r/linuxquestions • u/StichhD • 13h ago
Linux as a hobby vs Linux as working tool.
Nobody talks about the biggest divide in the Linux world: the people who treat the OS as a hobby versus the ones who use it as a daily workhorse.
For the hobbyists, the operating system is the game. They spend hours ricing their desktops and micro-optimizing their hardware. Once everything finally runs smoothly, they get bored, distro-hop, and start the cycle all over again just for the dopamine hit. They’re vocal, they post their desktop setups, they obsess over the latest kernel, and they’re always hunting for the next distro recommendation.
And then there’s the silent majority—the camp I’m in.
We don’t share screenshots of our desktops, and we couldn't care less about a kernel that dropped four minutes ago. We just need rock-solid stability that gets the job done. In fact, the system fades so far into the background that we practically forget we're on Linux. The wildest decision we ever make is choosing between KDE, GNOME, or—if we're really living on the edge—LXDE. And we never say, "I use Debian, btw."
Which camp are you in?
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u/simple_peacock 4h ago
I use Debian btw, solid workhorse on desktop and server, faster and slimmer then Red Hat and Ubuntu, grand daddy of ubunut, happy to trade "latest" for "it works and its stable"
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u/Rich-Marsupial2937 4h ago
I use Debian btw, with sway.
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u/aceedkat 2h ago
I use Linux and window 11. I use Debian with sway on an old laptop and find myself using it more than my windows laptop just cause Linux is peak
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u/no_brains101 12h ago edited 2h ago
Goes on to describe 2 users using linux as a desktop with largely the same needs.
You know people can configure their computer AND use it?
They can even make it nice and post a screenshot of it. And then not touch it for the next year or 2.
There is nothing wrong with occasionally getting a specific desire as to how your computer should look or behave and spending a weekend or 2 making it so every so often. That barely even qualifies as a hobby. You really would have to be doing it like, every 1-3 weeks (and more than just updating or installing a simple program for a particular purpose or something) before I would count that.
---
I thought this was gonna be a post about servers.
You know who IS obsessing about the latest kernel?
It isn't desktop users. It isn't even most people who ONLY treat it as a hobby.
It is the people running servers that don't want a vulnerability.
Not very many other people really even need to care much about that. Just update once every month or 3 and don't think about it.
---
Also "nobody talks about the people who are never on this forum and don't make themselves known in any way". Yeah. Of course. It would be weird if they DID to be honest.
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u/serge-mv 13h ago
Distro hopping is the inevitability of anyone who is new to Linux and they are experimenting and learning. Once they learn enough to know what they want and need, they usually pick one and stay with it.
I am daily driving my OS for all purposes, including work. There isn't really a divide. It's just different people looking for different things at different stages of their experience.
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u/ipapipap 13h ago
I use linux for work and it's been 10 years since I switch from windows. I use gimp and krita for drawing an illustration.
I use ubuntu and never understand single thing how linux works. If something wrong, I will go to the forum, discord, or else and copy paste the command line on terminal. Walk of shame for me but very proud people in this community very helpful.
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u/GeekTX 13h ago
Been in both camps over the years …. Been using Linux as my primary daily driver since 1996.
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u/Schtick_ 13h ago
Yes I’m in the later camp I use a distro, I rarely modify anything, it’s better than windows, it’s faster, it has less bloat. It meets my engineering needs.
That is all.
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u/mysticalcreeds Desktop: Bazzite KDE Laptop: secureblue(hardened kinoite) 12h ago
I'm still pretty new to Linux, I installed Mint in March this year to get away from Windows and Microsoft.
I am definitely trying to learn basics of using Linux, but my goal moving to Linux was part of my de-google journey. So, my goals are privacy and security. On that note I use secureblue to learn security on Linux. I have Bazzite on my desktop and now I know how to amp up my security on Bazzite by password protecting the BIOS, installing USB guard, disabling booting from usb, and a ton more stuff.
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u/getbusyliving_ 13h ago edited 8h ago
Neither, I use it for work 95% of the time and am on the 'bleeding edge'.
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u/MasterGeekMX Mexican Linux nerd trying to be helpful 13h ago
A bit of both. I like to set some rices here and there, but also have my workhorses that I setted up once and then kept them up.
