It's time to admit. I have a problem... I am a serial Linux distro hopper. I've sunk a disproportionate amount of time wiping, installing and configuring new environments during my life.
It's an addiction that developed from a young age, my earliest Linux memories was purchasing magazines with disks containing new distribution releases and like a kid in a candy store, excitedly trying each. It was a wild and experimental time, Canonical had just released Unity, Gnome 3 was released, KDE could do just about everything.
I enjoyed exploring each new desktop paradigm and loved the level of customization available on Linux that simply wasn't available on Windows. I have fond memories of messing around with Compiz, turning on wobbly windows, fire closing animations and a crazy desktop cube overview. It felt like the future.
That was around 10 years ago, and I've been using Linux on the desktop on most of my personal computing devices ever since. Perhaps I'm trying to chase that magical feeling I experienced during these first few years. Since then, I've used just about every big distribution there is, and toyed about with all kinds of desktop environments, you made it, I've probably tried it.
The only slight benefit of this addiction is that consequently, over the years, I've gotten pretty good at quickly configuring systems and getting up and running. Give me a new PC (i.e. if I'm on-boarding at a company) and I'll be up and ready in a couple hours with whatever tools I need. Nowadays I tend to make minimal customization tweaks, and instead lean towards distributions/desktop environments that require little customization out of the box. The smoother the initial experience, the better my overall impression.
The maximum amount of time I've been able to stay on the same distribution/desktop environment is about ~6 months. I can narrow this down to a few reasons:
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New and shiny: With new things constantly being released I always get the urge to try something new and exciting. The comfort and familiarity with using the same environment after a while becomes mundane, giving me the urge to switch.
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Death by a thousand cuts / (The grass is always greener): The longer I use a distro, the greater number of issues I tend to encounter. After time, the cracks begun to show, these little paper cuts add up and I get frustrated. I'll be tempted to start over with something new in the hopes it will address all my problems.
Consequently I've noticed a pattern: I'll bounce back and forth between rolling release distributions, get annoyed when bleeding edge stuff breaks then switch to something fixed release, gaining stability but then feeling left out because I'm not using the newest/coolest software.
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Nostalgia: If I haven't used something in a while, often I'll get the yearning to try it again, just for nostalgias sake. It's also great to experience first hand how far various projects have come when revisiting them after a long abscence.
Case and point, since writing about my positive impressions of Fedora 36 earlier last year I ended up getting bored with Gnome desktop and decided to give Linux Mint another try after a long abscence. This brief affair only latest 2 months. There wasn't anything wrong with Linux Mint per say, it was rock solid, stable and everything I needed. The temptation to try something new just took over.
❯ echo $((($(date +%s)-$(date +%s --date $(stat / | awk '/Birth: /{print $2}')))/(3600*24))) days since distro installed
0 days since distro installed
Things aren't as crazy as they were back when I first got into Linux, the landscape seems to have matured a bit (or maybe I have). But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of new shiny things to try all the time. There's exciting new developments all the time. System76 are developing their new Cosmic Desktop for POP OS, KDE Plamsa 6.0 is on the horizon (I'll be sure to try out each when they're released). Even the latest XFCE desktop release is packed full of features!
Fueling my addiciton is the fact it's never been easier to hop between different distributions. With the advent of packaging formats like snap and flatpak I can pick practically any distribution and have the exact same set of applications I'm used to. These days, it really doesn't feel (from the end user standpoint) that there are really that many things the separate each distribution. This is obviously a good thing for end users, but I worry projects will lose their unique indentities as technology continues to converge.
It's not like I don't have other hobbies or interests besides messing around with Linux, I have plenty. But I doubt I'll ever overcome my addiction, it's simply too much fun. So in the meantime and I look forward to trying a bunch of new distros and environments in the future. I hope you'll join me 👨💻🐧