fast but sleek linux distro

[big_wallet_tiny_brain]

I am interested in trying a linux distro for the first time(switching from windows) just to see how I like it. I use my computer mostly for games. What is a fast distro with good support and documentation which does not look super ugly and is a bit customizable. Aesthetics wise I liked what images I saw of kubuntu but anything which does not look super old school like puppy should be fine. Also I want to be able to do all daily tasks without a command line. I am fine if it has it though.

[BloodyWaters]

Ubuntu?

[ProjectBox153]

Zorin OS 12 Core is nice. 

[martward]

I'd go for Ubuntu or Mint, whichever UI you prefer. Mint is based on Ubuntu and Ubuntu has very good support and documentation plus a lot of information on forums etc. At some point I'd start looking into the command line though, it opens up a lot of possibilities you don't have without it.

[deleteduser1535945]

kubuntu or ubuntu

they are both good

i haven't tried kubntu i tried ubuntu and its good just download flat theme and it looks super cool

[Azgoth 2]

Mint is an extremely solid all-around distro.  Beginner friendly, good documentation (via Ubuntu's documentation, which it's based on, and Arch's wiki, which mostly applies to most Linux flavors), pretty customizeable, and I say good-looking if you stick with Cinnamon.

 

Debian is another good choice, but it's marginally less user-friendly.  This mostly manifests in its documentation these days, and its lack of a new-user welcome screen and such.  You'll be using the command line more often in Debian than in Mint or Ubuntu, as a rule of thumb.

 

Anything with KDE is going to be super customizeable--KDE being one of the most configurable desktop environments out there--but more resource-hungry, because KDE is just packed full of stuff that'll eat up your RAM/CPU/etc more than other desktop environments.  If you have a reasonably recent (or high-end) computer, this shouldn't be much of an issue, but I wouldn't recommend it on a laptop due to battery life being drained a bit by the extra resource usage.

[Mooshe]

9 hours ago, big_wallet_tiny_brain said:

I am interested in trying a linux distro for the first time(switching from windows) just to see how I like it. I use my computer mostly for games. What is a fast distro with good support and documentation which does not look super ugly and is a bit customizable. Aesthetics wise I liked what images I saw of kubuntu but anything which does not look super old school like puppy should be fine. Also I want to be able to do all daily tasks without a command line. I am fine if it has it though.

If you want something as lightweight as possible, I would suggest plain ole' Ubuntu. If you don't mind the use of more resources for a clean look, I would recommend Ubuntu GNOME. It comes with GNOME Shell, which allows you to install extensions which tie in with the UI and system in a clean way.

 

I use GNOME Shell, and this is what my current layout looks like:

 

 

If you're interested in GNOME Shell, I'll send you a list of all the extensions I use, as well as the theme and icons I use.

7 hours ago, 27md said:

kubuntu or ubuntu

they are both good

i haven't tried kubntu i tried ubuntu and its good just download flat theme and it looks super cool

My experiences with KDE are pretty killer; it has too many special effects which hogs up resources.

[robertpartridge]

Mint was already mentioned.  Cinnamon desktop is slick, though my personal preference is XFCE.  Also if you're feeling a little adventurous, consider trying out Budgie desktop (either the Ubuntu Budgie remix or on it's "home" distro Solus).  It's a new desktop and is in very active development, but it's also really slick.

[SpaceNugget]

I have extensively used: Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch.

 

My preference is Fedora by quite a long shot over Ubuntu which is about tied with arch. DNF is my favourite package manger by quite a bit. If you go Ubuntu, anywhere you would use apt-get, instead use just apt. Pacman is meh. I hated the wrappers like yaurt, and ended up manually installing all of the AUR packages.

[mtwest]

In addition to the recommendations for linux distributions and desktop environments, I would recommend grabbing VirtualBox. It's a quality software that allows you to run other OSes as virtual machines. This means you can try a whole bunch of distributions/environments before you ever consider Linux as your primary OS or dual booting.

