I see often people say that the distro you are using doesn’t matter.

For certain things it doesn’t. Usually this is brought up in the context of someone wanting to choose between 5 possible valid alternatives to start using Linux, and the advice is “it doesn’t matter, just pick whichever and when something annoys you you might understand the difference”

One can turn any distro into another. And I do not agree with that.

You can disagree all you want, it’s 100% possible, stupid, but possible.

If that was true, why do we even have so many distributions?

Because philosophy matters. You don’t pick a distro because it’s technically superior or because it has features others don’t have (with some exceptions like NixOS). You pick a distro because it’s philosophy speaks to you, be it “I aim to be user friendly” or “I aim to follow KISS”. This is why for the most part distro doesn’t matter for newcomers, because they’re looking at 5 examples of “I aim to be user friendly and…” distros.

• … why distro hop?

Because I want to try something different and see how I feel about it.

• … why don’t you use Ubuntu then?

I did, for a long time, then I decided that building my system up was easier than tearing it down. If I was using Plasma or Gnome I wouldn’t have switched probably.

• … why don’t you recommend Archlinux to a newcomer?

Because Arch philosophy is KISS, meaning you have to build everything from the ground up and you’re expected to understand the steps and read the manual. This is why I believe distros like Manjaro or CachyOS cause issues, they remove the initial hurdle of Arch but don’t change the core philosophy, making them ticking time bombs for people who don’t know their way around Linux.

• … why don’t you use Kali Linux as a server?

You do you, my servers don’t usually need all of the extra tools a distro with the philosophy of “I’m a pen tester tool” has.

• … why don’t you use Batocera or SteamOS as your daily driver?

Because usually I want my daily driver to do computer stuff, and those distros philosophy is “I’m a gaming console”

• … why do you trust a community distro more than a corporate distro? (or vice versa)

I don’t trust either more inherently than the other, I trust distros that have a track history of good behavior.

I don’t think that distros only matter to newcomers. Maybe it matters for experienced users even more.

Distros matter, they tell a lot about what you’re trying to accomplish. But most newcomers are debating for days whether they should use Ubuntu, Pop, Mint, Fedora or CachyOS, and realistically they’re unlikely to even understand the difference between those. Think on distros like clothes, if you’re just going to the market it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, if you’re going to a job interview it matters, and if you’re going to do something very specific like swimming some clothes are simply better than others. But if someone asks you “do clothes matter?” You will probably reply no, because for most stuff you do as long as you’re not wearing clothes with holes in them you’re fine, but you can tell a lot about people by the clothes they decide to wear. It’s a similar thing for distros, for most stuff it doesn’t matter, for certain things it’s important for others it gives some information and for some specific cases it makes a huge difference, but for the most part it’s a personal choice.

As you said here a lot of people here either like to downplay the differences between the distros or use them in a way that makes them not notice those differences. I’m with them in saying that if you plan to distro-hop just to change the DE you should probably learn how linux works, but there are definitely differences. Some examples:

• If you want to run ROS2 then ONLY supported distro is Ubuntu
• Before choosing a distro which has systemd removed (like Artix) you should definitely make sure what you are doing, there are definitely differences here
• The frequency of updates of packages is an important thing. Last year it was almost impossible to install Hyprland because it used packages that were too new

There are two reasons why distro choice doesn’t matter.

1. The majors are mostly fine. Ubuntu (not this one), Mint, Fedora, Arch, and Debian.
2. They’re going to need to distrohop in the end anyway, and it’s naive to think they’re going to get it right on the first try.

Just like your “opponents” are over-generalising, you’re deliberately picking the most extreme examples to make your argument. (Batocera as a daily driver - you know that’s what Hanna Montana Linux is for!)

My Linux axioms are: for most new users…

1. choice of DE is most noticeable and decides whether they like their initial experience.
2. choice of base distro family does matter a lot in the long run (Debian-based vs. Arch-based vs. Redhat-based); if you stay inside the same family (e.g. Pop!OS vs. Ubuntu vs. Zorin vs. Mint), choice matters a lot less (and DE is most impactful, c.f. point one).
3. choosing a distro with specialised security hardening (immutable systems, Nix, Qubes, Bazzite) does matter; most of these will make new users unhappy or even question their sanity.

Where you are right: yes, the choices embedded within these three axioms do matter a lot and are noticeable, so it is helpful to have an experienced user recommend a distro to you when starting out.

Where the “distro don’t matter” people are right: there are a lot less choices to be made than meets the eye. Effectively, it can be boiled down to three.

I just thought that the phrase “the distro you are using doesn’t matter” is used to combat the analysis paralysis that many new users experience.

And -to be frank- while Ubuntu and NixOS don’t even remotely resemble each other, I can’t be the only one that feels that most traditional distros do feel kinda same~y.