My List of Linux distros for new users!

[MadmanRB]

On a few other tech forums with a linux section I go to I try to manke a anual list of Linux distros for windows users to try on the side and with Linus covering Linux recently I actually have a list of linux distros to try.

2019 is going to be a interesting year as we now have the countdown to Windows 7's EOL and there is plenty of good linux options out there.

So with Windows 7's time running out its time to list some good Linux distros for potential new users who dont want windows 10 to try out for now and see what linux can offer:

 

1: Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon

Linux mint is my main suggestion to new users, and its current Cinnamon desktop offers a very windows 7/10 like icon task manager.

Its a very good starting point for new users, highly recommended!

2: Kubuntu 18.04.1

Wow Kubuntu is actually very good again! Despite its very vanilla KDE desktop its a nice distro, and has a fairly decent app center.

It is a bit plain Jane but if you are looking for another good windows 7 replacement/alternative this is where to go!

3: MX Linux 18

Okay this one is a bit of a surprise, as while its not that much like Windows in terms of UI and it does have a bit of a learning curve I have seen nothing but praise for MX linux. Mind you if you have certain modern hardware you may want to skip this one but if you got a old clunker around say something from 2006 or above this is not a bad option at all. For more modern machines stick with Mint or Kubuntu, if you have a 4GB cap and have a core2duo or something this may be a good distro to invest in. Plus I did want to take a brief break from the Ubuntu based distros here, MX linux is debian based though and that does come with a few caveats such as newer hardware support isnt as strong.

4: Xubuntu 18.04.1

Again this is mainly here for older machines, and yes this is another ubuntu based distro but for windows users a ubuntu base is rather a good thing.

Xubuntu is stable, fairly easy to use and a nice option for the linux newcommer.

 

Now my main list has a obvious Ubuntu bias but rest assured there are good non ubuntu based distros.

Solus is rather nice but it doesnt have the software support.

Mageia is also rather nice, though i am not crazy about its installer these days.

 

Currently the most popular distro according to distrowatch is Manjaro....

However I personally cannot recommend it, I have had too many issues and bugs with it.

For me I cannot recommend Manjaro at all at this stage to the new users.

You may also hear of something called Arch linux

Or Slackware

Or Gentoo

Again I cannot recommend these to new users, these are more for those who know linux inside out and how to navigate command line like the back of their hand.

You may have also heard of something called Kali linux or even Tails.

You might have even seen the show Mr. Robot and it may give you the wrong impression of linux.

Again these are not for those new to linux, these are specialized versions and are beyond the scope of what you need to get started.

 

Finally I  have a special category called "the garbage bin"

 

These are linux versions that I feel are of poor quality and will never recommend them to any new linux user:

openSUSE (sad as I used to like this distro but recent release are of poor quality)

Manjaro Linux (same as above)

Maui linux (its dead)

Netrunner linux (constant dropping of project/ inconsistent management)

PClinuxOS (Third party software installation is near impossible, very rude community too)

RedStarOS (seriously its a north Korean distro and its indeed real)

Hannah Montana Linux (again yes I am serious)

Justin Bieber linux (aaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!)

[NinJake]

You don't really specify what went wrong with your Arch based installs. I've been testing Manjaro and loving it so far. What should I expect to happen?

[Bananasplit_00]

Im not sure a randomly breaking OS is what id recommend to Windows users. Mint 19 has problems. I say that as a daily user of it, the UI is very user friendly but if you want to be playing games without needing Windows its questionable.

 

The NVIDIA drivers have issues with it, my third screen artifacts quite a bit, some versions of the NVIDIA driver dont work with some kernels so when you go to update you better be on that novou driver if you dont want to be in limp mode.

 

Lutis just randomly bricked for about 20 minutes the other day, setting up Lutris with Wine Staging and DXVK was also just pretty randomly borked with missing stuff.

 

I love Mint, its been my go too but it is just too randomly broken compared to just straight Ubuntu for me to recommend.

 

Also Fedora 29 with the Cinnamon desktop should probably be on that list, you can get up and running with games from just the store now(or so i have been told, going to try that when i get some time too)

[LukeSavenije]

so this is just a list of ubuntu based platforms you like?

and you have a hate for arch?

 

do i understand this correctly?

[Aimi]

What's so bad about Tails though?

[Ashleyyyy]

seriously?

