Distro suggestions for a dumb-dumb who only knows linux through meme osmosis
from HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone to linux@lemmy.ml on 24 Dec 2024 21:26
https://dormi.zone/post/3702261
from HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone to linux@lemmy.ml on 24 Dec 2024 21:26
https://dormi.zone/post/3702261
hey nerds, I’m getting myself a new personal laptop as a treat, but I very much do not want windows 11 shitting it up. Is there a linux distro with caveman-compatible instructions for installation and use? I want to think about my OS as little as possible while actually using it.
I’ve got one friend who uses mint, but I’ve also seen memes dunking on it so who knows. I actually really only know what I’ve seen from you all shitposting in other communities
threaded - newest
What spec of laptop are you thinking of getting?
Still shopping around, so nothing’s set in stone. I’m not much of a hardware guy either, so the best I could tell you is just that I’m looking for something a step or two above ‘bare minimum’ for 2025. An SSD, fair bit of ram, ports for external storage so I can actually boot with another OS, maybe enough guts to run skyrim modded to the gills. Somewhere in that ballpark.
If you’re getting a laptop with a graphics card, make sure you go with something by AMD. Nvidia cards will work fine enough, though for a whole host of different reasons, AMD is generally preferred for Linux.
good insight, thanks
If you’re running an Nvidia gpu, then Linux Mint is great for not needing to deal with setup issues.
If you’re going with an AMD gpu or no gpu at all, then i actually recommend Garuda Linux. It’s Arch-based so you may need to keep up with the updates more often. But you’ll get access to the AUR, a centralized* repository for just about every program you’ll need to install. I personally find it and pacman easier to use than apt.
memes dunking on mint are irrelevant. use what works for you & ignore the noise.
personally, mint lmde, based on debian, might be worth a once over. sounds like the stability aspect might be up your alley.
Mint is the best distro for the average user who doesnt want to tinker with their OS or doesnt want to waste time fixing issues.
IF Mint doesnt go well with your laptop, I would try out Fedora, which is more up to date with stuff and also very user friendly choose Fedora Workstation if you’re feeling adventurous. choose Fedora KDE if you want a Windows like experience.
To add, if OP is looking to use the laptop for gaming, I can recommend Bazzite. Built upon fedora with some quality of life things and very stable as it’s immutable. Very hard to fuck up.
I’m not sure about recommending immutable distros to noobs, I’ve read enough reports from people that want to (or because of some hardware crap, need to) install or mess with some low-level stuff that just won’t work on the immutable distros, plus a bunch of online advice or help will just not be applicable.
Universal Blue OSs (Bazzite, Bluefin, and Aurora) are actually way easier than immutable is made out to be.
For one thing, there is no such thing as keeping the system and packages up to date. That all happens automatically as long as you restart your computer every now and then.
It is true that if someone is looking up how to install something online it could be confusing. But anything in Flathub is obviously dead simple.
I think if there were better demos and tutorials, it would seem a lot easier.
For instance, if you can’t find something in Flathub, and the only instructions you can find are for installing in Ubuntu, all you have to do is use Boxbuddy/Distrobox and use an Ubuntu container and install it there using the instructions.
It really is the best of almost all worlds. Granted, this setup doesn’t work for 100% of software. But it works for the vast majority.
Listen to yourself. What’s a distrobox? Boxbuddy? I’m already annoyed about someone expecting me to learn about this and I’ve used Linux exclusively for 25 years. I actually did Linux from Scratch and used that for 6 months for actual stuff. Telling a noob who wants to do normal things that work on a normal Linux distros that because of the (recommended by you) immutable distro they have, they need a container which has an actual normal linux distro inside it to run the thing they want to run, they’ll want to run away and probably never speak to you again.
And about flatpak: I had so many bugs that somehow only happen when you get the flatpak. And you can’t install command line tools over flatpak, you can’t install servers or drivers. Regular users (especially windows power user types) are likely to run into these things and curse you for recommending the one distro where you can’t just
apt install theclitoolineed.And you sound like the entrenched Windows user who doesn’t realize all of the little things they’ve internalized to keep their system working the way they want to. I should know, I was one of those Windows users until recently.
Regarding other tools, they really aren’t necessary for most users. I don’t even use Distrobox. Flathub for UI apps, and Homebrew for CLI apps serves all of my needs.
I believe that Jorge Castro is right about the Linux desktop. It has failed, and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. And that’s what they’re doing. Universal Blue is a completely different mindset from traditional distros, and I think it’s the future.
And that’s the great thing about Linux. You can continue to use the old methods you’re used to and have built up 25 years of muscle memory around.
It certainly has downsides in that regard, I will not deny that. However, if you want something that Just Works™, it is a very good option in my (admittedly limited) experience.
mint
generally a solid choice
you have a friend who uses it! big advantage
people who make memes about linux distros are in a lot deeper than you want to be. they have different goals.
True for the friend benefit. Fun and useful to occasionally chat about it with someone who knows what’s up.
I’ve been using Mint and Pop!_OS on two different machines for a few years.
Neither has really required much from me as the user, although I have needed to use the terminal once on each of them.
Personally, I really like the way Pop does window tiling and workspaces.
Generally I agree with everyone else, Linux Mint is great.
