What Linux distro is best for someone new?

[alyen]

I have been wanting to switch to Linux for some time, but been so frustrated with it every time. Now I have multiple systems setup to actually give it good run without interfering with my main Windows computer. I'm just looking for recommendations for a easier Linux Distro for my use.

 

After 2 months of trying several distributions I have found I like Ubuntu and Edge version of Mint.  Is there another distro that is more suited for me?

 

I'm mainly using Blender, Krita, web browsing and other common usage that's not gaming. At first I was going to use a pair of AMD video cards, but HIP is not stable and was too much trouble getting it to work so I switched to Nvidia. I also would like to be able to use 2 to 4 monitors some days with one of the monitors being a tablet pen display.

 

Apparently connecting additional monitors was not a simple plug and play. I also struggled to get sound working, because I did not have any speakers connected when I installed Linux. This resulted in reinstalled the same OS numerous times to get devices recognized. Does anyone have any Linux distro they could recommend that may be easier for me to use?

[Needfuldoer]

Full-featured Linux distributions don't get much easier (or more well-supported) than Ubuntu.

 

Personally I'm partial to the MATE desktop environment, even though it's an aging hybrid of Windows and Mac OS. KDE and XFCE are closer imitations of the Windows interface.

 

1 hour ago, alyen said:

Apparently connecting additional monitors was not a simple plug and play. I also struggled to get sound working, because I did not have any speakers connected when I installed Linux. This resulted in reinstalled the same OS numerous times to get devices recognized.

Sounds like the typical newbie Linux experience to me.  Spend hours figuring out what broke, or just start over.

 

 

If you depend on this computer for income (or even productivity), don't switch it to Linux until you're comfortable with it. The last thing you need is for your tools to be in an unknown state. Blender and Krita are both available on Windows.

 

[CosmicEmotion]

I would give Nobara Plasma a shot.

[alyen]

6 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you depend on this computer for income (or even productivity), don't switch it to Linux until you're comfortable with it. The last thing you need is for your tools to be in an unknown state. Blender and Krita are both available on Windows.

I don't need to depend on this for work. I'm looking other alternatives since I don't want to activate Windows for certain features and Linux does have some speed over certain tasks for my use. I definately can use enough of Linux for my basic needs for certain activities that I have going now, but just looking to see if there is anything else that could go more smoothly. It's also interesting to see different UI they have since some have features I prefer compared how Windows does some things.

 

37 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

I would give Nobara Plasma a shot.

That's one I never even heard of, but I'm sure there are more out there. That's the next one I will try for a week.

[Thomas4]

Most Linux users recommend Linux Mint for the complete newbie. The good thing about Linux is that there is no need to even install it on your computer at all. All that you need to do is boot it off of either a CD or a flash drive and run it as a live environment. This method also allows you to access your current OS and play videos and music files. read documents, move,copy, or delete files and even directories including the ones that Microsoft claims to be "Essential" (i.e.. Corona, Edge, XBox, or the bloatware that manufactures infect their pre-builds systems with.  Be careful however with moving or deleting either files or directories as some actually ARE needed. Do research on them first, but it's best practice NOT to as with some work it can be done thru Windows itself.

And when you're finished,simply reboot with the Linux media removed and you're back in to Windows, with no changes, provided all that you've done was use Linux only. This process can be repeated as often as desired with most Linux distributions as there are a few that don't have a 'Live Environment", but these are either not beginner friendly or specialty distributions.  

[beace]

You're already familiar with the best one for new people - Linux Mint. If you don't like the look and don't want to dive into customizing the thing, I suggest you look for Ubuntu spins, like Kubuntu (for KDE Plasma desktop environment).

 

If you're specifically looking for another Liunx distribution to try, well, they're not THAT different from one another - it's a very customizable world here in Linux, and with enough patience and expertise, you can turn a default, say, Ubuntu into something similar to Manjaro when it comes to packages you have installed.

 

Maybe try Fedora, although it is a little more professional, so may not be as pretty (I mean no hard, Fedora people).

 

The most important piece of advice would this: stay away from Arch-based distributions as you learn. They're not bad, but may not be as stable as a self-configured Arch, and you may break things further if you try to tackle an already fleshed-out bleeding edge system.

[Arokan]

This is my hill to die on:
Disregarding Fedora and OpenSUSE, there are only two OS: Debian and Arch.
Use Debian if you want stability, use Arch if you want bleeding edge.

 

And now... let the storm begin!

[Polderviking]

Anything with a large community.

Ubuntu and Mint are where it's at for me in terms of recommending anything.
By the time they don't suffice (if ever) you're no longer a new user and will know what you want.

[Virixiss]

You've already tried and liked Mint, and that's my recommendation, and is the recommendation of many others as you can see.

 

Ubuntu is fine, has plenty of support, a good community to back it up, and is pretty much the assumed distro when you google how to do something "in Linux." For those reasons, Ubuntu is also not a bad choice at all. I had been using it on at least one machine or another since Quantum Quetzal. However, I've taken issue with the way Canonical has been handling the distro with some time now, and have severe reservations about snap packages, even as convenient as they can be. For those reasons, I made the switch to Fedora and have been happy as a clam. It's easy to pick up and go, has just about as much documentation and a solid community, it's package manager is well supported, and it just runs great right out of the box.

 

Others that I have not personally tried to add to your research list would be elementaryOS, Pop!_OS, and ZorinOS; each of these have garnered a decent reputation as easy to learn.

