@nixCraft
Had been using Arch for the past ~5 years and hadn't had any issues apart of some minor ones.

@nixCraft I am 23 and somewhat there. I do not use Debian, as I have newer hardware that needs newer Mesa and I will be honest I do want newer Mesa as well

But because I want stable I went with OpenSUSE Slowroll. Fedora 43 is the worst fedora I used so far. (40 and 41 were great). v4l2loopback just decided to break sometimes, so I had to test updates in a VM before updating. So I decided I couldn't be asked and switched to Slowroll once I made sure my software runs on it

@nixCraft I am 23 and somewhat there. I do not use Debian, as I have newer hardware that needs newer Mesa and I will be honest I do want newer Mesa as well

But because I want stable I went with OpenSUSE Slowroll. Fedora 43 is the worst fedora I used so far. (40 and 41 were great). v4l2loopback just decided to break sometimes, so I had to test updates in a VM before updating. So I decided I couldn't be asked and switched to Slowroll once I made sure my software runs on it

@nixCraft I can totally relate, but by approaching 50. This is why Debian logo is a whirl: you can't escape from it 😅.

First contact with Debian 30 years ago, and still in love. Event considering switching back to Debian on my laptop.

@nixCraft

It pretty much exactly happened like this.. Mint user from the early days of Mint.

@nixCraft lol I’m pushing 50, can attest.

@nixCraft Tried Debian on a couple of PCs but important things didn't work and I couldn't get help so I switched to Lubuntu for my son's PC.

@nixCraft I was there by age 30. I got a Mac for personal use and RHEL for work.

@nixCraft

seemed like a challenge at the time. other fish to fry now.

@nixCraft Honesty, you don't have to be 40 for that to be the case. I switched to Linux to avoid the headaches of Windows, why add headaches to Linux?

@nixCraft So very true

@nixCraft 48 here. Two years without anything breaking. Afraid It'll come at any moment now. But I doubt it would take more than half an hour.

@nixCraft I can never deviate from debian+gnome for my main home laptop. I cannot say enough good things about its stability and reliability. paired with a good browser it has turned out to be the best combo for me. I can print, attend zoom calls, browse and do all office work with libre office. Stared with a older macbook pro and now use older surface laptop. Even the dell docking station works allowing me to have dual monitors.
Switching to Linux has never been easier for home!

@nixCraft Funny, I already reached that point when I was 15 (or so) and had been using Arch for 9 months.

Since then, I've only used distributions that I can also recommend to non tech-savvy people.

I like tools that hide the bloat from me, like metapackages, Flatpak, Podman or rpm-ostree. 😎

@nixCraft

@nixCraft Right. Especially just to watch netflix on the toaster.

@nixCraft I really don't get this joke. Arch isn't Gentoo. You install it, and it just works. You never need to do a system upgrade 'cause it's on a rolling release, and its packages are always modern with the features you want.

Meanwhile Debian is perpetually antiquated, forcing creative hacks to get recent versions, and requires a tricky system upgrade every year or so just to remain relevant.

@nixCraft Happy 45 year old Ubuntu user here 😉

@nixCraft Surely the literal toaster (that they're still installing some distro on once they hit 40, and not specifically Arch as I choose to read this 🤭) doesn't have enough RAM or a fast enough processor to support a full desktop distro 🤔

@nixCraft Yup, me too. Mint for ages here...

@nixCraft in their 50s they move back to Debian Testing because they have the experience to report bugs

@nixCraft Yes! And then there's the occasional outlier who at age 60+ tries to make PGP work with mutt, just to prove (to himself?) he can. Don't ask how I know.

i used to live on the edge. now i just want a desktop environment that doesn't explode when i need it the most 😅

@nixCraft I'm 39, looking forward to that