I’ve Installed Linux Ten Times This Week

Okay, maybe it was eleven. I lost count.

Ubuntu. Lubuntu. Linux Mint. Pop!_OS. Fedora. Nobara. Manjaro. Garuda. CachyOS. EndeavourOS. I’ve burned so many USB sticks that I’m starting to recognize the smell of the drive when it formats. My desktop has seen more operating systems in two weeks than most people try in a lifetime.

And here’s the embarrassing part: I still don’t know what I want.

Ubuntu: Too Much, Too Fast

I started with Ubuntu because everyone starts with Ubuntu, right? It’s the “beginner-friendly” one. The “just works” distro.

Except it didn’t feel friendly. It felt… suffocating.

Don’t get me wrong - it installed fine, everything worked out of the box, and within 20 minutes I had a fully functioning desktop. That should have been a win. But something felt off. Like I’d just traded one corporation’s decisions for another’s. Snap packages everywhere. All these pre-installed apps I didn’t ask for.

I wanted to learn Linux. Instead, I got Linux-flavored Windows.

Lasted three days before I wiped it.

The Ubuntu Family Roundtrip

After Ubuntu felt too bloated, I tried Lubuntu. “Lightweight Ubuntu,” they said. And it was! Ran fast, minimal resources. But it felt… cheap? Like I’d gone from too much to too little.

Then Linux Mint. Everyone loves Mint, right? “The most user-friendly distro!” And honestly? They’re not wrong. It was polished, stable, familiar. Cinnamon desktop felt like Windows enough that I wasn’t lost, but Linux enough that I felt like I was learning something.

I almost settled here. It lasted five days - my record at that point.

But the same problem kept nagging at me: I was comfortable. And comfortable meant I wasn’t pushing myself to actually learn. I was still reaching for GUI tools, still avoiding the terminal, still treating Linux like “Windows but different.”

Pop!_OS: The First Real Contender

Then I found Pop!_OS.

System76’s Ubuntu-based distro, designed for developers and creators. NVIDIA drivers that actually worked out of the box. Tiling window management built in. A package manager that made sense. Clean interface without the bloat.

This one clicked. For the first time, I stopped thinking about the OS and started actually working. The auto-tiling was weird at first, but then… it made sense. Windows arranging themselves logically. Keyboard shortcuts that felt natural after a day or two.

I used Pop!_OS for almost a week. Longest I’d stuck with anything. I was starting to build a workflow. Starting to use the terminal more. Things were working.

So why did I wipe it?

Because it worked too well. Everything was figured out for me. System76 had made all the decisions. And I realized I still didn’t understand what was happening under the hood. If something broke, would I know how to fix it? Or would I just be reinstalling?

Fedora (and Nobara): Getting Warmer

Fedora felt different. More serious. Less hand-holding. Cutting edge without being unstable. I liked that.

DNF made more sense than apt. Things were organized better. I started actually reading documentation instead of just clicking “next.” The community felt more technical, less “here’s a pretty theme.”

Then I found Nobara - GloriousEggroll’s gaming-focused Fedora spin. If Fedora was good, maybe Fedora with gaming tweaks and codecs pre-installed would be better?

It was. For gaming. But I wasn’t here to game. I was here to learn. And Nobara, like Pop!_OS, had made too many decisions for me. Good decisions! But someone else’s decisions.

Both lasted about three days each before I moved on. Not because they were bad - because they were too good. They worked so well that I stopped learning.

The Arch-Based Rabbit Hole

By day 10, I’d heard about Arch-based distros enough times that I had to explore them.

Manjaro was first. “It’s Arch, but accessible!” “Rolling release!” “AUR access!”

Installation was smooth. System felt snappier. The rolling release concept made sense - always up to date, no major version upgrades. The AUR (Arch User Repository) was this massive community repository that had everything.

But then I started reading. Manjaro holds back packages. Maintains their own repositories. Has its own way of doing things. It’s Arch-adjacent, but not… Arch.

Lasted two days.

Garuda Linux was next - the “eye candy” Arch distro. Beautiful UI, tons of gaming tweaks, bleeding edge everything. It was impressive. Maybe too impressive? The system felt heavy despite being Arch-based. All those visual effects and pre-installed tools. Again, someone else’s vision of what my system should be.

One day. Wiped it.

CachyOS intrigued me - optimized performance, custom repositories, focused on speed. It was fast. Noticeably fast. But same issue: someone else had made all the optimization decisions. I was just using their work without understanding any of it.

Another day gone.

Then I found EndeavourOS.