However, if you really want to not worry at all, you could just buy a laptop from e.g. Tuxedo or System76. They come with Linux preinstalled (I think in the case of Tuxedo at least, you even have a choice of which Linux Distro?), and are guaranteed to have no hardware “difficulties” with Linux, i.e. even if you put another distro on it, you won’t encounter driver issues.
(Those have become very rare anyways, but do put a damper on the “Firsttime Linux Experience” if you do encounter them…)
Pop OS has been pretty pain free for me
PopOS or Mint are probably the best for new users.
mint is probably where you want to be. if you have performance issues with mint, consider MX Linux, AntiX, and EndeavourOS, in that order.
I usually recommend Zorin OS to noobs, but personally I prefer arch based
I really like Fedora. Swapped to it a few months ago, my first time using Linux, and I’ve since only been using the Linux machine. With the KDE Plasma spin, it really is a near 1:1 UI to Windows.
to those suggesting mint, any particular reasons to choose between Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce versions?
Cinnamon or Xfce are more similar to Windows’ user interface. Between those two, Xfce is more lightweight than Cinnamon. MATE is more for people who liked GNOME 2 and want that interface over what the current GNOME is.
Cinnamon would probably be the most friendly as a new user, but I personally haven’t used it in years and I’m not familiar with its current state.
I personally use Cinnamon, which has a similar feeling to Win10. Very satisfied with it on my desktop. From what I’ve heard XFCE also feels similar to Windows, but I simply have just used Cinnamon ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It mostly just depends on how you want your desktop to look. They have screenshots of each on their website. Since it sounds like you have a new laptop, power won’t be an issue for you. (If you were trying to run Mint on something with the power of a potato, a lighter DE would be a good idea.) Personally I love how Cinnamon looks and feels. It’s pretty simple, but also modern and customizable.
Don’t get mint if you’ll get a remotely capable laptop or plan to game on it. Its so called ‘modern’ desktop environment (wich still defaults to the old X window system) feels awful to use imo and while the ‘retro’ ones are better there’s no point in using them on a new laptop. Choose a distro that ships with KDE, GNOME, or a wlroots based desktop environment.
I’ve also had driver issues with it that didn’t happen with Ubuntu or arch.
Pretty much every distro has a caveman compatible installer.
linux from scratch /s
Linux Mint is good, Pop_OS! is good, Fedora is good.
I think Mint is good enough. People will dunk on anything popular.
Mint was my beginner distro and is what I recommend. In my experience I was able to find a solution for most of my beginner problems by searching for a solution for mint.
It’s hilarious how uncool it is to suggest Ubuntu but it often just works, including very recent hardware if it’s from Canonical partners like Lenovo or Dell. And the kerfuffle about things like snaps are way overblown.
Fedora tends to “just work” too. Some manufacturers that support Ubuntu also support Fedora for customers that need a “RedHat-ish” distro instead of a “Debian-ish” one.
More specifically Ubuntu LTS, since interim releases are now expectedly beta quality and require upgrades a few months after release. Ubuntu LTS, enable unattended upgrades, register and activate Ubuntu Pro for them and you won’t have to touch it for the lifetime of the hardware.
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you’re right, but the issues with ubuntu crop up later, when you have to update or after you install enough incompatible stuff that it breaks your system. which is a shame bc ubuntu is the most user friendly distro there is imo
is it user friendly if it’s so prone to breakage?
Is it though? I’ve found it rock solid for years on end - been using it for 14 years, and Debian before that.
i mean idk, i was just asking about what that other poster was saying. i fuckin’ hate ubuntu for other reasons and i generally don’t speak on it in the negative or positive in threads like this. i only chimed in because what was being said struck me as odd. “it’s the most user friendly distro there is, it just breaks a lot”
it made me wonder what user friendly meant to this other user. i wanted to hear their perspective because i thought i could learn something, especially as i help my mom, an inexperienced linux user, use linux on an old laptop for the first time
i mean… when it doesn’t break, it works better than anything else. 5-minute installs, supports a ton of configurations and peripherals out of the box, makes gnome a little more usable, etc, etc
…but it breaks, eventually
I don’t recognize this myself. I’ve never had trouble with incompatibilities or degradation etc.,
Especially these days my OS can remain very vanilla, as many complex things can be containerized. E.g. I run syncthing and an nfs server and sometimes torrenting over vpn, through docker-compose; I’d never install all that on the host with all the extensive dependencies. Same with some heavyweight apps like darktable - spin them up from Flatpak.
Ubuntu does it very well with minimal fuss. I see little to dislike.
my last personal anectode with ubuntu is this: my company decided to setup our office as a remote-onsite hybrid workplace, so our working machines were moved to a rack elsewhere to be accessed remotely and the local machines were supposed to act as basically dumb terminals that can be used interchangeably by us
we develop on rhel, but since the local machines are just to access our dev machines remotely, support decided to install ubuntu because it “just works”. turns out, since ubuntu does a lot of stuff its own way for no good reason, it broke under our network configuration (it’s complicated) and no snap application could run – so, no slack or firefox. not a great scenario for a workplace. in the end we decided to replace ubuntu by rhel and no longer had any issues
you’re right that ubuntu might work flawlessly for you and that it might never break. but, it also might break in unexpected ways. i cannot reliably recommend ubuntu to a beginner because this risk might forever put someone off of linux
Especially because it’s to a newbie, who stands to benefit the most from using an OS with more user share and more available online resources.
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I came here to say this as well. Ubuntu "just works"™ and was my entry into linux 15+ years ago.
