Hello all.
I am wondering after topic what i saw how many people hopping distribution - what is your second best distribution after your primary Zorin distribution? Why your primary distribution is not a Zorin?
I also have some hopping but if you can share your experience why you choose your second distribution with some arguments that will be nice. The good comparison will be also helpfull.
2 Likes
I really don't have what I consider a primary distribution.
I currently have 5 distributions installed on this computer. 5 OS partitions and 4 efi boot partitions and two additional drives that are data drives. I like to keep it simple 
I use Zorin because it is a low maintenance distribution for me and so far seems to be pretty stable. I have medical issues that requires me taking a lot of meds daily so its really comes in handy on those days when not all cylinders are firing.
I have two installs of openSUSE tumbleweed with the KDE Plasma and Gnome desktops. openSUSE tests its packages more than most other distros and is stable. Its one of the few distributions that doesn't automatically try to put the bootloader on the first efi boot partition its finds on the first drive on your system. YAST is hard to beat.
I have used Mageia for several releases now and they are an distribution that doesn't rush to release packages without testing them thoroughly. Mandrake was one of my first distributions in the 90's so I guess some things are hard to break away from over the years. You also have the choice of urpmi or dnf. If you want to have more recent packages and be more on the edge you can use cauldron.
I usually have 1 partition set aside for previewing or testing a distribution. That can range for anything from Arch to Fedora to Debian etc. Its not generally used as a daily driver.
I prefer bare metal installs over vm's.
I only got Zorin installed 
, but I got a dozen distros in VM (for testing purpose)
2 Likes
Zorin and kali installed (why kali? Want a rolling release distro based on Debian)
Kali is precise distribution for testing security. Debian yes stable. I heard new kernel out 5.17 but kernel i remember with 17 are unstable and pair numbers are lts. Rolling release it something newest but could be not safety.
1 Like
OpenSUSE I tested it was awesome when you searching something and they have YAST library webbrowser with simple green button installation. Minimalist using terminal. I remember the Cameleon Tumbleweed and a bulb. I remember KDE Plasma but with my experience what i know this DE is not for some novice users. Mandrake is old school slackware.
Kali is based on Debian testing not Debian stable, so the system is not that reliable for daily use 
The only real issue of using Debian Testing as rolling is the Freeze period. The freeze period is not as bad as it used to be in the past.
If you want to have fun you can try Siduction Linux which uses the debian unstable branch and is a true rolling release.
I used a distribution based on unstable in the past called Sidux. I learnt most of what I know about Debian from that distribution.
1 Like
My second distribution would be Linuxfx-KDE.
Not because resembles windows but because of the plasma version and its stability.
Just like Zorin, I find Linuxfx very stable and its fits my hardware pretty good. Everything worked out of the Box.. but after installation I immediately removed all the windows apps and even the assistance called Helloa (like Cortana), because I already dualboot with the official Windows 10/11.
Ok. Debian and Ubuntu. Many people using arch distribution when searching on some websides. Example Manjaro,Endevarous. They are interesting or just rolling release could be a risk?
If you want to try rolling distro like Manjaro, make sure to read the issues that are known with each update eg. what is broken and how to fix it. Because with cutting edge rolling distro, stuff often breaks.
1 Like
I use Garuda KDE Dr460nized (Arch) as my other….. it works very well with me toying with it and learning a different command based system
1 Like
I hearing good for gaming.
1 Like
At the start of lockdown, I was using FerenOS as my workstation at home, which is KDE (Plasma) DE. At this point Zorin OS was simply for my use and I did not want work anywhere near it - then disaster struck and after an upset at home with family I accidentally wiped my Zorin 15.3 completely and unable to get any of the data back, even with testdisk! Then I somehow came across Devuan - this was setup by Developers at Debian who were extremely concerned at the adoption of SystemD - this was designed by a Red Had developer Lennart Poettinger and subsequently, Red Hat were pushing all distributions to adopt it - thankfully Devuan saw differently. So from a security point of view my second now first choice has to be an OS that does not come with SystemD as it is like:
having a red arrow cartoon style above your head identifying you, or in other words, giving your PC a barcode that anyone can read! The only downside to Devuan is that I could not use Braille Blaster to prepare Braille documents for work which led me to install Windows 7 Pro 32-bit to run the Windows version of the Software, but I also had to use Windows 7 for Outlook365 to access one mailbox that could not be configured in Evolution as it was a 'shared' mailbox. It was used for Job Requests that all prep staff and Teaching Assistants could access to see what modification work needed to be carried out. I also found an old Spanish version of 32-bit Okular! So Feren OS was my main go to from 20.03.2020 to mid December 2020. Then it was Devuan all the way up to my retirement. I have played with other Distributions in that time, primarily Artix which I would have stuck with had it not been for the fact Canon was not listed in Printers!
1 Like
Depends on the computer , my older laptop has Solus plasma for the remainder of it's life , because I wanted a rolling release and I was tired of constantly upgrading.It runs quiet and cool and I'm done reinstalling on that machine. I like Ubuntu Budgie and continue to test it and may go back to it in the future. On the Desktop, Zorin 16 Core and Win 11 are installed on different drives. Guess what gets more use ! 
Kubuntu would be my second so i can get some ubuntu with kde flavor 
I also installing operating system on diffrents hard disk. Budgie yes lightweight distribution.
This distribution also looking comparison Zorin.
Interesting this Budgie. Will trying on Beebox but only support to 2023
2 Likes
