternatives of alternatives of a similar but tweaked distros further confuses the user into thinking their desktop will (just work) but will start to be quickly unsatisfied that a single tweak or issue in something in that desktop, will make them migrate and distro hop constantly only to waste time fiddling with their computer. The only proper qualifying example of OS uniformity other than Windows or macOS is ChromeOS, which is going to be replaced by Fuchsia in the future anyway. There is only one of that, like there is only one Windows or macOS. That's just the tip of the iceberg of issues with the Linux Desktop and also without getting to the discussion of 'defining' Linux support. Downvoters: You know it is true. Perhaps that is why this very long time veteran Linux user got fed up and moved to macOS: [0] After realising that they were spending more time fixing their computer, OS and apps in order to get things done. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30821580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30821580
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > Yet another reason why Linux and BSD distros, were never taken seriously on the Desktop I think you're overblowing this point. Many administrations, non-profits and companies actively use GNU/Linux or BSD desktops and are quite happy with it. Red Hat, Ubuntu and Suse are famous example providing good levels of support and customization if you can afford it. Mandriva in its time was very user-friendly and popular (at least here in France) but unfortunately they were shut down for business reasons if i remember. But i agree with your critique that switching distro just because you want to switch desktop environment is the wrong answer because it introduces so many layers of complexity you know your tiny distro is gonna fall behind in terms of features/security. I wish more distros exposed higher-level knobs to customize everything without learning the specifics of every piece in the stack. That's for me the strongest selling point in nix/guix even though i feel it's not as user-friendly as it could be.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Also that the things change like every other year or at least every few years. And something might or might not break when updating. Windows did stay pretty consistent for long time. Windows 8 broke this, but after that it hasn't been too bad again.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  It's true, the rather ludicrous number of distros out there causes many issues for people used to more homogeneous OSs. Probably the worst thing about it is that any time you have a problem someone will tell you that you chose the wrong distro and you'll be pushed to switch to another one, where you will of course encounter a different problem and repeat the cycle. Personally I think the proliferation of distros is itself a symptom of a greater problem with the Linux Desktop software ecosystem. If there were more stable ABIs, no such thing as library conflicts, less interaction complexity, etc. then one could mix and match software to fit their needs with little effort and a distro would be unnecessary.
- Koiwai 5y ago
  > ... moved to macOS. I mean, I've had lots of problems with Linux, but none of them could be solved by moving to macOS, AFAICT it could only be worse. It's unfortunate Linux is not for you, but I don't think that's Linux's fault, or anyone's fault.
case0x 5y ago
I think the article encapsulates the problem perfectly. When I started to switch from Windows to Linux, I've constantly changed distros picking whatever I saw "cool" people in my online circle use. I switched between Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and it's 100% FLOSS siblings all the time, sometimes using a distro just for one or two days. It is a stupid Endeavour as you have no time getting used to your environment and so you lack the skills required to solve any problems that occur. What fixed my habit was actually having to use my laptop for university, where I ran Ubuntu, and later at work, where we used Fedora. It helped me get used to it and tailor it to my needs. Recently, I've switched at home and work to MacOS ( couldn’t resist the new M1 chips). It fulfills my requirements and works like a charm.
- andrelaszlo 5y ago
  I went with Ubuntu when I switched from Windows some time around "Dapper". Stuck with it until "Karmic" or something like that. I only switched to Arch because I was getting tired of the big upgrades, and not having the latest versions of things I needed for work. This decision makes sense for me and for the laptop that I use daily as a developer. It doesn't make a lot of sense for a regular user, and even less for a server environment. Is it really so complicated? If you have very specific needs, you'll know what to look for. If you're not that special - why not just go with something common until you see what limitations you can live with and which ones are deal-breakers? I think a lot of "distro hopping" is also just being interested in the OS itself. I don't see the problem.
- dagw 5y ago
  It is a stupid Endeavour Installing and switching between a half dozen distros (plus a couple of BDSs and Open Solaris) when first learning to use *nix really taught me a lot about all kinds of different aspects and philosophies of the *nix world and getting all those distros to actually install and run gave me lots problem solving skills. Now I've settled on Ubuntu, been using it basically exclusively for the past 10+ years (minus a short affair with Arch a few years ago) and have no plans on switching. But having that initial experience with lots of different OSs was very educational.
  - 5y ago
spacemanmatt 5y ago
As an entreaty to choose software effectively I can endorse this post. This IS about understanding the inevitable compromises every distribution makes (e.g. security vs performance) and choosing what fits your needs. This is NOT about trying them all until you like something.
- neogodless 5y ago
  How do you understand "the inevitable compromises every distribution makes"? Aren't there hundreds to choose from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    By compromises every distribution makes, I am referring to cases where one choice precludes another, and any distribution can choose just one. Security costs performance. It's hard to support 3d hardware with pure open-source drivers. Most distributions are fairly up-front about their project values so you can understand which way they will make these compromises.
jqpabc123 5y ago
Using popularity as a determining factor is a flawed strategy, still it's not so obvious. Making unsupported declarations is an equally flawed strategy. A big problem for any business decision maker is the inability to fully define the problem. The future is an unknown that can never be fully quantified. Requirements can and do change over time --- in ways that are difficult to predict. Businesses must adapt to such change in order to grow and survive. What core product offers a business the best chance of being able to aquire the tools and talent needed to adapt to changing and unforseen requirements? One with the most marketplace presence and economic momentum --- aka the most popular. Going with the flow may well be the option that provides the highest probability of long term success. Proving this is virtually impossible due to the unknowns involved. But so is proving otherwise. This is the proverbial "judgment call" --- and business is full of these types of decisions.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
