There are two types of distro-hoppers.
The first is the explorer, someone who enjoys trying new things just for the experience. For them, switching operating systems is a hobby, a curiosity, maybe even a form of entertainment.
Then there’s the second kind: the frustrated user. This person distro-hops not out of excitement, but out of necessity. Something’s broken, something changed, something became so cumbersome that starting over with a different distribution feels easier than constantly fixing the current one.
I’ve been that person more times than I care to admit.
The Search Begins
When I bought my Zephyrus laptop, it came preloaded with Windows 10 Pro and Armory Crate. I’m not a gamer, so most of that software was unnecessary for me. I primarily use the laptop for running AI workloads which requires a minimum of 8 GB of VRAM.
Performance-wise, AI software runs just as fast on Windows as it does on Linux. But Linux has two major advantages: lower heat and no baked-in bloat or telemetry. So, naturally, I chose Linux.
And so, the search for the right distribution began.
Fedora: A Promising Start
After doing my homework, Fedora seemed like the best fit, especially with support from the excellent asus-linux.org project. Installing it on the Zephyrus was smooth.
At that time, I also had three Dell desktops. I thought, “Why not simplify everything by running the same distribution on all machines?” In theory, that made sense.
In practice, not so much.
Fedora installed fine on one Dell PC, but the exact same USB installer would throw dracut errors on another. Then I realized that installing the Extensions app, a utility under 5 MB, pulled in around 800 MB of additional packages via Flatpak. That was too much overhead for my liking.
So I pivoted. Any distribution without Flatpak would do.
Ubuntu, Tumbleweed, Manjaro… and the Breaking Point
Ubuntu, to its credit, ran great on all my Dell systems. I thought, “Finally, consistency.”
If I could just get Ubuntu running smoothly on the laptop, I’d be done.
For a while, that plan worked. But with the release of Ubuntu 24.04, everything fell apart on the Zephyrus. I ran into serious hardware issues and instability.
So I tried openSUSE Tumbleweed, a highly respected rolling release. It installed fine on one desktop but wouldn’t boot properly on the laptop.
Next up: Manjaro.
To this day, I think Manjaro is one of the few distribution that gave me a unique edge. It let me run LocalWP, which I consider one of the best pieces of web development software available. I don’t remember exactly what caused me to move on from Manjaro, but if history is any guide, it must have been something significant.
By spring of 2025, I had reached a breaking point.
On my Dell Inspiron Gaming PC (i7-8700), resuming from suspend would cause the system to recognize only one CPU thread. Windows 11 Home didn’t have this problem. I even tried a beta of openSUSE Leap 16, which looked promising on paper but ended up being a waste of time.
That was the moment I stepped off the Linux bandwagon.
A New Direction
I did what many frustrated professionals do when they’re tired of fixing and just want to work.
I bought a Mac.
Specifically, a Mac Studio. And although migrating my work to macOS took longer than I expected, eventually I settled in. It worked. I was happy. In fact, I was more than happy. I was excited again, just like I was in the early ’90s when I created my first MIDI file on an Atari computer.
The transition to Mac also gave me the freedom to simplify. I sold off two of my Dell desktops and kept the third, not for Linux, but just in case.
Knowing Linux wasn’t working for me, I started exploring other options. That’s when I turned to FreeBSD. It was an interesting system with many strengths, but ultimately not suited to my workflow.
Then, almost by accident, I stumbled upon GhostBSD and everything changed.
The Lucky Discovery
It was love at first sight.
I’ve never seen an operating system install as quickly and effortlessly as GhostBSD. The installer’s progress bar didn’t crawl, it flowed. It felt like saving a file, not installing a full OS.
I know it might be hard to believe, but I’m confident in saying this:
If I had discovered GhostBSD earlier, I might not have bought the Mac Studio
That’s not a knock on the Mac. It’s an incredible machine, and I love working on it. But having the Mac Studio and GhostBSD side by side, I often find myself reaching for the GhostBSD machine instead.
It took no time to set up for programming and web design, and since then, it just works. In fact, I’m already planning to skip installing Homebrew next time I reset macOS, because I don’t need PHP, Apache, or Python there anymore. All of that happens on GhostBSD.
The Daily Driver
GhostBSD runs on a modest Dell with an i3-10100 CPU, yet its speed and responsiveness feel just as smooth and reliable as the far more powerful Mac Studio. It’s always great when you get the best of both worlds, and GhostBSD gives me just that.
It doesn’t distract me, it doesn’t fight me – it simply lets me work. And really, that’s all I expect from an operating system: to let me do what I do, without getting in the way.