*or distribution
Having been a (GNU-)Linux user since 2006 (desktop only), I have done what many Linux users have also done: hop around from one thing to another.
That all stopped a few years ago when I decided that I would just stick with Debian. I was happy and comfortable. It worked. I used Stable, Testing, Unstable… no issues.
That is until about 4 months ago I was cleaning and found an older laptop and decided to try something different on it: Alpine Linux.
I even wrote about it on my blog. It was such a nice installation and process that I decided to put it on my main personal laptop.
Since April I have been using Alpine and I must say I am pleased. Differences from one Linux to the next aren’t much to write about. With Alpine however, I finally experienced another part of Linux that I hadn’t had the opportunity to enjoy: the community.
Package requesting? Easy. Asking for help? No shame. Patience and help provided? Excellent.
None of those comments are to disparage other OS communities. It is simply that I had only ever used popular distros (Debian- and Arch-based) so I never needed to ask for help. Either way, I am still using Alpine.
So, just to repeat the titular question: what have you tried out this year? What are your impressions?
You are not the only one. Haiku is getting close to daily driver capability.
You cannot practically use it on real hardware yet but one to watch is SaerenityOS.
It is unfinished enough to be a pipe dream but RavynOS is cool.
I am not sure there is anything outside the POSIX space that is really usable as a desktop on current hardware.