Just wondering as ive been told many os’s online and then told to not use certain one aswell, i feel confused on what linux os to try someday. i come from windows 10 and i always find i need windows on atleast 1 device, and put linux on the “outdated” devices, but i keep hoping around, i cant seem to make up my mind.
If I’m forced to support it, Arch… It’s really not that difficult to use, and I’ll be damned if I have to remember all the Debian stuff 😂
And now with ArchInstall, you can see the basic building blocks needed for an install.
@Grumpy404 Go for Linux Mint. You really need stability.
So many Linux OSes are unstable and can take a very long time to repair.
Linux Mint has the best hardware support while the underlying package manager
is the most supported of the bunch and you can explore from there.For beginners stay away from these, from bad to worse:
- Controversial distros, Ubuntu and Manjaro (unfortunately, because I had fun using this)
- Breakaway distros, NixOS
- Niche distros, Red Star Linux, Alpine Linux, PostmarketOS, Artix, Hannah Montana Linux
- Downsized or Abandoned distros, Slackware, Knoppix, OpenMandriva
- Build-up distros, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Linux from Scratch
- Any GNU distros, Trisquel, Devuan, Parabola, Guix
Linux Mint. It was specifically created for this use case. It just works. That’s it.
And it’s still great once you know what you’re doing. If you just want your computer to work, Mint is a fantastic option.
I suggest Linux Mint, it just works. I have moved over 10 people to it in the last 2 years. Basically, giving life to their old laptops. Never heard a complaint! Here’s the latest one, my niece: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/117304062578785444
Fedora
The “want to learn” is gonna carry a lot of weight here but I think and arch based distro like cachy works well for this. Cachy was my first distro and I really wanted to learn so it gave we a working starting place from where I could tinker and replace parts one at a time until they fit my liking. If I were to reinstall today I’d do plain arch since I know what I want and don’t need Cachy’s defaults anymore. Obviously everyone has their preferences but I think cachy is a really solid approachable distro for beginners, there’s a reason it just passed steamOS to claim the throne of most used distro on the steam hardware survey
An alternative to this kind power users who want control and learn everything, would be EndeavourOS instead CachyOS. I wouldn’t recommend anyone starting with bare Archlinux, but depending on the person it could be the right choice, but its hard to know who the person is you recommend it.
Yes that reason is fanboys, and trashtubers
Learn basic desktop Linux? Mint. Learn how Linux works and really interested in more of the ins and outs? Arch (Artix if you want systemdless) Learn how Linux works in great depth and are very committed? Gentoo.
Hannah Montana Linux
Ubuntu or Mint is quite okay, I have used both of them in the past and set it up for a friend with little money, little time, and very little PC expertise. Worked perfectly for them for over 10 years without a problem.
Today, if you can get a little help with setting up, I’d recommend Debian stable with either GNOME or KDE. It is more stable and has longer and better long term security support, which did become more important.
Also, it is now easy to set up with disk encryption, which matters for keeping private data secure on Laptops which can get lost or stolen.
Upvotes for Ubuntu. Bazzite is also pretty spiffy these days.
I started my wife on fedora about 10 years ago, and my kids have grown up using fedora
My number one recommendation is Fedora. Extremely stable, popular (so there are lots of q&a online), easy on resources. If you go Debian please don’t go Ubuntu, its buggy for some people (me included) and snaps are 💩. If you want Debian go Linux Mint, which is very beginner friendly.
If you want to go rolling, try Tumbleweed or Slowroll from openSUSE, the former is right on the bleeding edge and the latter rolls a bit behind. They get a lot more testing than Arch so are less likely to have problems. The advantage of rolling is that you don’t have a periodic big update. If rolling doesn’t rock your boat, try Fedora or Mint. Fedora is more up to date.
The thing that will influence how you feel about a distro more than anything is the choice of desktop, so try a few out, at least Plasma, Gnome, Xfce, and Cinnamon. They can all be made to look different to a greater or lesser extent.
Edit: You can even test 100s of them out on distrosea.
I’d say Mint as many others. But any major distro (except Arch) would do the trick if you’re willing to learn.
There are 3 answers and only 3 answers:
- New and casual users: Mint.
- Gamers: Bazzite.
- Power users: just try a bunch and see which one(s) you like, you people are exactly why there’s are so many distros.
Anything but Ubuntu, honestly. I have a few friends who chose Ubuntu as their first distro and after using it for a couple of weeks went back to Windows. Some of them still refuse to give Linux a second chance.
I’m really curious why though. Was it raw Ubuntu with the default Gnome based DE or Kubuntu? I started with Manjaro and went back to windows a while back. Now I’m on Kubuntu and loving it. I think the main difference is that there’s so much more support and whatnot with Ubuntu.