Just wondering as ive been told many os’s online and then told to not use certain one aswell, i feel confused on what linux os to try someday. i come from windows 10 and i always find i need windows on atleast 1 device, and put linux on the “outdated” devices, but i keep hoping around, i cant seem to make up my mind.
Linux Mint. It was specifically created for this use case. It just works. That’s it.
Bazzite for people new to computers in general. CachyOS for long time Windows users.
Long time arch user, and I’ve recently switched to bazzite because maintaining an arch system reminds me too much of my actual job. Bazzite is great for daily use and has excellent support for gaming. I would recommend it as its update system makes it exceptionally hard to break your system and has built in stable rollbacks. As a new Linux user I would say just get stuck into either mint or bazzite. Try to learn more about how updating software works to decide between those, the, UI is entirely customizable and separate to the OS. The main Linux desktop UIs are gnome and KDE, both look nice and don’t really need strong resources. KDE used to be really hungry but they’ve made it a lot leaner in recent years.
Fedora
Linux Mint or Zorin OS
Sorry to say it, but if you’ve already found online opinions about what distros to use and what to avoid, you’re just going to find the same thing here.
CTT had a video about it I found quite nice: https://youtu.be/hnNjFysodRo In shortv
- if you want to game: bazzite
- if you are a power user: cachy
- for office/regular computer usage: mint
I use and recommend CachyOS. PikaOS is cool too. So try either of those. I hear good things about Fedora as well. Whatever you do, use something with the KDE desktop environment. It’s the best.
I suggest Linux Mint, it just works. I have moved over 10 people to it in the last 2 years. Basically, giving life to their old laptops. Never heard a complaint! Here’s the latest one, my niece: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/117304062578785444
Void.
Fir desktop use I personally think Fedora has the best balance between stability and being up-to-date, while staying fairly easy to use and with a large community. If the person wants something even harder to break and doesn’t mind a bit of an extra learning curve, atomic variants like Silverblue are alo a nice pick. My cousin went for Silverblue and loved it.
Honestly? Gentoo. It’s got a steep learning curve, but the docs are great and after your first install, you’ll know more about Linux than most users.
They’re still around. Haven’t used them for a long long time.
My number one recommendation is Fedora. Extremely stable, popular (so there are lots of q&a online), easy on resources. If you go Debian please don’t go Ubuntu, its buggy for some people (me included) and snaps are 💩. If you want Debian go Linux Mint, which is very beginner friendly.
When friends or family ask me to install Linux for them, I always use PCLOS. Texstar, Bill Reynolds, runs a tight ship and everything is really stable. Linux with training wheels.
Today I learnt that PCLOS is still going. Back in the day, it showed me how good a distro could be. Unfortunately, I was an inveterate distro hopper back then.
