[kevindication]

My primary professional OS progression went something like:

Slackware -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> OS X.

As with the author, I'm pretty sure I'm done with OS X. If I want to go back to Linux, what is the best path? Mint? Back to Ubuntu? Something new?

[stormbrew]

I was a big fan of Mint for a while, but baseline Ubuntu gives you so much flexibility to just choose a DE (or lack thereof), including Cinnamon if you want, that I don't see the point in using the altbuntus anymore. Just install the DE you want and switch it in the login screen.

You might be sacrificing running the bleeding edge of that particular environment, but instead you get kept more up to date on basically everything else (not that the others lag that much, but you're probably waiting a little longer for the next point release at the very least).

[carlivar]

Yes, I completely agree. Ubuntu is fantastic at auto-detecting your hardware and making everything Just Work (by Linux standards - your mileage may vary). So take advantage of that base but use whatever window manager you want. Easily selectable in the login screen.

[Devthrowaway80]

Honestly, any Debian derivative plus a decent window manager. As far as WMs go, in my recent-ish experience GNOME 3 was a gong-show and Unity was similarly terrible - it suffers from the same "my computer is a phone!" UI problems that OS X does.

If you're willing to put up with a little fiddling around, a tiling window manager like XMonad is really worth the learning curve. I've used it exclusively for work for the past year and it's been a revelation.

[aidenn0]

I have never had a linux laptop, so I can't make recommendations there, but both debian and arch are quite nice. IMO, Ubuntu tends to be a bit too aggressive about adopting new technologies before they are ready (I'm happy to benefit from the increased attention, and bugfixes that happen in new components due to others using Ubuntu though).

[wcummings]

I run Fedora w/ MATE, pretty set-and-forget, not a lot of issues.

[jqm]

Back to where you started. Slackware.

[kevindication]

I did enjoy Slackware as a learning experience all those years ago, but nowadays I like to spend more time building things and less time futzing with the OS.

[jqm]

Eh, I don't know... I don't really fuss with it much. Admittedly I did the first few times setting up, but now my desktop dot-files move with me, get a minor edit every so often, and once every couple of years I have to rebuild some packages....

I guess if needed lots of packages on the fly, or changed machines every few months it would be different. But it's once in a great while... then solid and stable for a long time.

To be frank, I would rather build packages from source. It's not I'm suspicious, but I run into plenty of problems with versions etc. using package tools, and it's really not that much more work just to do it the basic way.