Linux distribution choosing guide

[silentmelodies]

Hello LTT! As i see a few people are going in on the journey of trying Linux on their lovely PC but they just can't decide on the distribution to use. With names like Elementary OS, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Arch, Android x86, SLAX, DSL, Puppy Linux and Linux Mint it's pretty hard to choose a distribution. The terms X.Org, LXDE, Unity and xfce are also pretty confusing. Let me clear stuff up and help you choose a distribution! It will be focused on people moving from Windows 7 to Linux

 

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS



The latest version of Ubuntu is called Trusty Tahr, and is the first thing you think of when you hear Linux. Trusty is running Unity on top of the Ubuntu core, which is not exactly Windows user friendly. You will have a pretty tough time navigating through Unity and it demands a 1 to 2 month learning curve to get used to it. Don't hate it right away, it's perfect once you get used to it.

The left navigation bar is very usefull, although not movable. It will always stay on the left hand side. The icons are resizable, and customizable thru theme packs. It's background changes based on the wallpaper, and is pretty accurate when choosing colors, i did not feel the need to adjust it manually, but you can do it. Apps are launched via the drawer, which you open with the Ubuntu button on the left side. Unity has really nice and smooth animations and transitions, but it demands a good computer. The status bar is on top, which might confuse Windows user in the start.
 
All in all, Ubuntu is not for the hardcore Windows user, it demands patience to be rewarding. Once you get used to it, you will love it.

Lubuntu 14.04

 

Lubuntu is the lightweight version of Ubuntu for low-end computers. It has the same core as Ubuntu, but is running the LXDE user interface, which is extremely lightweight. A computer with a Pentium 4 / Athlon 64 and 512MB of RAM is going to run Lubuntu without any problems with heavy usage.

For the Windows user, Lubuntu will be a pleasing experience. It has the much more familiar start-like app launcher, which categorizes apps in different categories. The status bar is also the navigation bar, like on Windows, and its on the bottom. Lubuntu lacks eye candy, with fewer themes and customizing options, and also animations of any kind, because of LXDE.

Lubuntu is recommended for Windows XP "veterans", as it is a pretty similar experience to Windows XP. It has functionality, but without the fancy eye candy that Ubuntu has.

 

Xubuntu 14.04

 

 

Xubuntu is also running the Ubuntu core, but with xfce. If you like the Lubuntu navigation, but want the Ubuntu eye candy, you might want to try Xubuntu. Xubuntu combines Lubuntu style navigation, with Ubuntu style placement and design. There is not much to say about it, else that its a hybrid between Lubuntu and Ubuntu.

For the Windows user, this will be very wierd. The navigation bar can be moved to the bottom, favoring Windows desgin, but try to keep it at the top, as it is nifty. I recommend Xubuntu after trying Ubuntu and Lubuntu.

Elementary OS 0.2

 

Elementary OS is purposed for the eye candy addict. It has a beautiful interface, with a little bit of tweaking its custom made UI can be the most beautiful of them all. But it lacks functionality. The app drawer is jerky and "not smooth", and also a pain to use. It looks like Mac also, but that can be good or bad based on you preference. I liked it.

 

You are kind of forced to use what you get, and that is the dock and the jerky drawer. Its a pretty young OS, we just need to give it time, as its a small development team with a huge ambition.

It's recommended for mid range dual core computers with at least 1GB to 2GB of ram for the "optimal" experience. It's not the optimal Linux experience, and i found myself using it a very short time before being bothered with the interface.

I would recommend the Windows use to avoid this distribution until he is very familiar with Ubuntu and other distributions.

Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon

 

 

Codenamed "Qiana", Linux Mint Cinnamon is biased to wards functionality, but with pleasing looks. Its run on a custom UI, just like Elementary OS so It features a custom theme with nice animations and a overall smooth experience.

It has been around a very long time, and is build for the Windows user to transfer to Linux.

 

As it goes for overall perfomance, its a Ubuntu core with a Custom UI, so a newer single core of dual core PC is recommended. (Pentium or Phenom II)
You should be fine with 2GB of RAM all in all.

This is the Linux distro you would use if you were a Windows user and hated Linux. It has a start like menu with a search bar, shut down buttons and apps sorted in a list like "All Programs" in Windows, but you can switch to categorized view also. I had friends who where using Windows 7 for a very long time navigating Mint like a breeze. Muscle memory from Windows 7 works on Linux Mint Cinnamon.

