It’s common for Linux users to hop between distributions and survey the field, and I recently reached a point where I had to seriously rethink the one I was using most of the time. Between hardware compatibility issues with my old standby and some discouraging missteps with other go-to choices, I felt the time had come to reassess my pool of preferred distributions and repopulate it from scratch. As my journey progressed, I realized that as often as I’ve discussed the field of Linux-based systems, I had not addressed how to pick one out.
Why so much aversion to Redhat/Centos/Fedora from the community? Sure, these distros are part of my livelihood and I stick with them because of it but I have also tried the Ubuntu/SUSE flavors and they just don't work for me either because of my hardware or once installed and operating, they don't give me a reason to change.
I have worked with Slackware in the past and I like it but at some point I have other non-Linux hobbies I want to take up.
Fedora is my mainstay for my home installs. My biggest complaint is support for the older versions should last longer. I tried to migrate to Centos 7 but it doesn't support some older hardware, although I can run in a VM. I'll just stick with Fedora and upgrade when necessary.
Well, I used Red Hat and SUSE at work for many years, so I'm quite familiar with both. But I have always favored Debian-based distributions at home - I'm currently running Mint 17 on my workstation, Ubuntu 16.04 on my laptop, and Lubuntu 16.04 in a VM. I do wander between products occasionally, though, as is the prerogative of all Linux users. :-D
I've tested Fedora and OpenSUSE on my workstation at home, but they both simply struck me as less desktop friendly than Ubuntu derivatives. This is possibly because Ubuntu long invested in the desktop as a Windows and Mac competitor, while the other two have always primarily targeted servers.
But it may simply be that you're used to Fedora and I'm used to the Ubuntu family on the desktop. As humans, we do tend to like what we know best. Choice is a feature!
Loading ...
When It’s Time for a Linux Distro Change
Posted by: Jonathan Terrasi February 27, 2018 03:18 PMIt’s common for Linux users to hop between distributions and survey the field, and I recently reached a point where I had to seriously rethink the one I was using most of the time. Between hardware compatibility issues with my old standby and some discouraging missteps with other go-to choices, I felt the time had come to reassess my pool of preferred distributions and repopulate it from scratch. As my journey progressed, I realized that as often as I’ve discussed the field of Linux-based systems, I had not addressed how to pick one out.
I have worked with Slackware in the past and I like it but at some point I have other non-Linux hobbies I want to take up.
Fedora is my mainstay for my home installs. My biggest complaint is support for the older versions should last longer. I tried to migrate to Centos 7 but it doesn't support some older hardware, although I can run in a VM. I'll just stick with Fedora and upgrade when necessary.
I've tested Fedora and OpenSUSE on my workstation at home, but they both simply struck me as less desktop friendly than Ubuntu derivatives. This is possibly because Ubuntu long invested in the desktop as a Windows and Mac competitor, while the other two have always primarily targeted servers.
But it may simply be that you're used to Fedora and I'm used to the Ubuntu family on the desktop. As humans, we do tend to like what we know best. Choice is a feature!