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!

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.

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.

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

Kory,
@Kory@lemmy.ml avatar

Linux Mint and Pop!_OS are the most recommended beginner friendly distros that “just work” in my experience. That being said, before you install, you can try out the look and feel here: distrosea.com

whaley,

I like Garuda. I use the dragonized theme and it makes it look similar to mac OS. IMO it’s as easy to use as any other justworks distro but is far prettier

Scout,

I just switched from windows to Linux a few months ago. I just picked opensuse tumbleweed KDE at random and it just works. Idk anything about Linux so maybe give that a try and see if it works for you as well.

Stillhart,

I swapped last summer and landed on Pop!_OS after trying a few different options. If you game, Nobara is a great choice too. Other ones I considered were Mint, Ubuntu and SUSE Tumbleweed.

I would highly recommend trying them all with the live disk thingy. Mint didn’t even work at all on my computer for some unknown reason, which was rather surprising considering how often it’s recommended. It kept freezing right when the GUI logged in. So yeah, try em out for a little bit just to make sure there aren’t any weird incompatibilities.

joojmachine,

Stick with Fedora, but give a shot to the Atomic variants (Silverblue, Kinoite, etc.) You can always switch DEs back and forth with one command. Even if you don’t stay with Fedora, it will help a lot for you to find the desktop environment that fits your workflow best (although I do recommend sticking with Fedora)

BlanK0,

You could try fedora sway or gnome spins

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.

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

agent_flounder, (edited )
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

Nothing wrong with Fedora Gnome. I’ve been using it for several months (well ok technically Nobara but I decided to try vanilla Fedora recently and it’s about the same). Prior to that I had been using Mint / Cinnamon for a decade and it’s a good choice too.

But truth be told the Gnome simplicity / minimalism has been growing on me. I wished it were more customizable but whatever.

Fedora is a very very mainstream distro, too, so help is easy to find if anything goes haywire.

PS: nobara is great for gaming but the big gotcha for me was that updating from the shell prompt requires a somewhat involved set of commands. If you use a simple dnf update you’ll break something like I did. Which is why I decided to give Fedora another go. If you choose Nobara, just use the (slow) GUI updater.

The other commenter who mentioned installing and using Gnome tweaks, etc. nailed it. Do that. :)

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.

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)

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