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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I started with SLS around 1993, tracking it into Slackware. From 1996 thereabouts on, I used RedHat mostly and Suse occasionally.
Both of those going more commercial each in their own ways didn't sit too well with me.
In 2004 I found gentoo, and am sticking with it for most everything since.
I've settled on Ubuntu in 2008, but jumped between Gnome, KDE, Unity and LXDE. Then I got a Steam Deck last year and it became my main machine, so now I am not only with its Arch based OS, but I a secondary Arch SD card that I occasionally boot, if I need something not immediately available in SteamOS.
Servers? Debian Since 2019.
I've had an HP Dev One with Pop!_OS for right about a year now. I've done plenty of hopping and testing of other distributions prior to last year, but started with Ubuntu in 2009/2010 and have always felt most comfortable with Debian based OSs.
I've bounced around Fedora, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint over the years. I've been on Zorin OS going on two years and I'm eagerly waiting for 17 to release. I don't see myself hopping anytime soon.
Fedora for the last 4 or 5 years
I used Linux Mint for about a decade on all my desktops and laptops. When I upgraded my gaming desktop to version 21, I started having some strange visual issues which I spent a lot of time troubleshooting unsuccessfully. I took that opportunity to try something new. I started with Nobara, a gaming-focused distro based on Fedora, and enjoyed the experience. I then started to embrace upstream distributions, so I replaced Nobara with Fedora and my remaining Linux Mint systems with Debian. Had I not encountered the strange issue with Linux Mint 21 on my gaming desktop, I'd probably still be using it exclusively today.
Using Arch on various AMD64 systems since 2016, and I am not planning to change that.
On my Raspberry Pi I tried Arch Linux ARM but thanks to various small problems I distro-hopped to Raspberry Pi OS.
Workstations:
I've been using Fedora since 2014, so coming up on a decade. Runner up would be Arch for about three years from 2011-2014. Before that it was a blur of distro hopping.
Servers:
Been using a combination of RHEL and CentOS since 2011, so about twelve years. And yes, I'm still using CentOS even though it's no longer a rebuild of RHEL. I actually think it's better now, because bugs can actually be fixed instead of being closed as "reproducible on RHEL".
I've been using Linux Mint (Cinnamon) as my only operating system since 2016. No dual booting.
head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log
[2014-10-11 14:33] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -r /mnt -Sy --cachedir=/mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg --noconfirm base base-devel'
Almost 9 years it seems
Been on Manjaro i3wm edition since 2018
My Nix repo starts in 2015. But by the looks of it I only started using it for my desktop in 2020. So I guess 8 years for my servers and 3 years for my desktops.
Before that I used Arch for quite a long time on desktop, probably about 5 years.
I don't do distro hopping, because I don't believe there is any significant difference between the capabilities provided by individual distro. So, I switched only when changed jobs (2000-2006 Debian, 2006-2018 various RedHat/Fedora distros, 2018- various SUSE distros (Tumbleweed, now Greybeard).
Been on Artix Linux for about 3 years. Occasionally there’s a package that breaks, but nothing serious. Been very happy with a minimal environment using Bspwm/sxhkd and the st terminal mainly.
Well there's one I haven't heard of yet. I last used Arch Linux about 15 years ago, before systemd was a thing. I assume this is a continuation of what Arch used to be?
More or less. It’s the only distro with quite a few options for init out of the box. Runit, s6, OpenRC, dinit. No sysV. Their implementation of runit in particular is far better than Devuan, who simply wrapped runit as a service wrapper around sysV.
They have had to do quite a few work around a to get the different init systems working imho, and i see why the guys over at Debian roughly a decade back had such a lengthy email discussion about not wanting to support all the inits.
I’m super grateful to the guys over there doing the hard work, but it obviously wouldn’t be possible without the upstream Arch team. Runit is awesome though, imho.
Archlinux. Many years ago, not sure exactly when, but more than 10years. Last distro I really used before Arch was ZenWalk, slackware based. Arch was the only one that after many tries and over the years remains the most consistent, simple and reliable that I can manage without much effort.
After using on my personal computers Arch I still tried and used on the work machines Ubuntu lts releases. It gave so much problems that I just now use Arch everywhere and anytime I get a new work machine it's what gets installed too.