 

linux mint has a massive security issue at the moment regarding bluetooth. 

xubuntu doesn't have vsync enabled iirc, so video etc will have screentearing

manjaro is a wonderful distro that IMO works brilliantly.

 

as for further distro's, you didn't mention Fedora at all. Elementory OS also wasn't in your list. 

[preshy360]

5 hours ago, MadmanRB said:

*snip*

been using Linux mint 19 updated to 19.1 so far its all good. A lot of bugs where fixed, so far it's been smooth sailing, Manjaro is not a bad distro, saw it once on a friends system its UI is really good, basic functionality not bad at all.

Edited April 4, 2019 by wkdpaul

[Ashleyyyy]

24 minutes ago, NinJake said:

You don't really specify what went wrong with your Arch based installs. I've been testing Manjaro and loving it so far. What should I expect to happen?

Arch has a reputation for randomly breaking sometimes because it has updates so frequently (because it's rolling release). and it could have problems if you didn't update for a week or 2 and then updated. 

 

but if you update it daily it should be pretty much fine. i used it for a while and it's not as stable as Ubuntu and nowhere near as stable as Ubuntu LTS, but that's what you get with rolling-release distro's. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

The thing with Linux is: there are too many distributions to properly test them all in any comprehensive way as a user, and even for specialized media it would be a non-trivial effort to conduct all the testing, especially given the variety of user needs, keep it up to date, and report it in a meaningful way.

 

With that said, and from a limited experience, I can say Mint 19.1 satisfies two important criteria:

1. It's the distribution that caused the least frustration when trying to accomplish things, among the ones I've tried
2. It has a sufficiently good level of frustration-freedom, that is, there are enough things that can be accomplished with none to tolerable frustration.

Hence, while I can't possibly say it's the "best" distribution to get started, only the best among the ones I tried, I can definitely say it's a viable distribution for new users looking for a general purpose OS, which sadly doesn't apply to every distro out there.

 

[Sauron]

48 minutes ago, MadmanRB said:

openSUSE (sad as I used to like this distro)

What's wrong with openSUSE? I haven't used it much but I've heard mostly good things.

[MadmanRB]

SpaceGhostC2C:

 

Well the many distro thing is both a pro and a con.

But lately I have seen a push for a unified linux and I honestly hate it.

Linux should remain linux, sure you can have your user friendly linux but I am still open to the hard core slackware/arch/gentoo crowd.

But putting linux under one umbrella is indeed a bad idea, it would still be fractured in one way or another as many would just fork it anyhow thanks to the GPL.

 

Sauron:

 

I just dont feel the latest openSUSE releases are as strong, the last good one for me was 13.1 but it seems to have faltered after 42.

[Radium_Angel]

36 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

 

The NVIDIA drivers have issues with it, my third screen artifacts quite a bit, some versions of the NVIDIA driver dont work with some kernels so when you go to update you better be on that novou driver if you dont want to be in limp mode.

I will be damned (too late!) 

I ran across this *exact* issue the other day and it was driving me crazy because prior to a fresh install, I was using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS without issue on this system. Now I know why it was going stupid.

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

Let's try to have a level headed discussion and avoid all the salty and passive aggressive replies.

[MadmanRB]

Nah Ubuntu is mostly fine right now, 18.04 started off a bit poo but 18.04.1 is certainly better.

The 16.04 release was a bit pants though even in the latest revisions.

18.04 is far more solid

 

As for why I mainly recommend Ubuntu based distros is well... compatibility, it seems to be more flexible than most distros at hardware detection and support.

Not saying the others are bad but ubuntu does have loads of support due to its popularity in the mid 2000's

[Shura]

9 hours ago, MadmanRB said:

Now as for Manjaro.... no dont use it.

I will never recommend Manjaro ever again, its too prone to breaking and I have had a severe game breaking bug on my system.

Actually advise to windows users: DONT! And and I mean DONT! install any arch based distribution unless you know what you are doing, even so called "easy" versions like Antergos have issues that may concern you, use at your own risk!

Also just say no to Kali Linux or tails linux, again DONT! and I mean DONT! install these distros unless you know what you are doing!

These are specialized distros and while not bad Linux versions most people coming into linux might have seen Kali linux on Mr. Robot and have this notion that Kali is something anyone can use and while technically yes thats true i still recommend other linux distros for linux newcomers to get their feet wet in the linux ecosystem.

