openSUSE Tumbleweed
Hacker ApprovedRanked 27 of 63 Linux distributions by recommenders
Stable rolling Linux distribution with a clean KDE desktop, praised for snapshots and years of daily use. Critics say NVIDIA setups need extra work and gaming or codecs are weaker.
Stable rolling Linux distribution with a clean KDE desktop, praised for snapshots and years of daily use. Critics say NVIDIA setups need extra work and gaming or codecs are weaker.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 27
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 2 years
Median of the 5 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 27 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Stable rolling release
“Tumbleweed is still a fairly solid system (up to date, stable, GUI system administration tools”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'” “the tumbleweed rolling is quite stable for a bleeding edge rolling release distro.”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech” “I find Tumbleweed (a rolling distro) more reliable than all the others I've tried.”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'” - Comment from 16 May 2026 in “I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows”
- Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Danish Gov agency to ditch Microsoft software in push for digital independence”
- Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “KDE onboarding is good now”
Long-term daily use on desktops
“I've been running openSUSE tumbleweed myself for years, and recommend Linux to like-minded power users.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet” “The OpenSUSE Tumbleweed installation on my desktop PC is nearing 2 years now and still rolling.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Gentoo Linux 2025 Review” “OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Fedora are two solid distros I've been running for a few years now.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Plasma Bigscreen – 10-foot interface for KDE plasma” - Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released”
- Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Plasma Bigscreen – 10-foot interface for KDE plasma”
- Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account”
Clean KDE desktop with admin tools
“Tumbleweed is good for a mostly stable, clean KDE distro, but I wouldn't recommend it for gaming or codec integration.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey” “Tumbleweed is still a fairly solid system (up to date, stable, GUI system administration tools”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'” Snapshots for safe upgrades
“On openSUSE Tumbleweed, it is. Each Upgrade creates two snapshots, one before, one after”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “I Love FreeBSD” “the btrfs+snapper arrangement has worked pretty well for me”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Frequent updates can break things
“stuff just randomly breaks. A few months ago there was a weird Kernel bug that just froze all of them”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Blog ran on Ubuntu 16.04 for 10 years. I migrated it to FreeBSD” “I'm looking at Tumbleweed but a new version every week is going to break occasionally.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Maybe you shouldn't install new software for a bit”
Other Linux distributions people recommend
The four most recommended other Linux distributions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu | 560 | 493 | 53% | 12 | 10 yrs116 owners | — |
| Debian | 552 | 191 | 74% | 13 | 10 yrs62 owners | Approved |
| NixOS | 454 | 112 | 80% | 13 | 2 yrs69 owners | Approved |
| Fedora Linux | 437 | 131 | 77% | 12 | 2 yrs72 owners | Approved |
| openSUSE TumbleweedThis page | 27 | 3 | 90% | 8 | 2 yrs5 owners | Approved |
What people said
36 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“on my daily driver I switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and I am really enjoying it so far”
“I even run Tumbleweed, a rolling release distribution, on servers”
“traditional Linux distros just make better use of the space in terms of the ratio of number of graphical applications to total disk usage”
“It's been easier staying on the edge of the kernel with less abstractions.”
“it hibernates but refuses to resume”
“stuff just randomly breaks. A few months ago there was a weird Kernel bug that just froze all of them”
“NixOS unstable, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Debian Sid are all more stable than Arch.”
“I'm looking at Tumbleweed but a new version every week is going to break occasionally.”
“It's been pretty stable, although with nvidia you have to do a bit more.”
“the tumbleweed rolling is quite stable for a bleeding edge rolling release distro.”
“95% I use it with Tumbleweed.”
“the latter being a great all-purpose distro as it is”
“One of the main advantages of Tumbleweed is the extensive testing pipeline”
“Tumbleweed is already great”
“On openSUSE Tumbleweed, it is. Each Upgrade creates two snapshots, one before, one after”
“the btrfs+snapper arrangement has worked pretty well for me”
“They fit better with what I want in an OS used for development purposes”
“OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Fedora are two solid distros I've been running for a few years now.”
“if I weren't doing that I'd still be on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed”
“The tumbleweed release is the most stable rolling release ever”
“aside from the KDE 4 to Plasma 5 transition I haven't had any major issues with either one”
“Tumbleweed is good for a mostly stable, clean KDE distro, but I wouldn't recommend it for gaming or codec integration.”
“a framework that uses Change Data Capture for real-time data sync across microservices”
“not trivial, but easier than reinstalling”
“OpenSuse is a great distro.”
“The OpenSUSE Tumbleweed installation on my desktop PC is nearing 2 years now and still rolling.”
“they have rolling release (Tumbleweed)”
“Actually, it is more stable then the Debian machine”
“I've been running openSUSE tumbleweed myself for years, and recommend Linux to like-minded power users.”
“could easily be EndeavorOS or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed”
“I haven't had major issues with them.”
“I've never had trouble running a game that's rated gold or above.”
“while it is decently stable, it is far from perfect”
“I find Tumbleweed (a rolling distro) more reliable than all the others I've tried.”
“I've never had to tinker with any of those.”
“Tumbleweed is still a fairly solid system (up to date, stable, GUI system administration tools”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.