Zorin OS

 

If you don't like adventures or have no time learning the curves of Ubuntu and the other distros, you might wanna try Zorin OS. Its a complete Windows clone with a Ubuntu touch.

A Windows clone, Windowsd users will find it extremely easy to use this distro.

PLEASE NOTE: Towards from here nothing is Windows user friendly. These can be used as tools and emergency solutions.

DSL

 

...stands for "Damn Small Linux". DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications can fit inside a 50MB live CD.

 

It was at first just a personal tool/toy for the developer, but over time Damn Small Linux grew into a community project with thousands of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system which may be used with any writable media including a USB device, floppy disk, or a hard drive.

DSL weights only 50MB, and is good for reviving a dead pc or copying data of a dead Windows instalation as backup. It can easily be transfered to a USB with tools like Rufus and booted onto from.

Not for day-to-day use.

SLAX / Puppy Linux

 

 

This are old system. It was designed to serve Ubuntu funnctionality without the huge filesizes, so SLAX only weights 200MB, and Puppy around 150MB. They have drivers, a music player, picture viewer and web browers and more nice, basic apps. Just the most basic operating system you can have if you need a good operating system really fast.

This is good for a emergency operating system need. Windows users please avoid.

Arch Linux



This is the DIY Linux distribution. You make everything yourself includinf drivers, UI and all app instalations. You only get a kernel and command line, and there you compile all your stuff to use. It can run all user interfaces of the above, including xfce, LXDE, Unity, Elementary, Cinnamon and much more!

This is extremely hard to set up and requires extreme skill to do. If you like challenges, this is for you.

A complete fail for Windows users.
 

 

 

Thanks for reading my thread, i hope you found your Linux distribution to use.

silentmelodies

[Damikiller37]

Just a slight thing to point out you should have tried the Elementary OS Freya Beta 1 since a lot has changed since Luna. I know that it is Beta but still.

[Sauron]

-

 

Epic post, I DEMAND it be pinned @Slick

 

-edit-

@silentmelodies it would be great if you added links to where people can download the isos!

[xox]

Zorin OS remains my favourite

I think you should either do all feasible ones or just a few that you would recommend rather than all of these ones like 'DSL', which isn't necessarily relevant to most people on this forum.

 

Especially since most of those are Ubuntu-based anyway. 

 

So you have these choices:

• Ubuntu
• Linux Mint
• Debian
• Zorin OS
• Elementary OS

My reasoning is that the rest of Linux distributions basically bring very little or nothing to the table. I'd simply say to people that those Linux distros will do 99% of people needing or looking at a Linux distro.

Genuinely, people only need a few minimal options to choose from. After that, everything else makes it bloated. 

[Wtalk2]

I went with Mint as my first distro and found it pretty easy to get the hang of. If you like the more OS X looking look then go with ElementaryOS but I would highly suggest Linux Mint for your first distro

[Flyguygamer]

Good list. I found going from 7 to EOs was very easy. The new Freya beta is very different from luna and you should take a look at it. If you have time some people here might want a dualboot guide with windows and one of these distros. If you don't I can make one when I get home from work.

[UnknownEngineer]

*Note I am far from being considered knowledgeable when I comes to Linux distros*

 

Why is Zorin not mentioned here? Wouldn't that be even better for windows users? I only glanced at mint's UI here but I have tried Zorin. As far as I know it is the closest thing to a WIN 7 interface you can get.

[silentmelodies]

Zorin OS remains my favourite

I think you should either do all feasible ones or just a few that you would recommend rather than all of these ones like 'DSL', which isn't necessarily relevant to most people on this forum.

 

Well if someone needs "something" to boot and copy files this is a good piece of info

[silentmelodies]

*Note I am far from being considered knowledgeable when I comes to Linux distros*

 

Why is Zorin not mentioned here? Wouldn't that be even better for windows users? I only glanced at mint's UI here but I have tried Zorin. As far as I know it is the closest thing to a WIN 7 interface you can get.

