I have been using Mint for about six months now and while I am not going to start distro hopping, I slowly want to start exploring the rest of Linux.
Originally I was looking at Arch based distros such as Manjaro and EndeavourOS, during which I found out Manjaro is somewhat pointless because you pretty much should not use the AUR on Manjaro or else you will break the system inevitably. EndeavourOS looked solid though.
However, I got a few suggestions regarding OpenSuSE Tumbleweed as a better alternative to Arch based distros and just wanted to know what are the pros and cons of OpenSuSE compared to Arch based distros from your experience?
I would say if you want to try any other distros install KVM and Virt Manager on your system and run those distros in a VM (virtual machine).
Don’t install over Mint. I did that mistake and its a waste of time. You waste alot of time installing, configuring, copying back your data from a backup, and then after a week something stops working or you don’t like it, and then it’s back to repeating the process again…
After all my distro hopping I learned this: they are all the same. Only the desktop changes but underneath they are identical and work the same.
Yes, Arch gives you the latest packages but that’s not really important because mostly it’s small bug fixes. And often that can break your system, especially on Manjaro.
I’ve also learnt that Mint is the absolute best distro in the Linux world. Trust me it’s the best.
Why? It’s based on Ubuntu which means your have the widest variety of apps. Even proprietary vendors who target Linux will make a deb. They may not make an RPM but they will make a deb. Same for drivers.
Also Mint had been very well setup by the Devs to be very efficient, fast, attractive, easy to use and the choice of apps is very good. I only need to remove a few apps and install my preference but it’s minimal.
Mint has built in system backup which isn’t always on other systems, and Mint is very reliable. It’s the Debian of the Ubuntu distros - it doesn’t just break on you because they are careful with their uodates, so you can rely on it to keep working.
You’re already on the best, so play with the others in a VM and save yourself a lot of hassle.
If you insist on the bare metal experience, I’d say partition your drive so as to keep Mint on one half and install the second distro on the other half and dual boot. That way you still have Mint when you get tired of the other one.
Although I agree with most of the things. Saying “they are all the same” is very wrong imo. Very similar sure the same? no. Personally I like Tumblweed more because I love to tinker and break things once in a while. so snapper and btrfs are great in this case. Mint i would use on a set and forget system. Like for my parents.
Saying Arch,OpenSuse,Fedora,Debian and Gentoo are all the same for example is saying that your Toyata Prius is the same as a bugatti chiron. Sure they are both cars and “just look and feel is different” they are not the same at all.
Underneath they are all just Linux. Identical in most cases. The things you’re referring to they make them feel different are userland features, not OS features. Linux is Linux is Linux.
Just like Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11 all feel different but underneath they are all identical Windows.
Windows 7 to Window 11 are not the same. Can you do WSL2 on Windows 7? DirectX 12?
Not all Linux distros are the same either. What kind of tooling does the distro provide to manage the file system ( especially ZFS or Btrfs ). What C library does your system use? Is it immutable or not? How are packages managed and how many of them are there? What hardware does the distro target?
Some distros are easier for users coming from other systems than others. I do not love Mint myself but it is a pretty decent general recommendation for new users.
The distribution has rather significant impacts on the user experience.
All that said, most users would be better off sticking with whatever Linux distribution they are already using and learn it better than to distro-hop. If you do want to poke the tires on other distros, I agree that trying it in a VM is a decent idea. Swapping the SSD would be even better. I am a hardware cheapskate and regularly use machines as old as 2008 but even I think that SSDs are cheap enough these days that having one for “testing” is not a bad idea.
Yes, underneath they are all using a Linux kernel, but the user experience between Gentoo and Mint is radically different. And Fedora is a very different experience from Arch. Or Ubuntu vs Void.
I’ve recommended Zorin to my dad. I would not recommend Slackware to him.
It’s easy to say that Debian-Fedora-Arch are all Linux, but between all of their derivatives and all of the independent distros, there is a vast array of user experiences available.
u couldn’t get me to write half of this stuff even if you paid me
ok