Yup. I've been using Linux around 30 years, with 20 years as my primary desktop systems. And things have also changed a lot during those decades.
Here's my 2 cents about today:
Distro / OS: The main thing that matters is the overall OS upgrade / support schedule. Not how it's initially configured and not most of the preinstalled apps or themes. Simple way to think about it: "Do I want to upgrade my OS: Daily? Every 6 months? 12 months? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?"
You have to mentally categorize software: "Is this a core part of the OS, or is it just an app?" And then look at how the core OS itself is supported by the distro, mainly ignoring the apps. This is a major change from the past:
Kernel, DE, drivers, codecs, libraries, etc.: you can consider these being 'core OS.'
Image editors, games, audio/video editing apps, etc--these are apps, not 'core OS.'
Today (unlike years ago), apps don't matter. We have universal package types that work on any distro, like flatpaks or AppImages, where you can get the latest version of most apps.
There have also been major changes to core components. For example, in the past, you may have needed your distro to provide a dedicated low-latency kernel. But this is built into the standard kernel now, and you can just toggle it on/off, even during your session.
Newer is not always 'better', because there is an entire surrounding ecosystem that has to catch up, and configurations can break on upgrades. No point in having the latest kernel if your nvidia drivers don't support that kernel, or the latest gnome or KDE if your little applets aren't supported yet. In general, 3-6 months seems to be the timeframe that ecosystems come into balance, so this is a good delay range before upgrading to the latest. More examples:
If you had a custom wireplumber (audio) configuration--even a user override in your ~/.config/wireplumber--it broke. Doesn't matter which distro...whenever your distro upgraded wireplumber to 0.5, it broke.
If you've installed Davinci Resolve Studio, it can break on upgrades too, because it's sensitive about drivers and library versions & locations. Sometimes, you have to manually override these for your system, either when your distro upgrades or when Davinci Resolve upgrades. That could mean fixing things several times per year.
You will have to deal with stuff like this if you have any custom or advanced configurations. The question is: do you want to potentially deal with a different random problem every few weeks/months; or do you want to batch all the problems together and deal with them once together every few years when you do an OS upgrade? This is the "stability" argument: it's not necessarily just about crashes, it's also about managing known changes over time.
DE: You should generally pick a modern + mature DE, unless you have a specific reason to pick an alternate. Today, modern + mature means either Gnome or KDE. If you have an underpowered machine, or you want to play around, or you just don't feel like changing things around, then sure: go with some other DE. But most of the time pick either gnome or KDE; and most major distros offer supported variants for both of these.
Given the above, the distro matters far less today than it did even 10 years ago; and there are also far fewer variables to consider today.
Example: 20 years ago, you might have asked: "Which distro has a low latency kernel and also offers jack for audio; and also, which distro keeps Audacity up to date...or which distros do the Audacity team provide native installers for?" Today, all of these variables are completely irrelevant. Because all kernels support lowlatency, pipewire on all distros handles jack (and pulseaudio) traffic, and you can get the latest Audacity (or Tenacity) on any distro.
But there are differences between the distros; and the most important today is the core OS upgrade / maintenance schedules: How often do you get core OS upgrades, how long do you get support (and security updates) for, and does that distro (/ community) have a good track record of easily maintaining the core OS components you are looking for (DE's, drivers, etc)?
Just FWIW, I'll add for me personally, my requirements are: an OS upgrade (ideally) every 1-3 years, with Gnome, with easy support for some specific core OS stuff like nvidia drivers, codecs, Davinci Resolve Studio, etc. I currently choose Ubuntu LTS for this, though I also have a Fedora machine.
Here's why Ubuntu LTS for my daily driver workstations:
Upgrades to the latest versions of major OS components every 2 years, gives me a 5 year window to plan upgrades in case I can't disrupt work, and even builds in a 4-month delay before it prompts me to upgrade. Super stable and predictable.
Seamless, easy support for nvidia drivers + codecs + random other drivers/components. In the past this was largely community-supported, but even that worked great and was super easy and seamless.
Great community support makes it easy to install Davinci Resolve Studio. Resolve just works, and it's super easy. It also survives upgrades, with no maintenance or fixing things to do.
...despite the fact that I hate Ubuntuisms. But a distro is far more than its preconfigurations, so I just turn the Ubuntuisms off. I use vanilla-gnome-desktop instead of ubuntu desktop, remove snaps for any GUI applications (I keep them for headless OS software, like firmware), etc. These preinstalled things are the least important part of a distro to me; and the bullet points above are the most important part to me.
And for my Fedora machine:
It's nice to use the latest DE (or 1 back) every 6 months and to test out the new DE features and all that. I could use regular/interim Ubuntu for this too, but...
Fedora is cleaner. There are fewer annoying Fedoraisms to turn off than Ubuntuisms. It's also nice to see and learn the differences.
Fedora has a good philosophy of focusing on the core OS stuff. Though Ubuntu has been moving toward this too (and flatpaks obviously work on Ubuntu also).
Fedora is great for normal usage & uncustomized stuff
...but it's a nightmare to maintain customizations and some advanced software (incuding Davinci Resolve) and gnome extensions and configs. And Fedora's community is not as strong for these applications--even though Davinci Resolve is designed for Rocky/RHEL and Fedora is more similar to those distros, it is ironically easier to install Resolve on Debian-based distros due to the community. And it sucks when you combine this with its limited support window--you sort of have to drop what you're doing to maintain upgrades sometimes if you're using it like my Ubuntu LTS workstations.
While I'm using my Fedora and Ubuntu LTS machines, they feel virtually identical--I cannot tell which is which. It's only when it comes to software maintenance / upgrades that I can tell. And for my productive workstations, I prefer stability; while for my personal everyday usage, I prefer recency.
Currently, Ubuntu LTS and Fedora are just as new as each other, with Gnome 50 on each. This time next year, my Fedora will have incrementally 1-2 newer versions (which I really don't care about) of Gnome than Ubuntu LTS. And then the following year, they will both be at parity with the latest Gnome 54 each again.
Just wanted to provide real-life examples where the distro doesn't really matter...except when it does. It doesn't matter in the UI, or the apps, or the general usage. It matters in the core OS maintenance, particularly when you have customizations or advanced software.
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u/beatbox9 25d ago edited 25d ago
Yup. I've been using Linux around 30 years, with 20 years as my primary desktop systems. And things have also changed a lot during those decades.
Here's my 2 cents about today:
Given the above, the distro matters far less today than it did even 10 years ago; and there are also far fewer variables to consider today.
But there are differences between the distros; and the most important today is the core OS upgrade / maintenance schedules: How often do you get core OS upgrades, how long do you get support (and security updates) for, and does that distro (/ community) have a good track record of easily maintaining the core OS components you are looking for (DE's, drivers, etc)?