What is Linux most user friendly and secure version

[ASUS ROG]

hello! 

I've been worried about my privacy recently even after I adjusted the privacy sittings it shows that System uses more than 18 GB each month even it reached 23 GB which is way to much, I've searched how to fix it and it didn't work . Also I have 8gb of ram and core i7 8th gen and  windows is taking a lot of my recourses I will upgrade my system ,but I believe it can serve me a bit longer I only use it for web programing and sometime for python(pycharm) but not much and reading pdf so I decided to move to Linux ,but I don't know which one is the easiest to use and the ones that can install program that doesn't support Linux  like acrobat pdf reader and rapid php my friend told me, ubuntu has a way that can install windows apps ,but he also told me that it keeps crashing and not so stable 

So can you help me to choose the right one for me.

Thanks 

  

[pythonmegapixel]

Linux Mint is an excellent bet. It's Ubuntu-based, but with a focus on stability and long-term support, and the Cinnamon desktop environment that it comes with is well laid out so should be easy for you to use coming from Windows.

 

Why do you need Adobe Reader anyway? Mint comes with a PDF reader built-in already.

 

[AMD A10-9600P]

Ubuntu and Manjaro are rather user friendly. I've never stuck with Linux for long, but those are two of the distros I've tried.

 

As for reading PDFs, there is definitely an alternative out there that is built specifically for Linux, so you don't need to worry about getting Acrobat over.

 

When it comes to Windows programs that don't run on Linux though, there's no good user-friendly option, aside from sticking with Windows, or using Windows in a VM. Wine can emulate Windows programs in Linux, but I was never able to get anything to install, even the programs that they listed as compatible.

 

As for hardware resources being taken, you could also consider upgrading to 16GB of RAM, as 8 is only really enough for casual use these days. Your system is likely very bloated if it is lagging on Windows, as 8GB RAM and an 8th gen i7 are still rather capable today. If your only issue is with hardware resources, consider reinstalling Windows or giving it a good clean, and then it will run much better. I was able to run Windows with zero issues on a 3rd gen i3, 4GB RAM and a slow HDD, so I wouldn't be surprised if your system is insanely bloated.

[xriqn]

9 minutes ago, ASUS ROG said:

hello! 

I've been worried about my privacy recently even after I adjusted the privacy sittings it shows that System uses more than 18 GB each month even it reached 23 GB which is way to much, I've searched how to fix it and it didn't work . Also I have 8gb of ram and core i7 8th gen and  windows is taking a lot of my recourses I will upgrade my system ,but I believe it can serve me a bit longer I only use it for web programing and sometime for python(pycharm) but not much and reading pdf so I decided to move to Linux ,but I don't know which one is the easiest to use and the ones that can install program that doesn't support Linux  like acrobat pdf reader and rapid php my friend told me, ubuntu has a way that can install windows apps ,but he also told me that it keeps crashing and not so stable 

So can you help me to choose the right one for me.

Thanks 

  

I'd try Debian stable branch and install Wine to add compatibility for some Windows apps, note that not all Windows apps will work on it and some that work might not be perfect. But it's got plenty of Linux friendly, open source alternatives to choose from if the Windows versions don't work and you will find the resource usage of Debian to be second to none, it's really lightweight and will make your PC last for years to come, though your PC is Windows capable when you strip away all of Microsoft's bloated rubbish, heck I run a system with 4GB RAM and an i5 8250U on Windows 10 and with the right optimisations it runs flawlessly. Debian is also what Ubuntu is based upon so most if not all Ubuntu packages should play nicely.

[Nayr438]

Acrobat PDF Reader

• Okular
• Evince

RapidPHP

• Kate
• Visual Studio Code
• Netbeans
• PhpStorm

Don't rely on running programs through WINE, use Linux Native Alternatives when possible.

 

Distros I recommend

• KDE Neon
• Manjaro Plasma / GNOME
• Fedora Workstation
• PopOS!

 

In terms of New Users coming from Windows to Linux, I have personally found that users have a easier time with KDE Neon and PopOS!.

My suggestion, just download a few Distros and play around in the Live Boot Environments.

[WolframaticAlpha]

4 hours ago, ASUS ROG said:

hello! 

I've been worried about my privacy recently even after I adjusted the privacy sittings it shows that System uses more than 18 GB each month even it reached 23 GB which is way to much, I've searched how to fix it and it didn't work . Also I have 8gb of ram and core i7 8th gen and  windows is taking a lot of my recourses I will upgrade my system ,but I believe it can serve me a bit longer I only use it for web programing and sometime for python(pycharm) but not much and reading pdf so I decided to move to Linux ,but I don't know which one is the easiest to use and the ones that can install program that doesn't support Linux  like acrobat pdf reader and rapid php my friend told me, ubuntu has a way that can install windows apps ,but he also told me that it keeps crashing and not so stable 

So can you help me to choose the right one for me.

Thanks 

  

fedora

[WolframaticAlpha]

4 hours ago, ASUS ROG said:

hello! 