This one was different. The installer was friendly but didn’t hide anything from you. It asked questions that made you think about what you were installing. Default apps were minimal. The system was clean. But here’s what sold me: the community.

EndeavourOS felt like training wheels for Arch. Not Arch with a different coat of paint - actual Arch, but with a helpful installer and a community that wanted you to learn, not just use.

I stuck with EndeavourOS for four days. Longest streak since Pop!_OS. I was actually learning things. Reading the Arch Wiki. Understanding package management. Using the terminal more than the GUI.

For a moment, I thought this was it. This was the one.

The Question That Wouldn’t Go Away

But every time I opened the terminal, I had this nagging thought: “Did EndeavourOS set this up for me, or do I actually know how this works?”

If something broke, could I fix it? Or would I be reliant on the defaults they’d chosen?

The EndeavourOS community kept saying the same thing: “We’re just Arch with an installer. Learn the Arch way.” And I realized - if I’m going to learn the Arch way anyway, why not just… learn Arch?

If I wanted pre-made and polished, I’d have stuck with Pop!_OS. If I wanted Arch benefits, why not just use actual Arch?

Not Arch-based. Not Arch-like. Just… Arch.

The Pattern I Kept Missing

Here’s what I was doing wrong: I kept looking for the perfect distro that would give me everything I wanted without any work.

Easy to use but teaches me the fundamentals.
Pre-configured but totally customizable.
Beginner-friendly but advanced.

That distro doesn’t exist. Because those are contradictions.

Every time I installed something new, I had the same experience:

  • “This is it! This is the one!”
  • Use it for 2-3 days
  • Find something that bothers me
  • “Maybe there’s a better distro…”
  • Repeat

I wasn’t learning Linux. I was shopping for Linux. And I was never going to find what I wanted because I didn’t actually know what I wanted yet.

What I Actually Learned

Between all the installations, I did pick up some things:

The basics started making sense. Partitioning wasn’t scary anymore. Boot loaders? Got it. File system structure? Starting to click.

Package managers are different but similar. Whether it’s apt, dnf, or pacman, they all do the same job. Once you understand one, the others make sense.

Desktop environments don’t matter as much as I thought. GNOME, KDE, XFCE - they’re just different interfaces on top of the same foundation. Switching between them wasn’t learning Linux. It was learning to use different GUIs.

I was afraid of the terminal. Every distro I tried, I’d spent most of my time in the GUI because the command line still felt intimidating. But every time I was forced to use it - troubleshooting, configuration, package management - I learned more in 10 minutes than I did in hours of clicking.

The problem wasn’t the distros. The problem was me trying to avoid the learning curve.

The Uncomfortable Realization

On day 15, I was about to download yet another distro (someone mentioned NixOS in a forum), and I stopped myself.

What am I doing?

I’d found TWO distros that actually worked for me. Pop!_OS was solid - I could’ve built my whole workflow there. EndeavourOS was teaching me things while staying out of my way. Either one would’ve been a perfectly fine choice.

But I kept moving. Why?

Because I wasn’t looking for a distro that worked. I was looking for a distro that would magically teach me everything without effort. Easy to use AND teaches fundamentals. Pre-configured AND totally customizable. Beginner-friendly AND advanced.

That distro doesn’t exist. Because those are contradictions.

I wanted to learn Linux from the ground up. I wanted to understand how systems work. I wanted to stop being afraid of the terminal. But I kept choosing distros that did all the hard work for me, then complaining that I wasn’t learning anything.

If I’m serious about this - really serious - then I need to stop shopping and start building.

That means starting from scratch. Not “user-friendly scratch.” Actual scratch.

That means Arch Linux. The real thing. Base installation. No GUI installer holding my hand. Just me, the wiki, and a command line.

The thought terrifies me.

But the thought of spending another two weeks distro hopping terrifies me more.

Where I Am Now

I’ve got the Arch installation guide open in my browser. I’ve read it three times. I still don’t fully understand all of it, but I understand enough to start.

Tomorrow, I’m wiping my drive one more time. But this time, I’m not looking for the “perfect” distro. I’m building my own system from the ground up.

Will I break things? Absolutely.
Will it take forever? Probably.
Will I want to quit halfway through? Almost definitely.

But at least I’ll actually learn something.

No more distro hopping. No more shortcuts. If I’m doing this, I’m doing it right.

Time to stop shopping and start building.

The arch.log series documents my journey from Windows to Linux. It’s messy, it’s honest, and I’m probably doing everything wrong. Follow along if you want to watch someone learn the hard way.