LinuxLiom

Current Daily Driver: May to Aug 2025, Fedora 42.

The challenge: experience all the popular desktop Linux distributions.

Challenge objectives:

• Acquire a broader understanding of Linux distributions and gain hands-on experience with different package managers across different distributions.
• If a distro is popular for a specific reason, shape projects around the distribution’s fortes, (i.e. Kali Linux : cyber-security. )
• Gain a broader knowledge of the Linux ecosystem.

My ground rules are as follows:

• The distro has a short set-up time and relatively minimal upkeep (Sorry, no Arch for me during this challenge).
• It is a distro with an active community of maintainers.
• It is a distribution used by professionals daily. (Find an organization that uses Uwuntu and I’ll daily drive it)
• To avoid complacency, I can only use a distro for up to four months as the daily driver.
• To avoid throwing in the towel too early, the trial time minimum is two weeks.
• If there is an unsupported tool need, I can use another, better-suited laptop to carry out the task.

Ground rules laid out, if you have any suggestions, feel free to contact me.

Why jump from distro to distro?

In my last professional role, I have worked a lot with Ubuntu both as a desktop and CLI OS. I had a humbling moment in spring 2025, where I realised my knowledge wasn’t as broad as I wanted it to be. I recognised that my knowledge was very specific to Ubuntu and the tasks I had worked on professionally. After this, I decided to cover the curriculum of the LPIC1 . Covering the course materials, I realised that package management varies significantly from distro to distro. To get a broader experience with this, I decided to set this challenge for myself.

The Hardware:

I’ll admit it, I’m the stereotypical Linux user who has a second-hand ThinkPad as their daily driver. I’ll go into further detail about the device in a later blog. I think an old ThinkPad is arguably the best platform for this mission.

Why not try all the desktop distributions Linux has to offer?

There are countless Linux desktop distributions; many haven’t been maintained in years. Some were created as office pranks, like the Justin Bieber distro: Biebian. I want something that I can work with for several months without much issue.