Choose a job. Choose life. I chose Debian. Now, what I mean is; I made a commitment. As Linux strains under complexity I am wondering whether to make a full-commitment life switch to BSD. But it's been 20 years with Debian and it's like a relationship I almost feel afraid to leave. Operating systems are something I know a little bit about. After going through the whole build Minix for 68000 from AT's book, then Linux From Scratch and compiling kernels thing, and building Slackware over a whole weekend, once I matured into needing a practical operating system in my 30s I was attracted to Debian by its social contract and "wholesome family atmosphere of Debbie and Ian." I ended up building distros myself, learning the ropes of Debian development (though I never actually joined the DD community). It's been a rodeo ride. I loathe systemd and the whole "mother knows best" Poettering schism. The CoC dramas and virtue parades in front of the neighbours are just embarrasing. And then there's Uncle Ubuntu who sometimes touches us inappropriately. But in the end I keep coming back "to the family", because in the end all families are dysfunctional and weird, so may as well pick one and try to work with it. So I agree with the OP's admonition of distro hopping. It feels like restless promiscuity. Whenever I need to install a new OS I pick the latest minimal Debian and go from there.
- yeetsfromhellL2 5y ago
  >I am wondering whether to make a full-commitment life switch to BSD. I tried NetBSD for a small project a while ago and was very pleasantly surprised. The documentation was great and everything worked as advertised. I've spent more time trying to figure out a single package on Linux than I did getting up and running on NetBSD for the first time.
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  > But it's been 20 years with Debian and it's like a relationship I almost feel afraid to leave. I was shipping Debian 1.2 CDs by the hundreds in the nineties! I'm using Debian or derivaties/forks everywhere (desktop / laptop / server / Raspberry Pi (raspbian). > It's been a rodeo ride. I loathe systemd and the whole "mother knows best" Poettering schism. A few months ago I switched my main desktop to "Devuan" (a Debian fork without systemd) and I do really dig it. I'm still running Debian on servers, on the laptop, on the other desktop, etc. But honestly: Devuan, for my use case on my dev machine, is really just Debian without the Poettering stuff and it works fine. YMMV.
Koiwai 5y ago
Using test driving cars as analogy is terrible, at least I think test driving cars is very useful.
throwaway22032 5y ago
After a decade or more of using Linux honestly I don't think it matters. After a while you get your environment, it's set up, as long as you can update and install compilers and shit you're good. Anything "production" is going to be in some sort of reproducible environment anyway. The kernel has all of the drivers unless you use weird AF hardware. It's like cars. They all get you from A to B, beyond a few basics there's not even anything to optimize unless you choose to care about that.
jimmydeans 5y ago
jarofgreen 5y ago
> I ask a client why they are running the OS they have chosen, surprisingly the answer is that their choice was made based upon popularity in the industry. > Using popularity as a determining factor is a flawed strategy Is it tho? I think it depends on what the context is. If you have really specialist needs then yes, you should spend time working out the best solution. Totally agree. But if you have bog standard needs that everyone else has maybe just use what everyone else uses? Every time you run into a problem you will probably find someone else has run into it and fixed it already. eg Linux desktop? Maybe just use Ubuntu? Every time you want to install a Linux app from someone you will probably find they provide a Ubuntu package these days. I'd recommend people check out wardley mapping for a good tool for thinking about this type of issues.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Use what everyone else is using protects you from all sorts of issues that you may not even realize. At the same time, if you find yourself fighting it continually it may be worth looking again.
3np 5y ago
While there are several useful insights here, I think the absolutist stance misses the mark and is overgeneralizing. While yes, you could (in theory) research the sources, the policies, the procedures, the contributors, the organization... It can save a lot of time (and be a lot more fun) to try things out in practice. Just be ready to wipe and start from scratch when you realize it's time to cut your losses. The advice to stick with independent distros is a good one, in most situations. But the only way I can confidently agree with the author is through experience with the alternatives. That was not time lost. If I'd recommend a daily driver for a very non-technical friend who wants to keep using their laptop that's effectively EOL under Windows? A non-independent distro makes sense. And how would I be able to make an informed recommendation? I could try it out myself. Maybe on an isolated mediaplayer, a use-case specific VM, or an embedded dev project, where stability and security don't matter that much. When the stakes are low and I enjoy trying new things to get a feel for the community and ecosystem, distro-hopping can be nice. Many when I got new hardware in the past, I installed a new distro either on that or whatever it was replacing. Most of them didn't stick but some did - this is how you can learn. You also get to know about the ways of the other independent distros. If you're mostly an Arch+Fedora person, for example, maintaining a Debian installation is great to widen your experience and understand where each makes sense and fits. I've installed more derivatives than I can remember and I can tell through experience why I wouldn't recommend most of them. When Mint had zero issues during the same timespan that system upgrades completely broke the vanilla Manjaro desktop for the third time, I can now make more informed decisions. I would have no idea about the difference in quality, testing and maintenance if I hadn't actually been running them for a significant time myself. Asking someone about their dist of choice can absolutely be useful - if you understand where they're coming from and/or they understand your situation and needs. It all depends on context. It can make sense to outsource some of the bootstrapping and user configuration. Just be aware of the tradeoffs. And do it because it's fun, not (just) because you believe the grass is greener.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
