SUSE Tumbleweed is a disaster

I like the idea of a rolling distribution.

I've tried LMDE in the past, but the packages were always outdated, there seems to be issues with maintenance.

Then, I tried SUSE Tumbleweed, the KDE variant, and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements with KDE since the last time I tried it more than a decade ago. But then the issues started.

First, the screen would sometimes go black and the computer would become unresponsive,  requiring a reboot. This is a deal-breaker in itself. I was hoping an update would fix that, so I gave it some time. I wasn't in a hurry, since this is a laptop I seldom use.

Then, I tried playing an mp3 file, and found out that I had to install the packman repository. That's when dependency hell broke loose. When I updated, the default repos replaced packman's packages with newer packages that didn't work. So I had to manually update those packages by specifying that the update manager must use packman. Updating became a nightmare. 

Dual displays never worked well. Sometimes it would default to mirroring the first display on the second display.


One day, after a month or two of Tumbleweed disphoria, I booted up and after only about 5 minutes I got that black screen I told you about earlier.

Screw this.

An hour later, it has a fresh install of Mint. My stint with Tumbleweed is finished, never to be attempted again.

I'm through with rolling distros. Besides, if a distribution with a regular release cycle can make the upgrades between releases seamless enough, that's pretty much the same as a rolling distribution.

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