Linux

Windows 98 -> Slackware dual boot (with big ol' red grub screen) -> windows up to win 10 -> debian(laptop) win10 (pc)

Gonna try getting a new m.2 drive and dual booting soon to test playing the games I like on Linux. If all goes well, I'll be moving away from windows

Windows Vista → Debian (pre-systemD) → Devuan → Void Linux.

I don't like systemD.

I still have Windows installed as a dual boot setup for Adobe CC.

Debian from woody until systemd, gentoo since.

Windows -> Ubuntu -> Xubuntu -> Arch -> macOS -> Windows 10 -> Arch -> Xubuntu and Windows 10 and probably back to Arch some day.

macOS, then Linux Mint, then Arch Linux, then EndeavourOS, then Artix Linux, and now Parabola GNU/Linux-libre.

MS-DOS up until about 1995 or 1996. Slackware until 1997. Debian until 1998. Slackware again until 2000. Debian again until 2005. Gentoo until 2012. Arch up to the present.

I have distrohoped a lot that I don't even remember the sequence of the distros I have used.

Win7 > Mint XFCE > win10 > Fedora > Endeavouros > Tumbleweed

Mint -> Arch

Mine was/is/will be:

• Windows

• Some ancient version of Corel Linux that came on a CD that was free with a magazine that I could never get to work properly

• Some version of SUSE that I bought from a computer store impulsively, that also never worked properly

• Ubuntu 6.something that finally worked!

• Several more years of Ubuntu, gradually drifting over to Kubuntu/KDE Neon as I realised I liked KDE more than GNOME/Unity

• Manjaro as an awkward transitional phase to becoming an Arch person

• A split between full Arch (btw) for my laptop which is the tinkering machine that I'm allowed to break, and Pop!OS on the desktop, which is the one other people use that has to actually work all the time

• The distant call of NixOS, which I'm currently fiddling with in a VM and is trying to tempt me into nuking my laptop once again.

On my main computer: Ubuntu (@2005) -> Gentoo (for years) -> Arch (for maybe 6 months) -> Gentoo (for years) -> Debian (for years) -> Gentoo (until now)

My journey went Ubuntu (2012) -> Kubuntu (2018) -> Manjaro (2020) -> Fedora KDE (2022)

Most computers I had were used and low-end so Linux was always my preferred OS, but I always dualbooted with the version of Windows or MacOS the machine came with when I could.

My current computers have been Linux only for a couple years now, thanks to Windows being a headache and MacOS being inflexible.

ZorinOS > Ubuntu > Debian and then Arch. I even tried Alpine linux recently but got "filtered" by the lack of gpu packages. Looks like I need to get my "googling" improved a bit.

Windows (for my entire life) -> Ubuntu (for half a year) -> Kali (for a year; yes, I was that kid) -> Manjaro (half a year) -> Windows (for a short while, my Manjaro broke and I had school) ->Arch (past 4 years) -> now trying out NixOS

• Windows (family PC)
• a BUNCH of Ubuntu-based distros (Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio (which was awesome btw), Mint,... ) on my first own PC
• Arch for years and years and years
• NixOS

I wouldn't count the last switch as distro hopping though. It was a calculated decision after months of deliberation and trying things out. And now that everything is set up, I am very certain that I'll never switch to another distro again, Nix is just too good.

Ubuntu (2007) >> Arch (2009) >> Debian (2014) >> Fedora (2024)
Plus now and then installing OpenBSD for fun for a couple of months at a time.

Ubuntu VM (~2 years) -> Debian VM(1 week) -> Arch VM (1 month) -> Arch

Ubuntu, Manjaro, Endeavour, Arch, Arch/Debian

Mint->arch->nixos

• In the 90's: Slackware, then RedHat, then Debian, then Progeny (Debian based), then shortly Mandrake (RedHat based)

• Early 2000's: RedHat Japanese edition, TurboLinux (because I was in Japan and Japanese IME was almost impossible to get working on non-Japanese distributions)

• Then I had fun with Gentoo looking at my terminal compiling stuff everyday and fixing broken package because I followed advices to activate crazy compilation flags

• 2004: Ubuntu, that I used for nearly 20 years

• Last year: switched to Fedora

MacOS (old one like around 2012 or so) -> Windows 8 -> Windows 10 -> Several Linux on VM(Kali, Ubuntu(s), Fedora…) -> WSL1(Kali, Ubuntu) -> MacOS (with a newer OS) -> NixOS -> Void Linux ->

Now I’m currently using Void Linux, Windows 11, MacOS Sonoma.

