Yeah I installed that one you’re thinking of.
WHY DOES NO ONE GET THAT IT DEPENDS?
… srsly tho, how do you want your distro to be?Any popular non-specialized version will be perfect.
For a new user, the internal differences will be imperceptible, the same applications will be available, and community support will be there.
If you can, install Virtual Box on your current operating system and test the distributions you are considering to see if there is one whose default interface you like best.
I use Mint/Cinnamon.
Shout out to the CachyOS crew. Their Discord is helpful. (Booooo, Discord, I know, I know.) They’re friendly and helpful.
Can’t agree more. I posted about some strange performance issues last summer and Peter talked with me about it privately for a few hours until it was resolved. Ended up needing some kernel patches for my setup that went on to help with the next release
If you’re new to Linux: Mint. Use Mint, with Cinnamon. Or MATE, if you’re hardware is older. It works just how you’d expect.
There’s many other distros for other purposes. Bazzite has a lot of people who like it for games. If you really want to control EVERYTHING about your machine there’s Arch. If you want bleeding edge software and don’t mind/can fix the occasional problem caused by rolling releases then I suggest Manjaro.
But most Windows refugees will be looking for something familiar that works and stays out of their face, and for that the simple answer is Mint.
I’ve never used Linux, but I’m interested in trying it. Is Mint easy to install?
The hardest thing to installing linux is booting from usb. Windows makes you jump through hoops just to boot from usb. Rest is just clicking few buttons and waiting for few minutes.
Mint user here. Yes, it’s easy to install.
They’re almost all easy to install. Linux isn’t hard, it’s just different.
From experience (this was a few years ago, but still holds up even today), yes. The GUI installer is very easy to use (there’s lots of visual stuff to). The one thing that the installer does better that the Debian installer, in my opinion, is partitioning (there’s more visual aids (a slider you can move around, I believe) (a disclaimer: this is basedoff of materials that i read online, not any personal experience)).
If you want images and stuff, you can always look up ‘Calamares installer’ (which I believe is the installer Mint uses)
Wish you the best of luck on your linux journey!
E: disclaimer
Thank you so much!
So what you’re saying is tripleboot those 3. Done.
If you’re new to linux, I would recommend something that would work out of the box and which would be user-friendly, like Bazzite (gaming oriented) or Manjaro (User-friendly arch-based distro, with GUI for app management, drivers management etc). Lots of people will recommend Linux Mint and that is not a bad entry point as well.
Note that linux works generally better with AMD GPUs, but Nvidia hardware is coming around more and more.
They’re almost all the same bar installation and package manager.
I hate Arch! It’s dumb.
CachyOS my beloved!
It’s not dumb.
You just aren’t telling it to be useful.Look up CachyOS and reevaluate if this is a joke.
I use Arch. Sorry, had to say it.
I use and love Arch, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
Guys, what’s the best Linux distro to install on my PC?
Yes
TL;DR: Ubuntu + KDE Plasma (=Kubuntu) + X11 (Wayland fucks with my Firefox)
First thing to acknowledge about Linux is that you have 2 choices in front of you about how you want to configure your operating system:
Distro, and desktop environment.
A distro or distribution for short is the part of the operating system that runs programs, updates them, etc. A distro like Ubuntu will incorporate different code syntactically than another distro like Fedora, but will largely perform the same actions. For instance, to update all of your apps/programs in Ubuntu, you would run sudo apt-get update. To do the same thing in Fedora, you would run sudo dnf update. Other than that, different distros might be optimized for some things over others. Bazzite and SteamOS are distros that optimize for gaming, while Debian is optimized for long-term stability for things like servers.
Desktop environment (DE) on the other hand is all about what you see on your screen. It’s the visual portion of your operating system. In my opinion, the choice of DE for you comes down to what’s comfortable to use and/or what you grew up with previously. So if you grew up using Windows computers, then DEs like KDE Plasma or Cinnamon would work for you. If you grew up on Mac computers instead, Gnome would be your best choice.
For me, I got exposed to Linux with my Steam Deck, so I wanted to mirror the Deck’s Desktop Mode on my laptop. The Steam Deck uses
FedoraArch as the distro and KDE Plasma as the DE. I changed the distro for my new Framework laptop to Ubuntu because I’m more familiar with that, having used Ubuntu computers in middle and high school and dabbling with Ubuntu virtual machines on Windows in the past. KDE Plasma is chill because it reminds me of Windows the most.And of course, distro and DE aren’t the only choices you have on Linux… You have your display server engine like X11 or Wayland, and the seemingly limitless assortment of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives to your favorite apps/programs on Windows/Mac/Android/iOS.
Edit: Steam Deck uses the Arch distro instead of Fedora.
Solid write up!! One correction though, steam deck uses their own version of arch for the distro, Bazzite is running Fedora under the hood though.
Ahh, that’s right. It’s Arch, not Fedora.
I’ll make the edit! Thanks
If you want a gaming focused Arch distro, Garuda has been easy and hassle free for me.
cachyOS too. i’ve heard good things about it
I really liked Garuda but I had to switch because my NVIDIA drivers kept breaking :(
Funny, because I had the opposite problem with my laptop… Bazzite couldn’t seem to keep the nvidia gpu happy and working so I switched to Garuda and it hasn’t had a problem gaming since.
I love Linux, but hate the user-to-user inconsistency - it really makes answering the #1 question “which distro should I use” basically impossible to answer. Go download all of them that sound interesting and put them on flash drives and try them out in live environment - narrow down to the ones you like the look of the most, and then install them and try it out and see if you can do what you need or not. It’s not a difficult process but it is a process and there is no simple answer.
Anything that’s not Windows.
My favorite is NixOS, but for the love of GOD do NOT try to install and use it. It’s like one of those puzzles you buy in a store, it makes you happy every time you solve it, but it pisses you off every time it breaks and you can’t figure out how to fit it.
Fedora. It’s the one Linus uses.
The hat?
/s
Gentleman
mentlegen
/thread
According to a survey of the Linux community, the best distro is always not the one that you picked.
I like fedora because it uses Duke Nukem Forever as its package manager.
i have two moods:
stable (for a server): debian
rolling release (for gaming): arch
rolling release (for gaming)
Seriously… after all these years without some pesky version upgrade screwing things up I couldn’t bring myself to install a non-rolling distro on any device I actively use.
