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!

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

1984,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Pop OS is the best, from System 76.

pop.system76.com

gregorum,

Seconded

tio,

@Canadian_Cabinet www.tromjaro.com/ - you can try our distro. Based on Manjaro it has all you need to just use it. Enabled the Chaotic AUR repos, flatpaks, and our repo, thus you can find any linux app via one single place. Click and install. Plus we have a list of some 700 curated apps on our website www.tromjaro.com/apps/ - apps that are trade-free. Meaning no BS, no freemiums, no limitations, purely free apps.

We made TROMjaro back in 2018 and kept it up to date since, plus developed our own tools like a Layout and Theme Switcher. See the homepage to get a more detailed idea about it.

That's all! :)

yum13241,

openSUSE Tumbleweed. Or EndeavorOS if you want to join the Arch side.

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.

Sanguine,

Endeavor OS. Its an excellent arch based system and people REALLY over emphasize how tricky arch is. Its not difficult, its not just for power users, and the rolling release means you have access to updates faster than other distros…this is particularly nice for gaming as you’ll also get updates to graphics drivers sooner.

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

otl,

@Canadian_Cabinet @possiblylinux127 @slacktoid Keep in mind that not all users are the same. For example, maybe some people find firewall configuration expressed as text in a file clearer than a GUI. My grandmother loves her iPad. I love my OpenBSD laptop. I find the iPad relatively user unfriendly - “I can barely see or control what my own machine is doing!” - but my grandmother would find my OpenBSD laptop very user unfriendly too - ”How do I see my family photos?”

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.

spittingimage,
@spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar

Linux Mint is my daily driver. I enjoy tinkering, but I also want a distro that doesn’t need it when I get home from work and just want a vodka tonic and some memes.

BiggestBulb,

I'm also a big fan of Mint for this, but also Fedora Kinoite. I can't say I used Kinoite extensively, but I can say the bit I used it was far more stable than any other distro I used (and the backups-for-free approach really helped my anxiety lol)

arthur,

Linux Mint. Works well and it’s friendly.

MiddledAgedGuy,

Stick with your distro and try Gnome. Fedora is pretty high up there on the “just works” category.

yianiris,
@yianiris@kafeneio.social avatar

How much does it pay to promote IBM products with convoluted software as that is really linux?

Since I am financially strained I might consider, with a very heavy ethical objection counteracting my need for cash.

The lawyers it takes to call this crap Open and Free System must have become millionaires by now.

@MiddledAgedGuy @Canadian_Cabinet

MiddledAgedGuy,

I knew about Redhat’s recent bad behavior, I somehow missed that IBM owns Redhat. So TIL.

I dropped Fedora in light of recent news but I’m not OP. They can decide for themselves on that. If OP or anyone is interested in learning more, a search for RHEL source paywall will get you there.

yianiris,
@yianiris@kafeneio.social avatar

It is not personal it is counter propaganda, linux = fedora = ubuntu = systemd = debian = mint ....

No real options there, just an alternative MSwin

There is also the propaganda that says Linux is Plasma or Gnome ...

There is much much more that doesn't get corporate promotion and people rarely ever hear about it.

@MiddledAgedGuy

MiddledAgedGuy,

That’s fair. It’s good to educate on these things.

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,

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 !

mlg,
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

Anything except Ubuntu and it’s direct downstreams

Fedora for my pick.

geoma,

MX Linux, Linux Mint, Endeavour OS

geoma,

And Debian

prole,

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.

geoma,

Yeah but its a rolling release distro so I wouldn’t recommend it to a user that is not conscious of updating the system regularly

prole,

Fair enough… It’s been nearly a month since I commented here so I don’t remember the exact situation, but if having a lot of updates was an issue, then yeah maybe not EndeavourOS. There may be LTS versions, but since it’s based on Arch, I’m not sure. I personally don’t mind it, and have yet to have a single issue with an update “breaking” something (though I have Timeshift set up to take a snapshot before updating just in case), but I guess

I could see someone being annoyed by having the little thing pop-up to tell you how many things you could update, but I kind of like it I think. It kinda feels like I’m very slowly, incrementally, making my laptop better, albeit usually in ways I can’t even perceive at the time.

But hey, everyone has their preferences. That’s why there’s a billion distros to choose from.

geoma,

Mx linux is cool.

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 :)

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