> Asking other people about their choice of operating system makes no sense. You have a specific problem to solve, so in what way do you think asking other people about their choice is going to help you solve your specific problem? Don't agree here. People can give valuable experience on their chosen solution. Even if they chose it for different reasons or even incorrect reasons, they can still share their experience.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  Exactly. This is like saying that customer reviews make no sense. Of course they make sense. Even with all the fraud, and all the idiots, you can still learn a lot about a product from people who have actually used it, rather than just listening to the manufacturer and their happy path narrative.
a_square_peg 5y ago
I feel like there is a lot of condescending tone in the article that's really not helpful to many people who are not as versed in the topic. Maybe like a wine connoisseur who can't give a simple answer to what wine he might recommend for a dinner without spending an hour explaining all the things I need to consider to make the right choice. A lot of engineering decisions are based on what can be considered 'good enough' option to progress to the next stage on time because you don't often have the leisure to study and consider all the options available.
- Zhyl 5y ago
  Yes, the article is chastising people for research and getting opinions from others, and suggesting that the solution is to do research and to get advice from others.
le-mark 5y ago
One benefit of distro hopping is that to do it you must have all your data and projects available externally somewhere, so that’s a great starting point in general. Me, I found vanilla xubuntu fit my needs perfectly so I just reinstall every couple of years, and keep working. I wager there are a lot of us “just getting work done” with desktop Linux, it’s really great imo.
yeetsfromhellL2 5y ago
Maybe I'm more set in my ways now, but I feel like distro hopping is largely a thing of the past. There used to be a ton of small distros with their own communities but they've pretty much disappeared. I don't know if it's the decline of the web forums as they used to be (which killed the small communities), or if people realized these were mostly just Debian/Fedora derivatives with a cool Openbox theme and some preinstalled packages, or if everyone just migrated to Arch. To me, Crunchbang was the last of the fun distros.
- joeberon 5y ago
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  There used to be all kinds of distros runnable in tiny systems, localized to your wishes, optimized for speed, and with specialized compatibility. But then tiny systems disappeared, the mainstream distros got all of those localization options, the optimizations got generic enough for everybody to adopt, and the all the crappy enumerable compatibility hardware converged on Red Hat. That's why the distro diversity disappeared. Nowadays we can get one distro to cover all use cases.
bluedino 5y ago
In the real world (HPC) I don't get to choose my distro. The software vendors do. Which, really throws a wrench into things. Some of them have decided to go with Ubuntu LTS. A few are moving to CentOS stream. Some are stuck on the last version of CentOS and won't support stream. Rocky? Alma? Sounds good but you don't hear a peep from the vendor about them. Some of them are going to SuSE. It's irritating because CentOS 7 is very old and there's just no clear path to go right now.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  HPC is the real world and not an incredibly small academic niche? Did I read that right?
  - bluedino 5y ago
    HPC is present in a lot of industries. But by the real world I meant not my personal machine where I can run whatever distro I feel like for the week. I will admit I had a lot of fun trying out a lot of different distros in the old days!
goosedragons 5y ago
>Test out each of the distributions for a couple of weeks or months with your regular usage cases. I recommend taking notes if you run into any kind of problem, no matter how small it is, and then compare later with another distribution Is this not just distro hopping? I can kind of understand avoiding it for business/work contexts but for home computing who cares? Trying out different distros and OSs is a bit like a hobby. Popular distros are often popular for a reason and if you use something like Ubuntu it's very easy to find guide how to do something vs. a more obscure exotic distro like GoboLinux.
- teh_klev 5y ago
  > Is this not just distro hopping? Not really, it's product research, especially important if you're going to rely on a distro that's a long term critical part of your business. This is not a hobby activity and can apply to any process in deciding which software is the right fit for your organisation. Distro hopping is different. I've worked with a couple of folks who endlessly distro hopped to the extent that they seemed to spend more time installing their distros than actually using them in any productive way.
thargor90 5y ago
I chose debian, because it is mostly boring and "outdated", but quite secure. My focus is to solve problems, not bother with new distribution software. Also nowadays with containers its quite hard not to get some software running.
- b5n 5y ago
  `stable` is not the only release, I wouldn't consider any of my Debian workstations outdated because they're not. `testing` and `unstable` are oftentimes more dependable than other distro's idea of stable.
Zhyl 5y ago
>If e.g. you're mainly using the computer for gaming, playing the latest and most demanding games, then you can easily eliminate any other operating system than Microsoft Windows from the list, because almost nothing will work as well on any other operating system. I think this needs to be qualified. There are many reasons to not want to use Windows, and if the want to use something other than Windows outweighs the cost, then Linux still may be a better choice. Linux can run games now, even those developed for Windows [0], and even having anti-cheat isn't an absolute blocker anymore [1]. While I understand the sentiment Mr Sheikh is trying to express, this kind of unqualified sweeping statement is helping to keep misconceptions spreading even though much progress has been made. [0] https://www.protondb.com https://www.protondb.com [1] https://areweanticheatyet.com/ https://areweanticheatyet.com/
- neogodless 5y ago
  I'd like to qualify his statement. I like the idea of moving away from Windows, but playing certain kinds of games with close friends and family is a big part of my leisure time. And as much as I want Linux to be ready, some of the games I like to play simply don't work on Linux. At all. All of the games I like work on Windows. (MacOS is, of course, much worse. Of the games I've spent most of my time on over the past 2 years, only about 20% even run at all, let alone with decent quality settings and frame rates.) None of the games I like rely on anti-cheat. I think Linux is leaps and bounds closer to being capable of being used as a gaming desktop than it was just 10 years ago, but it's still very much true that game developers (and hardware engineers) focus on Windows first, and make sure it works there, while Linux is largely an afterthought. If I had chosen to run exclusively Linux, there would be countless times I'm left in the dark while my friends and family were playing games without me. Obviously this might not apply to certain classes of game players, but for me, that's way too high a cost to give up Windows.