 

Now i do have a special category called "the garbage bin" distros you should under pain of death never use:

Distros like any OS will have different issues on different systems. So Manjaro didn't work for you, and that's too bad but it doesn't mean any distro that doesn't work for you is trash. Manjaro is popular because it works for majority of the people who use it. Every distro has issues, as others have pointed out above, I've personally had more issues with ubuntu based distributions and refer Vanilla Arch. That doesn't mean I think Ubuntu is bad or trash, it just doesn't work for me, I still recommend Mint along with MX and Manjaro when people ask for beginner distros.

 

For those wanting to try Arch or already on Arch and are worried about your system breaking, Install an LTS kernal so you have a backup kernal to boot into. If you don't need the latest updates, use LTS kernal as main. All my systems use Arch, and the ones that I don't update often like my servers and htpc, I run on LTS and haven't had any breakage in the last 2 years.

 

For those on Manjaro, do your updates regularly, You increase your chance of issues by doing not updating often then doing a large update. Updating regularly is good for Arch Based distros because it usually gets the latest updates first. Also for big updates on Manjaro use, "sudo pacman -Syyuu" instead of "sudo pacman -Syu".

 

If your new to the linux community or thinking of trying linux, just enjoy the experience. Linux gives you freedom to try many things and change things in your OS to the way you like it. I suggest you try many distros,and you'll eventually find one you like. Or you can take the bits and pieces of many different distros and customize your OS to your liking. Your journey will have issues and troubles, but once you get used to linux, you'll realize just how much more simpler and easier it is to use compared to windows or macos.

[MadmanRB]

Just now, Shura said:

Distros like any OS will have different issues on different systems. So Manjaro didn't work for you, and that's too bad but it doesn't mean any distro that doesn't work for you is trash. Manjaro is popular because it works for majority of the people who use it. Every distro has issues, as others have pointed out above, I've personally had more issues with ubuntu based distributions and refer Vanilla Arch. That doesn't mean I think Ubuntu is bad or trash, it just doesn't work for me, I still recommend Mint along with MX and Manjaro when people asked for beginner distros.

 

For this wanting to try Arch or already on Arch and are worried about your system breaking, Install an LTS kernal so you have a backup kernal to boot into. If you don't need the latest updates, use LTS kernal as main. All my systems use Arch, and the ones that I don't update often like my servers and htpc, I run on LTS and haven't had any breakage in the last 2 years.

 

For those on Manjaro, do your updates regularly, You increase your chance of issues by doing not updating often then doing a large update. Updating regularly is good for Arch Based distros because it usually gets the latest updates first. Also for big updates on Manjaro use, "sudo pacman -Syyuu" instead of "sudo pacman -Syu".

 

If your new to the linux community and or thinking of trying linux, just enjoy the experience, linux gives you freedom to try many things and change things in your OS to the way you like it. I suggest you try many distros,and you'll eventually find one you like. Or you can take the bits and pieces of many different distros and customize your OS to your liking. Your journey will have issues and troubles, but once you get used to linux, you'll realize just how much more simpler and easier it is to use compared to windows or macos.

Well while you made a good argument for Manjaro (and openSUSE and PClinux) I do give you a good challenge to defend Hanna Montana and Justin Bieber linux

[Shura]

1 minute ago, MadmanRB said:

Well while you made a good argument for Manjaro (and openSUSE and PClinux) I do give you a good challenge to defend Hanna Montana and Justin Bieber linux

I have no experience with those distros so can't say anything about them and they don't catch my interest so have no intention of trying them. Clearly someone went to the trouble of creating it so the owners clearly seem to like it. It doesn't mean its good.

 

My point is linux gives you the freedom to set things up the way you like, As I mentioned in my previous post, I like vanilla Arch because I can customize it to the way I like. I find most popular distros too bloated for my liking. that includes Ubuntu, Mint and even Manjaro. I understand that they are targeted at the mass users and offer something for most people. For the those who know exactly what they want and need for the their system, a clean configuration is always best in my opinion. My Arch Cinnamon uses 460mb of ram, My Arch XFCE uses 290mb; Manjaro XFCE uses 1GB+, I just don't need all that bloat, it doesn't mean I think Manjaro is bad, It just doesn't suit me. For new users, It's better to go with a Distro like Mint, Manjaro or MX and get used to linux first.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

23 hours ago, MadmanRB said:

SpaceGhostC2C:

 

Well the many distro thing is both a pro and a con.

But lately I have seen a push for a unified linux and I honestly hate it.