Ubuntu was my entry to linux as well, 19 years ago. But Ubuntu of today is not the Ubuntu of 15-19 years ago, and not in a good way.
Linux mint (Cinnamon is my fav). You can never go wrong.
Maybe
FedoraKDE, or Mint.
Either way you’ll probably be able to search and find answers to your problems (and answers for ubuntu may work), and with mint you know your friend can possibly help if need be, and they work well.
Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora or one of the offshoots like Mint or Pop.
As long as you don’t go too far into the weeds with Arch, Silverblue or NixOS, You’re probably going to have a pretty decent experience, as long as you don’t dig too far under the hood too early most things that you’re going to want to try are just going to work out of the gate.
Debian is one of my favorites and one of the easiest to use if you are new. i haven’t tried mint but they are very similar.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say fedora silverblue or bazzite
Basic user? Use flat packs and enjoy easy graphics support, as well as all of the windows compatibility for gaming
Advanced user? Learn to do things in pods/containers or distrobox, it’s easy even if the quick start docs aren’t great (I can find my cheat sheets if anyone is going down that road)
Pro: most stuff just works, and it’s harder to config yourself into a corner you have to research your way out of
Cons: normal Linux install guides need to be modified a bit, it’s not hard but you do have to learn how to do it
TBH Ubuntu, or if you have an older/lower spec machine xubuntu
I’ll drop this: www.techradar.com/best/best-linux-distros It’s written by an actual journo and not a bunch of nerds in nerdville!
Getting into Linux is a bit like Windows back in the day - interesting and a lot of fun … and rather nerdy. My first Windows version was 1.0 and my last was 7. Mind you I do run a MS Silver Partner and worry about a lot of Windows servers and desktops but my daily driver is Linux.
Mint is a great choice, even though it isn’t mentioned in the article I linked because you get a great community, which is pretty important. Its basically Ubuntu and therefore Debian too, so a lot of howtos will work.
I personally rock Kubuntu but I have a requirement for enterprisey stuff - ESET and Veeam and AD integration and all that. I also get Secure Boot out of the box and not all Linux distros work with that.
Your smart new laptop will have Secure Boot enabled so you will have to deal with that if you deploy a distro that doesn’t. So with say Arch, you will need to turn it off or learn how to sign your kernels etc and that is not a beginner topic! I suggest you turn off Secure Boot if your chosen distro doesn’t support it, rather than insisting on it. Its a nice to have but not the most important security feature ever.
You might want to show a bit of ankle and try out a few to start with. Most distros have a live CD that you can boot and try out first. I suggest trying out Mint, Ubuntu and Kubuntu. That gets you three modern interfaces to play with.
If you are into gaming then it kooks like Pop!OS would be a good place to start instead.
There is no real best option - it’s what suits you and you have choice.
Install a few and see which one you like the most. You can install several distros at the same time and they’ll all appear in the boot menu. When I was deciding which distro to use on my laptop, I was dual booting Debian and Fedora, with one /home partition shared between both of them.
Mint and Fedora are good choices IMO. Everyone is different though :)
Some caveats, though: To share the same home folder safely, it’s best to use the same desktop environment on both distros. Debian paired with Fedora makes it difficult to match the release numbers of the desktops, though, and there might be discrepancies with respect to user config files in the home folder, when you’re trying to configure features in Fedora that aren’t yet available in Debian.
Also the system folder setup (locations of libraries and include files) is different between the two, so if there’s anything in the home folder that’s linked against libraries in one distro, it won’t work in the other. Especially if you’re going to compile anything in the home folder – including stuff that package managers of scripting languages like lua and python themselves compile – that could lead to major heaadaches.
Good points. I was using KDE with both and didn’t have any issues (even though Debian’s version of KDE was older) but that might not work in all scenarios.
I don’t have compiled things in the home folder - they go in either
/usr/local/binor/opt.Any Debian/Ubuntu or fedora based distro will do you fine. I personally ran PopOS when I built my computer earlier this year and didn’t have any issues with it
I can’t disagree with mint being a good distribution, because it is.
I personally think for someone just starting out in Linux that an immutable distribution like fedora silverblue (gnome) or kinoite (kde) is the safest route to take. They’re difficult to break. I personally use bazzite on my framework laptop and it’s basically hassle free. Not for everyone, but they work well.
I opened this thread to type out this exact comment but somehow you typed up the exact same thing before me?
I would beg to differ. Maybe things will be different once things have mature more. At the moment, just quickly trying out a most of them, I’d easily see rough edges within first few minutes. Some would have more subtle issues, but it’s still far from foolproof.
Simple config stuff that would usually take simple file editting on /etc comes to mind.
Why would editing /etc be a problem?
I’ve never noticed any hate for Mint, it seems to be a pretty good option. It’ll easily run on anything that was able to run Windows 10 (probably 8 too) and the default desktop environment Cinnamon is easy to navigate if you’re coming from Windows. Even if you have some obscure piece of hardware with Mint being based on Ubuntu there’s probably a tutorial you can follow to get it working.
Pop!_OS is neat. I’ve been running it on my desktop and laptop for over a year now. I like that it doesn’t look like Windows and has enough difference to it to not be a macOS clone either. Plus I think System76 is doing some great things with hardware design.
