Published: Mon 08 July 2024
By Mordoc
In Linux .
I used to feel that I was just wasting time when I would install yet another Linux distribution. I bounce around between different Linux distributions, different desktop environments, and occasionally even going back to Windows. With the vast improvements in distribution installers an fresh install of say Fedora or Ubuntu is just a few minutes away.
That being said, I'm in my latest cycle of keeping my Linux knowledge up to date. In the last few weeks I have tried things like KDE Neon (it is still wonderful) and Fedora 40 with Gnome (equally as good and yet so different). I find this trying things so challenging for the brain. I've heard a few Linux luminaries over the years decry this distro hopping as harmful to the user and sometimes the communities.
I get that this flighty behaviour might limit the commitment that is needed to provide meaningful feedback to projects that are simply trying to make the best distro they can. Additionally, these users complain about things and then don't stick around long enough to actually have their issue triaged and fixed - leaving the community with open issues from drive by users. I promise this is not my story, rather I actually enjoy using each one I try and I can see why people like that option.
For example, in KDE Neon I really like things from the freshness of the KDE packages (of course) to the pkcon cli package management tool which is part of PackageKit . In Fedora , for some reason dnf just makes the most sense to me of all the managers. On Ubuntu and probably Debian too, I really like the ufw tool for firewall rule management. Several of these distros have interesting installers, interesting choices for default applications, and different takes on configuring the colours and wallpapers that the initial load displays.
I guess what I'm trying to finally say is that the Linux ecosystem is really quite a rich place of different takes on the desktop, takes on packaging applications, takes the various desktop environment. I would encourage you to just to try, enjoy the variation in the systems. Learn how to do something different from what you are used to. You don't have to like a given system, but least appreciate that others enjoy it and use it on a daily basis.