this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Funny, I just picked up a Laptop for Linux. To help bring my self to a Linux Desktop.
What's the tidiest distro these days?
I'd say that depends a lot on what you want it to do. Are you looking for a very simple and easy desktop experience? Go with Ubuntu or one of its many derivatives. Do you pine for the glory days of RedHat? Go with fedora. Do you want maximal control over every facet of your computer? Arch.
the only reason i wouldnt recommend ubuntu nowadays is snaps. they make the system so sloooow.
I recommend Mint Debian edition. It's pretty easy to get into, without a lot of the nonsense Ubuntu comes with.
I personally use openSUSE Tumbleweed, which has worked pretty well for me for the last 5 years or so. However, it's a really bleeding edge distro and not Debian based, so you may have issues finding help (I'm available if interested).
Look around and find something you like. Anything Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora-based should be pretty safe in the "getting help" department.
Mint Virginia. It's easy distro to navigate. Has all the drivers. It's quick and simple.
Every person is going to have different opinions as to what distro works best for them. What exactly are you looking for in an ideal operating system?
Best would be to try different ones and see which one works best for you, but if I had more of an idea of what you're looking for and what kind of hardware you're using, I'd be able to recommend some distros to try out.
Are you a power user? Do you prefer stability or always having the latest software? Do you value ease of use or do you consider yourself more of a power user? Do you want to learn how to use the Terminal, or whould you rather avoid it and use graphical tools instead?
Also different desktop environments, even on the same distro will provide vastly different experiences.
NixOS is the tidiest. Having all your configurations in one or two files is excellent
As a NixOS user myself, I wouldn't recommend it to someone new to Linux.
The person never said they were new to Linux
Aye, I used Ubuntu back when I was working retail, as I'd put it on units which didn't have Windows licences.
How comfortable are you with using the Terminal and learning a new scripting language (called Nix)?
The former is fine for copying and pasting. The latter probably not something I can be arsed with.
The latter is still mostly copying and pasting too FYI, along with reading error messages that generally tell you exactly what's wrong.
Also, NixOS, is not FHS-compliant, so regular Linux binaries will not run without pagching or running it through a wrapper. AppImages work, but needs appimage-run. Flatpaks work fine as well.
I would only recommend NixOS if the concept of everything being inside of a configuration file that you can copy between machines sounds intriguing to you; otherwise, if you still want ultimate control over everything and want to use a Terminal, Arch. If you just want something that works without having to worry about configuration or copying Terminal commands, I'd go with Pop OS or Linux Mint Debian Edition.