 Over the course of my time on this channel, I've talked about the importance of distrohopping several times. I've talked about the reasons why I think that if you're going to try Linux, the best way to find out what distro is good for you is to try basically all of them. But the monotimes in my comment sections on Macedon, on formerly Twitter, on Discord or whatever that I've heard from people who have said they've only ever tried one or two distros and they've never moved away, it's just kind of shocking to me that there are so many people out there that have never really, truly distrohopped. So what I wanted to do today was talk about four distros that I think everyone should try. No matter whether you're happy on your distro or not, I think that there are four out there that you should absolutely try at least once. And even if you don't succeed in installing them or you don't use them long-term or whatever, the experience of using them or at least installing them is very important if only because you're going to learn so much doing so. So let's go ahead and jump into the four Linux distros that everyone should use. The first one is not going to seem all that special simply because it's been around for a long time. It's very easy to install and well it's very popular and that is Debian. Now, the reason why it's on the list is simply because it's like the granddaddy of them all, right? It's one of the oldest distros. It's either Slackware or Debian depending on which way you look at it. I'm not sure which one actually came first, but they're both very, very close in terms of being the oldest. It's been around for a very long time. It's very well maintained even to this day. And probably most importantly, it is the foundation for the vast majority of Linux distributions out there. It's the foundation of Ubuntu and therefore it's the foundation of everything that's based on Ubuntu. You get the idea. Debian is the foundation for the vast majority of Linux distributions out there. And if you've never tried it, you probably will never understand why. Now, obviously Debian is not for everyone, but it does have many very good factors playing in its favor. So it's very, very stable. So even if you use the non-stable branch, you're still going to experience a very stable operating system. And like I said, it's very well maintained so that you get updates fairly often. There's a brand new version of Debian quite often. And it has a huge selection of software because it is Debian and Debian is one of the most popular distributions to base software on, which means that you have access to all that software. So Debian is a fantastic distribution. It's very, very old. It's been around for a very long time, but it's still very well maintained. And I think that everyone should definitely give it a try at least one time. Now the second one on the list is Arch Linux. Now that might not surprise you, but Arch has traditionally been a very difficult distribution to install. But that's no longer actually true over the course of the last two years with the introduction of the Arch install script. Arch is actually very easy to install nowadays. That being said, it's still, I think, one of those distributions that everyone should give a try to at least once. And when I say Arch, I mean actual Arch Linux, not something based on Arch Linux. Now I have nothing wrong with trying Arch-based distros. Most of my time on Linux has actually been spent in an Arch-based distro and not on Arch itself. But I think that trying vanilla Arch at least once will give you an opportunity to learn many things about Linux itself, but also will give you a sense of why so many people really, really like Arch Linux. The ability to build your system from the ground up, but not so far from the ground up that it's gen to is a, it's a pleasing experience. If you can get your mind around it, right? You can learn so much. You can kind of be in full control over what's on your system. And it's just really, really nice. Now you obviously get a lot of the benefits of Arch Linux. If you decide to use it specifically, I'm talking about the AUR. And once you've used the AUR and kind of understand why the AUR is so special, it's really hard to leave the AUR behind and use something different. So Arch Linux is one of those distributions that everyone should at least give a try to. If only to kind of understand why it's so popular and why it's become such a meme worthy distribution. The third one on the list is gen to. Now I know what everyone was thinking. I'm not going to try gen to, I've seen some of those install videos and I'm right there with you. I've only ever successfully installed gen to twice. And both of those were with significant help from members of my community and friends. So gen to is not a very easy distribution to install. The documentation is fantastic. And if you follow the documentation, theoretically, you shouldn't have any problems, but it is a more complex distro than you'll find basically anywhere else. It's probably the second most difficult beyond Linux from scratch. So the reason why I think everyone should try it is simply because it's so difficult to install during the install process. You're going to learn a phenomenal amount of how Linux works, how things are supposed to go, why people see gen to is such a good thing and why it has so many options. And it's just a process that you should be able to take from one step to another until you finally get to an installed system. And if you read the documentation and understand the documentation, you'll learn so much. And really that's what gen to is to me