Alt text: A line plot with 2 axis (confidence vs competence) referencing the Dunning-Kruger effect with various distro logos placed at different points on the line. Starts with mint/ubuntu near (0,0) and progressing through multiple distros to end up with opensuse/fedora at what it calls “the plateau of sustainability”
I am so sick of seeing this ridiculous diagram being labeled the “Dunning-Kruger effect”. Go read the actual 1999 paper they wrote. The key takeaway is that the lowest quartile of people tend to overestimate their own performance, and the top quartile underestimate theirs. It doesn’t posit anything like this graph, and this is just an ironic example of ignorance.
And second, I am so sick of seeing these ridiculous distro comparisons. Stop with this elitism, even if done humorously. People of all experience levels can be found using different distros, and they all have unique advantages, disadvantages, and communities built around them. Don’t shame the great effort that people put into maintaining and developing distros, repositories, and packages. A noob can use Arch, and a master can use Ubuntu. Use what appeals to you, and be happy in knowing you can experiment or stick to anything. This is the beauty of FOSS and the Linux ecosystem; it’s a great place for both tinkerers as well as those who want familiarity. There is no one true way.
i’m on NixOS
…and I’ve been on NixOS for mount stupid, valley of despair and, perhaps, the plateau of sustainability
Agreed, NixOS is all states in once all along. Don’t look inside the box to maintain incertitude.
Truely don’t understand how this one became popular. But I’m sure it will fade like Crunchbang or a dozen others before it.
The Fedora propaganda is getting annoying.
30 years of using Linux and I think this chart is whack. RPM based distros run by enterpises are the worst. I was happier with Slackware than Fedora. 🤣 I only use those when work forces me too and after the CentOS and SLES fiascos - F that noise. I’ll only recommend debian for work servers unless there are STIG/FedRAMP security requirements and then it’s begrudgingly over to Ubuntu.
When work isn’t in the way: EndeavourOS on my desktop, Debian on my servers, and debian/alpine for my containers or better yet; golang and scratch.
Ok this describes me annoyingly well. Ubuntu, then Manjaro, then Arch, and now Gentoo. Now I don’t really want to go any further because I quite like this distro :p
Been in the Valley of Despair (Gentoo) for twenty years.
I think I like it here.
I did my first ever Linux install on a new build last year. I chose Mint, and the process was very smooth with only a few minor bumps getting up to date drivers for my newish AMD GPU. Since then I’ve grown increasingly annoyed by how limited GNOME applications are in general while also gaining increasing respect for the amount of functionality packed into KDE applications. So I’ve been shopping around for a KDE distribution. Fedora and openSUSE keep coming up, and I think I’ll be trying openSUSE soon. So I guess I’ll be skipping from the bottom left all the way to the top right.
So apparently I go from “knowing nothing” to “guru” and back daily.
Fedora on laptop, NixOS everywhere else, don’t really feel enlightened
Same. I run Fedora on my desktop and laptop and Nix on my servers (except one that’s still using Ubuntu and I keep putting off migrating it but it’ll happen eventually)
What is nix and why is that your server choice? I am running parrotos but I just want to use it as a media server and maybe game rarely
NixOS is a different approach to package management. Instead of installing packages using a package manager, you edit nix files (written in the nix language). Instead of changing individual config files for the programs and services you install (e.g nginx.conf or postfix.conf, each having a different syntax), you configure them using nix configuration files with a unified syntax.
There is a catch: your system becomes immutable and fully reproducible. Clone the file tree under /etc/nix from one system to another, apply it, and they become identical.
The configuration files are written in a functional language that allows you to customise your system as much as you like.
Read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NixOS
Edit: I actually use Nix on Fedora (you can install it on other distros without fully migrating!), and I use home-manager to manage my user environment and dot files. It’s pretty cozy.
Edit 2: and to answer the second question, I use it on my servers because it has comparable stability to Debian-likes while also being super convenient to use. A unified approach to server configuration is a win for me.
I hope nix and home manager become as easy to use and get the same reputation to non techies as brew is and has
NixOS is a declarative OS. Instead of installing a software, you specify it in a config (.nix file) and rebuild. Same goes mounts, services etc.
I use it because it is great to be able to revert if I do something stupid.
Being a Debian guy for a long time, now Guix.
Mint… :)
I had thought of going to Fedora next but I ask myself why !
Went from Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Garuda, Kubuntu, Bazzite, now CachyOS. Cachy has been wonderful for all my needs
Arch had been rock solid for me since 2012…
I went from Debian to Mint
although…
… now I’m thinking about switching to NixOS and it’s not even there.
But then again, I feel like my confidence is lower than my competence, and I really like things that require less tinkering nowadays
For me it was Mandrake -> Debian -> Mint -> MX -> Debian
So nothing like that graph.
Hello fellow late 90’s/early 00’s Mandrake enjoyer!
Another Mandrake user off and on user back then. Was my first Linux, mainly because the install was very easy to do. Since it was based on Red Hat, I guess I started at the right end of the curve and worked my way back to Ubuntu.
I still miss Mandrake