I have to say that I was a serious heavy distro hoper back in the days and tried basically everything that existed. Just not gentoo. But fedoras, mandrakes, mandrivas, knopix, slackware, bsd, suse, etc, I regularly spent time with them all and was changing a lot and tried many new releases. The longest I've been with a distro was ZenWalk, more than a year or 2 and then Arch appeared on my radar and once I jumped ship, never got the need for anything else.
Edit: Checked some math I think I use arch more than 15years now.
I downloaded Ubuntu 5.04 and have mostly stuck with Ubuntu for almost 20 years. I've tried other distros over the years but I've always come back to Ubuntu.
Been using Arch since ~2021
Archlinux since 2009
So 14 years
Linux Mint for AMD, Pop_OS! for Nvidia. Former is workstation, latter is gaming.
20+ years on openbsd and debian evenly spread out on different machines, also 5+ years of arch usage.
Probably like half a year on Mint. Don't know for certain.
I'm currently on Tumbleweed which is pretty good, though I do have some minor issues which make me want to just switch to Debian. I do work on this machine, so even minor issues are pretty damn annoying for me.
I've only really used Gentoo, Debian and Ubuntu (in that order!), each for years at a time over the past two decades. I suppose it shows how progessively fewer fucks I give about the inner workings of the system.
I also tried to install a copy of... TurboLinux 6, I think? that I got from a Ham Radio swap meet as a kid sometime in the '90s, but I never got it to work.
Manjaro ended my distro hopping itch +10 years ago. I occasionally test distros in VM, but nothing has made me want to switch so far.
I started out on SuSE back in 94 and spent a while checking out rpm-based distros like Mandrake, RedHat, etc. Even stuff like m68k Linux, Slackware and the BSDs. Debian at that time was a pain to use. Used Gentoo for a while until I switched to Mac. After that I used Ubuntu, Mint, Antergos, Manjaro, Arch and Fedora.
And then I started noticing a pattern that I would always get frustrated with whatever I was trying out and go back to Fedora. So now it's been around five years I've stuck with Fedora for my gaming machine and my desktop.
I personally started on Mint back in 2017. Loved it, but then started getting into virtual machines. So I started disto hopping (installed them in a VM), tried Ubuntu, Tumbleweed, Arch, Fedora, and KDE Neon. Fell on love with KDE Plasma and now I happily use KDE Neon as my daily driver. Tried switching to another distro but found myself missing the many features (the clipboard applet was a game changer for me) and customization that Neon offered so I switched back. Havent found a better distro yet.
I've been hopping between Gentoo and Arch for at least a decade and you can't stop me from doing it again >:P
(Currently using Arch on two systems, bytheway :'D Already thinking of hopping back to Gentoo on the desky one. Maybe try Funtoo. Unless there's a Funthree :thinkyface: ;P )
5 or 6 years using ArchLinux, I'm very happy :)
I've got about a decade on arch. Just never saw a compelling reason to switch once I hit it. Now it's on my laptop and 4 raspberry Pi's around the house. It'll be on my gaming rig as soon as I get around to ditching windows.
2008->2012 : Ubuntu, loved it until Unity and the bloatware started
2013->2014 : Arch, as a learning experience, left because kde stuff broke all the time and i really liked the new plasma5
2014->2019 : Opensuse Tumbleweed, loved how they handled packages, the default configs, and how well KDE ran on them, i switched to it mainly because it was at the time the best distro for plasma5, hated btrfs because it kept taking a lot of disk space for it's snapshots.
2019->2023(today) : PopOS, loved how they implemented tiling, and being on a debian based distro is very convenient, don't realy like the outdated repos, and started to like gnome more.
On servers i never left Ubuntu, and have only a couple of projects on CentOS.
I kind of wish Pop!_OS would just dump the Ubuntu repos already and rebase on Sid.
It really is a good windowing environment.
The delta between stock Debian and whatever Ubuntu is doing on top and then having to remove the Snap bits can't be more work than just rebasing on Sid.
My current one, Fedora, since 36 had just released. I'll probably continue to use it as I wasn't as much of a distro hopper as most people anyway.
First one was SuSe, but I've been with Ubuntu since the early days... Sometimes I'll install another distro to have a peek, but I always revert to Ubuntu after a short while...Only time I felt the urge to change, was when they shipped it with unity as default...