Hey! Merry (belated) Christmas everyone.

I'm curious, those of you on linux for the desktop, how long have you been doing it? Which distro are you using? why? which desktop environment? why? Is there anything you're curious to try?

I'll go first,

full time linux desktop: 
about 2 years

distro: 
debian 12, because I wanted something normal, not redhat, and that wouldn't change a lot
de: gnome. I was a long time macos user and it just resonates with me better. I like that you get a basic set of features and that you add exactly what you want with extensions. I find kde overwhelming and heaven forbid I get into tiling managers.

interested in: 
- freebsd, but I dont have time to investigate really
- I like what I see in the almalinux project. I might jump over to 10 instead of trixie

Jamie

Likely going to switch from Ubuntu to plain Debian as it requires less upkeep. Ideally alpine linux for business applications.

Ubuntu since 2008. Tried Mint for a while, but Ubuntu seems more polished.

I've been using Mint as my main desktop for about a year and a half, very rarely dual booting into Windows or using my other computer which is Windows.

I'd seen it very briefly on a friend's computer so I had a little name brand recognition, and my dad has used Ubuntu for like ever so having something based on that is nice. I am a fan of Windows' desktop feeling, so I feel right at home in Cinnamon with the taskbar and start menu. One thing that is new to me that I really like is having multiple desktops; I use the feature all the time on my laptop. I can have a web browser in one which is for finding information, then ctrl+alt+right/left to go straight to my code editor and then again to my test environment, and I can use it for other activities on my computer as well.

I will say that I have run into a fair few quirky bugs and what not. However, I feel like I've had just as much trouble with Ubuntu in the past. My other reasons for not using Ubuntu instead are Canonical and the desktop environment.

I have come to realize that using Linux has been a tradeoff of certain things "just working" for privacy, control, and other things being able to work in a normal way even if it is more technical. Windows just does one thing for you but a second thing is done for you in a stupid way, whereas Linux might have some bugs and hoops for the first thing while the second thing just makes sense.

Naturally I'd like to try Arch, and freeBSD does interest me. However, in both cases, especially the latter due to compatibility issues, I think I'd be going much deeper into the rabbit hole of the usability vs.... ability? tradeoff above than I need to. I have the technical know how such that the problems that come with mint are quite a breeze and often fun to work through anyway, and the jump from Windows to Linux of any sort is such a massive improvement. But the returns for jumping from Mint to something more sophisticated seem so heavily diminished that it wouldn't be worth the extra effort.