I've been worried about my privacy recently even after I adjusted the privacy sittings it shows that System uses more than 18 GB each month even it reached 23 GB which is way to much, I've searched how to fix it and it didn't work . Also I have 8gb of ram and core i7 8th gen and  windows is taking a lot of my recourses I will upgrade my system ,but I believe it can serve me a bit longer I only use it for web programing and sometime for python(pycharm) but not much and reading pdf so I decided to move to Linux ,but I don't know which one is the easiest to use and the ones that can install program that doesn't support Linux  like acrobat pdf reader and rapid php my friend told me, ubuntu has a way that can install windows apps ,but he also told me that it keeps crashing and not so stable 

So can you help me to choose the right one for me.

Thanks 

  

Fedora is highly secure, has all the packages, has relatively newer packages than Debian and is just rock stable. Everything works as it should. Definitely reccomended, unless you are using NVIDIA.

[pythonmegapixel]

28 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Fedora is highly secure, has all the packages, has relatively newer packages than Debian and is just rock stable. Everything works as it should.

Hmmm... that's not the experience I've had with Fedora...

 

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 minute ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Hmmm... that's not the experience I've had with Fedora...

 

Fedora is really reliable. It does have problems with stuff like wifi and nvidia. But once it is setup, no one looks back

[pythonmegapixel]

13 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Fedora is really reliable. It does have problems with stuff like wifi and nvidia. But once it is setup, no one looks back

Thing is, somebody new to Linux is not going to want something which is a pain in the ass to set up, and they aren't going to want to have to build software from source to get it to work (software with existing Debian packages is far more common than RPM ones in my experience).

 

By all means use Fedora if that's what you like, but it's really not ideal for a newbie.

[ASUS ROG]

So as a conclusion  Manjaro  is the most user friendly 

and others are more private secure 

Thanks

 

[Nayr438]

1 hour ago, ASUS ROG said:

So as a conclusion  Manjaro  is the most user friendly 

and others are more private secure 

Thanks

 

No not really.

In terms of Security, Manjaro will get patches long before Ubuntu, but it will also be the first to get new vulnerabilities.

In terms of Privacy, they are all pretty much the same, it will mostly come down to the Packages you decide to use.

In terms of User Friendliness, it depends on your definition. By my definition, Arch is the most User Friendly, but for the majority that may actually fall onto Ubuntu for its pre-configured packages and automation.

[jedifry]

11 hours ago, ASUS ROG said:

hello! 

I've been worried about my privacy recently even after I adjusted the privacy sittings it shows that System uses more than 18 GB each month even it reached 23 GB which is way to much, I've searched how to fix it and it didn't work . Also I have 8gb of ram and core i7 8th gen and  windows is taking a lot of my recourses I will upgrade my system ,but I believe it can serve me a bit longer I only use it for web programing and sometime for python(pycharm) but not much and reading pdf so I decided to move to Linux ,but I don't know which one is the easiest to use and the ones that can install program that doesn't support Linux  like acrobat pdf reader and rapid php my friend told me, ubuntu has a way that can install windows apps ,but he also told me that it keeps crashing and not so stable 

So can you help me to choose the right one for me.

Thanks 

  

Well Parrot OS Home is a good option

[WolframaticAlpha]

9 hours ago, ASUS ROG said:

So as a conclusion  Manjaro  is the most user friendly 

and others are more private secure 

Thanks

 

No it isn't.

 

Manjaro is good, but unless you are someone who wants new packages, stay on debian or ubuntu. While the AUR is amazing, manjaro community is small, as the arch forums do not like it. If your question was already asked by someone else. you will get a well detailed answer. But if it isn't you will need to wait for some time. Also it has a ton of dependencies. But overall, it is a pretty good distro.

 

 

Since you are a new user, try Pop_OS! or Mint. Both will be really boring, but everything just works.

[Giganthrax]

The most user-friendly Linux Distro I've tried is without a doubt Neverware Cloudready. It's essentially a free version of ChromeOS, so it's an extremely simplistic OS that you really can't screw up. It also looks quite modern.

 

If you want a more capable OS, I'd say it's down to either Mint or some flavor of Ubuntu. I personally prefer Ubuntu because Mint visually looks very dated and tended to be buggy in my experience. 

 

As others have said, you don't need Adobe Reader for PDFs, as there are many open source alternatives. Also, you can just open PDFs in your browser. 

 

 

[pythonmegapixel]

30 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

The most user-friendly Linux Distro I've tried is without a doubt Neverware Cloudready. It's essentially a free version of ChromeOS, so it's an extremely simplistic OS that you really can't screw up. It also looks quite modern.

I'd say describing that as a "Linux distribution", while technically correct, is a bit disingenuous, as when people are looking to switch to Linux, they aren't generally wanting ChromeOS!

 

Quote

If you want a more capable OS, I'd say it's down to either Mint or some flavor of Ubuntu. I personally prefer Ubuntu because Mint visually looks very dated and tended to be buggy in my experience. 

Have you tried Mint recently? It certainly used to look dated, but Cinnamon in particular looks pretty clean and modern now.

