Can you list all linux distros you tried (from first one to last one (?)

CachyOS Community
61

Suse: Installed the OS and like 50 programs. Used it for a couple of weeks and then never again. :slight_smile:

Linux Mint 19.3 - 22.3: It took me week until everything worked like I wanted. Two Linux Mint installs gave their lifes before that. Who knew if you follow outdated tutorials you can kill your OS.

CachyOS Version 01.04.2026: It’s still running :grin:

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efibootmgr -v

Original hard drive (2012), output shortened.

Boot0001* Bluestar
Boot0003* Garuda
Boot0004* cachyos
Boot0005* endeavouros
Boot000A* salientos
Boot000D* Manjaro
Boot0080* Mac OS X

Cachy, Endeavour, and Garuda still exist, preferably on external SSDs.

My Linux journey began with this:

cd
cd1920×1912 746 KB

63

I’ll try to keep this in chronological order, starting late 90s:

  • Redhat: “What’s /bin? Where’s ‘Program Files’?”
  • Mandriva: Starting to get it. Discover Emacs (still not sure if this is a good or a bad thing).
  • Gentoo: Fun to play with, and I spent many a late night playing “Frozen Bubble” as the kernel build in the background.
  • Linux From Scratch: I didn’t learn as much as I thought I would, as it’s mostly a series of instructions to follow, and just reading the man pages of every package you install doesn’t really help. I did daily-drive it for about a month though!
  • Suse: “Nice GUI config!”
  • Arch (1): Too flaky after more than a couple of updates broke things.
  • Ubuntu: Nothing special, I just choose it because it was the most popular distribution, and so I knew there would be more help on the Internet for it.
  • Fedora: The most polished dev setup I’ve come across.
  • Arch (2): Gave it another go, found it far more stable. Also discovered tiling window-managers and ricing (this was a bad thing, as I now have another thing to endlessly obsess about).
  • Cachy: Final distro until Systemd annoys me enough to give Void another go.

Those are distros I’ve used for more than a week, anyway.

I mainly like Cachy because of the setup and repos. I still use my own setup script to setup my desktop (ricrers gonna rice), but having BTRFS and Limine setup for me is just the icing on the cake of the optimised repos.

Remember kids, Linux can lead to a life of endlessly tinkering with a riced setup and you Emacs config. Just say no.

64

LOL. I was about to ask what a riced setup is. Alrighty then, you can keep your secrets. :grin:

65

https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn

66

Oh, brace yourself, this is going to be a long walk down memory lane… I’ve been toying with Linux in some form or another since 1997-98…

  • Mandrake
  • MadeIn Linux
  • WinLinux
  • OpenSuse
  • RedHat
  • Fedora
  • SuSe
  • Debian
  • Gentoo
  • Slackware
  • Ubuntu (and some *buntu spins)
  • Slack64
  • Slackware-current
  • SalixOS
  • Tiny Core Linux
  • Shebang
  • Puppy Linux
  • AntiX
  • Mint
  • Manjaro
  • Arcolinux
  • EndevourOS
  • Arch Linux
  • Nobara
  • CachyOS

I am pretty sure I am missing some, and they are not in exact chronological order…it’s been a while and a long journey. Nowdays, I stick with Slackware-current and CachyOS, depending on usecases.

67

LINUXES I REMEMBER USING…

(I too was a “distro hopper” for a while)

DAW = digital audio workstation

Mandrake (1st time, learning; found it in a book that came with a CD-ROM)
CentOS (learned how to partition)

Puppy (“swiss army knife”)
Puppy Studio (learned REAPER) DAW
Ubuntu Studio (migrated from Puppy Studio) = main point of reference, DAW
Xubuntu (debloated Ubuntu Studio) DAW
Lubuntu (debloated Ubuntu Studio) DAW
WattOS (debloated Ubuntu Studio) DAW

gParted (Windows erasure tool)
CloneZilla (system backups)
FoxClone (system backups)

KXstudio (didn’t like)
AVLinux (like Ubuntu Studio on steroids) DAW
MX Linux (like Ubuntu Studio, educational) DAW
Debian (didn’t like – missing drivers)

