It’s a frustrating time. The atrocious Russian aggression against Ukraine drags on painfully, Palestinian civilians continue to suffer deeply, and unnecessary trade tariffs are being imposed everywhere. But I’ll keep this post personal, and on a much smaller (and insignificant) scale.

Never-ending nightmare

I got a new computer a few weeks ago. Until then, I had been a happy Debian user for many years. Debian isn’t exactly known for being a bleeding-edge Linux distribution, so I expected some firmware or hardware bumps along the road. Still, I was genuinely surprised when it didn’t recognize either my Ethernet or wireless cards. That meant I couldn’t get online during installation—and without internet, I couldn’t even get a functioning Debian system up and running.

It turned into a kind of tech nightmare. Imagine getting a shiny new machine and not being able to use it because you’re stuck in a Linux-flavored version of Groundhog Day. Every day was a repeat: trying to install Debian, failing, then testing another distro, only to hit more walls. Nothing was stable enough for daily use.

Not that I didn't try

This whole mess made me miss Debian, as I wrote recently. But it also forced me to rethink whether Debian is still the right choice for me right now. The current stable version, Bookworm, ships with kernel 6.1, which just doesn’t know what to do with my modern hardware. That’s the root of all the issues: Debian can’t recognize my Ethernet or wireless cards, and my graphics card (RX 7800 XT) isn’t supported either. I tried to install Debian 12, but it wouldn’t even log in because it couldn’t detect the GPU. I also gave Debian Testing (the upcoming Trixie) several shots, but the internet connection issue persisted. Last night, I officially threw in the towel. Sure, I know there are ways to get Debian working by building a custom image or injecting firmware manually, but I’ve spent far too much time already. I just want to use my computer without a daily sysadmin struggle.

What else's out there?

So now I’m exploring alternatives. I tried openSUSE Tumbleweed, but I really didn’t like the way it handles installing and removing software. Its stiffness and engineering-heavy vibe just didn’t click with me. Then I gave Fedora KDE (42 beta) a spin and, surprisingly, I kind of liked it. But since it’s still in beta, not everything worked smoothly. It’s something I may return to in the future.

Next came EndeavourOS, an Arch-based distro I wrote about recently. If I were more comfortable with the constant churn of a rolling release, I might have stuck with it. It ran very well, but the daily updates wore me down.

Then I went back to an old acquaintance: Void Linux. I love its minimalist philosophy. Everything worked fine, until the infamous Thunar freeze¹ kicked in when my Synology NAS shut down. Losing that connection causes Thunar (and the whole system) to freeze. I spent the better part of a day trying to solve it, experimenting with everything from autofs to tweaking fstab entries, but I couldn’t find a fix that stuck.

That brought me to something familiar: Linux Mint. This time I went for the Xfce version instead of Cinnamon, which I used a lot in the past. I installed all my usual programs and started testing it out. There were a few quirks in Xfce, as always. I usually find myself changing something here and there, but that’s also what I like about it—it lets me tweak things the way I want, unlike GNOME, which tends to be far more restrictive. That’s why Xfce has become my favorite desktop environment lately.

Linux Mint 22.1 Xfce

Time to settle down

However, Mint Xfce isn't Linux Mint's flagship edition as Cinnamon is, so there were some minor stability issues. I suspect it's been due to some reconfigurations I've done in Xfce, so I decided to install... Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) that was released just a few days ago.

So this is where I am now: running Ubuntu 25.04, seeing how it performs. If things stay smooth, I might stick with it for a while. I truly hope I do, because I am so fed up installing and removing distros as a madman.

Rinse and repeat. Repeat the madness.

Will I be able to stay on Ubuntu 25.04? Stay tuned to find out...

I’m honestly worn out from jumping between distributions only to realize they’re not quite right for me. Besides, Amra pointed rightfully out that I am wasting my Easter break on this while my precious free time is tapping out. However, until Debian decides to cooperate with my new hardware, I’ll keep looking elsewhere.

Yes, Linux can be frustrating sometimes, but I’m not giving up. It’s still the best operating system I’ve ever used. Besides, plenty of other distros play well with new hardware. I just need to come to terms with the fact that Debian isn’t the right match for this computer at the moment.

Eventually, it will be. Until then, it’s a great opportunity to explore the vast ocean of Linux options out there.