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Very easy to use Linux distribution for beginners with beautiful UI

Surpuppa
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I'm a total newbie to Linux, but it will help me when I'm starting programming in Uni. So I want an easy to use distro for beginners, but I also want it to look very good and have a sleek design. I will use it for programming and on a laptop if that is important. Thanks!

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4 minutes ago, Surpuppa said:

I'm a total newbie to Linux, but it will help me when I'm starting programming in Uni. So I want an easy to use distro for beginners, but I also want it to look very good and have a sleek design. I will use it for programming and on a laptop if that is important. Thanks!

Ubuntu? Debian? It depends on what kind of look you want and what takes your fancy. 

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

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Looking good is a personal preference., so cannot comment on that :D

But Ubuntu seems to be a newbie friendly one. 

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xubuntu.

 

it's different enough from windows to make you not "try to feel at home" straight away, its similar enough to understand where things are, its very sleek and highly optimized, and if you are unsure about something, it leeches off the endless flow of articles about "how do i do x.y.z on ubuntu" :P

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2 minutes ago, Surpuppa said:

I'm a total newbie to Linux, but it will help me when I'm starting programming in Uni. So I want an easy to use distro for beginners, but I also want it to look very good and have a sleek design. I will use it for programming and on a laptop if that is important. Thanks!

The one that I've liked the most (and am currently running) is Fedora 26, I really like the way package management and repositories are organised. Basically anything running Gnome 3 out of the box will look really nice (Fedora, Ubuntu maybe). Something I've noticed though is that Fedora seems more lightweight.

 

I'm also really happy with CentOS, which could be much better for you in the workforce, but doesn't look near as pretty with a stock installation.

If I've said something wrong, please correct me

 

My Builds:

Peripherals: 
Keyboard: Roccat TKL Pro Cherry MX blue, Mouse: Roccat Kone XTD, Headset: Currently apple earbuds, planning to upgrade to hyperx cloud or hyperx cloud 2 
Really Old Desktop 
 Processor: Intel Core i7 920, Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-FX58-DS4, RAM: 9GB Corsair XM3 (3*3GB in triple channel) 600 or 800mhz, Graphics Card: Asus 8400GS passive, Asus GT630 4GB if i can get it working, Case: Cheapo Throwout case with most of the standoffs missing, HDD: Some old 80GB hard drive, PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 550w, Monitor: 32" Kogan TV, OS: Fedora 13 
 Laptop Which I Use For Everything: 
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Get the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS version. LTS is the stable version that will not get major changes except for security updates, it also gets the longest support for security updates. Download the iso using the torrent version as torrents have built in verification, which is the #1 cause of installation problems i see on this forum.

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3 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

have you tried debian 9? it is terrible.

It depends what you look for in a operating system, but yeah 9 is terrible. 

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

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Just now, fixitnow said:

It depends what you look for in a operating system.

i just wasnt impressed with the implementation of gnome they distributed. I tried it on two seperate hardware. Logging in and just using Gnome was just too laggy for me. Its really unacceptable performance

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Easy is mostly just lots of community support, good defaults and low maintenance. For the most part, Ubuntu based distros have those (Ubuntu, Ubuntu flavors, Linux Mint, KDE Neon). You probably don't want something completely different from Windows when starting out, so I think you should avoid distros that use GNOME 3, especially stock GNOME 3. Ubuntu will start using GNOME 3 with some extensions in October, but if you install Ubuntu 17.04, you can use Unity and continue using it even after the October update.

 

Xubuntu (uses Xfce) and Lubuntu (uses LXDE, LXQt soon) are lightweight and feel kind of like Windows XP, but can look much nicer than Windows XP. They're great for old computers or people that just want an ultra simple desktop environment.

 

Ubuntu MATE uses MATE, which is somewhere between Xfce and Cinnamon. It's what GNOME 2 was.

 

Kubuntu uses KDE Plasma, which is similar to Windows 10 by default, but it's very customizable and has a lot of cool features. This distro doesn't have consistent track record when it comes to making good releases though. If you use it, you should get the Kubuntu backports PPA which will give you updates to your desktop environment.

 

KDE Neon also uses KDE Plasma, but it uses LTS Ubuntu as a backbone with the latest KDE software on top. It's a great distro for KDE, but LTS releases only come every 2 years, so non-KDE software that doesn't affect security will only be updated every 2 years.

 

Linux Mint uses Cinnamon, which is kind of like Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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I agree with Linux Mint as the way to go as well.

 

The computer isn't the "Thing".....the computer is the "Thing" that gets you to the "Thing".  - excerpt from "Halt and Catch Fire".

