Why Would You Run Different Distros?

[raymac46]

Why not choose just one and use it all the time? The simplest answer would be "because you can."
The action of trying out all sorts of different Linux distros is called "distro-hopping" or "distro-farming" and probably all Linux enthusiasts do it. I am certainly guilty as charged. Right now I have 3 different distros in my household lineup.
1. Linux Mint. We have already discussed it as a good new user distro, so I run it to support the grandkids and any new user who may want to try Linux. It's not my personal favorite but I need to have at least one installation.
2. Arch Linux. This one takes a bit more experience to install and run - but once you do it is very stable and lightweight. It's great for older hardware, as you start with a very basic system and just add what you need. It has a wonderful package manager, and you always have the latest software.
3. Debian. It's been around since 1993. It is the "parent distribution" for Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, and many others. It is a very solid distro in its own right. Debian is a little more difficult to install than Linux Mint but it's not bad. It uses many of the same tools as Linux Mint to update the system, manage files, etc. I use Debian on my Thinkpad and my wife finds it easy enough for web surfing, email, etc. I guess if I were the only Linux user around my home, I could stick with Debian.

[Hedon James]

Why not choose just one and use it all the time? The simplest answer would be "because you can."
The action of trying out all sorts of different Linux distros is called "distro-hopping" or "distro-farming" and probably all Linux enthusiasts do it. I am certainly guilty as charged. Right now I have 3 different distros in my household lineup.
1. Linux Mint. We have already discussed it as a good new user distro, so I run it to support the grandkids and any new user who may want to try Linux. It's not my personal favorite but I need to have at least one installation.
2. Arch Linux. This one takes a bit more experience to install and run - but once you do it is very stable and lightweight. It's great for older hardware, as you start with a very basic system and just add what you need. It has a wonderful package manager, and you always have the latest software.
3. Debian. It's been around since 1993. It is the "parent distribution" for Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, and many others. It is a very solid distro in its own right. Debian is a little more difficult to install than Linux Mint but it's not bad. It uses many of the same tools as Linux Mint to update the system, manage files, etc. I use Debian on my Thinkpad and my wife finds it easy enough for web surfing, email, etc. I guess if I were the only Linux user around my home, I could stick with Debian.

^ all true!  but I would also add "because different distros do some things different than others"!

Early in my linux learnings, circa the late 2000s, linux distros could primarily be classified into 2 groups....KDE or Gnome based.  I didn't know the differences, or if one was even "better" than the other.  So I ran both for awhile in order to try them out for myself.  While I thought that KDE was more aesthetically pleasing, there were simply too many options to consider in a KDE distro; so I was slowly drawn to Gnome-based distros.  I liked Ubuntu's presentation of Gnome the best (Gnome 2.x!), so I became an Ubuntu user.

But then I learned there were several flavors of Gnome, and different distros had different takes on that also!  Fedora specialized in the main Gnome desktop environment (DE), but there were lighter weight versions of Gnome desktops in the form of XFCE and LXDE.  They were still Gnome-based, but stripped down some features (perhaps un-needed or un-wanted?) for a more responsive desktop experience.  Xubuntu specialized in an XFCE desktop, while Lubuntu specialized in an LXDE desktop.  What better way to find out which is more to my liking than to install BOTH and try them out for awhile?!  Eventually, through trial & error, I learned that LXDE was my preferred presentation of the Gnome toolkit, at which time I became an Lubuntu user.

Then came the news that LXDE was going to merge with Razor-QT (a very stripped down version of KDE, built with QT toolkit), which sounded very interesting to me.  Would this be the sweet spot of the KDE aesthetics I liked, but without the plethora of option menus for the options?  I started researching LXQt desktops and it seemed like Siduction was the flagship for that desktop.  I liked Siduction a LOT, and it was a child of the Debian distro like my previous Ubuntu/Lubuntu choices, so a lot of my previously acquired knowledge translated very well.  But Siduction received a LOT of updates, and I learned that Siduction was a "cutting edge" distro that was constantly receiving new upgrades/patches.  Before I made a switch to a distro that received so many updates/upgrades, I decided to check out some other "cutting edge" distros.

I installed Arch, probably the most popular "cutting edge" distro; and Manjaro, a derivate of the upstream Arch distro, as Manjaro seemed to be a more polished Arch, in the same way that Ubuntu seemed to be a more polished Debian.  (that's not meant to say that Debian or Arch are not polished, or are lacking in some way; but simply to say that the derivative Ubuntu and Manjaro distros make some decisions for the user that the "mother" distro leaves to the user).  However, both Arch and Manjaro use a package manager called "pacman" for their ecosystem, which is very different than the Advanced Package Tool (APT) used by the Debian family.  I had to learn new commands, syntax, and switches/flags.  APT skills translated somewhat, but not entirely.  I actually liked the PACkage MANager, and could see myself getting as proficient as I was with APT.  But after awhile, it became obvious that Arch and Manjaro receive too many package update/upgrades for my liking.  They are interesting distros, and I still "farm" them in VMs to keep tabs on their development, but they weren't what I wanted in my daily driver.

So with Arch, Manjaro, & Siduction all being TOO "cutting edge" for my liking, at least Siduction remained in the Debian family with familiar APT conventions.  I decided to look into the "mother" Debian distro, with the thought that packages in Siduction today (which I liked so much) would end up in the next version of Debian?!  Turns out Debian is very stable and receives very few updates/upgrades; and although it's not "cutting edge" or even "leading edge", it's certainly up-to-date enough for my needs!  This suits me just fine!  So I hammered the LXQt packages into a DE that I like aesthetically (A Unity-looking desktop, but with QT aesthetics), but with a swapped-out Fluxbox Window Manager (WM) that allows me to tap into some neat features for my daily workflows.  It's PERFECT FOR ME!  And it only took about 10 years to find this lovely combination, although in all fairness, the Linux ecosystem is always changing/morphing and the target is a moving target.

So why do this?  Why go through all these motions?  As Ray stated so succinctly and eloquently...."because you can."   8)

[Corrine]

After reading this thread, coincidentally, I happened across information via Major Geeks about Garuda Linux, described as a Linux distro with multiple desktop environments: KDE, Xfce, GNOME, LXQt-kwin, Wayfire, Qtile, BSPWM, i3wm, and Sway.  Garuda Linux.

[xrobwx71]

I run a handful with the awesome Ventoy, with persistence.

https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html

[raymac46]

I agree with HJ that LXQt is an excellent Desktop environment and I use it on Arch Linux on a couple of older laptops.

[sunrat]

I used to distro hop but stopped because I have better things to do now. Only use Debian with KDE Plasma now, although I admit to having several iterations installed on my main computer -  one daily driver, one just to run system backups of the other ones, and one for potentially destructive testing. Oh and this really weird distro thing called Windows 10.  :P
I do occasionally download another distro and have a quick look in a VM with Virt-manager, but usually delete them straight away. Latest there were MX-21 and Manjaro, both too busy for me as I like to start minimal and build up rather than masses of applications I never use on initial install and subsequently have to purge them.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

My distro-farming daze are long behind me. You won't find 18 distributions in multi-boot configuration on my system anymore. Once I learned the things I wanted to learn about all those different Linuxes, I settled on just one... and there I've been now for 15 years. :)