For me it was:
Ubuntu (for a year) -> Arch Linux (for half a year) -> Void Linux (literally 2 days) -> Artix Linux with runit (a month) -> Gentoo Linux (another month) -> Debian (finally, I don’t plan on changing it).
Also, when trying to switch from Gentoo to Debian, I fucked up all my data with no backup.
What was your journey?
Windows 2000
Windows Vista Windows 8
Trying every Linux distro under the sun for a little while in VirtualBox
Linux Mint + Windows 8 later 10 dual boot due to software required by school
Trying some Arch based systems in VirtualBox
My owm minimal Arch i3 setup + Windows 10 dual boot due to software required by school
Issues with my own setup, Manjaro + W10
Manjaro is weird, EndeavourOS + W10 (only for a short while)
Linux Mint just works (+W10, until I could fully use my own software, now it’s just Mint for several years)
I’m tinkering around with NixOS in QEMU from time to time, not everything “just works” but it’s okay
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Ubuntu -> Arch -> Debian (stable) -> Fedora Silverblue -> NixOS
Window -> Mint -> Mint Debian -> Arch -> NixOS (not complete yet)
I am incredibly happy with NixOS, I love having my entire OS and software configuration in a GIT repo, commits and comments included.
Windows -> Ubuntu ->dual boot with Ubuntu-> Windows-> Ubuntu-> Fedora workstation
All of this over 20 years.
And now I really don’t plan on going back to Windows and I’m happy with Gnome and Fedora even if I’d want to try other distributions outside of a virtual machine sometimes.
And the f course there were some accidents with lost data over the years, but I always had a pretty recent backup on a drive before syncing with cloud backup became a thing.
Windows (up until windows 8 came out) -> Ubuntu for about a year -> Manjaro for about 6 years -> Arch so far for 2 years.
Debian -> Slackware -> Guix
I started with an openSUSE dual boot with KDE. I didn’t use Linux a lot at that point. Later, I switched to Ubuntu on a laptop for about a year and used that until I bought a MacBook. Eventually, I returned to Linux by running Pop!_OS on my desktop, but games were a bit choppy, and I really wanted to just run Wayland. I also started to use RHEL at work for our servers. So now I’m trying to switch to Fedora. I still have some issues with the Jagex Launcher, but aside from that, everything seems to work great now.
At home, I have also had an Ubuntu Server for many years, and I also run Ubuntu Server on my VPS.
Over about a decade: Win7 -> Mint -> Manjaro -> Mint -> Endeavour
Eyeing Nix atm, looks cute, might hop later
It all started with SuseLinux with KDE2. Then a long while it was Windows only. In 2021 I dabbled with Elementaryos, because it damn looks beautiful. In 2023 then I took the plunge. Started with Garuda Linux. Then KDE Neon then Fedora, then OpenSuse, Fedora Silverblue, then Nobara Linux, Fedora Kinoite, then back to Mint, Garuda and now’ve I settled on Nobara KDE.
Ubuntu (in VM, a few months) -> Linux Mint (1 year) -> Archlinux (2 years) -> Ubuntu (1 year) -> Fedora (2 years) -> Linux Mint Debian (3 years) -> Debian (5+ years for now)
I have had a desktop PC and a laptop for a few years now. The laptop had Mint for 2 years longer.
That should be more or less it, makes about 14 years on GNU/Linux now.
Starting with Ubuntu I’ve tried a lot of distro, here the ones I used the more: Mageia -> Chakra -> Manjaro -> Void -> Arch
I tried one distro and now the other distros confuse and scare me.
I am not sure that I can really call what I did distrohopping, but
Mint w/ Cinnamon (several years ago on an old junker laptop and never ended up using it as a daily driver) -> Manjaro w/ KDE Plasma (daily driver for ~1 year) -> Arch w/ KDE Plasma (~2 years and counting).
I have also used Debian with no DE on a file server I made out of an old thin client PC and I have used Rasbian on a raspberry pi.
Windows -> RedHat -> Windows -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> RHEL -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Arch
15 years Windows -> dualboot everything -> Ubuntu -> Fedora -> Ubuntu -> opensuse -> arch -> popOS -> arch -> fedora -> arch -> -> popOS -> arch -> nixos
I’m sure there’s a ton more hopping around in the middle that I can’t remember, but this is a good summary.