  - ElectricalUnion 5y ago
    Call me surprised if most game studios still develop Windows first those days. Console pays better in general, and mobile platforms have a much larger market base, so games get developed for those other platforms first. Whatever "PC release" we get is often now a bunch of half-assed scraps, that barely work "on Windows" in the first place, it's a miracle they work on Wine/Proton (and even a better miracle when Proton manages to undo said brain-damaged port bugs).
GuB-42 5y ago
I think the problem with distro hopping is that you are not really solving a problem. For example, you are going to try out distros until you find one where you Nvidia card or wifi works, or the one with your preferred desktop environment, the one with this or that tool etc... But in most cases, these are things you can change, Linux is open, distros are essentially just the set of defaults the maintainers like. There are some oddballs, like Gentoo, but most are just variation on the same base. In fact, a minimal Ubuntu and a minimal Debian are almost identical. If you are constantly distro-hopping you probably have some specific needs than no distro fulfills, and your time is probably better spent picking one (preferably of the minimal kind) and actually solving your specific problems than trying to find a perfect match when there is none. I use Debian (minimal) BTW.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Agreed. "My nvidia doesn't work" "Switch to Mint/Arch/Fedora/Void" is a common sequence in online discussions. And it persists because it sometimes solves the problem by forcing the user to re-tread the steps again and again until they get it right.
NoboruWataya 5y ago
Years ago, I started using ArchLinux because I wanted to spend a lot of time tinkering with it. I was a student so had plenty of free time, and Arch's installation process and lack of any assumptions about what DE/WM you might want to use was a great opportunity to get to know Linux a bit better. And using AwesomeWM was even better; now I had to learn a new programming language just to configure my desktop! Years later, I stick with the same setup for exactly the opposite reasons. I don't have as much time to tinker about with my setup and in those intervening years I have gotten Arch + Awesome running just the way I like them. Distro hopping can be fun if treated as an end in itself, but as a means to an enjoyable and stable OS experience, it is self-defeating. Chances are you can probably achieve roughly the same user experience with any of the major distros, if you try. Package managers are different, but all ultimately adequate. It might be the case that some distros are more or less compatible with certain hardware, but I feel like that problem has become less significant over time. The main thing to differentiate distros these days is probably where they lie on the spectrum between highly stable and bleeding edge.
unixbane 5y ago
I was lucky enough to realize early that all UN*X software is bad and no distro will overcome this bottleneck. For instance, even if you use the only few GUI toolkits that work reasonably fast, like Motif, these programs will still be broken on another axis.
nukemaster 5y ago
I've been using Linux since I was 10 (so almost 20 years now) and there still isn't a distro that I can say I like (although Alpine is closest.) If you want to be picky then learn to do it from scratch, otherwise find a distro with a good group of people behind it and stick with it.
KronisLV 5y ago
Used Debian for a while, but the relatively short life cycle is sub-optimal, as is the situation with drivers sometimes. Eventually just gave up and am now using Ubuntu LTS on all my servers and either Ubuntu or something like Linux Mint on my personal devices - things mostly just work, documentation is abundant and breakages aren't too often. My personal advice would be to just pick whatever most other people are using, the best documented and supported option. For when i actually want to get things done in a passable manner, it's good enough. The longer EOL is also great, far less churn to deal with, as long as you don't need the latest packages. Actually, it's why i recently moved all of my container images from Alpine Linux as a base to Ubuntu as a base, about which i wrote on my blog: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/using-ubuntu-as-the-base-for-all-of-my-containers https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/using-ubuntu-as-the-base-fo... Kind of sad that CentOS died the way it did (as a LTS distro, at least) and having to use Oracle Linux in its stead in certain enterprise settings doesn't feel great either, though most RPM distros are also vaguely passable. May Rocky Linux fill that niche properly some day and be as abundant as CentOS was.
- dralley 5y ago
  >Kind of sad that CentOS died the way it did (as a LTS distro, at least) CentOS Stream is still an LTS distro. Releases get 5 years of active support, the same as Ubuntu LTS, Debian and OpenSUSE Leap.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    The goals of CentOS Stream are way different than those of CentOS: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-centos-stream-updates https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-centos-stream-updates See "Q: Why was CentOS Stream created?", it is no longer rebranded RHEL with the same stability, but something akin to regular Ubuntu releases vs Ubuntu LTS.
    - dralley 5y ago
michaelmrose 5y ago
Paralysis by analysis is what happens not when there are a wide variety of choices. It is what happens when one feels one has to do a deeper and broader analysis than they have time, energy, know how, or mental fortitude to undertake. If one felt they had to understand the managerial structures, maintenance schedules, and just a smattering of aeronautical engineering in order to pick which flight you were going to take to Hawaii you would experience the same thing. The author is correct that listening to 100 expert beginners on Reddit is a poor way to pick a distro or learn anything about anything but wrong I think in his dismissal of distro hopping. One doesn't need to drive every make and model of car but its actually expected to read some reviews then drive several. Learning how to use your distro beyond clicking the icon for your web browser and reading your distros docs will actually give you the background to understand the different tools at your disposal. If one spends 6 months using Ubuntu before discovering that Debian Arch or Mint would be a better choice instead of starting with Mint Arch or Debian off the bat is this really a huge loss?