Pop_os is the best
Linux Mint. I’m a pretty hardcore Linux person, used a dozen different distros, Mint is by far the closest I’ve experienced to #JustWorks.
It’s reliable and simple enough that earlier this year I switched my tech-illiterate parents from Windows to Mint. Works great for them so far.
Yeah Mint being the “Just works” distro is why I use it these days. Debian is best for servers/low maintenance systems, Mint is best for desktops IMHO.
I love it. I run Mint on my business laptop and my personal laptop, it’s so solid. And Cinnamon has been the most stable desktop environment I’ve ever used.
TuxedoOS has been seamless, runs KDE, and all updates are checked for compatibility
The first time in installed mint I ruined the partitions on my laptop. But that was on me.
Look at screenshots of default interfaces and pick your fave bug distro. Can’t go wrong with fedora, Ubuntu, mint, pop_os etc. mint would be good since you have a friend who uses it. When you want to know how to do something you can ask.
I run arch btw
Mint, Fedora
Run KDE if you consistently game, otherwise Gnome is good since you can leave every setting after setup with it
What advantage does KDE have over Mint for gaming?
Oh, it’s not kde, it’s gnome
Gnome compositor can have issues with some games, most notable for me was TF2 and TF2 Classic
Thanks for the input ya nerds. Much love from the geek side of lemmy. I’ll be taking the advice of poking around with multiple distros before committing to one, because it sounds a whole lot less painful than I was imagining.
Quick question though, what the hell is a gnome? Or a KDE for that matter?
GNOME and KDE are different desktop environments. Basically they are the software that provides you a graphical user interface. Gnome is more simple, but KDE is more customizable and windows-like. There are more options to choose from than these 2
Gnome and KDE are two different “desktop environments”. Each distro has a default desktop environment (DE for short), but it’s like a regular application that you can swap out for a different one that does the same thing. The DE is (roughly, I think) the graphical interface to the operating system. So it can feel like the DE is the operating system (especially on Windows or Mac, which don’t have options to change the DE).
Most Linux distros, and certainly all of the beginner friendly ones, make it relatively easy to switch to a different DE. (Or, so I’ve heard. I’ve been using Linux as my daily driver for I’ve a decade, and I barely understand what’s involve in installing a new DE.)
Desktop Environments (DE), or the Graphical User Interface (GUI) you use with it. Essentially you can choose the graphics set and layout of your computer. The underlying functionality of your computer doesn’t change too much, but how things get displayed does. Ubuntu by default uses GNOME. but you can install Kubuntu instead of or alongside it and use the KDE environment. I used to have both installed and just chose which one I wanted to use at the login screen. Eventually I moved to the i3 environment as well and would switch to that sometimes because it could be fun to play with. If you’re new to this and use Ubuntu I’d just start with that (GNOME) and then you can branch out from there when you feel ready. KDE runs a bit more efficiently but looks a bit simpler, last I used it.
About Gnome and KDE, they are simply different Desktop Enviroments (DE).On Linux, DE’s are a software category, much like how browsers are a category with many different alternatives (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, …) on Linux we got DE’s such as: Gnome (a more tablet-like DE. You either love it or hate it) KDE Plasma (by default it’s windows-like, but it is very customizeable but can be kinda overwhelming to some) Cinnamon (the one that comes with Mint, very simple, very light, very user friendly and has a familiar layout for Windows users) And many more, Cosmic, Pantheon, XFCE, Sway and so on…
I discovered Ventoy a week ago and
it’s fucking amazing. So much time and hassle saved.it seemed amazing, but I had no idea about the security concerns others have pointed out. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.Umm, I came across this post some time ago, it says some bad things about ventoy😅
lemmy.one/post/19193506
Thanks for the resources, it’s definitely very weird and kind of a bummer since I used to enjoy that software very much 🫤 Already edited my original comment.
Well, fuck.
Thank you for the info. Edited.
Stop recommending Ventoy! It’s a huge security risk and the author has not responded in 8 months.
Just looked a bit into the issue, and it’s surely weird… Thanks for informing! Already edited my original comment
This is a GNOME: www.gnome.org
This is a KDE (Plasma): kde.org/plasma-desktop/
In windows, we get the entire os as a single product, and we don’t have a choice in anything. On linux, it’s the contrary. The os if formed by several software distributed separately and joined together like lego pieces. Each linux distro is a compilation of software, a particular combination of lego pieces created and maintained by some group.
So, even the system graphical interface is a lego piece like any other, and each distro comes with one by default. Kde and gnome are some of the most popular interfaces. You can also replace almost any lego piece from the system by another of your choice, unlike on windows.
I hope I helped you understand linux a bit better. It all will become much more simple to you with a little more time. Be welcome to the community.
These are “desktop environments”. They are essentially the graphical elements you interface with the operating system. icons, windows, buttons, those sort of things.
The two most common are KDE and GNOME. KDE has a very Windows-like appearance and functionality. GNOME is the same but for MacOS.
I’m very impressed by the work by the Elementary OS team. Linux is a beast to figure out, and while I’ve used Linux for 30 years, I remember how frustrating getting started was. I use Pop!_OS on my desktop machines today and Debian or Ubuntu for other machines and I’ve used dozens of desktops, but Elementary really does just work (and also also happens to be Debian / Ubuntu based).
