I stopped distro hopping when I realized the desktop environment was the real upgrade

Published Jul 30, 2026, 12:30 PM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. For me, the best part about free and open-source software is the "free" part. If you don't like an app, you can simply download another one and give it a try without having to purchase or subscribe to anything. Over time, you end up trying so many apps that you get a good feeling as to what you look for in open-source software, and that's when you settle down. But before then, there's the notion of "hopping." It's when you have that gnawing feeling of FOMO, the sensation that you're one change away from finding the perfect solution. And while I've eventually grown tired of distro hopping, the desire to go desktop environment hopping keeps burning strong. It's a lot easier to do, at any rate. The start of my Linux adventure had me distro hopping a lot I was trying to find my home away from Microsoft Credit: openSUSE, Google Gemini I was first inspired to give Linux a try after reporting that PewDiePie had ditched Windows and moved to Linux Mint. While reporting on the news, I noticed he made some pretty interesting points about using Linux Mint over Windows. At the time, I was using an old PC that was stuck on Windows 10 as it didn't fit Windows 11's requirements. I knew that Microsoft had extended security support for the OS, but it felt like a temporary patch instead of a permanent fix. I knew that, one day, Microsoft would give up on Windows 10, and my poor PC would be bereft of updates. So, what if I swapped to Linux Mint? I wouldn't have to worry about my PC running out of security updates, and it was free to do. All it would cost was the time spent backing up Windows 10 and installing Linux Mint. So I did. I only had a week with Linux Mint before the distro-hopping bug bit me. What followed was a wild flurry of different operating systems. During my exploration, I tried Arch Linux, EndeavourOS, Fedora KDE, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Parrot OS, Zorin, and AerynOS. I eventually discovered Fedora's immutable spins, fell in love with their model, and declared that I'd stick with them forevermore, right before hopping to openSUSE Tumbleweed again. What can I say? I love Snapper. I eventually realised that the desktop environment matters almost as much as the distro It's not as important, but it is up there When people recommend newcomers try an operating system, they often focus on the distro. I totally understand why; different distros have different levels of accessibility for beginners, after all. Asking someone who knows nothing about Linux to set up Arch on their own is just asking for trouble. Picking the perfect Linux distro is also about aligning your views with the developers. Some teams will prefer a bleeding-edge distro, while others take things nice and slow. Some are funded by the community, while others have their foot in the door of businesses, selling their software for profit to companies and server farms. And with the recent community schism over AI use, the developer team's stance now matters more than ever. But I also learned that it's important to choose the right desktop environment, too. In my early days of distro hopping, I assumed that when you installed a distro, whatever it looked like when you booted it up was just...how it always looked. I didn't realise that I was looking at a desktop environment, and that I could, at any time, install a new one and try that instead. Over time, I realised that the desktop environment was a huge part of how I used Linux. I then gravitated toward KDE Plasma, and it became the "lens" through which I distro hopped. If a distro supported KDE Plasma, I would install it and use the desktop environment as my familiar "home base" while I explored how the distro worked. Once I found my home, I started experimenting with desktop environments The FOMO is still real Credit: Carl Richell For a while, I just used KDE Plasma and didn't think about anything else. However, after seeing how much of an impact COSMIC has made ever since its public stable release back in December 2025, I wanted to give it a try to see what it's like. At first, my distro-hopping brain kicked in again. Surely this means I have to grab Pop!_OS and overwrite openSUSE Tumbleweed to try COSMIC? But then I remembered that, no, I didn't have to do that at all. All I had to do was tell openSUSE Tumbleweed to download COSMIC, and I could check out the desktop environment without reinstalling a thing. And best of all, I could swap desktop environments at any time by just selecting a new one on the login screen. That's when the dam really broke. Now I could keep all of the benefits I love with openSUSE Tumbleweed while also downloading and swapping between desktop environments whenever I liked. Sometimes I would try one, put it aside for a bit, then head back over when a big update dropped, and I wanted to check it out. Sometimes I'd change just because I missed a desktop environment. And because I didn't have to reinstall or format anything to swap (unlike distros), there was basically no downside to desktop environment hopping. Desktop environment hopping is far less disruptive than distro hopping Overall, I'm glad I had my distro hopping phase. I don't think I would have settled for what I had if I hadn't had that moment of sampling everything at least once. However, desktop environment hopping is also a lot of fun, and I see myself doing it a lot more in the future.