Uh, there's definitely some different kernels. Cachy etc apply a lot of patches focused on speed and performance. That said there are other distros that offer the cachy patched kernel.

There are also server focused kernels. There is a ton of stuff "in the kernel" whether it's applied to yours is a different question. So it's not that simple.

But with flatpak etc, I'd say the real choice these days is immutable, stable, or rolling.

If you want newer packages, yes. Mint is based off Ubuntu 24 LTS and honestly the jump to Ubuntu 26 is worthwhile if you prefer wayland.

Pika OS will ship a few WMs presetup and will be on Debian Sid. Interesting alternative. Personally, a stripped down Ubuntu 26 with your WM will give you the best stability and support.

I was setting up mint for my mom the other day, and put kernel 7 on it, i thing it has been enabled recently as an option.

I mean the main thing that makes Mint Mint is the desktop environment (cinnamon). I often argue that this interface is dated and will drive away users looking for something more modern. But functionally, it's perfectly fine.

Personally, I just think it's fun to install different distros and see the way they handle things and find one I like the most, but I've never used one that was unacceptable (except Ubuntu).

The difference between distros is just what they come packaged with. i.e. which kernel, systemd, desktop environment, update manager, package manager, etc.

Nothing wrong with it. Its ok to go hopping if you want. But also ok to just...stick with it.

Short answer, no. Don't worry about the long answer and keep doing what you're doing.

I've been using Mint for ten years because I like the features that make it a newbie distro - the Cinnamon desktop has all the important things in the same places Windows does and it integrates new features six months after they're released, to give them time for testing and bugfixing before use.

I've used Mint for about five years now and I see absolutely no reason to switch. It does what an OS is supposed to do, run my computer with minimal hassle.

All of the distros run the same applications and do the same things.

Mint is behind on getting wayland support, if you're a gamer who uses a high resolution/high refresh display, something a bit more cutting edge might be in order, but only in that case.

I've been using Linux at home since 2007. In the early-mid days, I tried a lot of different distros. For the last 10 years or so, I'm pretty much only running Linux Mint (Debian edition) on my PCs.

If it ain't broke

I have only skimmed the comments so someone might have already mentioned it, but distrowatch.com is an excellent site to get your head around the differences between distros. For instance, they have a direct comparison page that will list all the package and kernel versions side by side. Here is Mint and Arch - as you can see, Mint is at a 6.14 kernel (fine for most apps and hardware) but Arch has the very recent 7.2.11, which if you have very new hardware, could matter to you.

I run Debian, which has even older packages and kernel, and everything works great. Very recently though, I switched my firefox to the flatpak version, because the Debian package version didn't have the fairly recent Split View feature, where you can put two sites side by side in your browser window - this has been desperately needed for as long as we've had wide screens. So that's one example of a more recent package being more desirable.

And speaking of Flatpak, that's yet another reason not to sweat your distro, cause you are not just limited to your apt packages, you can use snaps, you can use flatpak, You can use Nix. There's endless ways now of getting the latest version of anything, on any version of Linux.

Don't sweat it.

Man let me tell you that when you try to use a software and search for the docs, then you are like "the feature I need is in a newer version, which got implemented in 2022 but mint uses the version of 1993.. damn that's unlucky". and that happens to me 3 whole times. So I still haven't switched but only because I am to lazy to backup my files right now.

If you're happy with things and nothing is acting weird or badly, You're more or less golden, like folks are saying.

Where you might find that one day you want a newer kernel or packages (which is why you'd switch to Arch or one of its derivatives), is if you ever have very new hardware (or very old hardware that just got a driver pulled into the kernel - I own a Digidesign 002Rack that is ancient, but someone finally wrote a driver for it, and it's still a great piece of audio hardware) that only has drivers in the latest kernels.

But if you're just doing web, Office type stuff, even Steam games, you shouldn't need anything more than you have already.

I am a fan of the KDE desktop, myself, and I recommend that everyone try it out at some point. But you should be able to install it onto Mint and just choose it when you login, again, no need to change distros.

Fair, I meant it more in the user space sense. If your OS came with Blender and you never use Blender, uninstall it.

Could be a many reasons:

• You want to learn how things work under the hood. In that case Arch or Gentoo are a great learning experience.
• You want the bleeding edge versions of all your software, so you switch to something with a rolling release.
• You decide there's another DE you like better than Cinnamon. You could switch to a distro built around said DE.
• You want the absolute best gaming performance, so you switch to CachyOS. (I don't really expect a very noticable difference with Mint with a newer kernel and the appropriate GPU driver, though.)
• You want to reproduce your exact installation on as many computers as you like based on a single config file. You also want to easily roll back if an upgrade goes wrong. You switch to NixOS or Guix.
• Etc...

If your computer runs smoothly and you're not having a bunch of headaches, you're better off NOT tinkering with what you have. No point fixing what's not broken.

Also good advice.

If your computer runs smoothly and youre not having a bunch of headaches, you're generally better off tinkering with what youve got than going through the hassle of installing a whole new OS.

Switching distributions should not be done just to follow a trend, but for real reasons. For example, if you have issues with the kernel or drivers, or if there is some reason you absolutely must use a rolling release, then it might be worth considering Arch. And this is on the condition that you do not want to or cannot solve the problem on your current distribution.

Personally, I switched from Ubuntu to Arch when Ubuntu first introduced snap and my old computers, which I use as servers, started to lag terribly. So, usually, a reason like that is needed. If it weren't for that, I would still be using Ubuntu.

in the best case it's that, and you wonder why it's not automatic. in the worst case half the packages on the system just brick themselves.

If you start watching distro review videos, you'll get the itch to hop. Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

As you use your first distro, you may begin to realize that you need something else. Maybe you end up programming more than you thought. Maybe you prefer to have a newer version on Python. Try Fedora.

Maybe you end up gaming all the time and you don't use your computer for much else. Maybe there are some strange issues you can't be bothered to investigate and fix. Consider Bazzite.

Maybe all you do is watch a few videos and browse the net once a week. Maybe you're tired of the frequent updates Ubuntu gives you every time you open your computer. How about Debian?

Maybe you're really curious about your system. The more you know, the more you realize that the one you currently have is filled with stuff you don't really need. You hopped to Debian bare bones edition and built your own system from the ground up. It has just the packages you need, but nothing else. Maybe you realized that having newer versions of everything solves some obscure problems you've encountered, so you built one on Sid. Maybe you love the idea of a rolling release distribution. Maybe you like to say BTW...

Maybe a friend gave you a 48 port network switch and a stack of old Dell laptops from 2010s. What would it feel like to operate a small cluster?

In any case, you don't need to distrohop unless you have a reason. If there is one, go ahead. If not, keep the distro you already have.

Solaris

You just made me shudder. I learned to program na room full of Sun-3 machines (I think they were 3, not 4) running Solaris. They were ancient by the time I took the classes on them. "It's compiling" was an actual problem and took way too long.

I actually got to help replace them with shiny new Dell machines the next year while working as a student in the IT department at the college.

I felt going from 21 to 22 wasn't that bad, just a few console commands. You've got me wondering if I missed something now

Even if the distro has a bunch you don't want, uninstalling is pretty easy now with the package managers I've used. Just strip some things away and see if that's good first.