Why I Keep Coming Back To That One Distro

Ronnie Henry — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 11:26:00 +0000

Why create this?

This serves as a record, just to understand the madness. I have been distro-hopping for a really long time, and have tried several distros over the years. Some distros I keep coming back to, and some new ones I have tried. Somehow, I keep on going back to Ubuntu.

Honestly, I Just Can't Help It

I am curious/excited about new stuff

That feeling of trying something new, is what I cherish with Linux. The variety, discovering how one distro works, what new feature is included. It gives that different kind of high.

I have FOMO when it comes to new technology

I just want to experience it, possibly ahead of other people I know. To be able to relate to reviews on YouTube and some discussions on Discord and Twitch.

I cannot seem to find that perfect distribution

Somehow I find a thing or two to nitpick on a distro. Installation glitches, font rendering issues, color schemes, unnecessary shell scripts running, incompatible with the drivers for my laptop and printer.

What It's Actually Been Doing to Me

I've Been Wasting Time

Every time I reset my laptop and install another distro, I spend anywhere from an hour to almost half a day to make it reach a state that I would consider 'normal' -- setting up a development environment for Arduino, Python, and C, setting up multimedia support, customizing it with the wallpapers and fonts of my preference.

I Set Up Everything, Accomplished Nothing

I have spent hours on end installing the distributions. Studying Python, taking on management classes online, took a backseat. I learned a lot about setting up different distributions, but none of the stuff that really 'matter'.

And Then the Frustration Sets In

Every time I install a new distribution, I end up getting frustrated finding out that it was a lost cause. One distro's customization with the UI is too much for my taste. On another, extra scripts needed just to set up additional features and running them in a specific terminal app (over the default terminal app of a certain DE) is too overkill. Some new distributions are just reiterations of the base distribution, and the added features I cannot, or just too time-consuming for me to bypass.

The Checklist I Keep Ignoring

The distribution should be stable

Less probability of breakage. Frequent updates/rolling releases are exciting, but I need something that would be less likely to trash the OS. I've experienced it several times already, a kernel update here, a bootloader update there, a driver update once more. After restarting, I cannot access the system anymore. Nobody would want that experience.

Package recency/update frequency

I need my packages up to date, but not really bleeding edge. See the section, "The distribution should be stable".

Good enough to ignore imperfections

I concede, there is no perfect distro. Might as well go LFS but that is way troublesome for me. The flaws should be negligible enough for my workflow, or easy to mitigate, that I would be more than willing to live with it.

Security should be automatically set up

A decent OS should not leave security entirely with the user. Nominal app and network security should be in place.

Easy for me to change or replace things

I should easily be able to replace the default shell, terminal, editor, browser -- and then install my preferred tools.

Support for Asus Laptop

Battery management matters for my Asus laptop. It has tools available online. I need to run this:

asusctl battery limit 80

So the laptop would keep its maximum charge to 80%, hopefully preserving battery life a bit longer.

Support for Brother Printer/Scanner

I have a Brother DCP-T720DW Printer/Scanner connected to my home network through WiFi. It is important that I am able to scan documents and print from my laptop.

The One I Keep Returning To

I have been familiar with Ubuntu since Warty Warthog. Curiosity, generally, as I use RH 9.0 then as base distribution to setup my development environment at work. Got the free CDs of later releases from work colleagues, and I found it interesting. I have been dual booting different flavors of Ubuntu over the years -- Ubuntu Studio, Kubuntu, Xubuntu for most of the time. But at work, it's Red Hat, and CentOS mostly.

When I moved on to work for another company in 2021, my curiosity was piqued when I learned that they use Ubuntu LTS releases as base for setting up the development environment. The tools are mostly available as .deb, and the setup runs very much stable on a VM.

The latest 'updates' have been giving me negative vibes. The snaps, the nags in the terminal, and the subscription in particular. I generally avoid it, and usually go for Flatpaks and AppImages if the app is not available on .deb. I can get a free subscription on Ubuntu Pro, but I feel that it is something used like a shackle to keep people from leaving by holding some of the updates to those subscribed.

So as you can see, those minor itches have been leading me to distro hop.

Why Ubuntu, For Now

So there, my reason right now in going back to Ubuntu is that I cannot find anything else that comes close to what I wanted in a Linux distribution. For now I can live with the imperfections, but I am on the lookout for one that can overcome those 'glitches', and would never think twice if I see one that fits the bill.

Fedora is close to what I have in mind, however, the clincher is that there is no LTS release, which Ubuntu does have. I'd have to watch out for major updates every 6 months.

DEV Community: Ronnie Henry