I’m planning to put ~~Fedora~~ Debian (because it’s well supported by linux-surface community) on my Surface Laptop 1st gen which I’m not using right now.

I don’t even remember all of them, let alone the correct sequence. I’ve also had multiple computers at one time (still do), and usually they have different distributions (still true).

First experiment: Mandrake

First serious use: Ubuntu edgy eft or something

Spiraling out of control: kubuntu, xubuntu, lubuntu, debian, kaos, mint, easypeasy, fedora, korora, rox, manjaro, openmediavault, rockstor, + many niche distributions

Current: arch and debian

Before you ask, no, I’m not a diagnosed psychopath.

90s was Mandrake, early 2000s was all about Ubuntu.

Since then I've tried just about everything including BSDs. It's all pretty much the same thing, as long as you like the package manager and release schedule. I don't like snap or flatpak so avoid distros that use them a lot.

These days I mainly just use opensuse leap, although I love arch etc but it's just too much work for me now.

I only really need a terminal, firefox and emacs and I'm happy.

Ubuntu Server (for school) -> Fedora (daily driver for a month) -> Arch (same as fedora) -> NixOS (it's almost a year and I think that I'll stay with NixOS)

My full journey was Ubuntu, Manjaro, Debian, Arch. I would still consider myself a noob but know I don't break stuff as often.

Windows ->

Fedora Kinoite: A relatively mature atomic/immutable distro combined with excellent security standards and that resembles Windows' workflow. Unfortunately, it broke almost immediately. Though, to be fair, it was a known issue with the ISO back then. As a newb, however, I couldn't be bothered with it. ->

Fedora Silverblue: Well..., I didn't have much of a choice 😜. Or I had to forego Fedora Atomic altogether. However, I actually really enjoyed GNOME's workflow. I used this as my main system for about year. Until I found a related project... ->

Arch: The memes got me 😅. In all honesty, though, it was mostly curiosity. Still, I didn't intend to throw away my working Silverblue installation for the sake of quenching my thirst for experiencing Arch. So, as dual boot, I tried to install it. This was pre archinstall, so it took a couple of tries before I booted into GNOME. However, I guess I did mess up something as I don't recall ever booting back into that system 😅. So, what if I want Arch, but don't want to spend more time with the installation... ->

EndeavourOS: Yup. I actually enjoyed it. I also took the opportunity to install another DE; KDE. Tried out the hardened kernel. Was able to make Davinci Resolve work, which just caused a lot of trouble on Silverblue. Access to AUR. It was cool, really. And, for some time, I was actually pondering to dismiss Silverblue altogether in favor of EndeavourOS. But, I started to miss the 'stability' that I was used to from Silverblue. Though, I don't exactly recall if it was the fault of being based on Arch, or rather linked/attributed to KDE instead. Regardless, I noticed that (over time) I spend more and more time on Silverblue. At some point, booting into EndeavourOS didn't work any more. It had broken. I did engage in some troubleshooting efforts, but to no avail... ->

Zorin OS lite: On backup laptop; the poor thing couldn't run Windows but (even today) it's still kicking on Linux ->

Nobara: So, I guess I did miss some of the functionality provided by EndeavourOS; running Davinci Resolve being the primary one. But, I didn't want to pass out of the opportunity to try something else. Back then, Nobara was released relatively recently and was received very positively by the community. And had even a special guide/tutorial to make Davinci Resolve work on AMD devices. Nobara was cool. But, it didn't feel very special. I actually enjoyed EndeavourOS a lot more. It was mostly utilized for Davinci Resolve and for gaming if Silverblue wasn't fit for the job (for whatever reason). Unfortunately, even this one broke at some point 😅. I could still boot into it. But, the system just didn't do what it's supposed to do. I tried troubleshooting. But, once again, to no avail. ->

uBlue; Silverblue image: Through all that was previously mentioned, I had stability in Fedora Silverblue. It was reliable. I could trust it. Well..., most of the time 😅. Decisions related to mesa or video acceleration in browsers definitely felt more like misses rather than hits. I can't blame Fedora as they're legally restricted. But, shouldn't we be able to do better? Enter uBlue. It seemed like some black magic shenanigans. The earlier issues would have never occurred (nor did they occur) on uBlue. This 'managed' aspect of uBlue was clearly, at least for me, the reason to consider it over regular Silverblue. And so, I parted with regular Silverblue and started using the Silverblue image provided by uBlue. Not long after, I even had my own (hardened) custom image. But, eventually (to be more precise; about half a year after switching to uBlue), keeping up with hardening took up too much effort for me to bear. But, thankfully, I had already found the perfect solution... ->

secureblue (based on the Silverblue image): This was Silverblue hardened by someone that actually knows their shit. And, thankfully, I didn't have to maintain this myself. I used this for a couple of months until the next best thing... ->

secureblue (based on the Bluefin image): Currently on this for I think half a year now. It has just been a lovely experience through and through. Everything I could have asked is provided.

