Saying you don't like a distribution because of its desktop GUI or some other changeable config setting is like saying you don't like a house because the water is running.

To be fair, after some experimentation with changing DEs, I'd say it's more like saying you don't like a house because of how the walls are painted and what the floor is made of. It's not like you're stuck with it forever, but changing still takes some work 🙃

@CptFox Maybe, but there are people who praise certain distros because of its preinstalled programs. At that point it's faster to just install them yourself than downloading a different ISO.

Also, installing a new desktop environment takes minutes, I wouldn't necessarily call that "work". For me it's more work to log out to switch the DE ;)

@deadlyRants Maybe it's because of what @Alice said, I do tend to use Ubuntu for the sheer amount of support it's got, but for switching DE, I wouldn't call it a seamless experience

@deadlyRants By the same token, I appreciate the flexibility of distros that leave me with a base system and DON'T assume I want packages x,y,z when nowadays it's a quick and simple command to install them.

@RocketSurgeon some distros ease the pain of setting up, like Pop Os. They had out of the box working nvidia drivers. HOWEVER, I switched right back to arch once I figured out how to set the drivers up on my new laptop.

@JavaCafe01 Including laptop nvidia drivers? I haven't yet seen a distro that's able to handle Nvidia Optimus cards correctly, aka in a way it doesn't end up in a black screen.

@deadlyRants yes, pop os worked perfectly out of the box on my thinkpad x1 extreme. I'm running dual graphics in hybrid mode.

It isn't Pop! OS that makes it possible. It's the system76 driver.

https://support.system76.com/articl...