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!

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.

Para_lyzed,

My personal recommendation is Fedora, but the community recommendation will likely be Linux Mint, which is also a perfectly good recommendation. Either of them are “just works” distros. I prefer the update cycle of Fedora, and would certainly want to distance myself from Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives (even Mint), and Debian’s update cycle is painfully slow. Fedora manages what is seemingly a perfect balance of quick and stable updates.

Fedora comes with Gnome by default, but it has spins for other DEs like KDE Plasma if that’s more of your thing (I’ll be switching to Plasma when Fedora 40 releases with Plasma 6).

Ramin_HAL9001, (edited )

Distros that just work (although YMMV): Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS with the default desktop environments. I have been using Ubuntu and Fedora both (on different computers) for over 15 years now they each always get the WiFi and BlueTooth drivers right, neither ever has trouble with audio or video, they really just work, and they both are pretty well up-to-date with the latest stable versions of the biggest Linux apps in their repositories.

I have been thinking of switching my Ubuntu computers over to Mint (Xfce edition, though Cinnamon isn’t bad), which uses the same base operating system package set as Ubuntu, but its ownership model is more collective and community-oriented. Fedora is also collectively owned, while Pop!_OS and Ubuntu are owned and operated by for-profit businesses – that doesn’t make them bad, it just might be something to consider.

Also, if you don’t mind a shameless plug, I wrote a blog post on how to choose a Linux distro, so feel free to read if it pleases you.

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

what about regular fedora on gnome?

Cwilliams, (edited )

Options:

  • Linux Mint (Awesome first distro, but more out of date)
  • Pop!_OS (Great for gaming, based on Ubuntu)
  • Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite (Maybe later if your interested in immutability)
  • EndeavorOS (Maybe later once you understand the value of the AUR, more bleeding edge)

Don’t use:

  • Ubuntu (bloat, snaps)
  • Manjaro (Don’t get me started…)
jlow,

Im pretty happy with KDE Fedora (though constant updates make me anxious something breaks every reboot, lol) but if I had to change I would probably check out LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Ed). I’m not really a fan of Cinnamon/Mate but I’d give it another go …

dessalines, (edited )

EndeavourOS is an arch-based distro that “just works”. I put it on a new machine recently, and the installer manages to let you pick a desktop environment, and still manages to be user friendly.

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)

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.

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. :)

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

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.

BlanK0,

You could try fedora sway or gnome spins

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)

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.

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