47 points by WhyNotHugo 5y ago

> When a friend of mine started his first business a couple of years or so ago, and he asked me for advice regarding the choice of operating system for the company service and product, I recommended a specific Linux distribution with a very high level of control, i.e. you need to set everything up yourself (no gui click-click solution) This is terrible advice. Fiddling with system files in an OS is not their core business, so why would you ever recommend they waste precious business time & effort doing so? The most important questions to consider when installing an operating system for a business are: Does it run the software I need stably, how much work is it to set up & maintain, and what kind of support can I get/buy? As for the rest of the article, distro hopping is a great way to "shake out" various operating systems to discover what you like and what you don't like about each. Reading the brochure is not enough; you want to get opinions and advice from various sources (even Reddit) to build a narrowed down list of promising avenues, and then test drive a few until you find one that you can be overall comfortable with. It's a lot like buying a car. Maybe a distro won't work with the hardware you need to use. Maybe a feature you need is broken or unavailable with no estimated fix date. Maybe it's too bleeding edge and suffers more breakage than you're comfortable with. Maybe the distributed software is too old and updates too slow. Maybe it's too much work to maintain. Maybe it won't let you customize the things you care about.

rvz 5y ago

Yet another reason why Linux and BSD distros, were never taken seriously on the Desktop. Alternatives of alternatives of a similar but tweaked distros further confuses the user into thinking their desktop will (just work) but will start to be quickly unsatisfied that a single tweak or issue in something in that desktop, will make them migrate and distro hop constantly only to waste time fiddling with their computer. The only proper qualifying example of OS uniformity other than Windows or macOS is ChromeOS, which is going to be replaced by Fuchsia in the future anyway. There is only one of that, like there is only one Windows or macOS. That's just the tip of the iceberg of issues with the Linux Desktop and also without getting to the discussion of 'defining' Linux support. Downvoters: You know it is true. Perhaps that is why this very long time veteran Linux user got fed up and moved to macOS: [0] After realising that they were spending more time fixing their computer, OS and apps in order to get things done. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30821580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30821580

southerntofu 5y ago
> Yet another reason why Linux and BSD distros, were never taken seriously on the Desktop I think you're overblowing this point. Many administrations, non-profits and companies actively use GNU/Linux or BSD desktops and are quite happy with it. Red Hat, Ubuntu and Suse are famous example providing good levels of support and customization if you can afford it. Mandriva in its time was very user-friendly and popular (at least here in France) but unfortunately they were shut down for business reasons if i remember. But i agree with your critique that switching distro just because you want to switch desktop environment is the wrong answer because it introduces so many layers of complexity you know your tiny distro is gonna fall behind in terms of features/security. I wish more distros exposed higher-level knobs to customize everything without learning the specifics of every piece in the stack. That's for me the strongest selling point in nix/guix even though i feel it's not as user-friendly as it could be.
Ekaros 5y ago
Also that the things change like every other year or at least every few years. And something might or might not break when updating. Windows did stay pretty consistent for long time. Windows 8 broke this, but after that it hasn't been too bad again.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
It's true, the rather ludicrous number of distros out there causes many issues for people used to more homogeneous OSs. Probably the worst thing about it is that any time you have a problem someone will tell you that you chose the wrong distro and you'll be pushed to switch to another one, where you will of course encounter a different problem and repeat the cycle. Personally I think the proliferation of distros is itself a symptom of a greater problem with the Linux Desktop software ecosystem. If there were more stable ABIs, no such thing as library conflicts, less interaction complexity, etc. then one could mix and match software to fit their needs with little effort and a distro would be unnecessary.
Koiwai 5y ago
> ... moved to macOS. I mean, I've had lots of problems with Linux, but none of them could be solved by moving to macOS, AFAICT it could only be worse. It's unfortunate Linux is not for you, but I don't think that's Linux's fault, or anyone's fault.

case0x 5y ago

I think the article encapsulates the problem perfectly. When I started to switch from Windows to Linux, I've constantly changed distros picking whatever I saw "cool" people in my online circle use. I switched between Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and it's 100% FLOSS siblings all the time, sometimes using a distro just for one or two days. It is a stupid Endeavour as you have no time getting used to your environment and so you lack the skills required to solve any problems that occur. What fixed my habit was actually having to use my laptop for university, where I ran Ubuntu, and later at work, where we used Fedora. It helped me get used to it and tailor it to my needs. Recently, I've switched at home and work to MacOS ( couldn’t resist the new M1 chips). It fulfills my requirements and works like a charm.

andrelaszlo 5y ago
I went with Ubuntu when I switched from Windows some time around "Dapper". Stuck with it until "Karmic" or something like that. I only switched to Arch because I was getting tired of the big upgrades, and not having the latest versions of things I needed for work. This decision makes sense for me and for the laptop that I use daily as a developer. It doesn't make a lot of sense for a regular user, and even less for a server environment. Is it really so complicated? If you have very specific needs, you'll know what to look for. If you're not that special - why not just go with something common until you see what limitations you can live with and which ones are deal-breakers? I think a lot of "distro hopping" is also just being interested in the OS itself. I don't see the problem.
dagw 5y ago
It is a stupid Endeavour Installing and switching between a half dozen distros (plus a couple of BDSs and Open Solaris) when first learning to use *nix really taught me a lot about all kinds of different aspects and philosophies of the *nix world and getting all those distros to actually install and run gave me lots problem solving skills. Now I've settled on Ubuntu, been using it basically exclusively for the past 10+ years (minus a short affair with Arch a few years ago) and have no plans on switching. But having that initial experience with lots of different OSs was very educational.
- 5y ago

spacemanmatt 5y ago

As an entreaty to choose software effectively I can endorse this post. This IS about understanding the inevitable compromises every distribution makes (e.g. security vs performance) and choosing what fits your needs. This is NOT about trying them all until you like something.

neogodless 5y ago
How do you understand "the inevitable compromises every distribution makes"? Aren't there hundreds to choose from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  By compromises every distribution makes, I am referring to cases where one choice precludes another, and any distribution can choose just one. Security costs performance. It's hard to support 3d hardware with pure open-source drivers. Most distributions are fairly up-front about their project values so you can understand which way they will make these compromises.

