Desktop Environments and Distro Hopping

This month marks my sixth year of running Linux exclusively on my computers, so I suppose that I am minimally qualified to offer an opinion on Bhuwan Mishra’s After Nearly a Decade of Distro Hopping, I Realized It Was Never About the Distro. Speaking for myself and save for briefly using Ubuntu with Unity on a secondary device back in 2014-16, I have exclusively run Arch-based distros on my main workstation (Manjaro with KDE Plasma and XFCE from 08/2020 through 08-2022 and EndeavourOS with XFCE, Cinnamon, and now KDE Plasma from 08/2022 to present). I have tried different operating systems on my other devices and these days typically opt for Fedora with KDE Plasma on my secondary laptops. Based on my experience, I largely agree with Mr. Mishra’s take that the “normie” Linux user (which includes me) will probably be more affected by the choice of desktop environment than distribution, provided we are focusing on the relatively “mainstream” offerings. But I will note a few “distribution” related points to consider.

1. There are some relevant factors to consider in choosing an underlying distribution. This includes the update model (both for system and packages), the number of packages available in the base repositories (especially “mission-critical” applications), and community support.
2. Regarding updates, one that comes up often is rolling release vs stable release. However, I will add another issue for non-rolling distributions: Can it be updated from one version to the next without reinstalling?
3. Regarding packages, in addition to update frequencey and what is covered by the base repository, consider some points that could cause friction based on how the distribution likes to do things (e.g., Ubuntu’s love of snaps, Fedora’s default preference for its own Flatpak repository, the extent you which you may need packages from the Arch User Repository for anything Arch-based, etc.)
4. I would recommend that first-time Linux users go with a strongly backed Linux distribution that is no more than one step removed from the base distribution, with a qualified exception for Linux Mint (standard edition is based on Ubuntu, which in turn is based on Debian, but I think we can consider Ubuntu a fair base for practical intents and purposes).
5. First-time Linux users who do not have extensive technical backgrounds, which included me in 2020 for all intents and purposes, should not follow my path of starting with an Arch-based distribution, even the purportedly user-friendly Manjaro. Mr. Mishra lists some fair reasons in his section on EndeavourOS (I will note he has had many more problems than I have had).

That list is of course non-exhaustive, and I did not address many points worth thinking about (e.g., atomic distributions). But in the main, and as someone who uses both EndeavourOS and Fedora with KDE Plasma with some frequency in a “normie” way, I agree with Mr. Mishra’s take.

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