It has the easiest install process, trouble free device support, and it starts you with guardrails that keep from breaking things, but can be turned off as you figure it out. Very Mac inspired experience, so not completely intuitive from Windows, but the reality of Linux is that you are going to change distros over time, or even use multiple as each do a better job at dealing with niche requirements. Certaintly not the one size that fits no one that is the current Windows 11 debacle.
elementary.io
Edit: Wine math last night, it was summer of 1994 so 30 years, not 35 😅. It was on my new AMD 486DX4/100 with VLB and getting X to work was no picnic. A friend gave me the CD ROMs so at least I wasn’t using dialup to download it.
You used Linux two years before it was released?
Why did the hipster burn its tongue?
Linux isn’t even 35 years old …
It will be 35 years way too soon. I can’t remember the last time I compiled a kernel let alone what exactly I was doing with a computer in the early 90s.
Its weird that most of the world runs on Linux outside of desktop and we still have these discussions. I didn’t know what a distro was in the beginning. It was a Linux kernel and gnu user space someone had compiled to get people started. If the disk sets had a name I didn’t know or care.
Debian all day…
All these shiny new distros promising to make things easier and better… But nothing is easier and better than 30 years of rock solid stability and support.
Depending on how new the laptop is, it might not work on debian stable. Check your compatibility
From personal experience with a new laptop, the intel meteor lake platform didnt work well with debian stable
Mint or Zorin
The process for installation is more or less the same for all of them.
Linux Mint and PopOS are the “go to” suggestions. I really don’t like the way either of them look. I’m partial to GNOME for aesthetics and ease of use.
Bazzite comes with most of the stuff you will want pre-loaded, and also the cool Steam Deck Gamescope interface. It’s the only one I’ve used with seamless background updates like you might be accustomed to on Android or iOS. That’s my recommendation.
Currently using Bazzite as my main OS on my laptop, and it works pretty good, the ostree setup has prevented me from manually installing several things though :/
What’s this ostree setup thing please? Was thinking of trying Bazzite but am not yet a super experienced user so trying to understand any issues beforehand…
docs.bazzite.gg/…/rpm-ostree/
I was attempting to install zulujdk 17 and thinkorswim and can not get it functional, which I’ve done on zorin, Ubuntu, Linux mint, EndevourOS, etc… Just can’t get it functional on Bazzite due to the ostree setup for some reason.
Have you tried packaging zulujdk 17 and thinkorswim and installing them with rpm-ostree?
I’ll definitely have to start over and try again, I managed to get it partially functional through disrobox (was able to at least launch) but the first page is a framed in chromium browser, which does not function properly through that setup.
It’s not that bad once you learn how to layer, and use distrobox
I did try both, neither would work 🤷♂️
Bummer. I haven’t run into any issues yet, but I’m still learning about rpm-ostree and all that. It’s definitely an adjustment.
That is the fun part about Linux is installing anything that’s not a Flatpak 😵💫
You can definitely install things that aren’t flatpak, it just isn’t as straightforward, and it’s slightly different than how other it’s usually done in non-immutable setups.
That’s what I said
It is? Hmmm ok
At that point just get a Mac. Gnome has the same “we know better than you do. If you want to do something outside of our extremely specific use cases, you’re using it wrong and should figure something else out” mentality that Apple does.
Except on Linux you’re not obligated to use GNOME, with it being simply a choice between many, and that just so happens to fit into it’s users specific needs. It sure has it’s issue like any DE has, and if it bothers you then you’re completely free to use whatever else you want, that’s the beauty of open source.
There are lots and lots of reasons not to do that that I’m sure you already know but are determined to be an asshole regardless.
Never seen it.
Personally I would recommend Fedora, most distros people have recommended here works.
I had less issues installing Fedora on a new laptop than I did with the win11 and win10 attempts, I’m never switching back to windows
HolyOS, Hannah Montana linux, AmongOS
Don’t forget uWuntu
How about serenity OS
ITT: 100 people naming their favourite distro and making that fit whatever OP needs.
So far, people are being pretty reasonable. Most are recommending mint, ubuntu or similars, and no one recommended arch to someone with basic linux/computing skills. I have to say I’m impressed. Restored my faith in the community.
That’s numerous threads every day in every Linux-related forum. A lot of people cannot seem to distinguish a sincere recommendation based on stated needs frombjust the opportunity to proclaim their allegiance to their favorite.
Generally I agree with everyone else, Linux Mint is great.
However, if you really want to not worry at all, you could just buy a laptop from e.g. Tuxedo or System76. They come with Linux preinstalled (I think in the case of Tuxedo at least, you even have a choice of which Linux Distro?), and are guaranteed to have no hardware “difficulties” with Linux, i.e. even if you put another distro on it, you won’t encounter driver issues.
(Those have become very rare anyways, but do put a damper on the “Firsttime Linux Experience” if you do encounter them…)
You can also buy from novacustoms and get Linux installed and you get to have coreboot as the bios
You can go with mint. It’s a solid choice. I prefer opensuse tumbleweed since I find it easier to work with. It also has a great selection of desktop enviroments witch is the thing you interact with and what you use to manage your open programs. If you want something like modern windows you can go with KDE or cinnamon and if you want something more minimal and windoes XP like you can use xfce.
Linux mint, Debian, Fedora
PopOS if you are into gaming
How is Debian beginner friendly? Quite far from it imho
Have you used it in recent years?
I have to agree, to the extent that it is very vanilla and missing a lot of things a new user may want but don’t know they need or don’t want to take the time to figure out how to make it work.