 

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Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop is what I recommend to anyone coming from Windows.

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The only "beautiful" Linux distribution I know is elementary OS. But I really would recommend you to stick to Windows because it excels at GUI consistency.

There is no sane reason to switch the OS just for programming, not even during your studies.

Write in C.

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I really liked Chakra linux, was my second after Ubuntu 9.04, but after the death of main developer it became ordinary Arch(and maybe is in vain already), which isn't friendly to newbies.

Sorry for bad Ingrish

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Ubuntu with KDE Plasma 5.9/5.10!

 

Ubuntu, most used? distro, and extremely easy to use. KDE Plasma adds a great environment ontop, with a nice and adjustable UI and a way better file-explorer. 

Running Arch with i3-gaps on a Thinkpad X1 Extreme
Data Science Postgrad

 

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I would recommend vanilla Ubuntu. You can also install every different window manager at once and swap on the fly to experiment and determine what you like.

System specs:

4790k

GTX 1050

16GB DDR3

Samsung evo SSD

a few HDD's

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On 7/23/2017 at 4:14 AM, fixitnow said:

It depends what you look for in a operating system, but yeah 9 is terrible. 

Why are you saying 9 is terrible, what experiences have made you think this way?

On 7/23/2017 at 4:11 AM, SCHISCHKA said:

have you tried debian 9? it is terrible.

Why do you think it's terrible?

On 7/23/2017 at 4:16 AM, SCHISCHKA said:

i just wasnt impressed with the implementation of gnome they distributed. I tried it on two seperate hardware. Logging in and just using Gnome was just too laggy for me. Its really unacceptable performance

 

What kind of hardware are you running it on? I run it on an Elitebook 8570w and I haven't had a single issue with performance. It's always been extremely fast and I haven't had a single bug.

 

Hardware:

CPU: i7-3940XM @ 4.0GHZ

RAM: 32GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance (8gb x 4)

GPU: AMD FirePro M4000 (I play a few games on steam without any issues, and that's on a 1080p panel)

Boot Drive: 1TB Samsung 850 Pro SSD

Storage Drive 1: 1TB Samsung 850 Pro SSD

Storage Drive 2: 1TB Samsung 850 Evo mSATA SSD

 

The only other Mods I've done to it are throwing a 1080p panel in and a backlight keyboard.

CPU: i7-4770k @4.8ghz---Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth z97---Ram 32gb Corsair Vengeance---GPU: 2 EVGA GTX 980 4gb way sli---Case: Corsair 600T White---Storage: 500gb 850 Pro & WD Black 4tb---PSU: Corsair RM1000

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18 minutes ago, Icuw1pc said:

Hardware:

CPU: i7-3940XM @ 4.0GHZ

holy god, that puts my little 2570p to shame

idk

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4 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

holy god, that puts my little 2570p to shame

I was going to try and push it to 4.2 or even 4.4 but I would rather wait until I get more spare parts lol

CPU: i7-4770k @4.8ghz---Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth z97---Ram 32gb Corsair Vengeance---GPU: 2 EVGA GTX 980 4gb way sli---Case: Corsair 600T White---Storage: 500gb 850 Pro & WD Black 4tb---PSU: Corsair RM1000

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1 minute ago, Icuw1pc said:

I was going to try and push it to 4.2 or even 4.4 but I would rather wait until I get more spare parts lol

yeah, im looking for a 3740qm to throw into my little Elitebook 2570p, along with 2133mhz ram (the common 3630qm doesn't work with 2133Mhz at all) 

 

no OC, but for the fastest 12.5" laptop ever, it's not bad man

idk

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1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

yeah, im looking for a 3740qm to throw into my little Elitebook 2570p, along with 2133mhz ram (the common 3630qm doesn't work with 2133Mhz at all) 

 

no OC, but for the fastest 12.5" laptop ever, it's not bad man

Why not go for a 3840QM? That's what I've got in my main T430. I love the performance and it honestly doesn't get too hot. I just looked through the FRU part list and purchased the replacement heatsink for a dGPU model.

 

Have you looked into HFS upgrades for yours? I ended up doing one on my Elitebook. I upgraded the GPU from a k1000 to this M4000, it performs way better. I play a ton of games on medium to high settings.

CPU: i7-4770k @4.8ghz---Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth z97---Ram 32gb Corsair Vengeance---GPU: 2 EVGA GTX 980 4gb way sli---Case: Corsair 600T White---Storage: 500gb 850 Pro & WD Black 4tb---PSU: Corsair RM1000

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