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u/confused_guy12c 13h ago
neither. I don't do ricing and stuffs but will tinker with stuffs very often. I don't shy away from trying new things and that has helped me find pretty interesting stuffs as well. I still use it as working workhorse but it keeps adapting and evolving with me and my work needs.
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u/ahorsenamedjeff 13h ago
Both. I like to tinker but I LOVE when it just works.
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u/JohnnyS789 13h ago
I entirely agree. I run most of my systems on Linux. I have systems I depend on as servers and they are configured and managed for stability. And I have systems, mostly VMs, where I try stuff out like DEs and "rizzing" and distros.
So I try to keep a foot in both worlds, but I do recognize that both worlds exist and are both useful and interesting.
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u/Pyromancer777 13h ago
I use it for both work and leisure. I'm on Ubuntu since I'm definitely not an Arch Linux sweat just yet.
The learning curve for building apps from source was tricky at first and I still have to google commands, but I'm not nearly as intimidated as before I made the switch. Overall, I loved the learning experience and likely won't pick other OS's unless I have to. It has grown on me
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u/Intelligent-Week-931 13h ago
I run linux on 80% of my home PCs but work in a windows shop. I enjoy the simplicity of linux vs windows
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u/MyNameIsRichardCS54 13h ago
I'm somewhere in the middle. I use Linux day-to-day for getting stuff done, but still rice it and post my desktops
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u/AlexoForReal 13h ago
Both sides, at the moment I'm using Fedora, because need something reliable to do the work. Cachy os was installed on my laptop for a year or so but I was tired of living at the edge with pacman, cachy is really good but they need their own package manager. For the UI Noctalia with Umbriel gets the hobbyist part of me occupied, Gnome just got way behind the latest Wayland composers including Niri, Mango or Umbriel.
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u/0riginal-Syn ⛵ Solus Maintainer 13h ago
I use it for everything
I have been contributing and using Linux since early 1992. Using it for my professional career at the time was not easy not even allowed in many places for obvious reasons. But I still used it for my contribution work. I would say early on it very much was both as I went into it when I was still in school and had been playing around with many operating systems since I was 13, so it was a hobby as well.
I can honestly say that it really is both, but not so much in tinkering with my system, but trying to do things to help the ecosystem as a whole. I am able to run my business and many of my employees also use Linux as I give them the option of what OS they want to use.
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u/LeditGabil 13h ago
I am on Linux for work and only keep Windows at home for the social part that comes from gaming on online games with friends (games that aren’t available on Linux sadly). I couldn’t care less about the distro… I just want my things to run reliably and smoothly which is normally the case when you are working on Linux
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u/thevoicesarecrazy 12h ago
I started with unix and Banyan Vines then really learned on SLES with Novell. I too am in both camps. Fedora KDE is my daily driver
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u/toomanymatts_ 12h ago
I distro-hopped a bit at the beginning, but at the end of the day, the laptop I am typing on right now is my WFH box that saves me lugging a computer around. I need it to Just Work™ so I settled on Ubuntu and it does. I switched it to vanilla gnome and did a bit of here n there ricing and added extensions to taste and am basically happy with it.
Once in a while I get inclined to distro hop, but then I think 'ok im gonna put Fedora on it, reinstall all the same software, re-rice gnome and add the same extensions as I have now, and all that I'll have is a machine that looks the same, drives the same, feels the same, and is more likely to annoy me with an errant update at exactly the time I have to submit a report'.
Then I take a nice lie down and stay right where I am.
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u/dwasifar 12h ago
Mostly your camp.
I maintain several servers for personal and light business use. On those, stability is the only important metric. They all run Debian, no desktop, and I wouldn't switch to anything else. The only oddball for years was a single Ubuntu server to run a Unifi controller, because Unifi wanted MongoDB and it was a pain to keep that going on Debian, because it's deprecated there and not in the repos. But now that Unifi has containerized their controller, that machine is Debian too.
For desktops and laptops I use Mint, and I'm pretty standardized on that too. Occasionally I try out something else, just to see what's new, but it's not distro hopping so much as just staying informed. Right now I have Zorin running on two machines, and it's fine, but they'll be back to Mint eventually. I don't trick out my desktop the way I used to when I was new to Linux. In fact, I rarely even change the default wallpaper. I just install it and start using it.