Go with Mint, it’s my daily drive on both my laptop and HTPC. If you choose the regular edition Ubuntu based you have also hardware enablement (hwe) kernels which could be useful on newer hardware.
Mint is one of the best bets for beginners, it’s very similar to windows 10 UI wise by default and generally very user friendly
Fedora KDE. It’s easy to setup, modern, customizable and fast. Only issue is that it doesn’t come with proprietary codecs, so that could be a problem. Second would be Mint, it’s only flaws is that it ships an older kernel (might be a pain) and uses X11 (insecure).
Go ahead with mint. It’s the only distro I know with a fully featured setup wizard that holds your hand through the entire process. I am confident anyone who has used computers can use it.
But honestly, most modern distros are about as difficult as picking up an iOS/android phone for the first time. There are different ways of doing things, but they’re still phones and can’t be too different anyway. Same with mint, it’s just a computer, it isn’t all that different.
Ubuntu, Fedora, Nobara(Fedora fork by GloriousEggroll of proton-ge), Garuda Arch, Pop!OS. Those are just the few I’ve personally fiddled with.
Highly recommend Garuda, Nobara and Pop!, in that order, for gaming.
No it can’t be. I’m using fedora right now and it drops me into the GNOME desktop with nothing. The GNOME tours barely count, they just tell you to login to your dropbox or smth.
Have you seen the mint one? It’s actually dummies proof. Full “It’s my first day on linux” step-by-step guide. Everything from updating, setting themes, backups, installing nvidia drivers is in there. All relevant choices are meticulously explained.
I’m so certain of its coverage, I recommend mint to internet strangers because I genuinely believe it’s sufficient even for the lowest common denominator. I can drop mint on any rando and fully trust that the Mint setup wizard will hold their hands through their first day on Linux.
I last switched distros 3 years ago, and the wizard definitely wasn’t on popOS or Ubuntu either.
Ok… that’s not what you said though? That’s a usage guide, not a set up wizard. Sorry for being pedantic, but words mean things, and sometimes if you use the wrong words for things people can get confused by what you’re trying to say.
I second mint, back when I had more time to fuck with such things I distro hopped like crazy, mint is easy and it just works
Ubuntu. There are mixes of it but out of the box Ubuntu is about as straightforward a dist to install as possible and it is well supported.
That said “new laptop” and Linux are not always a match made in heaven. You might try it from a boot stick and confirm that things like the GPU, touch screen, touchpad, fingerprint reader, USB C / Lightning all work properly.
Ubuntu is horrible these days, including most derivatives that change nothing but the DE. If you want Ubuntu, use Mint instead. There’s plenty of other options available, like Fedora, Pop!_OS, etc.
As for testing, most distribution installers allow you to try them without installing first. No need to set up anything separate for that.
Well, except that they have consistently been the one that has and installs proper drivers for a variety of hardware I’ve used it with. Many - many test units over the years with either brand new or older and obscure hardware that not a single distro I could find recognized, nearly every time it was Ubuntu that came through for me. Including my current laptop. I have been aware of the progression toward a corporate type atmosphere with them, though, and I don’t like it. I’m thinking about seeing if plain ol’ raw Debian now has the proper drivers because if it does, I may replace my Kubuntu with it. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve delivered when all others failed.
In the past, I would’ve agreed. These days, hardware compatibility for anything except the very latest is pretty much the same among distros.
Every distro gets shit on in memes, because each distro does things its own way that some don’t agree with. As a new user, most of that doesn’t matter much, the biggest changes between distros are how stuff works in the background. What matters more is your choice of Desktop Environment (DE). Essentially “the coat of paint on top”. Most distros offer a couple different options when downloading the ISO, or when installing it.
I’d reccomend starting out by trying GNOME and KDE Plasma (if they’re easily available for your distro), with GNOME being slightly more macOS-like, and KDE being somewhat similar in feel to Windows. Those are “the big two” DEs, but there’s plenty of other options available if you don’t like them.
As for distros, whatever works for you is the option you should go with. There’s only two distros I recommend against using, Ubuntu (/ close derivatives) and Manjaro. Ubuntu is becoming extremely corporate, going against the “spirit” of a Linux distro. There’s “Ubuntu Pro”, a subscription for security updates, and “snap”, an “alternative to” flatpak that forces you on Ubuntu managed repositories, along with many other issues. Manjaro is often marketed as “an easy Arch-based distro”, but is in fact only very loosely derived from Arch. This combined with Manjaro team’s inability to maintain the distro properly, causes nothing but issues.
As for every other distro, if it’s being updated, and it works for you, then it’s a great option. Because that second one is very personal, there is no “single best Linux distro”. I would personally suggest to check out Mint and Fedora, those are often great options.
As someone else mentioned, with a “new laptop”, hardware compatibility may be an issue. Most distros allow you to try them off the USB before installing, that’s probably a good idea.
I’ve been running Manjaro for about a decade and never had issues. Not saying they don’t exist but I feel like the concerns are overblown.
There’s several online sources that compile some of the reasons why Manjaro is objectively a bad distro, here’s one as an example: manjarno.pages.dev
You’re free to choose whatever you want on your system, I just reccomend against Manjaro (and Ubuntu).
I always recommend to beginners ElementaryOS. The name being coincidental. It is a relatively simple looking but very very elegant and polished interface. Give it a try.
