this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2026
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What did you switch to and why is it not Hannah Montana Linux?
Fun fact: someone actually released an update to hml and is now actively maintained
It was a toss up between debian and Ubuntu, so I decided to race them against each other in the download window and see which one won. Debian 13 just took the cake! Let's see how long it stays...
Debian is a good choice, I would encourage you to never touch Ubuntu or any of it’s derivatives.
Why?
My reason is dependance on a for-profit corporarion, regardless of the actual distribution.
I'm on Debian as well :)
Short answer for one of the reasons: the default "app store" nowadays installs basically the entirety of your OS again for every application.
The short answer is to just search for reasons why people don't like Ubuntu. They are many, and varied.
FWIW, Ubuntu used to be seen as the default choice, and these days there are just so many better options.
Debian is an excellent choice. I run Debian KDE on one of my computers.
Temple OS
RIP Terry Davis. Wish he'd gotten the help he needed
Seriously. If he would’ve been able to properly focus his brain.. man. What could’ve been, ya know?
+1 Hannah Montana Linux. Has been the most satisfying, user friendly and stable distro ever. In an ideal world, we all would be using Hannah Montana Linux.
It really gives you the best of both worlds.
The biggest reason to switch to Linux is because it's boring. The biggest reason not to switch to Linux is because it's boring.
Pretty cool that your life was unchanged though. Seems crazy, but that's been the dream.
Idk, I found it quite the opposite of boring to tweak all the little knobs and dials Linux has to offer. But to be fair, using the CLI won't excite that many users.
Boring is exactly what you need for something to function as expected. I wouldn't want my pc to suddenly feel exciting, or give me a surprise.
Boring is good.
Boring is exactly what I need. I configured my installation just right and it's been great since 2022.
I read through the comments, and didn't see what DE you chose, so I'm just wondering which DE you chose?
I went default with debian 13. Spent 10 minutes trying to figure out why I had no desktop then discovered DEs :).
Thinking xfce. Do you have any other recommendations?
The way I always heard it described (with the default setup) for the most popular DE's:
- KDE Plasma is the most "windows like" DE by default. Layout and most common behaviour will be very similar
- GNOME is more oriented towards a macOS like style. It doesn't allow as much customisation out of the box as others.
- XFCE is also a solid choice, not many integrated applications (KDE have their own version for many things like file explorer or search)
There a lot of others like LXQT, options that are not the "usual" Desktop Environment e.g. tiling window managers like Hyprland.
A lot of these can be installed in parallel and you can then choose which to start on the login manager, if you want to experiment which you like more.
There is also the choice of display protocol (X11 or Wayland), with X11 being the older more widely supported option. Not all DE's will work on Wayland.
I have two notes.
If you want a fancy tiling manager I would recommend Niri + Noctalia. Hyperland is run by a right wing chud who was such a chud he was banned from the free desktop foundation for being such a chud. The dude is a 4chan type who thinks he/him is normal and she/her is political to the point where the admins overwrote people’s profile pronouns to who/cares.
As for x11 vs wayland i would strongly recommend picking wayland. Its the default on all mainstream Linux distros now days and is massively more secure.
Under X11 any application can just keylog and screen record your whole desktop no questions asked. With Wayland apps need permission to do things like record your screen or intercept keystrokes.
3-4 years ago there where some reasons to not use Wayland . But nowadays these major issues have been resolved. That and those specific x11 desktops tend to have Wayland versions that by coincidence generally speaking have more active communities. (i.e. i3 vs the Wayland equivalent sway)
I dunno why people say gnome can’t be customized. It has a whole plugin system. There’s a lot you can do.
Never said that it can't be customised.
From my experience it is just not build in by default and not quite as easy.
But that was also years ago, so I am by no means a good source here.
I have xfce, it's good. If you always thought Windows widgets were dumb and want your desktop to be your desktop, I hear it's the way to go. If you think your desktop should be all widgets though, use kde, right?
How powerful is your rig? If it’s reasonable and not 1k years old, you could go with any. I’m quite partial to cosmic, but kde is also good. If you feel like tinkering, gnome can be made usable with extensions.
But yeah, cosmic is great. Xfce is good for low end rigs.
Debian I think it was
DE, not distro. I'm gonna go and guess it was the default.
What distro have you chosen?
Asking this on Lemmy is like asking OP what religion is correct.
I started off with the vanilla ice cream (good enough, no one's favourite) Debian....
Let the crusaders rise ⚔️
Great choice. Good distro
Thats a respectable choice.
Hey, some of us love Debian!
Debian rules
I did this just over a year ago. I expected it not to change much. It was surprisingly simple. The only thing that changed is I am no longer annoyed with windows, and am actually enjoying my OS. Makes my hardware seem much faster too.
Congrats, and welcome!
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sudo welcome
Great news! Very happy for you. The hardest part of my switch was settling on a distro, and then setting up a dual boot with windows because I was told that I'd have programs or hardware or banking apps that wouldn't work. But honestly, everything worked, and I never once booted back into windows. Even my Starbucks drinking uggs wearing wife asked me to switch her computers to linux and she hasn't looked back either.
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Good job!!
For me it was actually life changing and made me love computing again like when I was a kid. But I'm glad it was smooth and boring for you haha. It stresses me out sometimes but its all my own doing. My friends think my computing setup is bonkers lol
I'm in the same boat. Just got a Framework 13 pro and installed both windows and Linux. Currently in Windows for client use. Looking forward to getting more familiar with Ubuntu again. I used to run Linux on a USB stick to get around limitations on my work laptop.
Isn't it weird when you finally get around to something you've been meaning to do and you finally do it and it's like "oh wow! Okay... uh... now what? I guess I... go to the same sites as before. In the same browser as before. But here now..."
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Welcome to the team!
I decided to try it on a spare netbook 16 years ago and Linux swallowed me whole... it still is a fun ride
You can't say that without telling us your distro so we can tell you that you should try our favorite one as well.
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