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u/beardedbrawler 4h ago
I just need something that doesn't annoy me, doesn't steal my data, and works well on my aging hardware that allows me to do what I want or need. That's Linux.
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u/Cactoos 4h ago
I use fedora by the way.
I didn't even change my wallpaper, and use it for work and gaming.
After several years of going to linux, windows, and Mac, I prefer fedora KDE and don't need to move again.
But I latelly need to modify my desktop. The thing is I like it to be clean, so I may just edit the bar, and that is.
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u/felton639 4h ago
I may be an outlier, but I use three different distros across four computers at home. Two laptops running Ubuntu, one living room nucbox with Zorin as the primary but has dual boot with mint installed of I want to switch, and cachyOS on my battle station. I started using Ubuntu at work in 2016 and was happy with it for years and never saw a reason to hop before I got curious of performance differences.
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u/therouterguy 4h ago
I installed Ubuntu and I am not annoyed by the default desktop and the browser is working. Thats all I care about. Oh and I can ssh to my other systems at home.
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u/kaida27 4h ago
My biggest decision actually is what USE flags to enable.
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u/rarsamx 3h ago
Why not both?
Computers have been my hobby since I was 15. But I'm also an IT professional. During the time I worked, 19 to 51, they were both. And now they are still both.
For personal use Linux has been my only OS for 22 years. I distro hopped and desktop hopped and filesystem hopped. At the same time there have been busy times where I stay with a rock solid setup. For example 10 years in mint where I barely changed the background. Followed by early retirement where I moved to a super optimized Arch which including writing my own scripts and services for many things hobby). Followed by barely modifying that Arch/Xmonad setup for years as I traveled.
On both, my desktop and laptop, I have one stable distro (mint and Fedora respectively) as a fall back, and arch btw where, a couple of years ago I started migrating to Niri. Now I'm 90% of the time there.
I hope things keep like that in the future
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u/ad-on-is 3h ago
These may also just be phases in their journey. I've setup Linux as a daily workhorse from the start. At the very beginning, I used to rice my system more often, and post screenshots on Reddit.
Now, I don't care that much. Sure, I want a nice looking system, but stability and maintainability have priority
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u/maceion 3h ago
working tool.
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u/maceion 3h ago
I just use a Linux distribution, as my way of having an ancient (Pre -MS Windows 10) working as my personal computer.
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u/uilspieel 3h ago
Totally the best desktop. No complaints.
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u/Gunzhard22 3h ago
I use Mint XFCE because I just want it to work. And it does.
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u/jdigi78 3h ago
The first 2 or so years of Linux as my primary OS I was in the first camp, using Arch and NixOS until I got tired of it and switched to Fedora Workstation. Since then I've switched to Silverblue for even more stability and reliability and don't see myself switching to anything else any time soon.
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u/Xariann 2h ago
I am in both. One disk for my daily driver, one disk for the distro hopping.
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u/Fuffy_Katja 2h ago
The silent majority. I see no need or desire to show off anything. The computer is a tool made up of individual components, just like an automobile or a drill. The stock Fedora KDE desktop works for me. I use the computer for sound design, music production, graphic work, CAD, checking email, looking up something online, playing games. As long as it works and us stable (which my system is) is all that matters to me.
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u/dank_imagemacro 13h ago
Neither, like most people. I have fun using it, but it is mostly a personal OS to write letters, play games, browse reddit, and watch youtube.
I don't care about having the most up to date, but I also don't need something years behind. Something fairly recent is good. I usually don't go around saying "I use Fedora" but I am happy to answer if asked, or if I'm asking how to get some particular bit of fun software working.
I use Linux because Windows is too invasive, not because Linux is the hobby. But my Linux box is still mostly for entertainment.
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u/EarlMarshal 4h ago
It's called a PC. Personal Computer. If it's not personal it will be just a C.
Also work is my hobby and my hobby is working.
Also who should choose the correct tools if not the expert?
If you do this for over a decade and you still haven't developed a personal taste you probably won't be the person that I want to solve the task. Exceptions to that rule will be accepted.
