Pros: The projects management has been consistent for decades, the releases are about as frequent as the LTS releases of Ubuntu (roughly every two years), there's a lot of documentation both from the project and available on sites like stack overflow, and they're conservative in changes without being a retrocomputing project. The number one pro in my book however is the maintainability through upgrades, and the security that this project will not get abandoned (there are a lot of people using and contributing to the debian project, and the available and tested package set grows every time they release). The build-dep feature of apt is amazing (if you wanted to build a program from source, there are a lot of libraries and tools you'll need, and you could discover this by running ./configure until it stops failing, apt-get build-dep somepackage will install for you all the tools the system required to build the package, saving a ton of trial and error and frustration).
Cons: You probably won't have built in support for things you want, like laptop wifi or newer video cards (and for a lot of users that can be a total blocker). The debian project sticks to its position and doesn't include (by default) non-free binary drivers for these items, and many of the laptop wifi and newer video cards either don't have a linux driver at all or only work with a vendor supplied binary driver blob. Also, while it's certainly not intentionally ugly, they don't invest a lot of time window-dressing the UI (so you probably won't have the fanciest desktop theme when you login).
I used Fedora at work for about 7 or 8 years (Fedora 18 through 33), it worked well and tended to have much newer versions of software (releases about every 6 months, on par with Ubuntu's release cadence), but the downside was less documentation/mindshare, and a feeling like you were beta-testing RedHat's next product line for them. As a linux user, rather than a linux developer, I'm totally happy letting the next generation of improvements get debugged on someone else's machine.
My experience with Linux has been that once you find something you understand how to control yourself, you will no longer need to go distro-hopping. Early on linux users tend to install a lot of different distributions and window managers to see what's possible and experience a curated set of defaults. Feel free to experiment, but focus on developing the skill and knowledge to see something you want, and find out how they did it, then do it for yourself. You'll save a lot of time installing new OS's if you configure the one you have installed already.
My experience with Linux has been that once you find something you understand how to control yourself, you will no longer need to go distro-hopping
Totally agree. I use Fedora since version 15. Before that, I tried many other distros (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Slax, and others). Once I decided to stay on Fedora and learned it, it just feels easier to configure it the way I like. I feel I'm in control of my OS when using Fedora, and I think that is the main reason to use Linux first of all.
Thank you for the detailed response. I also agree with you that if you find the right distro and you can control the flow, there is no need to use another one in case you just want to try it out I guess.
lol, I was distro hopping from about 10 years ago; and then macOS user for some time.
Now, I am back to Linux and want something that "just works", and I can spend time on, rather than just hopping.
I had got best impression on Ubuntu and Xfce, and decided to settle with it, Xubuntu actually. (I did use Elementary OS and Ubuntu with GNOME / Mate as well, but did not settle.)
Lack of official desktop env support, and bad Wifi driver anyway, I am now on Manjaro with official Xfce. (And now Wifi driver works.)
I've spent most of my time using Ubuntu 18.04 and Kubuntu 18.04/20.04, I've also tested few Linux flavours on my Raspberries which were fun and interesting to configure at the same time.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
I've been using Debian for about 15 years.
Pros: The projects management has been consistent for decades, the releases are about as frequent as the LTS releases of Ubuntu (roughly every two years), there's a lot of documentation both from the project and available on sites like stack overflow, and they're conservative in changes without being a retrocomputing project. The number one pro in my book however is the maintainability through upgrades, and the security that this project will not get abandoned (there are a lot of people using and contributing to the debian project, and the available and tested package set grows every time they release). The
build-depfeature of apt is amazing (if you wanted to build a program from source, there are a lot of libraries and tools you'll need, and you could discover this by running./configureuntil it stops failing,apt-get build-dep somepackagewill install for you all the tools the system required to build the package, saving a ton of trial and error and frustration).Cons: You probably won't have built in support for things you want, like laptop wifi or newer video cards (and for a lot of users that can be a total blocker). The debian project sticks to its position and doesn't include (by default) non-free binary drivers for these items, and many of the laptop wifi and newer video cards either don't have a linux driver at all or only work with a vendor supplied binary driver blob. Also, while it's certainly not intentionally ugly, they don't invest a lot of time window-dressing the UI (so you probably won't have the fanciest desktop theme when you login).
I used Fedora at work for about 7 or 8 years (Fedora 18 through 33), it worked well and tended to have much newer versions of software (releases about every 6 months, on par with Ubuntu's release cadence), but the downside was less documentation/mindshare, and a feeling like you were beta-testing RedHat's next product line for them. As a linux user, rather than a linux developer, I'm totally happy letting the next generation of improvements get debugged on someone else's machine.
My experience with Linux has been that once you find something you understand how to control yourself, you will no longer need to go distro-hopping. Early on linux users tend to install a lot of different distributions and window managers to see what's possible and experience a curated set of defaults. Feel free to experiment, but focus on developing the skill and knowledge to see something you want, and find out how they did it, then do it for yourself. You'll save a lot of time installing new OS's if you configure the one you have installed already.
Totally agree. I use Fedora since version 15. Before that, I tried many other distros (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Slax, and others). Once I decided to stay on Fedora and learned it, it just feels easier to configure it the way I like. I feel I'm in control of my OS when using Fedora, and I think that is the main reason to use Linux first of all.
I've never used Fedora on my laptops or PC, but I've used it for work-related projects and I liked it because of the latest packages.
Thank you for the detailed response. I also agree with you that if you find the right distro and you can control the flow, there is no need to use another one in case you just want to try it out I guess.
lol, I was distro hopping from about 10 years ago; and then macOS user for some time.
Now, I am back to Linux and want something that "just works", and I can spend time on, rather than just hopping.
I had got best impression on Ubuntu and Xfce, and decided to settle with it, Xubuntu actually. (I did use Elementary OS and Ubuntu with GNOME / Mate as well, but did not settle.)
Lack of official desktop env support, and bad Wifi driver anyway, I am now on Manjaro with official Xfce. (And now Wifi driver works.)
I've spent most of my time using Ubuntu 18.04 and Kubuntu 18.04/20.04, I've also tested few Linux flavours on my Raspberries which were fun and interesting to configure at the same time.