Windows -> Fedora

Been almost 10 years and no thoughts of changing. What can I say? I lucked out first time.

I first tried a linux distro in 2020. At that time, I honestly just wanted the customizations I've seen in unixporn and mindlessly tried arch because of the memes. I followed some youtube tutorial to manually install it and of course fucked up my boot partition that also had my windows boot stuff. After installing arch, I tried booting windows to move things to an external drive but windows would not boot up. I paniced and searched for hours on the web trying to fix it before giving up and just wiping the drive entirely. I was pretty much a noob and didn't know anything at all about linux at that time. Then I tried installing arch again tomorrow, this time I got everything right and I didn't need to deal with dual booting as windows was no more on my drive. The system was pretty stable for a few weeks before I guess I tried customizing KDE or something and completely broke my system. Of course the dumbass me again just wiped off the whole drive all my files gone. After that I installed windows again and no longer try to install any linux distro again until last year where I instead read the arch wiki and I had more knowledge in general about these things, so in 2023 I wanted to try installing a linux distro yet again. This time I went with ubuntu. It looked nice and stable but it honestly just sucked. Snaps indeed were problematic and I never got myself to like them, even today. So I tried pop. This one was nice and I actually used it for a few months. GNOME wasn't the best DE for me but it just worked. I wanted to go a little deeper into linux at some point and I, you guessed it, tried installing arch. Everything went smoothly and I also installed it manually without any yt videos but just the arch wiki. I had some problems understanding some stuff in it but I eventually got it to work. And until today, everything still works fine for me in arch. I can fix some issues I encounter without the help of the internet. So I've been using arch for a year now. Windows is also no longer installed. I migrated everything to arch. I don't really use any professional tools at least like adobe so I have no problem with using arch. All of the games I played on windows function either better or the same on linux thanks to proton. Some games also have native versions so yeah.

My journey was very uneven:

Windows (for many years) -> Ubuntu (for 2 months, dual-boot) -> Windows (for about 6 years, because of some very specific software + pre-Proton gaming) -> Linux Mint (for about a month) -> popOS (for almost a year) -> endeavourOS (now, but always on the look-out for new stuff)

But in between the "main" journey, there was always some stuff trying out, like Void (on an old PC), Arch (inside a VM, now use that VM as a lightweight environment for testing some stuff out)

DOS -> slack ware Linux -> win 3 -> os/2 warp -> win 98 -> win XP -> osx (several years on Mac) -> win 10 -> Ubuntu 14, 16, 18, 20 -> fedora 34, 35, 36 ,37, 38 -> Debian 12 --> fedora silverblue 40.

You'll always end up on debian. You just dont know it yet

Windows 95 OSR2.1 (with USB support!) -> RedHat 5.1 (from a CD included in a book at the local Barnes and Noble) -> Debian 2.1 (or so? apt was a fucking revelation. RH5.1 was pre-Yum) -> experimented with Gentoo in college for a couple months (doesn’t everyone?) -> Debian -> Ubuntu (maybe around 8.04?) -> (a bunch of cycles between Debian, Elementary and Ubuntu) -> back on Debian now and it feels like home :) (but I have Elementary, Haiku and Ubuntu on some old laptops I play with sometimes)

Ubuntu -> OpenSuse -> Arch -> OpenSuse

I used ubuntu from when I got my first computer until like 2021 and then I realized I had no idea why I was using it because I didn't like it

Despite my username, I ditched EndeavourOS a few days ago because an update broke it and installed fedora

98-02 Slackware

02-24 Gentoo

Im currently fixated on nixos and it's likely to get gentoo's spot when I need to replace this workstation

Windows (~6 years) -> Mandriva (Mandrake? For I think 2-3 years) -> Ubuntu (1 day) -> Suse (2 days) -> Slackware (2-3 years) -> Gentoo unstable (2-3 years) -> Gentoo stable (2-3 years) -> Arch (9 years and counting)

The only span I'm sure about is the last one. When I started a job I decided I don't have the time to compile the world anymore. But the values after Windows sum up to 21, should be 20, so it's all more or less correct

Windows (2015-2021) --> Manjaro (2 Weeks) --> Arch (2021-today)