is the learning experience. Now a lot of people will say gen to is a fantastic distro that you can use on a daily basis. And for a lot of people it is, but for the vast majority of people who try gen to, I think it's more of an experience for education about why Linux is good, why gen to is good, and the process of installing it is going to be where you're going to gain most of that knowledge. So I think everyone should try to install gen to at least once. And I really do think that is one of those distros that it just kind of has to be tried before you can really understand why it's good. So I think everyone should give gen to a try. Now the fourth and final one is Slackware. Now if Debian is the oldest or Slackware is the oldest, I don't really remember. I know that they're both started around the same time. So they're both very, very old distros. Debian is way more maintained than Slackware is now. That doesn't mean that Slackware has been abandoned or anything. There was a brand new version of it last year, but it's not as the releases don't come flowing as fast as Debian's do. Really outside of that, the reason why I think everyone should try it is simply because it is one of those distributions that has been around for a very, very long time. And this is the big thing. It does things so differently than every other distribution. Yes, it has package managers and packages and all the stuff that you have to kind of deal with, but it does all this stuff in a very unique way. And it does give you quite a bit of the control that both Arch and gen to give you when it comes to building your system. So it just does it in a different way than those do. It is also significantly easier to install than at least gen to. And I would even consider it a little bit more easy to install than Arch, at least Arch in the past, probably not Arch right now. But Slackware is one of those distributions that just has been around for a very long time and you'll hear about it a lot. So you'll hear from people who are very ardent Slackware users. They're very pro Slackware. And you look at those people like, why are you using something that is so crusty as Slackware? And then you have, then you use it and you realize this is a very modern system despite the fact that it is an older distribution. So Slackware I think is one of those distributions that is just different than all the rest of them. And it is an astonishing achievement for it to still be around all these years later. I mean, it's one of those things that will just, it's like there are several distributions or at least I should say there's two distributions out there that Linux could have stopped at. Like we could have never seen Arch. We could have never seen Solis or Fedora or Rel or any of these things. Right. All those things would have not been here or at least not have been the way they are right now. If it weren't for Debbie and Slackware, those are the two distributions that have been around the longest and are still here and still provide a lot of influence over the rest of the Linux ecosystem. Especially Debbie, because we talked about how many distributions are based on Debbie and while Slackware isn't necessarily one of those distributions that a lot of distributions are based on, even though there are a few of them, it's still one of those distributions that has influenced the Linux history over the last 30 years. And that's why I think everyone should give it a try. Now, usually when I do these lists, there's a fifth one, right? There's I tried to print it out to five because found five is a a number of a list that you'd see on like BuzzFeed or something like that. I don't know. But this time I decided to go with four because those are the four that are, I think, everyone should give a try. Now, there are obviously a few honorable mentions that I could put out there. If you've never tried Ubuntu for the love of all its holy co-use and try Ubuntu, everyone probably has. That's why I didn't put it on the list. But if you haven't at least tried Ubuntu, you should definitely give it a try. Personally, I think everyone should give Silver Blue a try because it is something that a lot of Linux distributions are proclaiming as the future. So Fedora Silver Blue is one of those distributions that I think everyone should probably try. But I didn't put it on the list for multiple reasons. One, it's still really, really new. It's only been around for a couple of years and they're still working on it. And while it is definitely very stable, it's not going to be for everyone. So I decided not to put it on the list. Frankly, you could probably try any immutable distribution out there and kind of count that off your list simply because there are a few of them now. So you could give one of those a try. And I think everybody probably should. So those are the four distributions with a couple of honorable mentions that I think everyone should try somewhere along the point in their Linux career. And I really truly do believe this, that if you try those distributions, even if you don't get them all the way installed, like say you try to install Gentium, you don't get all the way through, that's fine. You have some of the experience because I tried and failed a couple of times before I got help and actually got through the process. But even those failures gained me some knowledge and really, especially with Gentoo, that's like half the reason why you want to use it. So if you have any distributions that you think everybody should try, I'd like to hear from you in the comment section below. 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