jqpabc123 5y ago

Using popularity as a determining factor is a flawed strategy, still it's not so obvious. Making unsupported declarations is an equally flawed strategy. A big problem for any business decision maker is the inability to fully define the problem. The future is an unknown that can never be fully quantified. Requirements can and do change over time --- in ways that are difficult to predict. Businesses must adapt to such change in order to grow and survive. What core product offers a business the best chance of being able to aquire the tools and talent needed to adapt to changing and unforseen requirements? One with the most marketplace presence and economic momentum --- aka the most popular. Going with the flow may well be the option that provides the highest probability of long term success. Proving this is virtually impossible due to the unknowns involved. But so is proving otherwise. This is the proverbial "judgment call" --- and business is full of these types of decisions.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

Choose a job. Choose life. I chose Debian. Now, what I mean is; I made a commitment. As Linux strains under complexity I am wondering whether to make a full-commitment life switch to BSD. But it's been 20 years with Debian and it's like a relationship I almost feel afraid to leave. Operating systems are something I know a little bit about. After going through the whole build Minix for 68000 from AT's book, then Linux From Scratch and compiling kernels thing, and building Slackware over a whole weekend, once I matured into needing a practical operating system in my 30s I was attracted to Debian by its social contract and "wholesome family atmosphere of Debbie and Ian." I ended up building distros myself, learning the ropes of Debian development (though I never actually joined the DD community). It's been a rodeo ride. I loathe systemd and the whole "mother knows best" Poettering schism. The CoC dramas and virtue parades in front of the neighbours are just embarrasing. And then there's Uncle Ubuntu who sometimes touches us inappropriately. But in the end I keep coming back "to the family", because in the end all families are dysfunctional and weird, so may as well pick one and try to work with it. So I agree with the OP's admonition of distro hopping. It feels like restless promiscuity. Whenever I need to install a new OS I pick the latest minimal Debian and go from there.

yeetsfromhellL2 5y ago
>I am wondering whether to make a full-commitment life switch to BSD. I tried NetBSD for a small project a while ago and was very pleasantly surprised. The documentation was great and everything worked as advertised. I've spent more time trying to figure out a single package on Linux than I did getting up and running on NetBSD for the first time.
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> But it's been 20 years with Debian and it's like a relationship I almost feel afraid to leave. I was shipping Debian 1.2 CDs by the hundreds in the nineties! I'm using Debian or derivaties/forks everywhere (desktop / laptop / server / Raspberry Pi (raspbian). > It's been a rodeo ride. I loathe systemd and the whole "mother knows best" Poettering schism. A few months ago I switched my main desktop to "Devuan" (a Debian fork without systemd) and I do really dig it. I'm still running Debian on servers, on the laptop, on the other desktop, etc. But honestly: Devuan, for my use case on my dev machine, is really just Debian without the Poettering stuff and it works fine. YMMV.

Koiwai 5y ago

Using test driving cars as analogy is terrible, at least I think test driving cars is very useful.

throwaway22032 5y ago

After a decade or more of using Linux honestly I don't think it matters. After a while you get your environment, it's set up, as long as you can update and install compilers and shit you're good. Anything "production" is going to be in some sort of reproducible environment anyway. The kernel has all of the drivers unless you use weird AF hardware. It's like cars. They all get you from A to B, beyond a few basics there's not even anything to optimize unless you choose to care about that.

jimmydeans 5y ago

jarofgreen 5y ago

> I ask a client why they are running the OS they have chosen, surprisingly the answer is that their choice was made based upon popularity in the industry. > Using popularity as a determining factor is a flawed strategy Is it tho? I think it depends on what the context is. If you have really specialist needs then yes, you should spend time working out the best solution. Totally agree. But if you have bog standard needs that everyone else has maybe just use what everyone else uses? Every time you run into a problem you will probably find someone else has run into it and fixed it already. eg Linux desktop? Maybe just use Ubuntu? Every time you want to install a Linux app from someone you will probably find they provide a Ubuntu package these days. I'd recommend people check out wardley mapping for a good tool for thinking about this type of issues.

bombcar 5y ago
Use what everyone else is using protects you from all sorts of issues that you may not even realize. At the same time, if you find yourself fighting it continually it may be worth looking again.

3np 5y ago

While there are several useful insights here, I think the absolutist stance misses the mark and is overgeneralizing. While yes, you could (in theory) research the sources, the policies, the procedures, the contributors, the organization... It can save a lot of time (and be a lot more fun) to try things out in practice. Just be ready to wipe and start from scratch when you realize it's time to cut your losses. The advice to stick with independent distros is a good one, in most situations. But the only way I can confidently agree with the author is through experience with the alternatives. That was not time lost. If I'd recommend a daily driver for a very non-technical friend who wants to keep using their laptop that's effectively EOL under Windows? A non-independent distro makes sense. And how would I be able to make an informed recommendation? I could try it out myself. Maybe on an isolated mediaplayer, a use-case specific VM, or an embedded dev project, where stability and security don't matter that much. When the stakes are low and I enjoy trying new things to get a feel for the community and ecosystem, distro-hopping can be nice. Many when I got new hardware in the past, I installed a new distro either on that or whatever it was replacing. Most of them didn't stick but some did - this is how you can learn. You also get to know about the ways of the other independent distros. If you're mostly an Arch+Fedora person, for example, maintaining a Debian installation is great to widen your experience and understand where each makes sense and fits. I've installed more derivatives than I can remember and I can tell through experience why I wouldn't recommend most of them. When Mint had zero issues during the same timespan that system upgrades completely broke the vanilla Manjaro desktop for the third time, I can now make more informed decisions. I would have no idea about the difference in quality, testing and maintenance if I hadn't actually been running them for a significant time myself. Asking someone about their dist of choice can absolutely be useful - if you understand where they're coming from and/or they understand your situation and needs. It all depends on context. It can make sense to outsource some of the bootstrapping and user configuration. Just be aware of the tradeoffs. And do it because it's fun, not (just) because you believe the grass is greener.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