Linux should remain linux, sure you can have your user friendly linux but I am still open to the hard core slackware/arch/gentoo crowd.

But putting linux under one umbrella is indeed a bad idea, it would still be fractured in one way or another as many would just fork it anyhow thanks to the GPL.

Well, I never said anything about a unified Linux or anything. I just stated two facts, without any connotation:

1. There are tons of distros
2. Due to (1) and the mutating nature of most ditros, proper testing is unfeasible

As a consequence, any sort of ranking, including my own, it's not just subjective, but also based on limited information. So, for example, when I say Mint 19.1 is the best distro I've used as general purpose OS, it's not only my subjective opinion, but also my subjective opinion among the ones I've tried, under the circumstances I tried them, meaning even I may like something else better, it's just that I haven't got the chance to try it and/or properly test it.

 

There is also another important distinction between Linux as a hobby and Linux as an OS. Some of the virtues you and @Shura mention about certain distros or Linux more generally have a lot to do with how enjoyable Linux as a hobby is, at least for those with a taste for it, but not much with Linux as an OS, and especially as a general purpose laptop/desktop OS. It's not about whether a user is new or knowledgeable, it's not about transitioning from Windows or transitioning between distros as different stages of enlightenment: it's about the difference between Linux as a means and Linux as an end. 

[Shura]

4 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Well, I never said anything about a unified Linux or anything. I just stated two facts, without any connotation:

1. There are tons of distros
2. Due to (1) and the mutating nature of most ditros, proper testing is unfeasible

As a consequence, any sort of ranking, including my own, it's not just subjective, but also based on limited information. So, for example, when I say Mint 19.1 is the best distro I've used as general purpose OS, it's not only my subjective opinion, but also my subjective opinion among the ones I've tried, under the circumstances I tried them, meaning even I may like something else better, it's just that I haven't got the chance to try it and/or properly test it.

 

There is also another important distinction between Linux as a hobby and Linux as an OS. Some of the virtues you and @Shura mention about certain distros or Linux more generally have a lot to do with how enjoyable Linux as a hobby is, at least for those with a taste for it, but not much with Linux as an OS, and especially as a general purpose laptop/desktop OS. It's not about whether a user is new or knowledgeable, it's not about transitioning from Windows or transitioning between distros as different stages of enlightenment: it's about the difference between Linux as a means and Linux as an end. 

 

Linux gives you freedom and options in areas that Windows or MacOS doesn't and this concept in general is hard for new users to understand. Don't like your overall interface? change it, don't like your file manager? change it, feel the OS is using too much memory and is low? go with a lighter environment. There is just so many options here that the other OSs don't give. Options and Choice are the keywords.

 

The question, "Can Linux be used as a daily driver?" doesn't really apply to Linux in the same way because Linux is simply a kernel, the distros we see are whats built on top of that kernel. Windows and MacOS are also built on top of kernels, We don't really ask "Can Windows NT Kernal be used as a daily driver?"; Windows 10 is just one distribution built on that kernel, along with Windows server, windows phone, and xbox. Similarly Linux is a kernel and we have things built on top of it, such as servers, androids and the hundreds of Linux pc distributions.

 

Is Linux a general purpose laptop/desktop OS? well that depends, which distribution of Linux are we talking about? we can't generalize everything that is Linux, is there distributions of Linux that can be used as a daily driver? yes and there has been for years. But those distributions like windows and MacOS pick out a windows manager, desktop environment, file manager and so on for you based on what they think is best for the majority of end users. But would that be the best setup for you? that depends on the user and once you have some knowledge about Linux, you can reshape your OS to best suit your needs and likes without all the extra bloat. Hence why it's always recommended to start using a distro like the three Ms mentioned above to get used to the environment.

 

Windows and MacOS are just fine as a daily OS for most people, especially so if you don't want to think about how it works and just want it to work. If you have no issue with your current setup, there is no reason for you to change to Linux.  There are Linux distributions that offer the same too like Ubuntu, Mint and others. But when you want more options, more controls, that's where Linux shines. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Shura said:

 

Linux gives you freedom and options in areas that Windows or MacOS doesn't and this concept in general is hard for new users to understand.

I find it pretty straightforward to understand, but understanding doesn't make it any easier to perform the kind of testing needed to create a confident ranking of distributions o make a 100% informed choice of OS in order to, you know, move on to doing what you actually want to do in a computer.

