I know you didn’t ask me, but I recently installed Debian MATE. Installation was as smooth as any other Debian install, desktop configuration was fine for me, really nothing that went wrong.
I know this is a bit of a vague response, so is there anything specific you’d like to know?
Essentially, if you had previously used UbuntuMATE, is the Debian MATE resulting in the “equivalent” interface/experience, or is anything “missing” that is only available from the UbuntuMATE distro?
Also, I only asked Jymm because he was part of the old UbuntuMATE crowd. 
No intent to snub, so glad you piped in!
at the beginning I distro hopped so much but tldr; I started with mint all the way to arch because minimalism and I believe I’ll leave arch too sooner or later too.
No, it has been years since I used it and just wanted to know if it still offered the MATE desktop. I actually like Debian but the forum is not friendly to casual users like myself. The other thing was I ran stable and so many websites I visited would tell me to update my software.
I never tried testing and would have never tried unstable. Stability and reliability are my biggest two demands. I will stick with Ubuntu MATE, as it sounds like it now has a future.
Hi, everyone
So, regarding Linux in the desktop (in my case, I should say, in laptops) I started with Ubuntu - back then, in “Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)” that I installed, in the year 2011, in a Netbook (“Compaq Mini 110”) that I had bought a year earlier (in 2010). Actually, I told a bit of the story of that Netbook in the following post in the “Ubuntu MATE Community”:
So, why did I install “Ubuntu” in that Netbook? Simply because I heard that Ubuntu had good hardware support, it was simple to install and there were plenty of forums and web sites where one could find help, if needed.
Also in 2010, I bought an HP laptop computer: an “HP Pavilion dv6”. It came with “Windows 7” pre-installed. In 2012, I turned it into a Dual boot machine: I installed “Ubuntu 12.04 LTS ("Precise Pangolin”)” alongside Windows 7. In 2016, I decided to replace “Ubuntu 12.04” in that machine by “Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS (“Xenial Xerus”)“. Why? Because “Ubuntu” had chosen to switch to the “Unity” DE (Desktop Environment). I briefly experimented using “Unity” in “Ubuntu” and I decided that it wasn’t for me. I looked at “Ubuntu MATE” and I saw that the “MATE” DE (Desktop Environment) had the “traditional” look that I liked.
I also told a bit of the story of that “HP Pavilion dv6” in the following post in the “Ubuntu MATE Community”:
And I’m still using “Ubuntu MATE” to this day. Now, I’m using “Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS (“Noble Numbat“)”
Ah, I see, sorry! Yes, it’s difficult for me to compare it to Ubuntu MATE, of course.
I did install a Debian MATE VM though to play around in… Let’s see where it leads…
I’m enjoying all of the different paths we take to get to what our current distro is. I’m keeping my primary distro relatively small and lean, so that I can run a lot of experiments with it, mostly dealing with some combination of efficiency and diverse user interfaces. My main focal areas are text editors and Web browsers; there are plenty of diverse user interfaces within those two isolated elements of computing!
Looking forward to reading more from our wonderful diversity that we enjoy here!
But why? It was distro-hopping, of course. I distro-hopped for being not quite satisfied with DE’s and distros being tried. And only Ubuntu Mate made me feel quite at home.
That’s a more than good enough reason for making Ubuntu Mate your personal choice! I’m very happy you found the right distribution for you; I did the same thing through years of distro hopping too!
After windows I started with Ubuntu LTS. I switched to Bazzite because it was “built for gaming” and I needed something new to try. I just kept finding cool things to install from random github repos and leaning more into the cli. If I could install something and get it to work, that was a win!
I wanted less distractions from the gui, because I wanted to learn employable skills instead of just installing random stuff that made me feel cool so I tried a pre built arch install that had a tiling window manager, really cli and keyboard focused with minimal stuff so I could stay focused. I liked it but it broke.
Trying to fix it was cool but it felt like it was a setback from my career goals. I wanted to do stuff with Linux not just fix Linux. I decided I needed to find a stable distro and stick with it semi long term if I wanted to take my skills deeper.
So, I had a good long conversation with an LLM about what I liked and valued so far in Linux. Keyboard/cli focused, minimal build, being able to install experiments without making the system a mess, etc.
I ended up with Fedora Sway Atomic, not the LLMs first suggestion for me but something about the atomic idea just felt like what I wanted. And here we are. 