> Asking other people about their choice of operating system makes no sense. You have a specific problem to solve, so in what way do you think asking other people about their choice is going to help you solve your specific problem? Don't agree here. People can give valuable experience on their chosen solution. Even if they chose it for different reasons or even incorrect reasons, they can still share their experience.

wccrawford 5y ago
Exactly. This is like saying that customer reviews make no sense. Of course they make sense. Even with all the fraud, and all the idiots, you can still learn a lot about a product from people who have actually used it, rather than just listening to the manufacturer and their happy path narrative.

a_square_peg 5y ago

I feel like there is a lot of condescending tone in the article that's really not helpful to many people who are not as versed in the topic. Maybe like a wine connoisseur who can't give a simple answer to what wine he might recommend for a dinner without spending an hour explaining all the things I need to consider to make the right choice. A lot of engineering decisions are based on what can be considered 'good enough' option to progress to the next stage on time because you don't often have the leisure to study and consider all the options available.

Zhyl 5y ago
Yes, the article is chastising people for research and getting opinions from others, and suggesting that the solution is to do research and to get advice from others.

le-mark 5y ago

One benefit of distro hopping is that to do it you must have all your data and projects available externally somewhere, so that’s a great starting point in general. Me, I found vanilla xubuntu fit my needs perfectly so I just reinstall every couple of years, and keep working. I wager there are a lot of us “just getting work done” with desktop Linux, it’s really great imo.

yeetsfromhellL2 5y ago

Maybe I'm more set in my ways now, but I feel like distro hopping is largely a thing of the past. There used to be a ton of small distros with their own communities but they've pretty much disappeared. I don't know if it's the decline of the web forums as they used to be (which killed the small communities), or if people realized these were mostly just Debian/Fedora derivatives with a cool Openbox theme and some preinstalled packages, or if everyone just migrated to Arch. To me, Crunchbang was the last of the fun distros.

joeberon 5y ago
marcosdumay 5y ago
There used to be all kinds of distros runnable in tiny systems, localized to your wishes, optimized for speed, and with specialized compatibility. But then tiny systems disappeared, the mainstream distros got all of those localization options, the optimizations got generic enough for everybody to adopt, and the all the crappy enumerable compatibility hardware converged on Red Hat. That's why the distro diversity disappeared. Nowadays we can get one distro to cover all use cases.

bluedino 5y ago

In the real world (HPC) I don't get to choose my distro. The software vendors do. Which, really throws a wrench into things. Some of them have decided to go with Ubuntu LTS. A few are moving to CentOS stream. Some are stuck on the last version of CentOS and won't support stream. Rocky? Alma? Sounds good but you don't hear a peep from the vendor about them. Some of them are going to SuSE. It's irritating because CentOS 7 is very old and there's just no clear path to go right now.

phendrenad2 5y ago
HPC is the real world and not an incredibly small academic niche? Did I read that right?
- bluedino 5y ago
  HPC is present in a lot of industries. But by the real world I meant not my personal machine where I can run whatever distro I feel like for the week. I will admit I had a lot of fun trying out a lot of different distros in the old days!

goosedragons 5y ago

>Test out each of the distributions for a couple of weeks or months with your regular usage cases. I recommend taking notes if you run into any kind of problem, no matter how small it is, and then compare later with another distribution Is this not just distro hopping? I can kind of understand avoiding it for business/work contexts but for home computing who cares? Trying out different distros and OSs is a bit like a hobby. Popular distros are often popular for a reason and if you use something like Ubuntu it's very easy to find guide how to do something vs. a more obscure exotic distro like GoboLinux.

teh_klev 5y ago
> Is this not just distro hopping? Not really, it's product research, especially important if you're going to rely on a distro that's a long term critical part of your business. This is not a hobby activity and can apply to any process in deciding which software is the right fit for your organisation. Distro hopping is different. I've worked with a couple of folks who endlessly distro hopped to the extent that they seemed to spend more time installing their distros than actually using them in any productive way.

thargor90 5y ago

I chose debian, because it is mostly boring and "outdated", but quite secure. My focus is to solve problems, not bother with new distribution software. Also nowadays with containers its quite hard not to get some software running.

b5n 5y ago
`stable` is not the only release, I wouldn't consider any of my Debian workstations outdated because they're not. `testing` and `unstable` are oftentimes more dependable than other distro's idea of stable.

Zhyl 5y ago

>If e.g. you're mainly using the computer for gaming, playing the latest and most demanding games, then you can easily eliminate any other operating system than Microsoft Windows from the list, because almost nothing will work as well on any other operating system. I think this needs to be qualified. There are many reasons to not want to use Windows, and if the want to use something other than Windows outweighs the cost, then Linux still may be a better choice. Linux can run games now, even those developed for Windows [0], and even having anti-cheat isn't an absolute blocker anymore [1]. While I understand the sentiment Mr Sheikh is trying to express, this kind of unqualified sweeping statement is helping to keep misconceptions spreading even though much progress has been made. [0] https://www.protondb.com https://www.protondb.com [1] https://areweanticheatyet.com/ https://areweanticheatyet.com/

neogodless 5y ago
I'd like to qualify his statement. I like the idea of moving away from Windows, but playing certain kinds of games with close friends and family is a big part of my leisure time. And as much as I want Linux to be ready, some of the games I like to play simply don't work on Linux. At all. All of the games I like work on Windows. (MacOS is, of course, much worse. Of the games I've spent most of my time on over the past 2 years, only about 20% even run at all, let alone with decent quality settings and frame rates.) None of the games I like rely on anti-cheat. I think Linux is leaps and bounds closer to being capable of being used as a gaming desktop than it was just 10 years ago, but it's still very much true that game developers (and hardware engineers) focus on Windows first, and make sure it works there, while Linux is largely an afterthought. If I had chosen to run exclusively Linux, there would be countless times I'm left in the dark while my friends and family were playing games without me. Obviously this might not apply to certain classes of game players, but for me, that's way too high a cost to give up Windows.
- ElectricalUnion 5y ago
  Call me surprised if most game studios still develop Windows first those days. Console pays better in general, and mobile platforms have a much larger market base, so games get developed for those other platforms first. Whatever "PC release" we get is often now a bunch of half-assed scraps, that barely work "on Windows" in the first place, it's a miracle they work on Wine/Proton (and even a better miracle when Proton manages to undo said brain-damaged port bugs).