 

1 minute ago, Shura said:

The question, "Can Linux be used as a daily driver?" doesn't really apply to Linux in the same way because Linux is simply a kernel, the distros we see are whats built on top of that kernel. Windows and MacOS are also built on top of kernels, We don't really ask "Can Windows NT Kernal be used as a daily driver?"; Windows 10 is just one distribution built on that kernel, along with Windows server, windows phone, and xbox. Similarly Linux is a kernel and we have things built on top of it, such as servers, androids and the hundreds of Linux pc distributions.

I don't think you understand. Yes, each distribution is an OS. The question "Linux as an OS" is just a shorthand to refer to Linux-based OSs, the same way "Windows" doesn't technically designate an OS, although one has to be very obtuse not to understand people talking about how this or that works "in Windows".

 

1 minute ago, Shura said:

Is Linux a general purpose laptop/desktop OS? well that depends, which distribution of Linux are we talking about?

Every single one of them? Like, that was the point? That each of them will or will not be to a certain degree, and that even folks happily using one of them can't typically be 100% sure there isn't an even better one?

 

1 minute ago, Shura said:

Windows and MacOS are just fine as a daily OS for most people,

Well, technically, Windows isn't an OS, there are multiple WIndows OS  But seriously, I regained interest in Linux after finding compatibility issues between newer hardware and Windows 7, and verifying that no, Windows 10 is not a viable Laptop (although maaaaybe) and Workstation (definitely) OS. Like, if I make a kernel agnostic ranking of OSs, Win 10 unfortunately lands among the many distributions that don't pass my viability bar.

 

[Shura]

2 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Well, technically, Windows isn't an OS, there are multiple WIndows OS  But seriously, I regained interest in Linux after finding compatibility issues between newer hardware and Windows 7, and verifying that no, Windows 10 is not a viable Laptop (although maaaaybe) and Workstation (definitely) OS. Like, if I make a kernel agnostic ranking of OSs, Win 10 unfortunately lands among the many distributions that don't pass my viability bar.

 

 

Right and that's exactly my point, Most people are okay with windows or Mac and that's why those OSs are popular but it's not everyone. If you feel Windows and MacOS doesn't offer you what you need, then try Linux. But setting up the perfect Linux setup for for the user requires some time and effort by the user. It can get frustrating but the end result when done can be amazing. Vanilla Arch was so frustrating the first few times, but once you figure it out, it becomes so easy. I can clean install my perfect setup in just a couple of mins, that works for me but might not be your perfect setup. With linux, if you want the perfect setup you need to put in the time to configure it.

[YamiYukiSenpai]

I personally would recommend  Ubuntu MATE or Kubuntu (maybe Ubuntu Unity if that ever becomes an official flavor), instead of Xubuntu mainly because my top 3 desktop environments are Plasma, Unity & Cinnamon/MATE.

[wasab]

On 4/4/2019 at 12:03 PM, MadmanRB said:

 

 RedStarOS (seriously its a north Korean distro and its indeed real)

1

In north korea, Linux has 100% of the consumer desktop market share so praise kim jong un. 

[MadmanRB]

9 hours ago, YamiYukiSenpai said:

I personally would recommend  Ubuntu MATE or Kubuntu (maybe Ubuntu Unity if that ever becomes an official flavor), instead of Xubuntu mainly because my top 3 desktop environments are Plasma, Unity & Cinnamon/MATE.

The only reason why I dont recommend Ubuntu mate is that it has a few glitches here and there, ones that could break the user experience.

Especially brisk menu, its too prone to crashing.

[wasab]

On 4/4/2019 at 12:49 PM, SpaceGhostC2C said:

The thing with Linux is: there are too many distributions to properly test them all in any comprehensive way as a user, and even for specialized media it would be a non-trivial effort to conduct all the testing, especially given the variety of user needs, keep it up to date, and report it in a meaningful way.

 

With that said, and from a limited experience, I can say Mint 19.1 satisfies two important criteria:

1. It's the distribution that caused the least frustration when trying to accomplish things, among the ones I've tried
2. It has a sufficiently good level of frustration-freedom, that is, there are enough things that can be accomplished with none to tolerable frustration.

Hence, while I can't possibly say it's the "best" distribution to get started, only the best among the ones I tried, I can definitely say it's a viable distribution for new users looking for a general purpose OS, which sadly doesn't apply to every distro out there.

 

Fedora is way better. Least bit of configuration and so much more stable.