My current desktop:
Operating System: KDE neon User Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 6.7.0
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.27.0
Qt Version: 6.11.1
Kernel Version: 6.17.0-35-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 6 × Intel® Core™ i5-9600 CPU @ 3.10GHz
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31.1 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: Intel® UHD Graphics 630
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Product Name: OptiPlex 5070
For quite a few years, my desktop was Windows 11 Pro. A few months ago, I grew more and more dissatisfied with all the quirky updates, adding things I didn’t ask for, etc., so I started downloading and trying a lot of distros. I had done a fair amount of work with Debian and Ubuntu in the past, so I leaned toward those, but I did install Fedora on a second machine to give it a longer test. It worked well, but I’m old, and every time I wanted to change something, I had to figure out how to do it. That doesn’t make Fedora bad; it just means I didn’t want to learn it.
Truthfully, one thing that tipped the scales toward switching from Windows to Linux was that I discovered KDE Neon could talk to my Canon printer/scanner. That meant I didn’t have to buy a new printer.
I loaded KDE Neon on the computer I’d used to test Fedora and really liked it. The things I’d learned from my 5 years using Ubuntu as a development platform carried over, and though I am far from a guru, my headless Debian file server experience helped too.
The Plasma display is nice, and so far it hasn’t exhibited any quirks I caused.
Home NAS:
My home NAS is a Raspberry Pi 4 that boots from a USB-attached SSD. It runs Ubuntu Server and has an external 28TB Seagate drive that it serves up to the network. I use Navidrome to serve up a roughly 4TB music library, and it also holds backups from my local computers.
There was not a tremendous amount of thought or design put into the NAS. I already owned all of the components from past projects, so it just took a little time to put them together and configure them.
Backups:
In the Windows world, I used Backblaze for off-site backups. It worked perfectly for years. My only reason for changing was the lack of Linux support for their home/consumer service. I use Borgbase for the cloud part now and Vorta on the desktop to manage backups. Vorta isn’t my favorite, but it works. I am slowly replacing its functions with scripts and cron jobs that give me better control over when things happen.
Well, I’ll stop now. That’s probably more than anyone cares about!
Tim
Started with Pop_OS 20 because people said it’s easy to play games on it. But it wasn’t being properly updated because at that time the dev team was developing CosmicOS. Then I started to use CosmicOS. I really liked its tiling and workspace system, but it was in the Alpha phase, so a lot of features and settings were missing (later they released v1, but somehow it still feels the same).
Then I decided to move to KDE Plasma 6, but it was really new and very few distros were using it. I didn’t want to move to KDE Neon because people were saying they experiment on it. I was kind of curious about Arch, and people were recommending EndeavourOS for gaming, so I gave it a try.
It’s a solid Arch-based distro. I’ve never had any problems with it except when Arch decided to split the linux-firmware package. I was having trouble building packages with Pop_OS, so AUR made my life a lot easier.
By that time, I had started to get bored with Plasma’s workspace and tiling system. I moved to Hyprland. I first used it with Waybar, but it was a little bit ugly and I wanted cooler things like a media player and some menus similar to macOS. Then I found illogical-impulse and started using it.
Over time, I had installed and removed too many packages and the bloat kept growing. Wine was sometimes giving me headaches and Bottles wasn’t running properly. So I decided to do a clean install. I heard good things about CachyOS, said “why not,” and installed it.
Not much changed for me. Maybe some performance improved but I didn’t notice any drastic change. I started using paru instead of yay and moved on from end4’s illogical-impulse to noctalia-shell. Everything is good now.
Forgot to mention. I also have Asahi Linux (Fedora) on my macOS.
Slackware has been my go-to for most of the 20-ish years I’ve used Linux. I started on Debian, hopped around a bit, plugged myself into Slackware almost as a joke: there was a saying in those days, “if you want to learn Debian, use Debian; if you want to learn Red Hat, use Red Hat; but if you want to learn Linux, use Slackware.” It was one of many I tried in a short time, including Arch (where I learned that I don’t like rolling releases) and Gentoo. I used and liked some of the early Ubuntu releases, and for awhile I would always install Ubuntu as the first distro on a computer because it seemed to have the special sauce for converting a Windows machine over to Linux with minimal headaches. I haven’t needed to do that for over a decade, though. But I kept coming back to Slackware.
It turns out that every other distro I’ve tried makes it hard to do certain things I want to be easy: for example, I’m a musician and have a small number of programs where I want to use the latest versions. I don’t mind if the base system is a little out of date, preferring a stable base from which to expand. Slackware is by far the easiest for me (for the way my mind works, anyway). I don’t mind compiling things by hand, and besides I nearly always run hand-me-down / used computers, which seem to groan under the weight of Flatpaks or Snaps.
If I have to use a more popular distro (such as for a job of mine that requires some 3rd party software that is picky about the distros it’ll install on) I’ll use Debian.
@troglswitch It’s really nice to see someone stick with Slackware. About 31 years ago Slackware was my first distribution, and I’ve brought it back into my collection many times, though Debian-based antiX is my every day system now.