Not matter what you pick, run it off a media drive first, just to explore it and test it with your hardware. And don't be ashamed of distro-hopping until you settle on one you really like, even if it's something off the wall like Garuda or something.

[Alucard86ers]

As others have said, mint is not a bad start. It feels like your more want recommindations on what UI to use.

Main Linux mint is ubuntu based (as others have said) so anything ubuntu should be easy to test out. It would be the desktop swap to choose.

 

KDE desktop looks good and current at the time looks to be very windows like and fimilar. I have not used this much but feels good.

Cosmic from POP OS! is a good choice for me. A variant of Gnome, with some tweeks. They also have the cosmic desktop coming out next year (looks to have a whole bunch of features the I have never seen impliment in linux) but unless you like the gnome/mac like desktop then that may not be what your looking for.

 

If you want to get away from Ubuntu (and the snap etc) debian or Arch should be the go. Both are slightly more advanced than Ubuntu with installing and setup but nothing that cannot be done if following the guide (Debian is way easier in this instance). Also there are plenty of Youtube guides on this.

[alyen]

On 11/29/2023 at 11:18 AM, CosmicEmotion said:

I would give Nobara Plasma a shot.

I tried the KDE distro, but felt it wasn't what I was looking for in the UI after getting use to Mint and Ubuntu. Kind of felt like a really old Windows Vista or earlier versions. Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I couldn't where the Terminal was.

 

I still find Mint Edge/Mate distrobutions and Ubuntu at the top of distros I like with a more refreshing UI arrange in a practical way I prefer. I really like how Mint Mate and Edge have a nice dark clean theme that looks good right from the start. I always think background images should fade towards dark or light color in a way so the icons stand out around the edges of the screen or where ever they are placed.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations for which distro for installing on a Surface Pro 3? I tried Pop OS for a couple of months. It's a old and slow dinosaur of a tablet, but I still use it for web browsing, LibraOffice, rough sketching and taking notes. I was able to install Windows 11 with it as a activated license but it's bloated with too much junk and no longer supports tablet mode since I don't have a keyboard pad that works with it anymore. I didn't want to go back to Windows 10 after seeing most Linux distros I have tried would seem better. I think it really just needs a distro that boots up fast.

 

 

 

 

[wasab]

for love of god, please just use ubuntu. 

[WiscoMetro]

On 12/2/2023 at 10:54 AM, alyen said:

I still find Mint Edge/Mate distrobutions and Ubuntu at the top of distros I like

Yes, so pick one of those three and go with it!

 

Personally am transitioning towards Debian based Mint Cinnamon from Windows 7 and am happy with it.

 

* I only briefly tried Ubuntu around 2009 on an early Pentium 4 computer so I can't speak to how it is today

[The Hope]

You can try (all) the easy Unix-like systems.

 

Easy difficulty
PCLinuxOS -- https://pclosusers.com/communityiso/LXQt/community-pclinuxos64-lxqt-2023.11.iso
ROSA Fresh Desktop -- https://mirror.rosalinux.ru/rosa/rosa2021.1/iso/ROSA.FRESH.12/lxqt/ROSA.FRESH.LXQT.12.4.x86_64.uefi.iso
mageia -- https://www.mageia.org/fr/downloads/
OpenMandriva -- https://www.openmandriva.org
GhostBSD -- https://www.ghostbsd.org
Clear Linux -- https://www.clearlinux.org/downloads.html
Mint -- https://linuxmint.com/download.php
EndeavourOS -- https://endeavouros.com
ALT Linux -- http://nightly.altlinux.org/sisyphus/tested/regular-lxqt-latest-x86_64.iso
nobara -- https://nobaraproject.org

 

When you have more experience or more skills you will be able to use more dificult systems as well.

 

Intermediate difficulty
openSUSE -- https://www.opensuse.org
Void Linux -- https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/live/current/void-live-x86_64-20230628-xfce.iso
Alpine Linux -- https://www.alpinelinux.org/
OpenBSD -- https://www.openbsd.org
Artix Linux -- https://artixlinux.org/download.php
Devuan -- https://devuan.org

[tortellini88]

My personal rule of thumb for new users is to try an OS that looks familiar. Example, Elementary OS kind of looks like Mac, so it will be a familiar interface. If you're coming from Windows then most will be familiar. Maybe give EndeavorOS a crack, its a smooth mix of both Windows and Mac feel and eases you into Linux pretty well.

[alyen]

15 minutes ago, tortellini88 said:

My personal rule of thumb for new users is to try an OS that looks familiar. Example, Elementary OS kind of looks like Mac, so it will be a familiar interface. If you're coming from Windows then most will be familiar. Maybe give EndeavorOS a crack, its a smooth mix of both Windows and Mac feel and eases you into Linux pretty well.

It looks like Ubuntu is the one I like to use, but I still keep Linux Mate on another SSD if I decide to alternate for testing purposes. Ubuntu seems to work well when I connect another monitor, but some of the distros didn't work that way when I was trying something. I'm sure but it could have also been the cable adapter I was using for the Surface Pro.

[The Hope]

On 12/26/2023 at 2:07 AM, alyen said:

Ubuntu seems to work well when I connect another monitor, but some of the distros didn't work that way when I was trying something. I'm sure but it could have also been the cable adapter I was using for the Surface Pro.

 

XFCE with any Linux distro works fine if you connect another monitor to a notebook.