Well i'm sorry i haven't tried Zorin OS yet, i will try it and report back at it

[silentmelodies]

Lol @ Arch. All the packages from the official repo are prepackaged binaries. I switched from Windows to Arch and can have it installed in than half a dozen commands.

mkfs.btrfs /dev/sdamount /dev/sda /mntpacstrap /mnt base grubarch-chroot /mntgrub-install /dev/sdagrub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfgexitreboot

Was that so hard?

Im talking to Windows people, not a guy who has a location listed as "dev/null". Bare with them

[Sauron]

'DSL', which isn't necessarily relevant to most people on this forum.

 

I use dsl from time to time, it's very useful in certain scenarios!

[Tsuki]

as a windows user that was exploring different linux distros, Zorin and Kali were by far my favorite

[flibberdipper]

I kinda disagree with you when it comes to 2GB for optimal experience on eOS. Rocking 1GB of RAM and 2GB of swap, this is what I get with two LTT tabs (Firefox), one file browser window, movie player (playing music), and 3 Steam windows. For some reason it reads the swap as cached memory.

 

 

And as for eye candy and Mac clone, I have a lot of that.

[silentmelodies]

I kinda disagree with you when it comes to 2GB for optimal experience on eOS. Rocking 1GB of RAM and 2GB of swap, this is what I get with two LTT tabs (Firefox), one file browser window, movie player (playing music), and 3 Steam windows. For some reason it reads the swap as cached memory.

 

 

And as for eye candy and Mac clone, I have a lot of that.

Does "1GB to 2GB" sound fine?

[flibberdipper]

Does "1GB to 2GB" sound fine?

Yes.

[silentmelodies]

Yes.

 

The most awsome avatar on the forums!!1 :wub:

[flibberdipper]

The most awsome avatar on the forums!!1 :wub:

aweh, tanks bb

[rashdanml]

Lol @ Arch. All the packages from the official repo are prepackaged binaries. I switched from Windows to Arch and can have it installed in half a dozen commands.

mkfs.btrfs /dev/sdamount /dev/sda /mntpacstrap /mnt base grubarch-chroot /mntgrub-install /dev/sdagrub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfgexitreboot

Was that so hard?

Couple of extra steps to install over wifi, but more or less. Very simple. My cheatsheet is a bit longer as I include the other steps to verify keyboard layout, locale, pacman mirrorlist, etc. 

 

There is only one distribution (afaik) that actually requires compiling everything from source: Gentoo. It requires quite a bit of hardware as you'll be compiling a metric fuckton. 

Linux From Scratch could also be considered as such too, since it's even more DIY than Arch/Gentoo. 

[Epitome]

Considering putting either xubuntu or zorin os on my laptop when I get my pc

[silentmelodies]

Considering putting either xubuntu or zorin os on my laptop when I get my pc

Go for Xubuntu, as Zorin is nevertheless a Windows clone.

[GloriousPain]

There's a few more like Fedora, Redhat, SteamOS, Manjaro ect you could've included otherwise nice.

[kuzko]

yeah, all in for zorin (i think your screen shot doesn't show how beautiful it is... let me show you : http://nimga.fr/f/NsATl.png ) but you can add fedora & Gentoo (& many more but these are the obvious one for me...)

[Maximation]

There are a lot more really good and well known Linux distro's. I think you should have mentioned more distro's outside of the 'Ubuntu scope'. See this post on the Tek Syndicate forums for another good 'Introduction to Linux guide'.

But I really appreciate it that you took the time to write some sort of a guide, it helps beginners in the Linux world understand it a bit better. But they also need to know about other distributions, not only about the Debian-based ones.

[Ruostunut kokis]

yeah, all in for zorin (i think your screen shot doesn't show how beautiful it is... let me show you : http://nimga.fr/f/NsATl.png ) but you can add fedora & Gentoo (& many more but these are the obvious one for me...)

Wow... Just wow... Looks damn good.

 

Is installing software as big pain in the ass as Ubuntu is (if not using Ubuntu's software center / app store / whatever that name is)?

 

I wish I had a laptop on which I could mess with Linux distros and use in school / while on the move. I mean, I could maybe install some distro to the Windows 8 tablet, but no Win8 key to reactivate it, and it's school property (but we can do whatever we want with them), so maybe better not...

[Devastion]

Make a good guide about installing Ubuntu on SSD+HDD. On HDD I want music, downloads and etc, on SSD to be the most important (system) files.