Hey all! Yesterday, I've made following post: How to choose your first distro - A guide for beginners (flowchart + text post) and need some input and critique from you.
One thing I got asked a hell lot is why I didn't recommend Debian (and by some extend, Ubuntu) all that much.
While I included Debian in the list too, I had my reasons to recommend Mint, Zorin, and some other Debian-/ Ubuntu based distros above the OG Debian.
Ubuntu
My decision to exclude Ubuntu didn't meet that much of a big resistance, probably because said decision wasn't as controverse.
Reasons, copied from the post:
It used to be good and paved the way of today’s Linux desktop world, but nowadays, the Corporation behind it, Canonical, decided to shit on its user base.
- Once, they decided to make advertisements for Amazon a few years ago, which they’ve reverted
- They now make ads in the terminal for “Ubuntu Pro”
- And, mostly, they force their own and highly controversial package format (Snaps) onto users. You almost can’t get around them, even if you actively decide for it. While Snaps became better in the last years, they still bring a lot of trouble. Just, for example, think of Valve when they officially recommended everyone to not use the fricking Snap package because it’s broken all the time? Good luck doing that with Ubuntu, when they shove Snaps down everyones’ throat, without even notifying the user. While we more experienced users just change the package format, newcomers aren’t aware of that and blame a malfunctioning app to Linux, not the Snap.
I just don’t see any reasons to recommend Ubuntu over something like Mint or even Debian. Both are pretty much the same (same command compatibility with apt, documentation also applies to them, etc.), but just better in any aspect.
Also,
Fedora is often considered “the new Ubuntu” [...]
if you want something similar in terms of release schedule and more, but more sane.
Debian
For Debian, I think I might edit the post and include it more prominent too.
With the newest release, it got some very well thought out defaults, like Flatpak support, a more polished DE (Gnome, KDE, etc.) experience and more. It used to be a "server only"-distro in my eyes, but now, it is actually viable for desktop use, if you like stability (in terms of staleness/ changes).
My reasons to not include it originally were following:
- ~~The installer sucks:~~ It looks outdated/ ugly, and has bad/ unintuitive defaults, making the installation process way more complicated than it needs to be -> I gladly got corrected, and I think I'm just too dumb for that one. It seems to be more straight forward than I had it in my mind.
- Too lean: For more experienced users, who already know what they want, the relatively minimalist base without any "bloat" (office software, etc.) is great, but I think including said stuff in beginner distros (e.g. by a checklist post-install, or just straight ootb) is a good thing.
- Missing first steps: Zorin or Mint have a welcome wizard that guides new users through the OS, showing them how to install new apps, change settings, and more. TuxedoOS for example was specifically designed by a hardware company that wants every user, who never installed Linux themself, get a good first impression and being capable to use the laptop out-of-the-box. Debian misses that imo.
- Flatpaks not being the default app installation method, resulting in very old software.
- Too old OS in general: I think most DEs in particular have already found their direction, and won't change radically in the future (e.g. Gnome 2 to Gnome 3), they only get polished and improved. By using 3 year old DE variants, you'll miss a hell lot of performance and usability improvements in my opinion, and something like Fedora is better suited for desktop use, as it's still reliable, but more modern.
- Does everything too well: Debian has every DE and a hell lot of good arguments to use. When I put "use Debian" on every arrow, it gets recommended proportionally too often, and overshadows something like Mint.
- Stability is NOT reliability!: While Debian is one of the most stable distros out there, in terms of release cycle, it isn't more reliable because of that. If you mess up your system, there are no recommended-by-default safety measures, like there are on Mint (Timeshift backup) or Suse (Snapper rollback). For me, it is in some regards very comparable to Arch, just that's frozen in time for 3 years.
Now, I would like to hear your opinion and reasons why I might be wrong.
Do you think Debian should be put more into focus, and if yes, why?
How has your experience been, especially if you started using Linux just recently?
I think guides like these should primarily focus on where the (potential) new user is coming from and should primarily base their recommendations on that.
They are very likely coming from Windows. So, why do they want to switch? I personally finally made the switch because Windows got in my way more and more with a lot of nagging and changing back things to (bad) defaults even on smaller updates. Other users might just want to try Linux out of curiosity.
Then, it depends on what you primarily want to do. I personally use my machine for media, gaming and development. Others might just want to browse the web.
And based on this information, you'd then choose the distro with the least compromises for what the user is trying to achieve.
I agree that your tl;dr recommending Linux Mint will be good for a large chunk of users: Cinnamon is somewhat similar to the Windows UI, community support is great and hardware support is decent thanks to options regarding newer kernels and a workable UI to install proprietary drivers. It has some confusing bits, for example the installer defaults to ext4 and then the introduction guide (post install) let's you set up Timeshift, but obviously the btrfs option is grayed out, leaving you with rsync. If you want to use Mint with btrfs, you have to choose manual partitioning, which no beginner should have to do. I just think btrfs should be the default FS in most cases now.
For Ubuntu, I think the LTS version has valid use cases. Yes, Snaps suck, I know. But thanks to hardware enablement updates it has very solid hardware compatibility, it can install proprietary drivers (including Nvidia) and codecs during the initial install process and if you sign up for Ubuntu Pro - which is free for personal use - you get 10 years of maintenance updates. This is great for someone with simple workflows who just wants to get their stuff done. Someone who's annoyed by Windows constantly bothering them about Edge or OneDrive or advertisement or whatever who just needs to browse the web, edit a document and send a few emails. This person couldn't care less if their desktop environment is 10 years old, they rather hate it when UI/UX changes. Of course, Ubuntu nags you about Ubuntu Pro here and there, but once set up, you can have peace for 10 years (I think they're even extending it for 24.04). And if you want to stay somewhat up-to-date, you always have the option to upgrade to the next LTS release. This is a distro I'd probably install for relatives who come to me annoyed by their current OS and I'd likely have a lot less maintenance and reexplaining to do than for most other distros.
You could make a similar point for Debian, but it's a bit harder to install, proprietary drivers have to be manually installed, hardware support is worse and long-term support is shorter. It is rock stable, and while stability is not the same as reliability, stability often increases reliability significantly.
If you are like me and want a fairly up-to-date system with support for the latest hardware and (gaming-related) features, but still don't want to be bothered a lot by your OS, Fedora is a great choice.
If curiosity is the main reason you want to give Linux a go, honestly, try whatever. Try multiple distros. Break things.
In the end, it's obviously very subjective. But depending on the PoV, Snaps for example might not bother the user at all, ever. Why would the user care if Ubuntu showed Amazon advertisements in the past? Just because I personally don't like it doesn't mean it can't be a good choice.