GuB-42 5y ago

I think the problem with distro hopping is that you are not really solving a problem. For example, you are going to try out distros until you find one where you Nvidia card or wifi works, or the one with your preferred desktop environment, the one with this or that tool etc... But in most cases, these are things you can change, Linux is open, distros are essentially just the set of defaults the maintainers like. There are some oddballs, like Gentoo, but most are just variation on the same base. In fact, a minimal Ubuntu and a minimal Debian are almost identical. If you are constantly distro-hopping you probably have some specific needs than no distro fulfills, and your time is probably better spent picking one (preferably of the minimal kind) and actually solving your specific problems than trying to find a perfect match when there is none. I use Debian (minimal) BTW.

phendrenad2 5y ago
Agreed. "My nvidia doesn't work" "Switch to Mint/Arch/Fedora/Void" is a common sequence in online discussions. And it persists because it sometimes solves the problem by forcing the user to re-tread the steps again and again until they get it right.

NoboruWataya 5y ago

Years ago, I started using ArchLinux because I wanted to spend a lot of time tinkering with it. I was a student so had plenty of free time, and Arch's installation process and lack of any assumptions about what DE/WM you might want to use was a great opportunity to get to know Linux a bit better. And using AwesomeWM was even better; now I had to learn a new programming language just to configure my desktop! Years later, I stick with the same setup for exactly the opposite reasons. I don't have as much time to tinker about with my setup and in those intervening years I have gotten Arch + Awesome running just the way I like them. Distro hopping can be fun if treated as an end in itself, but as a means to an enjoyable and stable OS experience, it is self-defeating. Chances are you can probably achieve roughly the same user experience with any of the major distros, if you try. Package managers are different, but all ultimately adequate. It might be the case that some distros are more or less compatible with certain hardware, but I feel like that problem has become less significant over time. The main thing to differentiate distros these days is probably where they lie on the spectrum between highly stable and bleeding edge.

unixbane 5y ago

I was lucky enough to realize early that all UN*X software is bad and no distro will overcome this bottleneck. For instance, even if you use the only few GUI toolkits that work reasonably fast, like Motif, these programs will still be broken on another axis.

nukemaster 5y ago

I've been using Linux since I was 10 (so almost 20 years now) and there still isn't a distro that I can say I like (although Alpine is closest.) If you want to be picky then learn to do it from scratch, otherwise find a distro with a good group of people behind it and stick with it.

KronisLV 5y ago

Used Debian for a while, but the relatively short life cycle is sub-optimal, as is the situation with drivers sometimes. Eventually just gave up and am now using Ubuntu LTS on all my servers and either Ubuntu or something like Linux Mint on my personal devices - things mostly just work, documentation is abundant and breakages aren't too often. My personal advice would be to just pick whatever most other people are using, the best documented and supported option. For when i actually want to get things done in a passable manner, it's good enough. The longer EOL is also great, far less churn to deal with, as long as you don't need the latest packages. Actually, it's why i recently moved all of my container images from Alpine Linux as a base to Ubuntu as a base, about which i wrote on my blog: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/using-ubuntu-as-the-base-for-all-of-my-containers https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/using-ubuntu-as-the-base-fo... Kind of sad that CentOS died the way it did (as a LTS distro, at least) and having to use Oracle Linux in its stead in certain enterprise settings doesn't feel great either, though most RPM distros are also vaguely passable. May Rocky Linux fill that niche properly some day and be as abundant as CentOS was.

dralley 5y ago
>Kind of sad that CentOS died the way it did (as a LTS distro, at least) CentOS Stream is still an LTS distro. Releases get 5 years of active support, the same as Ubuntu LTS, Debian and OpenSUSE Leap.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- KronisLV 5y ago
  The goals of CentOS Stream are way different than those of CentOS: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-centos-stream-updates https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/faq-centos-stream-updates See "Q: Why was CentOS Stream created?", it is no longer rebranded RHEL with the same stability, but something akin to regular Ubuntu releases vs Ubuntu LTS.
  - dralley 5y ago

michaelmrose 5y ago

Paralysis by analysis is what happens not when there are a wide variety of choices. It is what happens when one feels one has to do a deeper and broader analysis than they have time, energy, know how, or mental fortitude to undertake. If one felt they had to understand the managerial structures, maintenance schedules, and just a smattering of aeronautical engineering in order to pick which flight you were going to take to Hawaii you would experience the same thing. The author is correct that listening to 100 expert beginners on Reddit is a poor way to pick a distro or learn anything about anything but wrong I think in his dismissal of distro hopping. One doesn't need to drive every make and model of car but its actually expected to read some reviews then drive several. Learning how to use your distro beyond clicking the icon for your web browser and reading your distros docs will actually give you the background to understand the different tools at your disposal. If one spends 6 months using Ubuntu before discovering that Debian Arch or Mint would be a better choice instead of starting with Mint Arch or Debian off the bat is this really a huge loss?