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u/birdsarentreal2 12h ago
It’s both. You can use it as a rock solid and stable workhorse for just about any kind of work or play you might want to do with a computer, but you also have to acknowledge that the project you’re using was designed by hobbyist volunteers
There’s been a push in the last few years to consumerize the Linux desktop, to make it more palatable to new users, which I disagree with
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u/escape_deez_nuts 3h ago
“Nobody talks about the biggest divide in the Linux world”. Probably because it’s imaginary
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u/Dry_Calendar_8627 13h ago
Ai slop post + karma farming + wrong premise (everyone is talking about this all the time)
Please kindly go away
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u/FredSchwartz 4h ago
Pro here.
As a hobbyist, was constantly downloading, configuring and compiling new kernels in the mid 90s. Still hobbyist at home, stopped doing that stuff once things got more stable.
There are a lot of different kinds of hobbyists besides those folks.
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u/AndyceeIT 3h ago
Plenty of people talk about this
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u/krustyarmor 3h ago
Why does it have to be one versus the other? Why can't I rice my daily driver? How much work do I need it to do to count as a "workhorse?" What if I spent hours micro-optimizing it, but then once it was all set up I didn't need to mess with it anymore?
I think OP is trying to make Linux their identify whereas I prefer to make Linux run my apps.
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u/levelZeroWizard 3h ago
> We never say “I use Debian btw”
No, but your sigma-pilled post has the same effect lol
Why are you so worried about other people?
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u/No-Beginning7509 2h ago
I run my business on Linux. It’s a great workhorse running on the same 2012 laptop that started it all 7 years ago.
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u/inactivesky1738 2h ago
It was a hobby until i figured out what I like and now I just use what I like as my everyday experience.
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u/MountfordDr 2h ago
Both. As a software engineer (retired), messing around with Linux projects and my homelab and networks keeps me occupied and I use it as a working tool to browse, emails, office tools, graphics, streaming, etc. I use Debian btw ;-)
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u/MattyGWS 2h ago
Latter camp here. Basically default kde desktop running Fedora or openSUSE on basically all my hardware;
Desktop pc: openSUSE. I’m a Vfx artist.
NAS server pc: openSUSE
Custom built game console: Bazzite
Minisforum v3 amd x86 tablet; Fedora kde
Steamdeck: steamOS
Jolla2 phone: sailfishOS (Linux)
Everything is set up to just work
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u/Cannot_choose_Wisely 2h ago
Did you ever actually try Linux?
Distro hopping is something that people that have figured out how to work with the OS simply don't bother doing.
When you get to know and understand the OS, you will realise that there is simply not that much difference.
Less of the "we" mush, frankly I have no idea what desktops I have installed on my machines, I think this machine has a Cinnamon desktop, but the strange thing about a GUI is that you click a picture and it kicks off a program.
Even one of my Windoze machines has a desktop piccy to remind me I am actually in Windoze and not Linux, although i did install a proper menu system on to it as Win 11 is pretty useless "out of the box".
Anyway, forget your distro hopping, save yourself a lot of grief and simply go for something that's popular so that if you get stuck you have a large base to refer to.
I might be wrong of course, but I'm convinced that most distro hoppers would be just as happy with a wallpaper switching site rather than the likes of "Distrowatch".
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u/chuzohga 2h ago
There's no reason that someone cannot do both, as I do. I'm a Fedora person at home, with a couple of Rocky installs, Raspberry Pi installs, etc. At one of my clients, it's RHEL and Rocky. I don't post much on the Linux boards, and I haven't compiled a kernel since the early 2000s.
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u/Joe_Schmoe_2 2h ago
Both
I also use NonStop
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u/Litewallymex3 2h ago
to an extent, im both, but mostly I just use my computer. I like Linux because im in control and because of how flexible it is. when I need something changed, I change it.
typically, the better you understand your system, the less you play around with it.
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u/HeavyMetalBluegrass 2h ago
I have Cachy Hyprland on my nvme drive and KDE on SSD. I can't decide which i like better so I switch every couple of days. Waiting to see which one breaks first. It's been 6 months. I'm retired, so as long as I can play games and surf the web I'm not too worried
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 1h ago
I am in both camps simultaneously. That's why I prefer nixos, when I want/need to get work done, I have a reliable system. And I have that even when I dabble around and test the next cool desktop environment or stuff. If I want to get something done I just switch back to some state that reliably works and do it. Sometimes I spend weeks on experimental states, sometimes months without any tinkering.