Good old I can’t believe it’s not macos
Well, simple and clean appeals to people who don’t want to be overwhelmed. There’s a reason it’s pleasant.
I agree, elementary was the distro I stuck with longest before I settled on nix
Actual macos ux kinda sucks though in my opinion, when I’ve had to use a Mac I find it gets in my way half the time with the emoji picker pop up or something
Well, despite the fact that I’ve heard more than once that Elementary “looks like Mac” it’s really only the fact of having a dock on the bottom and a status bar on top. And the dock that ships with Elementary does not even zoom (it’s disabled due to some license issue). So I really don’t see it as resembling Mac except maybe to someone who has only ever seen Windows and Mac and only the one style. Thinks resemble other things in some ways sometimes. But it behaves nothing like Mac. I do find some of their choices rather disturbing like how there’s no minimize button. Immediately fixed by installing tweaks. That’s one of many great aspects of Linux: you can change what you don’t like.
Anyway, I usually recommend it because of its simplicity and elegance. You can just dive right in and use it, and likely accomplish whatever your ordinary work entails, and you don’t ever really have to fuss about with anything. The only reason I don’t use it myself is because I customize the shit out of all my tech. I have many widgets and such things to enhance efficiency and the variety of tools I use. So that’s why I’m on KDE Plasma. But if not for my customization I would honestly enjoy using ElementaryOS.
I also have a few touch-screens one on a hybrid notebook and one a Tpad. I have Pop!OS on the hybrid and a slightly older Ubuntu on the tpad. Gnome is a really good DE for touch interface. I really wish something truly touch would arrive, but I think because Android is so successful, nobody wants to try tackling that with straight up Linux. I can understand it, especially given the limited demographic I mean how many people would really make serious use of a touch Linux system? Too few to make it worthwhile. But the Tpad I use is a very slow device, relatively, and yet Ubuntu works quite smoothly on it. It’s prompt and responsive and does what I need out of it without any problem or noticeable latency.
I am quite happy with my main laptop which is a fairly new ASUS Zenbook. I’m running Kubuntu but I think pretty soon I may be changing over to plain ol’ Debian which is my favorite by far. I just need to be certain that all my hardware will function and it should, as it’s no longer brand new. But when I first got it, literally only the latest build of Ubuntu was properly seeing my audio device. Even 22.04 would not, it had to be 23 or 24 which had just come out.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on quite a bit. I think if builds like Elementary were more popular, it would be easier for newbies to take a stab at using Linux and it would be easier for folks like us to encourage others. I hate when someone I know has problem after problem with WinBlow$ 11 or 10, and I know that Linux would be just perfect. But they are scared of new and different. Even customization could be really offered and appealing if it were done with templates rather than so many little elements.
But, that being said, I’m happy that for the most part, when I interact with another Linux user, I can usually assume they’re savvy and understand what I’m talking about. I am glad that there’s no completely dumb-friendly distro, and I don’t think there should be. But simplicity is appealing to even the most clever of users if all they need to do is use and expect reliability. For shits sake Windoze just does a million things you never asked it to, because it serves a master other than you. It’s worth getting away from it for pretty much anything.
When first coming from Windows, starting with Mint is the safest bet for a good transition because things will work pretty much as you expect them to, and there’s a very helpful forum if you have any questions. But I always say to try several distros and Desktop Environments to see how you like them. Everyone is different and it’s all a matter of preference.
I suggest that once you’ve got whatever distro you decided on up and running, install a virtual machine software such as Boxes (very simple) or Virtual Box (a little more complicated but with more options). Then just download various distros and make VMs for them to try them out easily. Have fun!
You got a lot of distro recommendations from across the spectrum and it’s honestly hard to go wrong with any of them. It’s mostly a matter of preference. As such I’ll give you two pieces of advice:
Good luck! IMO getting into Linux for the first time is a fun journey. Enjoy it!
I dare you to install Gentoo
Or Linux from Scratch?
I’ve done dozens of distros and Linux mint is the most familiar, unexciting, and stable one I have found. Ignore the hate. Real Linux fans don’t care how you participate in open source, other than being toxic. Consequently, do whatever you want and install whatever seems like it would be something you’d want to use.
Id highly suggest having a separate hard drive for Linux as it can be easy to break dual boot if you don’t know what you are doing. Last thing you want to do is panic and decide you need to reinstall Windows.
I just set up Nobara.
Shockingly straightforward.
Entire install process was very simple, with a GUI, then a neat little post install app that gives you another very straightforward GUI for running your first batch of system updates.
... Oh, and I was able to do this on a SteamDeck, without an external mouse or keyboard.
Nobara has a SteamDeck edition now. The install process has a bit of Deck specific jank, basically i just had to change the screen UI scaling level from 175% to 100%, it defaulted to 175% when booting from the SD card i wrote the ISO to… And then there’s a bit of jank doing initial updates off the ‘bare metal’ install, because the SteamKeyboard overlay thingy will prompt your admin password for a system access prompt… which will disable most of the SteamDeck inputs for everything other than Steam untill you input your password to allow it to work. The work around I figured for this is… when that prompt comes up, you push the steam button and hamburger menu button on the physical deck until you get Steam in big picture mode. Then your controls all work in Steam. Then you close Steam. Then your mouse works via trackpad on the desktop, but the X button to bring up the SteamKeyboard does not. So then you open Steam again. Now the SteamKeyboard does work, and you can type in your admin pass to the system access prompt. I had to do this silly process a number of times through the initial set up 0.o I eventually set Steam to not automatically launch itself, and now that all the updates have gone through, I just have to mouse (trackpad) over to manually open Steam when I am in desktop mode and then give Steam the admin pw for the keyboard to work… just once per desktop session now that its all set up. Probably I also could have gone back into gaming mode and just bound a button to whatever button combo Nobara/Fedora uses as a shortcut to open the actual Nobara/Fedora virtual keyboard, but I could not figure out what this key combo actually is lol.
