I’ve been dailying the same Mint install since I gave up on Windows a few years ago. When I was choosing a distro, a lot of people were saying that I should start with Mint and “move on to something else” once I got comfortable with the OS.
I’m comfortable now, but I don’t really see any reason to move on. What would the benefits be of jumping to something else? Mint has great documentation and an active community that has answers to any questions I’ve ever had, and I’m reluctant to ditch that. On the other hand, when I scroll through forums, Distro Hopping seems to be such a big part of the “Linux experience.”
What am I missing?
If you want to enjoy distro hopping, go find a cheap thinkpad as a secondary device, and have fun. Otherwise, you try out live discs/drives to see if you get full compatibility with your main device.
Truth is that you’ll have more difference in user experience DE hopping than distro hopping.
You only distro hop until you find what works right with an your hardware and preferred software, unless you’re doing it as a hobby. Now, the desktop environments? That’s where you’ll see the big difference.