[g el]

TL;DR : Distros are all fast, I have a list of desktop to distro in bold at the end.

 

When looking for a "fast distro" keep in mind that it is the desktop environment you are thinking about, the distros will always be the same for the greater part. They differ in how you install software on them, or what software is directly available but that does not matter much. In the end most new distors will also give you a software center where you install your software without much hassle so they are, or should be, from a beginner's point of view all equivalent. 

Now going into desktop environments, here's where your choice starts, a desktop environment is what you basically will be interacting witih the most. Ubuntu ships with unity which is OK but some people don't like much, you can customize some aspects of it, and it honestly does the job. Next you get GNOME which is maybe one of the most famous options. It's a modern desktop, they do make a lof of choices for you so you don't have to configure much but it also sometimes limits how much you can configure. GNOME is my desktop of choice because of how simple it works and because I got used to it.

KDE is on the other end of the spectrum, it keeps a mentality of allowing the user to configure everything. Previously this meant that you needed a lot of tweaks to get a running system but this is no longer the case. I used to run KDE for a while, i just switched back to GNOME because I am more used to it. With KDE you can customise your desktop to look like Windows or Mac, or even Unity and GNOME

In between these you get smaller lesser known desktops that are still also great, MATE is a fork of the older GNOME, which is very customisable and light. XFCE is also a nice light system that offers a pannel and a desktop, it also is very customisable.

Cinammon is a fork of the GNOME shell, that is the top layer of GNOME that controls how windows appear on the screen, it is also a nice easy desktop

Finally elementary has a desktop look and feel that is very close to what OSX would have.

There are obviously other desktops like LXDE, Enlightement but those above are the easiest IMHO

Here's the easiest way to get distros for each :

Unity -> Ubuntu

GNOME -> Ubuntu Gnome Edition / Open Suse / Fedora

KDE -> Kubuntu / Open Suse / They have their own distro which i forgot

XFCE -> XUbuntu

MATE -> Ubuntu Mate / Mint

Cinammon -> Mint

Elementary -> Elementary OS

[iBurley]

My vote would be KDE Neon. It's based on Ubuntu's "Long Term Support" (LTS) release, so documentation is as abundant as Ubuntu's itself. It's the absolute latest KDE desktop, so sleekness is at it's maximum, and these days KDE is using just a bit more memory than Xfce.

[Gachr]

I think you aren't so much choosing a distro, as you are a Desktop Environment. Any distro can use any DE, sometimes they just use a 3rd party theme for the DE they are using. Remember, that pretty much any DE (probably except KDE) will be lighter than Windows, so you'll feel a difference anyway.

The whole Ubuntu family (including Mint) is recommended for beginners.

• Default Ubuntu isn't too modern, but it looks quite fine, and you can make it prettier easily.
• Ubuntu Budgie comes with Budgie DE, which is very pretty, but it's not as mature as other DEs.
• Mint comes with cinnamon, which is quite ugly in my opinion.
• Kubuntu is a nice distro with its very functional KDE, but...
• KDE Neon is a distro that is made by the KDE team and it's optimised for KDE. Also a member of the Ubuntu family.

[Claryn]

On 4.3.2017 at 4:16 AM, Mooshe said:

If you want something as lightweight as possible, I would suggest plain ole' Ubuntu. If you don't mind the use of more resources for a clean look, I would recommend Ubuntu GNOME. It comes with GNOME Shell, which allows you to install extensions which tie in with the UI and system in a clean way.

 

I use GNOME Shell, and this is what my current layout looks like:

 

 

If you're interested in GNOME Shell, I'll send you a list of all the extensions I use, as well as the theme and icons I use.

My experiences with KDE are pretty killer; it has too many special effects which hogs up resources.

Are you using GNOME with KDE here? What theme?

[Claryn]

duplicate please remove

[Mooshe]

On 3/10/2017 at 1:47 AM, Claryn said:

Are you using GNOME with KDE here? What theme?

 

no, I'm just using GNOME 3.18.2. I'm using NovaShell theme with Numix Circle icons.