The reason people distro hop

[Shanghaied]

Yeah,
Distro hopping is fun. I have been stuck in Sabayon since 3.4a ( I was thinking of trying earlier but waited for the 3.4 release). I'm really surprised I'm still sticking to it because I have recompiled the kernels (which went okay actually) but doing the updates has been a long process (everytime you do a search you end up seeing a post by Wolfden saying that you should use the search function!? Thank you very much I was more of looking for an answer actually.)) Anyway I'm still sticking to it and I really enjoy learning the hard way.

I'm looking forward to entropy ( I hope it's not going to be a ubuntu type binary but maybe something in between). I like the idea of customization but in real life it's a bit time consuming I have a family and a demanding daytime job (+10h). I left my home country 12 years ago and there is no time for hanging around in the freelance business unfortunately.

[papageorgio]

I distro hopped for a long time , the main reason I did this was because I kept looking for something with more. I found sabayon around the 3.3 release time period and tried it out, ever since I've stuck with it.

Main reasons for hopping around with the other distro's are: Lack of stability, lack of functionality, and many automate too many things and don't allow you to have control over your system.

[handy]

I was a self employed IT trouble shooter (that sounds like an exotic way of saying it! ) working for 10 years on windows systems with the occasional Amiga & Mac thrown in for good measure, in my small (population 2,500) country town.

I retired, & after many years of occasionally looking at various (mandrake, suse, redhat) Linux systems & hoping that Linux & I could start a long term relationship, I installed Debian, & whilst researching for help on the web, I kept seeing the Ubuntu name.

Eventually I searched Ubuntu out, & got help on their forum for my Debian install. Of course due to the Ubuntu forum's quick & expert help I quickly downloaded & installed the fresh Ubuntu 5.10, learned a great deal from the forum & still spend time helping & learning from others on that forum, (though I mostly spend time in the Backyard of the forum these days, because eventually the tech' stuff gets boring).

So, Ubuntu was a VERY easy place for a newcomer to Linux to start, mainly, but not completely due to the forum. Ubuntu does work at trying to be an easy place to start per se.

After I became somewhat familiar with Linux, I have been hopping about for some time, through BSD's & multiple Linux distro's, mostly on my second machine.

Why?

Because once you get somewhat familiar with the Linux & BSD way, the differences become more superficial; desktop setups & pre-installed software are the front end, then it comes down to the range of ways to handle package management & the variables of hardware compatibility.

I know I'm short selling all of the other variables that are beyond my knowledge, & I mean no disrespect to the hardworking unsung developers in any way shape or form, they are my software & OS heroes, without them we have nothing in the computer world!

I have been using Sabayon, one version or another for about 4 months, on my main machine, on my other I currently have Gutsy Kubuntu, the second machine gets to do most of the distro' hopping.

I am about to take delivery of an iMac, which I will dual boot with a Linux distro', the first one I'll try will be Sabayon, if it fails to successfully install then I'll try Ubuntu, if that fails I'll go down the slow road of Arch... & on it goes; it is just so wonderful to have all of these fantastic choices for free!

Thanks again to all of the hardworking software developers, without you, the hardware is worth nothing at all!

[z0phi3l]

Well I'm in the process of installing SL on my laptop after trying out the LiveDVD, I've tried FC2, FC5-7, UBUNTU (even the Mint Variant)


I never really gave SL a try because at the time I really didn't care for the KDE look, but after using Gnome sine Feisty came out, I'm starting to see it's limitations and so far KDE seems to fill in the gaps I've found

ALSO I'm trying to have some experience with the different Linux distros sine I'm almost done with tech school and I'm inclined to wanting to work on Linux more than Windows, SL seems to be the right mix of Spiffyness, ease of use and configuration options.

[ashley194]

I tried openSUSE 10.3 yesterday, the live CD worked ok on my machine; so I installed openSUSE 10.3. Man-oh-man was I dissapointed, my 160GB backup drive was recognised alright, but the drive was read-only (even as root ). Another downside was being asked every minute 'there are software updates for your PC'! Clearly openSUSE 10.3 is no-more.Even though SL is in the beta process right now, 3.5 loop 1 blows openSUSE 10.3 clean out the water Looking forward to donating more & the final SL 3.5 (of course).

SL was the 1st choice of moving from Windows to Linux, even distro-hopping every 4-5 months I still come back home to SL Keep up the great work in producing a world-class distro

[stevencomerthornley]

I try out all sorts of Linux distros

Debian,
Slackware,
Ubuntu,
Fedora,
Suse,
Mandriva,
Knoppix

and derivatives thereof

Sabayon

was quite simply the most polished and easy to install distribution so far and has the most stuff. I have 4 hard drives, I still have winXP for some things, so the nimble install using Sabayon was intuitive and easy.

It was also the first distro where I could easily install ET, ET-TCE and a whole host of other FPS games with just a couple lines of code, and get the sound to work easily.

Sabayon may not be the most nooberific linux out there, but with the support that is here and the documentation for the Gentoo on top of that, it's certainly up there.

the folks here answer questions, or point in the right direction for you to read the answer

[rrplay]

I like may of the others here have used many of the other distros as well ...Fedora Mepis Debian Suse Novell Slackware Mint and more ...tinkered with the usual things like getting Nvidia drivers set up properly for the distro installing packages -stability -,editing configs - rebuilding the kernel - support etc..then kind of deciding what I like about each of them and how they would be on other pc's and for their intended use by others ....been doing this since 2002...

And let me say Sabayon Linux is a beauty period.. originally started with the dvd 3.4f a bit to big for my taste with all the games etc
then on to the mini Whooaaa baby ext4 !! quick easy install full beryl rockin away and the best news !! there is also a professional version

I 'll probably be installing it to check it out like this weekend and am very interested in the newer developments
with package management in Sabayon !!

[BlueJayofEvil]

I'm still currently distro-hopping, though not as much as I used to. Sabayon and Granular are my 2 favorite linux distro's, and I'm currently trying out FreeBSD to learn how to use it from the ground up and customize it to my specific needs and likings. So far I'm enjoying the experience!

[ashley194]

Hi BlueJayofEvil, I've been reading a lot about FreeBSD 7.0 & looks very interesting. The install routine sounds bit of a nightmare though, may wait for the 64 bit DVD to become available before giving this a serious look. On second-thoughts, my SL does all I want, extremely well. As the old saying goes 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' After a year of using SL 99%, with the occasional weekend off, it may be time to see if the grass is greener on the other-side

[xt600]

Hi BlueJayofEvil, I've been reading a lot about FreeBSD 7.0 & looks very interesting. The install routine sounds bit of a nightmare though, may wait for the 64 bit DVD to become available before giving this a serious look. On second-thoughts, my SL does all I want, extremely well. As the old saying goes 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' After a year of using SL 99%, with the occasional weekend off, it may be time to see if the grass is greener on the other-side

I could never ever get my HP M1005 MFP Lazer Printer to work with PC-BSD (I have not tried FBSD 7.0). It works with Linux just fine. I do have to manually install it under Sabayon but it is easy enough.