Kali vs Mint vs Manjaro vs ???

[TubsAlwaysWins]

Looking to try Linux for a while on my work laptop, and not sure if I want to use Kali, Mint, or Manjaro. Also open to other options.

 

I do IT so I could see the networking tools of Kali being useful, I just need to learn to use them. Mint and Manjaro both look alright as well. I mainly work in Windows environments but who needs windows, am I right? 

 

What would you suggest? 

[Bismut]

So not use Manjaro (it sucks, I am going to go back to Mint soon), I have had good experiences with Mint, no clue about Kali.

[manikyath]

kali is highly specialized to cater towards what it is designed for.. if you need kali you use kali, if you dont need kali, you dont use kali.

 

i've actually ran both mint and manjaro as a 'secondary' for a good while, but at the time mint's mindset of "you should reinstall instead of in-place upgrade" forced me away, despite being into it's overall look and feel.

as for how i got away from manjaro.. well, it's arch, and arch has arch problems. i dislike the idea of "updating my system" being something that requires my attention or knowledge. i stopped using manjaro when an update for the login screen bricked it.

 

as for;

1 hour ago, TubsAlwaysWins said:

I mainly work in Windows environments but who needs windows, am I right? 

you should be using windows then, because being in IT, you should have access to the company resources in the same way as everyone else does, so that you can both verify your own work, and reproduce reported issues.

 

as for an actual suggestion.. i always fall back to Xubuntu, because IMO it's a good balance between lightweight and a strong featureset, and being ubuntu/debian based means you can tap right into the knowledge base of that part of the ecosystem. and if you need the specialized tools.. install them?

[Ralphred]

2 hours ago, TubsAlwaysWins said:

I do IT ...

What would you suggest? 

Debian. You can install all the kali tools yourself, and try out all the different desktop environments at the same time with debian.

Once you know what you like you can go shopping for a distro that matches your wants without so much post install fondling, until then Debian.