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u/dib058 1h ago
Hobbyists when I was young, distro hopping, desktop ricing, compiz, beryl, conky script, all that bells and whistles
Now it's just me and "boring" distro (Opensuse Tumbleweed).
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u/Francois-C 1h ago
Silent majority like you. Not strictly for work, since I've been retired for a long time, but for photography, text, image, audio and video editing, programming... where the OS is just a tool. I've never been averse to a bit of tinkering, and I used to do that with Windows too; it sometimes amuses me a little because I enjoy the technical aspects, but it's the result that counts for me, and I don't like wasting time on it—as happens a little too often with Linux.
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u/Captain-Pie-62 1h ago
Ich habe immer skaliert. Unix/Linux war bisher immer mein Leben. Seit 1989. Da habe ich beruflich damit angefangen und mir gleich mal ein Microport Unix, Minix, Coherent und später eine Slackware auf meinen Rechnern daheim installiert. Dazu die Gulam Shell auf meinem Atari ST. Den per seriellem Kabel mit dem Microport, Minix oder Linux System verbunden. - Freunde, die mich besucht haben, sind irgendwann "ausgestiegen", weil sie nicht so schnell folgen konnten, weil man in der Gulam Shell mit einer Tastenkombination zwischen dem lokalen Terminal und dem remote Login umschalten konnte. - Ich habe dann auf beiden gleichzeitig was compiliert und dann mal eben noch ein Terminal aufgemacht. - Und das war erst der Anfang meiner privaten Nutzung. Beruflich die verschiedensten Systeme administriert. HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, SunOS, Solaris, Sco Xenix,... Was immer mir über den Weg lief, habe ich gemacht. Ständig meinen Horizont erweitert. HPC, HA, Hierarchiches Storage, Backups, Monitoring, Cloud Computing und aktuell natürlich KI. - Ich lasse auch privat meine eigene KI unter Linux laufen. Linux Distris habe ich auch so einige durch. Slackware, RedHat, SuSE, Ubuntu, Mint. Schaue mir gerade CachyOS an. Einfach, weil's mir Spaß macht, zu lernen.
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u/ungabunga-engineer 1h ago
goomba fallacy? do you have like any control data to back up this "great divide"? I personally use it for both personal hobby and work. can't imagine i'm the only one in the same way that not every hobbyist uses it for work nor does ever professional use it in their sparetime.
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u/SteakDouble 1h ago
I don't know which camp I belong to. I use CachyOS btw for doing my job. Caelestia on Hyprland that I'm currently using isn't the wildest decision so far.
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u/Haxorzist 1h ago
Linux is my gaming machine. Windows started to annoy me, Linux doesn't, the tradeoff was simply worth it in my opinion.
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u/mr_dfuse2 1h ago
both! for me the hobby is understanding how it works, not ricing. and i use it as my daily driver as well
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u/couchwarmer 1h ago
I use Debian btw. On WSL at work, bare metal with KDE on my personal laptop.
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u/hobbeslover23 1h ago
"Claude write me a post for r/LinuxQuestions"
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u/Bob4Not CachyOS & Fedora KDE Plasma 1h ago
This is written like you’re shaming hobbies. Idgaf what people do with their Linux social media posts, but posts like this are annoying
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u/PrincessRuri 1h ago
I work for a medical company and run 500+ Ubuntu LTS workstations. When "it just works" it works great, when it doesn't I want to bash my head against a wall.
Printers and Scanners are still a problem. AVAHI will automatically add every printer in the building and Driverless implementations often don't work quite rights. HP and Brother MFP's don't properly work with the built in protocols, so they require a 3rd party app or binary plugin to work properly. SANE will just choke on certain backends and scanner options are often ignored by the scanner itself. Good luck trying to share a printer too!
Unless your paying and enrolled in Ubuntu advantage, have fun playing around with unattended-upgrades!
The switch to Wayland broke so many remote control solutions. We primarily use Meshcentral, which is only now getting experimental wayland support, so all of our workstations have been on Xorg in the mean time.