But uh if you’re just looking for an OS for a standard desktop PC, everything I’ve outlined in the above spoiler is not gonna be a problem, and you’ll likely have a very straightforward install process.
I’m also a fan of Nobara’s default UI… kind of a gnomeified KDE?
As well as its default apps, built in DeckyLoader and plugins for the Deck, ProtonPlus for runtime environments, and of course its built in kernel customizations/optimizations for to play vidya gaem.
Oh, and I went with Nobara over the default SteamOS because SteamOS on a Deck is a read only OS by default…
You can install flatpaks, but if you want to actually install new core packages, those will get wiped with a SteamOS update… or you have to use DistroBox… which may also get wiped on an update?
Not sure, but Nobara allowse to use the deck as both a Deck and a more standard desktop linux PC with more customizability… and not having to rely on the AUR, which I find incredibly frustrating.
Nobara is pretty painless. Fedora without having to dink with adding repos and fixing graphics drivers. A pile of built-in tweaks for making gaming work out of the box.
Mint gets dunked on for being slow and HDR variable refresh rate and Wayland is not on the cutting edge. Nobody hates it for being stable though.
to be fair you can always remove gnome-keyring and it will go 20x faster. Found out the hard way. I wasn’t aware mint had it.
Huh; any idea why that, of all things, would slow everything down?
Its also popular and easier to google issues for.
I use my laptop as a tool - no real idea how it works. If Linux nerds are mechanics then I’m just a taxi driver. Use mint. I do. Zero regrets. Caveman compatible.
These are all easy to use desktop distros (or variants). Use them with their respective default desktop environment. Check screenshots first or try them out in a VM or via live USB before installation, to see whether you like the look&feel.
Been meaning to try CachyOS. It’s a gamer friendly Arch based distro. Might be worth looking at. Distro doesn’t really matter much at all. Desktop environment does. If you want HDR support KDE and GNOME are your only bet.
Edit: Kubuntu would probably be the easiest to use and setup distro that has HDR support.
I found the main issue with many non-rolling release distributions are the upgrade instructions from one stable release to the next, and not the difficulty of installing them.
I’m myself a Archlinux guy, but that does sometimes require some carefulness and regularly (at least weekly) applying updates and does not have stable automatic updates, so I started installing Fedora atomic desktop distributions (Fedora Silverblue/Kinolite/etc.) for people that just want to use their device for basic stuff.
The reason for that is long term maintainability without an expert at hand.
I had so many bad experiences updating distributions from one stable version to the next, be it Debian and Ubuntu-based, or Fedora-based distributions.
And with those atomic desktop distributions the amount of moving parts is much lower, so hopefully upgrading them to newer releases is much more stable.
So I would suggest giving Fedora Silverblue (Gnome desktop), Kinolite (KDE) or Budgie Edition a try.
Fedora’s KDE spin
I really hope more beginner distros switch to kde from GNOME. When I was first getting into linux and did not know about what a DE was, GNOME put me off from fully switching to linux and themeing it was hell with it not playing nice with qt applications, of course as a newbie i did not know what “qt” or “Gtk” was and did not understand at the time why some applications were not following theme.
while kde default is not pretty it can be anything you want it to look like and its easy to customize and plays nice with gtk applications. GNOME IS very customizable that you might even be able to make it into a usable desktop.
Came to say Fedora KDE is the way to go now. Stable, reliable, powerful and customizable.
Linux Mint.
+1
+1
Absolutely Debian stable, the first thing i wanted in Linux was stability, coming from windows you want something that “just works” and I think Debian stable + Gnome is the perfect choice for this!
Linux Mint is one of the most common gateway drug for getting into linux.
It’s incredibly easy to set up and use. And it has plenty of resources if you ran into any issue.
Don’t want to think about your OS? Install Aurora. The hardest decision will be choosing your password. Install instructions are identical to any other Fedora installation. Auto updates to everything, never breaking system with bleeding edge software all the time. Superb documentation, zero maintenance, windows like desktop experience but better. That’s all.
This is quite a rabbit hole you are getting yourself into, but to keep it short and relatively simple, you need to figure out something very important beforehand:
I’m assuming that, you are not yet familiar with these terms, so let’s go with the stable distros.
You have a lot of options here, most of them will all be based of Ubuntu, which is based in Debian, so let me drop a few generally good suggestions in no particular order:
Either of these is a good starting point. If down the road you feel like they stop fitting your needs, start exploring the big three, (Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux).
Fedora Silverblue. The family of Fedora Atomic desktops which Silverblue is one of brings almost unbreakable user oriented systems. Fedora Silverblue provides highly customizable via extensions Gnome Desktop experience, stability of an immutable OS, and a wide range of apps installable using Flatpak from Flathub.