this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023

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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Help me choose a distro, please! (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Lodra@programming.dev to c/linux@lemmy.ml

116 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm ditching Windows in favor of Linux on my personal desktop. And so I'm looking for advice on which distro I should start with.

About Me

I use Linux professionally all the time but mostly to build ci/cd pipelines and for software development/operations. I've never been a Linux admin nor have I ever chosen the distro I use. I'm generally comfortable using Linux and digging into configs/issues as needed.

Planned Usage

I use this machine for typical home usage: Firefox, a notes app (currently Notesnook), maybe office style tools like word and excel. I also use this for gaming: Steam, Discord, etc. Lastly and least important, I use this for a small amount of dev work: VSCode, various languages, possibly running containers.

What I'm Looking For

I'd like an OS that's highly configurable but ships with good default settings and requires very little effort to start using. I don't want it to ship with loads of applications; I want to choose and install all of the higher level tools. Shipping with a configured desktop is perfectly fine but not required. Ideally, I can have all of this while still keeping the maintenance low. I think that means a stable OS, a good package manager, stable/automatic updates, etc.

Last bit. Open source is rather important to me. I prefer free and free.

Anyone have good suggestions??

Edit

I'm aware of tools like Distro Chooser. They've recommended Arch Linux and Endeavor OS to me so far. But I'm not ready to trust them yet. I'm looking for human input.

Edit 2: Hardware Info

I'm running on an ASUS ROG Strix GA15DK. It's just over 2 years old. The hardware was shiny but not top-tier at the time. It’s not new at this point but also not old by Linux standards.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Processor
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
16GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM

Edit 3

It's official. I installed EndeavourOS! I got it to work without any issues. Yup, first try. It definitely didn't take me ~10 tries :D

Thanks for all the input all! Wonderful crowd here!!!

(page 3) 20 comments

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[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fedora Kinoite from ublue. Has docker and all the codecs preinstalled. If you need VSCode, add the repo and layer it (rpm-ostre install abc). You can create distro containers with distrobox, or use podman or docker directly.

The system is configurable but image based, very good defaults, its always upstream with transparent changes (rpm-ostree status).

I broke every distro before, and Kinoite is great. The ublue modifications include complete ffmpeg and more, so everything works

Edit: I know everyone recommends something else. I find it really annoying that distros cant join a little more in their work.

Fedora Atomic (the bigger name for all "immutable" distros) is different through the image based model (using OSTree) and also having tested but very recent updates.

[–] vaselined@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Arch is best for you. As you have experience with Linux, you won't have issues configuring it according to your needs. Arch wiki is a gold mine.

[–] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I like Fedora and PopOS. I find PopOS to be the most exciting and best out of the box experience, with plenty of options for customization. Endeavour is also fantastic and considering you have lots of experience with Linux already, should be and excellent choice as well. If you want kind of a set it and forget, I can't recommend PopOS enough. Fedora for if you want to tinker and set things up to suit yourself more, and endeavour even more so.

[–] qwool@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'd say mint or debian, and NixOS is neat if you're willing to spend weeks on it. It allows you to make reproducible and declarative systems as well as declaring sets of packages for the current thing you have to do

[–] deadlyremote@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Probably Arch.

[–] flying_gel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I began with slackware linux late 1990s and have moved to FreeBSD about 10 years ago. Just recently installed Linux again and found pop! os to be quite usable. I think it's worth to check out.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

DistroWatch

[–] LoveSausage@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Peppermint , Debian based , important stuff there but still slim , shit just works

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Pop_OS!

[–] superguy@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I just recommend Manjaro KDE.

It's very simple and easy to use. It seems likes it's designed to make transitioning from Windows as easy as possible.

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