Thinking about making the big switch – recommend me a distro!

Hey all, I’ve been thinking about making the jump from Windows to Linux as my daily-driver and I’ve been struggling on what distro to use.

On my laptop I’ve been using Fedora’s KDE Spin for a bit but I can’t say I really like KDE all that much. I took that Distrochooser test and 9/10 of the suggestions were all Ubuntu-based or Arch-based for some reason lol.

I would prefer a distro that “just works” but I’m not scared of having to troubleshoot or fix things. I guess I’m just looking to see what everyone else uses and what you all recommend. Thanks!

slacktoid,
@slacktoid@lemmy.ml avatar

Slackware. It just works. Even current is pretty stable

possiblylinux127,

I hope your joking

slacktoid,
@slacktoid@lemmy.ml avatar

Why would i be?

possiblylinux127,

Because Slackware is not user friendly at all. It doesn’t even come with a GUI for all critical functionality

slacktoid,
@slacktoid@lemmy.ml avatar

OP said they were not looking for Ubuntu or Arch derivatives, and that they were not afraid to get their hands dirty to figure things out. Slackware + Flatpaks can give a stable base while giving you up-to-date applications when SBo doesnt have the build files. This would give OP a system that just works OOTB. Tho it is KDE OOTB, one can put gnome or cinnamon on it.

const_void,

These posts are beyond repetitive at this point.

spittingimage,
@spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar

Stop reading them, then. You’re doing this to yourself.

danieljoeblack,

As someone on the edge of making the change myself, I have been enjoying these posts because I have been getting to learn some of the different distros and there pros and cons. Lemmy isn’t insanely active right now, so you get a different group of perspectives with each iteration of the question.

Maybe once lemmy gets bigger we can break off these sorts of questions into their own catalog but for now I think they are doing more good than harm here.

Just my two cents tho, obviously you have the right to disagree :)

geoma,

MX Linux, Linux Mint, Endeavour OS

geoma,

And Debian

prole, (edited )

I second EndeavourOS. My first distro and it’s been a great experience. I’ve felt no desire to switch.

Steam/games have worked great.

discusseded,

I like fedora but I’m really loving opensuse tumbleweed on both my desktop and laptop. I have Nvidia rtx cards and support is just a few mouse clicks post-image. I get better FPS now than I did in Windows 11.

discusseded,

Adding that zorin was great as well but it’s Debian-based so driver support was behind enough that some games wouldn’t launch for me.

Paragone,

IF you want Steam, THEN please consider every variant in the official Ubuntu family.

Steam-support told me in their system, iirc in early 2023, that they ONLY support the Ubuntu family ( directly ).

As Linus Torvalds noted, it isn’t possible to release software that is going to work on all distros.

Even glibc has been broken by one, in that talk of his, and it wasn’t a niche distro, either, iirc.

Pick which subset you CAN afford to support, and do not add to that subset until you’re rolling in money, from your linux-customerbase.

( slight sarcasm on the last line, but business is business: destroying-resources costs, and if there is no benefit, it isn’t sane to continue doing it. )

Decide which capabilities/functions/apps you NEED, and then don’t even consider distros that break your required-set on you.

_ /\ _

Sanguine,

This post is making it seem like they will have problems with steam on other distros which simply isn’t true.

Wasn’t there just a post about the snap version of steam having major issues recently?

Valve chose an arch based distro for the steam deck. Read into that what you will.

utopiah,

So I could recommend a distro, as you asked (which would be Ubuntu) but instead I believe what’s better is making the switch… small!

In practice that means safety net and familiarity all around :

  • backup your data
  • backup your data… and not, that’s not a mistake, truly do it, now. Before you try something new, and scary. In fact… don’t touch your computer, get another one, a cheap one like a RPi4 or a relatively old laptop that a colleague hasn’t used for years.
  • copy, don’t move, your data to whatever distribution you picked
  • ideally have a dedicated hard drive in there for JUST the data, NOT the OS
  • play… have fun, truly. Try to use YOUR data, I mean the copy you have now that you don’t even care if you lose, and try to use them with the stock software that comes with your distribution, e.g OpenOffice or Blender or Kdenlive, or whatever you are into
  • delete it all! Don’t be afraid, you can do it, you have copies anyway
  • do it, again, again, keep a logbook or wiki or .doc file where you write down what you learn
  • rinse and repeat

this way you should find YOUR distribution in no time and you won’t be afraid of messing up!

Honestly it’s a fun adventure. I’ve been learning Linux and CLI tools decades ago and I’m still learning to this day so do not assume there is one solution you can find today and move, it’s a process, a long one, but a really empowering one IMHO.

N0x0n, (edited )

That’s the spirit 🫶.

That’s really what I’m doing on my debian server where I host my docker containers.

I don’t care if I brick my system while playing arround because every day at 00:00 a crontab job dumps all my database and saves all my docker volumes and docker-compose to an external HD and saves most important dotfiles and wireguard configuration.

Back Up and running in 30 min !

2 years in, still going strong and learning everyday something new, keeping everything I learn in a markdown file.

  • Personal CA with self-signed certificate by an intermediate CA chain
  • Wireguard tunnel routing all my devices traffic to protonVPN
  • Alot of docker stuff
  • Alot of networking stuff (DNS, cryptography…)
  • LVM, bash…
  • …

Wild ride, sometimes alot of frustration, but what an empowering experience !

Bronzie,

Mint Cinamon.

«Everybody» gave me the same advice.

Good luck!

Shady_Shiroe,
@Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world avatar

I second this, Ubuntu gnome feels more like Mac UI in my opinion.

Falcon,

Go with EndeavourOS. It won’t “just work”, but it will be the best compromise between confusing abstraction and low level frustrations.