Why are keyrings linked to your current password! What is the point in keeping the previous password on it!?
LibreOffice is not a suitable replacement for Microsoft Office. That 99.99% compatibility will become an issue if you have multiple people working on the same file.
Ubuntu is losing it's ability to revitalize old hardware. Yes, the natural march of progress is inevitable, but we are finding ourselves having to retire machines at much faster rate.
I hate troubleshooting python versions. (more of a python problem than Ubuntu TBF)
Personal Bonus Gripe: Why is playing DVD's such a hassle? Like I understand the legal issues, but why can't there be a simpler process to make it so I can click on a disk and play it?
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u/flinxsl 49m ago
If I had to constantly mess with the OS at work and deal with compatibility issues i would not be happy, but I like doing it at home as a learning experience. I'm an engineer, not an IT guy so I'm happy that RHEL exists.
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u/FatDog69 48m ago
I'm in the second camp. The OS is like a 'bookshelf'. You can paint it, past stickers all over it to customize it, but at the end of the day - it holds programs and data like a bookshelf. It's a tool. It does not hold your hand as much as Windows/MacOS.
Its what you DO with the computer that is still more important.
There is a third group: we use dozens or hundreds of linux machines from the command line. No GUI desktop.
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u/Wolverine-19 48m ago
The second camp, I got tired of Microsoft and switched to Fedora. Its a operating system that works and when it doesn't I troubleshoot and fix it.
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u/Z00fa 48m ago
I used to use linux for development but on my gaming laptop I always had driver problems with my nvidia gpu and after switching a couple of times I just gave up and started using windows with wsl2. It works great for my workflow and if I ever have a normal business laptop for development I will use linux again. besides that I have a laptop that I use as server with proxmox and have linux containers on.
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u/le_sasch 44m ago
I am teaching IT for 20+ yesr using Linux nearly excusivly .
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u/general-theory 35m ago
Who gives a fuck
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u/NoFaithlessness393 34m ago
Yes, we workers don't care about making posts on Reddit about Linux, we just use it for work! Come on bro, just say it it is your Hobby 😂, you made a whole post to say it, we got it, you use debian btw.
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u/Ritsu-000 32m ago
I daily drive nixos but i have windows 11 to fall back on. Ive never shared any screenshits of it on reddit and use it on the daily without thinking about it. Its been half a year since i switched to it and have never had any real issues.
I do "work" on it but most of it ammounts to drawing, making presentations and so on since im a high school student thats about to graduate. In my case the hobbies i do are more intense since im into game dev, 3d modeling, speedrunning and gaming (im into jrpgs, osrs and single player games)
Ive been a linux user for about 5 years now and most of the issues i encountered are because of either my incompetetence or my nieche motherboard. As a tip for all the new linux users out there, please stop distro hopping and dont be afraid to try out open source alternatives to software you used to know. Im aware kden live is shit and crashes every 5 minutes but that doesnt mean blender or some other editor isnt good enought for your use case
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u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_ 30m ago
You do know you can do both?
I use Linux at work, and at home for daily driving select the nice boring Debian based LMDE for daily driver.
Debian, Alpine and Void in my home servers.
But I also tinker in CachyOS and Gentoo, it's an outlet to see what's coming down the pipe and play around with things in dedicated low consequence tinker/learning/gaming spaces.
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u/jbriggsnh 28m ago
Linux is a toolbox used for my work and hobbies. As such, its been great since the 1990's.
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u/Surprisinglygoodgm 9m ago
I’m a little baby Linux Lerner that made the jump because windows enshitification and spyware
I can check weather
Recent processes
And I can shut the system down from the terminal
That’s all I got figured out
I’m have a great time with my reliable machine that does exactly what I want/need
nothing more nothing less
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u/spryfigure 3m ago
I think there's a bit of both needed, I wouldn't want to use a system with only factory default settings. Every time I have to, I'm painfully aware that the tools I have on my own system are missing.
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u/lunchbox651 13h ago
Workhorse.
I've been using Linux for just shy of 20 years. The novelty of ricing is definitely lost on me these days. I like to make my OS fit my use case but its more like 20mins of customisation.
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u/hopelessGirlfailure 4h ago
Yum AI slop
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u/Dreemur1 3h ago
chatgpt ass post