 

Honestly I find that a lot of the bugs in Mint are the same as the ones in upstream Ubuntu, though there are undoubtedly some differences.

 

30 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

As others have said, you don't need Adobe Reader for PDFs, as there are many open source alternatives. Also, you can just open PDFs in your browser. 

Agreed.

  

12 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

In terms of Security, Manjaro will get patches long before Ubuntu, but it will also be the first to get new vulnerabilities.

Yes, that's true. Ubuntu/Mint often seem to be a couple of kernel versions behind Arch and Manjaro, and of course being less "bleeding-edge" distributions they'll get fewer patches, but also fewer new problems.

 

That doesn't just apply to security, either. I used to use Ubuntu, but switched to Manjaro because kernel support for my wireless card in my laptop was added. I don't particularly like Manjaro that much, so as soon as the new kernel which supports my card filters down into Ubuntu I'll probably switch back, but for now the presence of a more recent kernel is something I value.

 

10 hours ago, jedifry said:

Well Parrot OS Home is a good option

Parrot is designed first and foremost for forensics/pentesting - if you're not into that you might as well just use Ubuntu Mate or something like that.

[jedifry]

Canonical has a questionable track record at best

[WolframaticAlpha]

39 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

The most user-friendly Linux Distro I've tried is without a doubt Neverware Cloudready. It's essentially a free version of ChromeOS, so it's an extremely simplistic OS that you really can't screw up. It also looks quite modern.

 

If you want a more capable OS, I'd say it's down to either Mint or some flavor of Ubuntu. I personally prefer Ubuntu because Mint visually looks very dated and tended to be buggy in my experience. 

 

As others have said, you don't need Adobe Reader for PDFs, as there are many open source alternatives. Also, you can just open PDFs in your browser. 

 

 

Chrome OS? Seriously?

[pythonmegapixel]

3 minutes ago, jedifry said:

Canonical has a questionable track record at best

That's an interesting point, and it's the reason that, for a long time, I really liked Mint. Their main editions are currently Ubuntu-based - however, they've generally been very good about pushing back against Canonical's antics - see the fact that they now build their own Chromium because of unwanted changes from Canonical, the fact that they require users to manually enable Canonical's Snap package manager, and their parallel version based on plain Debian specifically in case Canonical or Ubuntu ceased to exist..

 

I still do really like Mint, but for now I can't use it due to a few driver issues on my current machine. Also Mint does have quite a lot of issues with packages being very out of date in the repositories, though, and if you want the latest bleeding-edge stuff then Mint simply doesn't offer it. I think what we're learning here is that there are multiple distributions for a reason, and different people have different priorities!

[jedifry]

Isn't current Mint based on Debian ?

[pythonmegapixel]

3 minutes ago, jedifry said:

Isn't current Mint based on Debian ?

Well, sort of. The mainstream editions of Mint are based on Ubuntu. However, the same team maintains Linux Mint Debian Edition, which uses Debian as the base instead, and if Ubuntu ever went away, LMDE would become the mainstream.

From the LMDE download page:
 

Quote

LMDE is a Linux Mint project which stands for "Linux Mint Debian Edition".

Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint would be able to continue to deliver the same user experience, and how much work would be involved, if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. LMDE is also one of our development targets, to guarantee the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu.

LMDE aims to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but without using Ubuntu. The package base is provided by Debian instead.

 

Also - please remember to quote the posts you are responding to using this button:  

[Giganthrax]

2 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Chrome OS? Seriously?

It's a linux distro that was modified to be basically a free version of ChromeOS.

[Nayr438]

3 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

That doesn't just apply to security, either. I used to use Ubuntu, but switched to Manjaro because kernel support for my wireless card in my laptop was added. I don't particularly like Manjaro that much, so as soon as the new kernel which supports my card filters down into Ubuntu I'll probably switch back, but for now the presence of a more recent kernel is something I value.

 

If your biggest concern is the kernel, my go to Kernel on Ubuntu is https://liquorix.net/ It stays fairly close to upstream.

I am not positive if they pull in the latest firmware tree, but you can clone it from upstream if needed and just do "make install"

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

 

My wife Runs KDE Neon, as Arch is complicated for her and I am just not a fan of Manjaro personally. Since we play around with newer hardware though I always make sure she has a more upstream kernel and mesa build.

 

[pythonmegapixel]

6 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

If your biggest concern is the kernel, my go to Kernel on Ubuntu is https://liquorix.net/ It stays fairly close to upstream.

Thanks for the recommendation there mate

I don't really have time to go and set up my system again and in any case Liquorix don't seem to have reached the 5.12 kernel (which I think is still in beta at the moment anyway) but when I have time and when 5.12 is out of beta I'll probably give that a go.

[igormp]

4 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Thanks for the recommendation there mate

I don't really have time to go and set up my system again and in any case Liquorix don't seem to have reached the 5.12 kernel (which I think is still in beta at the moment anyway) but when I have time and when 5.12 is out of beta I'll probably give that a go.

5.12.4 is the latest stable (I'm still behind on 5.12.3), mainline is 5.13