Fedora is good but it abstracts a little too much away, this is great when you understand how software works, but it’s very confusing when you’re new to Linux and programming.

Arch is good, but you won’t be able to hid the ground running, you’d have to sacrifice a weekend to learn.

Go:

  1. [Optional] Fedora
  2. Endeavour
  3. Arch
  4. Learning
  • Ghost BSD
  • Void
  • Gentoo

Tinkering with those in that order, after about 6 months, you’ll start to feel at home.

Falcon,

Also, if it’s just the DE, install sway / i3 and try that for a week. If you liked that it’s on literally every Linux distribution, even the BSDs.

lemmyreader,

If you like Arch-based, there’s Manjaro and EndeavourOS.

tkk13909,

EndeavourOS, yes. Manjaro, no.

Glitchington,
@Glitchington@lemmy.world avatar

EndeavourOS is a pretty decent setup, it has been working well for me so far, and I prefer Arch-based distros because of how quickly Linux has been moving.

Manjaro have let their SSL cert problem happen twice since I’ve been in the loop, and they were unintentionally DDOSing the AUR for a while.

lemmyreader,

Yes. I know Manjaro got bad press several times, about their SSL cert and about firing their treasurer but as a Linux distribution Manjaro is pretty decent for the average user, in my opinion.

Glitchington,
@Glitchington@lemmy.world avatar

SSL cert expiring stopped access to updates. That’s not just bad press, that’s poor form overall, especially for an Arch-based distro. Even worse, this happened while certbot exists, so there’s no excuse. It tells me they are less reliable as a distro, especially to have let it happen twice.

hperrin, (edited )

I highly recommend Fedora (just the regular Gnome version). I used to be all Ubuntu, but they’ve shoved snaps down everyone’s throats to the point that I simply cannot recommend it to anyone, especially newcomers.

Fedora has been working really well for me. You’ll probably want to play around with Gnome Tweaks to get the maximize and minimize buttons back, and install the Gnome extension “AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support” from the Gnome Extensions website. Those I would consider the essential post install steps.

After that you’ll have a rock-solid and enjoyable setup.

Glitchington,
@Glitchington@lemmy.world avatar

I had to bail from Fedora when they pulled the video codecs from RPM. It may be fixed, but the threat of pulling a tool from the repository still lingers in my mind.

hperrin, (edited )

The video codecs are in rpmfusion, which is available as a checkbox called “Third Party Repositories” in the setup wizard.

Glitchington,
@Glitchington@lemmy.world avatar

Ah, they were being pulled from RPM fusion at one point if I recall. It didn’t go through, but the fact that it was even being discussed told me all I needed to know.

tkk13909,

Pretty much anything Fedora is easy as pie.

lupec,

Since you want a just works deal, I’d go with a ublue based immutable distro, my favorite is Bazzite. You can pick between KDE and Gnome, and change between them cleanly at any point. User apps auto update in the background, your system also updates while it’s running and you only need to reboot to apply. If anything ever goes wrong, you have painless rollbacks. All that with up-to-date fedora packages and kernel.

I’ve been running it on my deck for a while now and it’s never let me down so far, really pleasant experience. It generally keeps out of your way and takes care of the chores while still allowing you to mess around if you want.

Crozekiel,

I second bazzite. Been running it on my gaming laptop for a few months now and loving it. My main desktop is running Garuda Linux, which I also absolutely love but I was weary of a rolling release arch based distro on my laptop which isn’t on and running 24/7 - tried manjaro on my laptop previously and it was broken more often than not. (although I am learning that is likely more a manjaro problem than an “arch-based” problem, it gave me a reason to try bazzite)

where_am_i,

None of those people have a slightest clue. Your options really are: ubuntu vanilla and maybe pop os.

Everything else will very quickly require you to read through some obscure docs and bash your head against the terminal.

Vanilla Ubuntu, not kubuntu/xubuntu/whateverbuntu is the only polished and documented distro. After a year or two of that you’ll be ready to consider this “what distro” question.

nao,

Without the first sentence, this could have been one of the top comments

avidamoeba,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Ubuntu vanilla LTS

savvywolf,
@savvywolf@pawb.social avatar

Imo Mint is the gold standard for a Distro that just works and meets the needs of most people.

GravitySpoiled,

Compared to other debian based distros, right?

savvywolf,
@savvywolf@pawb.social avatar

I mean, just in general.

Besides Fedora (maybe) I’m not sure other non-deb distros really are recommended for new users.

Besides that, like it or not, nowadays most software is distributed as deb files (until Flatpak fixes it). Using something not debian based requires learning how to port .deb files or use manual dependency resolution for tarballs.

GravitySpoiled,

In times of distrobox, package manager and repositories do not matter anymore.

Tippon,

What would you suggest is a better distro for a new Linux user? I’ve found Mint to be great out of the box, and only needs minor tweaks if you want the Microsoft fonts, for example.

Ashiette,

For something that “just works” and feels quite like home, without being KDE, I’d recommend Zorin.

It’s stable, beautiful to look at and works as expected. I’d not recommend Arch-based distros to begin (but if you want to go the troubleshooting and fixing things way, that would be choice #1).

Unpopular : I’d not recommend mint.

Kory,
@Kory@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m curious, why would you not recommend Mint?

Ashiette,

Maybe it is me but Cinnamon, while being very user friendly, feels limited. I feel that when you want to start tweaking, the options are not there yet.

Kory,
@Kory@lemmy.ml avatar

Oh I see, so it’s more about the DE, thanks for clarifying.

1984, (edited )
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Pop OS is the best, from System 76.

pop.system76.com

gregorum,

Seconded

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #