Hey y'all, I've been wanting to try Linux for quite a while now. This will be my very first time installing this OS, so, which distro should I try?

Most people recommend Ubuntu for beginners... but I'm really not a fan of that. Every time I've needed to read the documentation it's always been horrendously out of date, the software in the repos too. I'm usually an Arch user (insert that overused bulging forehead meme here) but people would yell at me for recommending that to a beginner.

I've heard some good things about Linux Mint from beginners, supposedly it comes out-of-the-box with anything you'd need and designed to be very Windows-like and easy to adapt to. Their DE, Cinnamon, is very Windows-like so it's pretty good for beginners to adapt to - I actually use it myself because I can't stand how many modern DEs have switched their design to look like some Apple crap.

faucet said:
Most people recommend Ubuntu for beginners... but I'm really not a fan of that. Every time I've needed to read the documentation it's always been horrendously out of date, the software in the repos too.

Not to mention the issues created by Snap packages, which it will sometimes use even if you think you're installing a non-Snap package.

I'm more of a power user myself, using Debian, so I don't have a personal recommendation for a beginner to try, but I have heard good things about Linux Mint, as faucet says.

I've been using Mint (Cinnamon) for a few months and I've been finding it very pleasant compared to W11

refresh said:
Hey y'all, I've been wanting to try Linux for quite a while now. This will be my very first time installing this OS, so, which distro should I try?

I recommend Linux Mint.
DistroWatch does, too:
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=Beginners

I'm using Cinnamon, because it supports screen scaling better than Xfce and Mate .
It's essential when you have a 2560x1440 monitor.

One thing I'll say for Ubuntu is that if you're used to Windows, Ubuntu is deliberately similar in form. If you're looking for something different, though, Linux Mint is probably the best option for a beginner.

Something worth mentioning is that whatever distro you choose, it is usually easy to install another desktop environment on it.

I recommend you try KDE Plasma on whatever distro you choose if you are looking for something that just works, is feature-rich, and is very customizable. In addition to those features, KDE Plasma is the only desktop environment i know of that supports HDR at the time of this writing.

novusuna said:
One thing I'll say for Ubuntu is that if you're used to Windows, Ubuntu is deliberately similar in form. If you're looking for something different, though, Linux Mint is probably the best option for a beginner.

In terms of design, modern Ubuntu (is it still GNOME these days?) is pretty different now having some sort of sidebar thing where Mint has a very Windows-like taskbar and start menu. I guess there's also the other Ubuntu flavours to choose from, though.

electricitywolf said:
I recommend you try KDE Plasma on whatever distro you choose if you are looking for something that just works, is feature-rich, and is very customizable. In addition to those features, KDE Plasma is the only desktop environment i know of that supports HDR at the time of this writing.

I love the way KDE Plasma looks, but I was having too many issues with Wayland (and some of the things it can't do for... intentional design reasons) I had to switch back to X11, maybe it's the future but I didn't think it was ready to use at all. Admittedly that was quite a few years ago, perhaps it's better now?

faucet said:
I love the way KDE Plasma looks, but I was having too many issues with Wayland (and some of the things it can't do for... intentional design reasons) I had to switch back to X11, maybe it's the future but I didn't think it was ready to use at all. Admittedly that was quite a few years ago, perhaps it's better now?

It's certainly better than it was years ago. Plasma 6 released last year with many Wayland improvements over Plasma 5, and has only gotten better and more refined with time. The primary issue I've had with Wayland is windows will often open where I don't expect them to (one of those "intentional design" reasons, which is admittedly annoying). But other than that, it works great for me with an AMD graphics card (I hear nVidia's support is supposed to be pretty good these days too, since their drivers started implementing what everyone else does for Wayland support). It's nice and snappy, and doesn't have the issues I've run into with X11, and I haven't had any issues with apps using XWayland for X11 compatibility, and it offers good HDR support (not that my monitor is very good at HDR, but that's not Wayland's fault, and it does technically work). Though either way, Plasma makes it easy to switch between Wayland and X11 sessions; there's a dropdown menu on the login screen to select it, so there's no harm in trying Plasma/Wayland and switching back to Plasma/X11 if needed.

faucet said:
In terms of design, modern Ubuntu (is it still GNOME these days?) is pretty different now having some sort of sidebar thing where Mint has a very Windows-like taskbar and start menu. I guess there's also the other Ubuntu flavours to choose from, though.

Huh, I guess it's been a while since I last used Ubuntu...

I'd go with Windows.

cinder said:
I'd go with Windows.

I think Cinder is hallucinating again.

The main thing keeping me from switching on a permanent basis is the lack of ability to run games like MMOs. And I hate Steam....

Linux Mint is generally regarded as a good beginner distro. I've been using Linux for 13 years now (and completely ditched Windows on all my personal computers), and having used most common distros from Ubuntu to Arch to Gentoo, I agree with that sentiment. Mint is Ubuntu without modern Ubuntu shittiness, you can install pretty much anything made for the Ubuntu version any given Mint version based off of and it'll run as it does on Ubuntu.

Fedora is also nice but may not be to your liking. It's what I'm using nowadays.

Also, check to make sure any software you rely on within Windows has a Linux version or can otherwise be run on Linux through Proton, WINE, etc. Windows software does not magically work on Linux, especially for programs that require a license key or some other shitty DRM scheme. Windows art programs are notoriously finicky, but I'm a Krita user so that doesn't really effect me. I'd install it in VirtualBox or an old/spare computer first to give it a try before installing it on your main machine. Also, back up your files- all of them- if you're overwriting the whole drive. They will not be kept if you wipe the drive to install Linux.

Also, keep in mind people are highly opinionated about what desktops and software are good and bad. Ignore that and use what works for you.

XUbuntu. 100% same as Ubuntu, but uses another desktop environment as default

Also if you don't like much to use CLI version to edit system files like sudo mc or sudo nano like you still live on 1980's you can try to run GUI version of file manager with root rights instead. Like on XUbuntu you can run sudo thunar to run GUI version of file manager with root rights. Another linux distro may have another GUI file manager name, so sudo thunar may not work.

indigohowl said:
The main thing keeping me from switching on a permanent basis is the lack of ability to run games like MMOs. And I hate Steam....

When Windows have questionable GUI design and metrics, it has a best backward compatibility with programs that even exists on OS that makes it really convenient to use. Since it was never designed to use repository from start, you can just download install.exe from any site and install it. On Linux distro it’s complete nightmare to use program outside of official repository because that OS was never designed to use programs outside of repository, making installing custom program like a quest when on windows you don't even think about the installation difficulties

yetanotheraiuser said:
When Windows have questionable GUI design and metrics, it has a best backward compatibility with programs that even exists on OS that makes it really convenient to use.

If we had (or could get) a Linux distribution that did the same, it'd probably give Windows a run for the money. I know I'm tired of having to keep taking MS bloatware off repeatedly.

I'm not as knowledgeable about Linux as some other people here, but I've been using Debian + KDE Plasma as my daily driver on my desktop for about half a year and it has served my purposes quite well, especially when pairing it with wine and lutris.

I'm using Mint Cinnamon. It's quite simple and works mostly fine. Some stuff is better than windows and of course it sometimes does have its little gremlins too. Didn't need to use the dreaded terminal magic for anything in 8 years now.
It should be noted that the stock installer also allows it to be installed alongside windows as a dual-boot. Obviously that requires there to be enough space but Mint doesn't need much space (if you tick the box to delete unused kernels in the update manager...).
Dual-booting has the advantage that you can just use windows when Linux doesn't work with a program. And if I could set that up on three machines in the last years you can too.
Only downside is that my windows install is always outdated because I run it once a quarter.

Yet ANOTHER Mint: minty (mint mobile)

Yeah, Mint seems to just work without all the bullshit. Debian I haven't really used much in over a decade.

BSD is another option but Linux has a lot more users thus a lot more people who have likely seen your problem. The network effect is real!
TBF, I have used BSD in cases where FreeBSD was a far better fit, and it was actually far less annoying. I suspect this is not true for most cases, haha!

yetanotheraiuser said:
When Windows have questionable GUI design and metrics, it has a best backward compatibility with programs that even exists on OS that makes it really convenient to use. Since it was never designed to use repository from start, you can just download install.exe from any site and install it. On Linux distro it’s complete nightmare to use program outside of official repository because that OS was never designed to use programs outside of repository, making installing custom program like a quest when on windows you don't even think about the installation difficulties

That's what AppImages are for. You can just drag and drop them to /home/$HOME/.local/bin and then open the menu editor for the app menu of your desktop environment and add the file to it for a per-user installation. For a systemwide installation, put the file in /usr/bin and add the app menu entry for each user.

Of course, you can run AppImages by just clicking on them, but having them somewhere other than your desktop or your downloads folder helps keep everything tidy.

Alternatively you can use Wine to install the Windows version of an app just like if you were on Windows. But this only works for per-user installs.

Edit: Sorry for my mistake. It's actually $HOME/.local/bin , not /home/$HOME/.local/bin .

electricitywolf said:
That's what AppImages are for.

To add on to this, there's software which can be run straight from the directory it was packaged in. This is what I did when I used to run Pale Moon.

Some binaries are standalone. Ruffle is distributed like this, for x86. For ARM, I had to build it because Ruffle's devs don't distribute ARM binaries.

For command line users, there's also stuff like python 3's pip package manager, which can be used to install packages in a venv directory.

Java is a "Write Once, Run Anywhere" language, so if it's installed. JAR files can be run even if its class files were compiled on a different OS or even ISA, though it may require an up to date version of Java and the developer may have included OS specific code.

Red Hat's Flatpak is another option akin to AppImage, though I've never used it outside of possibly Fedora (also tied to Red Hat). Flatpaks are distributed via Flathub .

electricitywolf said:
You can just drag and drop them to /home/$HOME/.local/bin and then open the menu editor for the app menu of your desktop environment and add the file to it for a per-user installation.

Head up: Unless there's some OS that sets this differently, $HOME contains the full path to a user's home directory. Assuming the user's home directory is at '/home/username', "/home/$HOME" would return '/home/home/username'.

Also, another popular destination is $HOME/bin. I think some distros automatically append it to a user's $PATH if it's manually created.

electricitywolf said:
For a systemwide installation, put the file in /usr/bin and add the app menu entry for each user.

While /usr/bin can be accessed by all users, I think it's generally recommended to put manually added systemwide executables in '/usr/local/bin', which is also (usually) in every user's $PATH.

hsauq said:
Head up: Unless there's some OS that sets this differently, $HOME contains the full path to a user's home directory. Assuming the user's home directory is at '/home/username', "/home/$HOME" would return '/home/home/username'.

Oops, my bad. I was not thinking straight when i wrote that. The weather has been too hot lately.