Ubuntu (just a stepping stone from a book, came with a DVD-ROM)
ReactOS (learning experience)
Artix (liked, but mirrors too slow)
Devuan (liked, but couldn’t run favorite programs)

Android (primitive yet educational. too many ads)
ChromeOS (too much like a cellphone, educational, too many ads)

Zorin (didn’t like)
PopOS (didn’t like)
Fedora (didn’t like)
Garuda (didn’t like)
Void (couldn’t figure out)
Arch (intimidating, didn’t get thru install)
Damn Small Linux (couldn’t figure out)

Manjaro (debloated Ubuntu Studio, educational) DAW
Linux Mint (educational)
LMDE (educational)
AntiX (didn’t like)
EndeavourOS (didn’t like)
CachyOS (debloated Ubuntu Studio, educational) DAW

I compose electronic music on the computer, and sometimes make digital visual art, and so Ubuntu Studio was my main reference point. I don’t use ‘buntus anymore, and I’m okay settling on CachyOS for now. I was able to make music on a lot of the linuxes over the years. (I marked those linuxes with “DAW”).

Before all that, I worked on DEC VAX / a tiny bit of unix (in college), MacOS 6.0.5 thru 9, MacOS X, Windows 2000, Windows XP (DAW), and Windows Vista (DAW). Windows 7 was when I started constantly erasing Windows early and going straight to Linux.

It’s been a journey and I have my high school and college friends to thank.
They’re the ones who encouraged me. My earliest DAW experiences were watching my friends make music on Amiga computers.

Happy Computing, everyone!!

68

I probably cant remember all of them since the 90s but here I go:

Knoppix (the gateway drug)

Solaris

Open Solaris

Slackware

Mandrake

Suse

Red Hat

Fedora

CentOS

Ubuntu / Xubuntu / Kubuntu (Back in the days of Unity WM)

Debian (Still run it as a server)

FreeBSD

Mint / LMDE (for a looong time)

MX Linux (Nope)

EndeavourOS (couldn’t keep it from borking itself for more than 3-4 months at a time)

Manjaro (nice, but too bloated for Arch-based)

CachyOS (been running it for about 2 years now, my distro hoping days may be over)

Honorable Mentions and the ones I tried on my test rig:

System Rescue (because Linux tools)

LFS (DAMN!!! I’ll get it done some day!)

Arch (I keep installing it on a test rig and can’t keep it running for longer than a few weeks because of constant tweaking)

AerynOS (checking out independent distro in alpha stage. It’s nice but not ready for prime time)

Omarchy (first foray into tiling WM. Lead me to Niri)

FydeOS (too much like CromeOS, not enough like Linux)

69

Gentoo (coming from FreeBSD)

Debian (briefly)

Xubuntu

Mint

Manjaro

Endeavor

Cachy

70

Realistically? probably not, particularly if going away from desktop/workstation use and including various embedded bits and bobs. I can say that the first was slackware downloaded to floppies over a metered dialup connection.

This especially complicates “tried”. Am I “trying” Debian by using an embedded derivative on an SBC? Or trying that derivative? Or not trying anything because I’m just using a tool for a purpose with no intent to adopt it to a larger scope?

Do we limit ourself to linux? Or are the BSDs, other *nix OSes, or even POSIX-acknowledging non-nix derivatives on the table.

71

Mint for a few years, then I had no PC for a few years. Inherited an old laptop which was grinding to a halt on Windows. Put Mint on that and ran brilliantly. Then it would crash periodically, and I tried MX Linux with KDE. I liked that a lot, the KDE desktop and MX. It felt like using Windows XP (in a good way).
I decided I wanted a more up to date version of Plasma and tried Fedora and Kubuntu but didn’t get on with them. I really liked KDE Neon and used that for a while, but then decided to put a more coherent distro on with a fairly up to date version of Plasma, and now running OpenSUSE on it.
I recently got a newer and better PC and am running Cachy on it.

72
  1. Mandrake, then a very long time till the next one.
  2. Mint
  3. Suse (just for a general purpose server)
  4. Alma (just for a media server)
  5. Manjaro
  6. CachyOS (:love_you_gesture: :heart_with_arrow: )