I’ll tell you the number one thing Slackware can do with almost any software: if there’s something you don’t have and you end up having to build some software from source code, it’s rare when you can’t just build it on Slackware. Recently I’ve done that several times, and though it’s possible to build software on antiX or Debian too, far too frequently I have to go out and grab several more packages in order to be successful. With Slackware that is not necessary; everything needed to do the job is right there.
@mrcn It’s nice to read about your journey too. It appears that you don’t have any problem checking out various different distributions and if one is not suitable, you’re not hesitant to move on and try other things.
@tpmcd I see that you like KDE based distributions, and I’ll say this: whenever I feel like taking a “look” at the latest KDE Plasma implementation, I’ve found that KDE Neon is the easiest way to get a hold of the very latest Plasma implementations and though I don’t need it myself, it does work very well indeed.
As for you @Powder I see that for you Fedora Sway Atomic worked out best for you.
Nice variety of choices for each of you; thank you for sharing your experience and preferences.
The almost goldilocks combination of no systemd (Devuan), the xlibre server included out of the box and being able to basically stay with Debian and my preferred desktop XFCE. (Vendefoul Wolf) Had to get off of PikaOS because gnome and wayland kept freezing up. Tried out X11 and just stayed with what works.
@somogibbs I like your setup, but mine is just a bit different - nosystemd (antiX - 100% systemd free), many old, occasionally retired utilities now supported or maintained directly by the very small team of antiX developers and respins or personal variations created by community members.
My antiX usually starts with stock antiX releases, but occasionally I’ll load a community built respin of antiX that happens to use some of the same tools that I use; otherwise I make my own snapshots of antiX after I’ve added my personal choice of wallpaper, the software that I either install from repositories or in less frequent cases, compile and build myself from source code, and even more rare, do so after making small alterations.
The same is true with my hardware. Most firmware these days on laptop systems runs the pictoral functions etched on the function keys. I’d rather have the function keys available so that I can bind them conveniently to the applications I want to run with one or two keystrokes.
Some of my apps I start with one character alias commands, which I set up in my own custom .bashrc file; others I start with the function key definitions I set up, and still more using the function keys within the tools.
An example of this is GNU Emacs - I run it TWO different ways - one way is with simplified function keys instead of the default hand stretching Emacs key bindings, and the other way is by running the Doom Emacs distribution; I figured out how to be able to run BOTH on the same system, simply by using different command invocations and specifying a different .emacs initialization file.
My GNU Emacs uses my own Brian-Unix.emacs, which I wrote back when I was a Digital UNIX engineer (we had DIgital UNIX V4.0 as the base; we were building Version 5.0, which was later branded as Tru64 UNIX). Anyway, I created my own init file and even shared it with a few other engineers as an alternative to the standard way of running Emacs.
" Doom is a configuration framework for GNU Emacs tailored for Emacs bankruptcy veterans who want less framework in their frameworks, a modicum of stability (and reproducibility) from their package manager, and the performance of a hand rolled config (or better). It can be a foundation for your own config or a resource for Emacs enthusiasts to learn more about our favorite operating system."
Source: GitHub - doomemacs/core: An Emacs framework for the stubborn martian hacker · GitHub
I keep copies of my .bashrc, .bash_aliases, xfce4 keyboard-panel-xfwm4 xml files, and an install script to set up backports, appimages and desired packages all in joplin notes. That way I can always build up my setup again.
Fedora has become my go-to. It just works. I’ve been trying different spins lately though, that are besides the default GNOME. Like, the COSMIC window manager spin. I’m really like it. COSMIC is a good mix between user friendly while being still for power users. Hybrid between GNOME and maybe i3.
Same with me. I tried many distributions. Actually, I’m with Fedora, and it works for me, too. Let’s see what comes next for me. 
What brought me to my current Linux distro?
I’ve been on Ubuntu flavors since 2006/2008 (don’t remember exactly), going from Ubuntu to Gnome Flashback to Xubuntu, also Ubuntu MATE for a few years. I did know about all the other distros and derivatives, but I was comfortable on the *buntu family, mostly on Xubuntu.
Let’s say in the last year or so, I saw / noticed / experienced several mishaps and screw ups all over the *buntu ecosystem. Won’t go into detail but there’s a lot of stuff that piled up and I won’t go back there.
So I tried Mint for a few months and loved it because it was cleaner and faster and also I wanted to try it.
Then, for no reason, I said, “So, this is all based on Debian, right?” So I took the big step and installed Debian Trixie (XFCE) on my old desktop computer and loved it. I’m also currently trying Debian 13 with MATE desktop on an old Acer Aspire One laptop with 2 Gb RAM.
I’m always on old computers so I need an OS that works well on them, and Debian XFCE works like a charm on my desktop and Debian MATE works well enough on this old laptop I rescued from my workplace.