Linux Distro-Hopping Adventures!

[Crabcore]

I'm on a bit of a kick here, so I thought this might be a fun game - (anyone) recommend us (also anyone) some distros, we'll try them out and report our experience back.

If you've ever wondered if program X runs on OS Y, maybe we can help one another figure out what seems to work / what seems like it might crash. I've got a lot in store for this, so I'm hoping this can coexist with the other Linux thread in a more personalized (for the enduser) sort of fashion! Especially since Linux is gaining in popularity lately

 

[JayLapointe]

I'm on a bit of a kick here, so I thought this might be a fun game - (anyone) recommend us (also anyone) some distros, we'll try them out and report our experience back.

If you've ever wondered if program X runs on OS Y, maybe we can help one another figure out what seems to work / what seems like it might crash. I've got a lot in store for this, so I'm hoping this can coexist with the other Linux thread in a more personalized (for the enduser) sort of fashion! Especially since Linux is gaining in popularity lately

Going to watch this thread as I've been looking to jump back into playing with Linux. I've done a few dual boots through the years with Ubuntu/Gnome distro's. But honesty haven't touched it in about 5 years. Maybe try out the latest current Ubuntu and let us know . I'd be particularly interested in using WINE to run windows games through the linux desktop. If I could fully work that out I'd probably switch over and rarely ever go back to Win.

 

[velociraptor]

I have recently fallen in love with Elementary OS. It is so darn good.

 

[Judge]

From my own experience in distro-hopping, it was never a matter of what distro ran which specific software. More a case of whether or not a 12 years old hardware platform could run what distro. Equally whether or not you are really talking about gaming is where it gets more complicated.

With Arch-based distros, I couldn't seem to get any of them to run properly on my 12-year old computer, while all the ones that were Ubuntu/Debian-based seemed to run fine. On the computer I built last year, I've run Ubuntu-based distros Mint 22.3, Pop!OS22.04, and Zorin OS17 without incident.

The most critical single program I ran on all of them was Windows-based Photoshop 5.5 (1999) that is dependent on Wine. And Wine versions 7,8,9 and 10 all ran Photoshop without incident. A bit comical given that Windows 7 and 10 ran Photoshop with a few glitches. Though I recently ran into problems running Photoshop 5.5 on Wine version 11, which I was able to roll back to version 9.

I've tried to run my late 90s and early 2000s Windows games through Wine, without any success so far. However that's without the aid of Steam, or Proton or Lutris. I know people have had better success with some games under Wine, but those developed much later than the early 2000s.

And there's a lot of buzz out there claiming that distros like Bazzite, Nobara and Pop!OS that may play Windows games easier. But then I've also seen similar claims for Ubuntu and Mint.

@Outdated can likely elaborate more succinctly about Windows games he plays using Wine.

 

[Judge]

More recent developments as far as new distros go, would be Pop!OS Cosmic which is now out, as well as Zorin OS19 which may further solve many issues connected with Wine to make the installation and execution of Windows programs/games much easier.

Pop!OS Cosmic I haven't tried yet. I'm a bit skeptical about how versatile it may be as it was rewritten in Rust, and appears to have completely bypassed the use of Gnome. So it may not be nearly as customizable as before. I've enjoyed being able to hack Pop!OS22.04 visually, but that version officially expires next year.

And ZorinOS19 is still in development, though I may still install Zorin OS18 just to play with it.

Meanwhile I must say, I always seem to go full circle in distro-hopping, only to surmise that Linux Mint 22.3 continues to improve and remain quite stable. I run it on both my latest computer I built last year as well as the one that's more than 12 years old without incident. Not to mention that I have finally been able to customize Mint's GUI to the max, making it more Mac-like in appearance. With a transparent panel above, and a transparent dock below.

My only beef with all Linux distros seemed to be confined to the hack I must implement to obtain sound to my external speakers through my motherboard's rear jack through the use of Alta-Tools-GUI and a program in it called "Jack Retask" and altering three files pertaining to Intel sound. Works fine on all the Ubuntu-based distros I have tried, even in the case of Mint 22 which migrated to using Pipewire for sound.

 

[Angular Chap]

Here’s a recommendation that might be useful and fun to try and experiment with:

AntiX

The reason I recommend this distro is because of how easy it is to create a highly customised bootable live USB, or just a highly customised system in general.

Of course every distro can do this, but I keep going back to AntiX for just how easy it is. I could start with Arch, Gentoo or even LFS and build up, or start with Ubuntu and trim down. I’ve done all that in the past and had fun, but it was inconvenient.

With AntiX, there are 4 pre-made .isos available, from minimal to full, so you can start with minimal and build up, or start with full and trim down. Then just run the .iso creator and have your own live system .iso ready to write to a USB drive. Its Debian based, so good support and package availability.