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NO, I don't
--after all unless there is truly something unique about a specific distribution: what's the point
If the Linux distribution you use seems to offer what you need/use Linux for..
--at the moment I have Mint XFCE, and find that just fine (except for the failed menu editor/I am lazy enough to want the GUI version when it is available, even if I can edit the actual text files for that desktop model..)
I do have on hand, other distributions, should I need to use them for any reason
--examples, such as Puppy Slacko 5.7 (last version), which I find good for device detection (hardware/software), and which I use to troubleshoot windows OS issues
--I did use
Gentoo (liked it)
BSD* systems , Openbsd/Freespire + the newer BSD* desktops: while they existed..
(was OK, did like the PORTS packager, and their partition manager)
RPM mode
Fedora (when KDE 4x first appeared, was nice and graphical, but Plasma caused me some problems, might have been lack of knowledge on the graphic/desktop setups..)
Suse (Quite like YAST)
--and liked Yum as a package puller for RPM system (Red Hat et al)
Nope.
When I was looking at switching to Linux it was clear to me that I the Ubuntu family was the branch that would suit me best and after some testing I decided Mint was the best of the Ubuntu derivatives. I keep abreast of the distro scene but Mint works great for me.
Why switch?
I have done distro hopping a few times.
Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin all suffer from certain degree of instability, in spite of the "Trusty Tahr" title.
Linux Mint is far more stable than Ubuntu Trusty Tahr at the moment.
The height of my distro hopping: Zenwalk, Dream Linux (which is dead), Fedora Linux, APT Linux.....
Not any more. I used to constantly distro-hop, to the point of insanity, and I was never settled. It really did begin to drive me crazy! Then I started to use Mint and began to actually appreciate what goes into making a Linux operating system, and it all became much less "disposable", for want of a better word. I intend to stick with Mint permanently.
I distro hop to a point. I do use a spare hard drive now though to look at what interests me. Lately I have been interested in Gnome Shell and Debian. So many things are forked with Ubuntu now and I can not get a pure Gnome experience with Ubuntu Gnome. Arch and Debian interest me because of Gnome Shell and their very different philosophies.
I can't decide weather I want cutting edge or reliability... PCLinuxOS is my go to distro for a stable rolling release but they do not offer Gnome Shell at this time. I like new ideas and ways of doing things and Gnome Shell just keeps getting better and more interesting! Debian really caught my interest when I discovered how much multimedia would work without installing a lot of proprietary codecs.
I have Ubuntu 14.04 x64 installed on my laptop and I leave it alone because it just works. The laptop has secure boot, a gtp partition and Ubuntu's signed kernel works well on it. My desktop is all Intel, it's older and can run just about anything though. Currently I am interested in Gnome Shell, Debian and LMDE when it switches to Debian stable.
Edit: This is my first experience with Debian development. I currently have Jesse installed with Gnome Shell 3.14.0 on my spare drive and have been keeping an eye on it's development.
Condorman wrote:Not any more. I used to constantly distro-hop, to the point of insanity, and I was never settled. It really did begin to drive me crazy! Then I started to use Mint and began to actually appreciate what goes into making a Linux operating system, and it all became much less "disposable", for want of a better word. I intend to stick with Mint permanently.
This describes exactly how I started feeling after distro hopping too much. I was never settled, and everything started feeling "cheapened" after re-installing the system so many times. It takes time to build up a kind of 'trust' with yourself and start feeling stable again after that. Haha.. Now I too am sticking with Mint.
I am, but rather out of necessity - trying to find more suitable for my workflow distribution, when the distro I relied on before had taken course in unacceptable for me direction.
I have been using Linux for ten years now. I haven't distro-hopped over that time - I have had committed relationships with openSUSE, PCLinuxOS and Mint.
However, a few years ago I was regularly using VirtualBox to try out 'new' (to me) distros that caught my attention. I learnt a good deal doing this, playing with distros such as Debian Testing, Kanotix, CentOS, Elive, Kubuntu, Chakra and also venturing into their forums. But I don't now do this any more. It was fun but was also quite addictive, and I cannot really justify the time nowadays. Also, I feel so satisfied with Mint's LTS editions that I honestly find it hard to imagine changing. This may be making me less curious about the wider Linux ecosystem ... perhaps that's a shame.
I have installed many, many different distro's. I started using Linux in 2008 when Hardy came out. Worked great, loved it a lot. A year later Jaunty came and I installed that one. Again a year later the end of Ubuntu arrived, things changed and I didn't like that. Again later Gnome killed Gnome and produced Gnome 3, Ubuntu followed with their Unity. Time to move on.
I changed to Kubuntu. Never used KDE before but liked it from the start. Why did I use Gnome so long? No idea. Then, after I got used to Linux I started experimenting with other distro's and slowly I was addicted installing different ones, almost one a day. Then also I started using Virtual-box and it saved me the time to burn the ISO's to DVD, installing from the ISO file works great. I have seen them all, the deb ones, as well as the rpm ones, but still I would always come home to LinuxMint KDE-64. Used 13, used 14, 15, 16 and now 17 and 17.1. It works great, I am a true KDE lover. My computer can handle it well, enough CPU, memory, hard-disk and GPU power, although I still don't believe the stories that KDE is so much slower than other DE's.
At the moment I use my laptop as Ginnie-pig: I install other distro's on it since I have no use for it at the moment. Installing a distro as main OS is something else than using it in a virtual machine, especially concerning the display driver. In the last week I have seen Manjaro, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS and at the moment I see, yes here it is again, LinuxMint. Not with KDE but using Cinnamon. Hey, it is a testing machine so I can deviate from the true DE, right?
I works good, it is stable, pretty fast. I'm still figuring out some things because it's a little different from the KDE version but I'm getting there. Now with the laptop just standing there I think my days using VB could be over.
So, yes I do install quite a bit and still loving it. But, as in the real world, no matter how much you eat outdoors, you will always come back home for that one special meal only the wife can cook you.
