I used Ubuntu once a few years ago but had compatability issues so I went back to windows. Not a great programmer but I’d like to learn. I’m not looking to do much gaming beyond DOOM2 and factorio. Mostly looking for privacy and a way to get back into programming (I have this pipe dream of learning Assembly). I’m not to particular on UI, I can use whatever.
Edit: https://distrochooser.de for anyone who stumbles upon this post with the same question
I swapped from windows to Opensuse Tumbleweed recently. Seems like a really nice distro. Frequent updates and easy rollbacks if something breaks. Luckily I haven’t had to use that feature yet but it’s nice knowing I have it. Yast is also great for changing system settings with a gui instead of using konsole for all that.
Counter Strike 2 and WoW have been running great.
Pop os
Seconded. PopOS doesn’t get enough love. For a drop-in desktop it’s pretty great. I totally get why other distros have some weirdness around closed source and binaries and things. However, the average person just coming from Windows doesn’t care, so just make it easy to install Steam and whatever else they want without making them go through extra steps.
If you’re a power user, I’d actually recommend installing Arch Linux. It will take a while, and definitely much longer then just pressing “install” on a fancy UI, but the advantages it brings are priceless.
Generally, you’ll have to build the OS yourself, but you get a manual doing most of the job if you simply follow it, kinda like Lego. Given that you ultimately build it all yourself, you know how things work if anything might break. You also know how to adjust things if you wish to change something. And for everything you want to do, there’s an up-to-date manual in the arch wiki.
On top of that, the distro is running the newest software, which means that almost everything is compatible and runs in the best possible way. It will be tested 2-3 weeks in advance in order to ensure it won’t break your system immediately. But even if it does, guess what, there’s a manual on how to fix your system.
In case you’re overwhelmed at any point, there’s a great community. Not sure if they managed to move to lemmy, but they’re definitely over on reddit.
Good luck :)
Linux Mint
Fedora is great with gnome for beginer and don’t get in way to much like Ubuntu when used daily
Fedora has been great. I will admit though, that gnome without extensions or tweaks for a desktop isn’t the most fluid UI. Works better for tablet/laptops though.
I prefer kde for desktop. I’m also looking forward to the big xfce update that supports Wayland.
There are Fedora with KDE and it’s much more bleeding edge than any other distro.
/me stares with one eyebrow up at this comment from EndeavourOS… (Fedora would be easier to set-up for someone new to Linux, though.)
Going from Windows to Gnome is pretty jarring change, as much as going from Windows to Mac. Something with Cinnamon, KDE, or MATE would be a much easier transition to start with.
‘it came to me in a dream’ has got to be a pretty unique reason for switching to Linux
I kept closing tabs and they kept reopening with ads. It must be a sign.
sounds pretty realistic to me tbh
Are you sure that was a dream?
Are we sure this isn’t a dream?
😂 I’ve done weirder things based off dreams. I’d say this is reasonable
I get my news from the only reliable source and I recommend going with MX Linux.
Btw, I use Debian.
Linux is great but it isn’t for everyone, damn perfect on servers but kinda of fails for most desktop use cases, have a read at this: https://lemmy.world/comment/4119679
You don’t need to be a programmer to use Linux. I’d probably recommend you go with something like mint. Avoid things like Arch or Gentoo or NixOS for now as they involve a lot more manual configuration and it’s probably best to understand the landscape of things first.
I recognize that, having used Linux almost exclusively for 20 years, my perspective on these things is not objective. EndeavourOS seems pretty new-user-friendly, though, doesn’t it?
I wouldn’t say so - it requires terminal use.
Endeavour is very terminal centric. I’d recommend first something with an app gui
Yes. Assuming they aren’t terrified of the command line. It’s actually quite easy. Updating everything on the system just requires you to open a terminal and type in “yay”. As far as Arch goes it is one of the simpler ones.
I thought Endeavour had a GUI system update tool. Is there no GUI software catalog?
I think you can install the arch gui. I’ve never done it myself. By default Endeavor OS is designed to be easily administered from a simple command line.
Could be, but I don’t know anything about it! Of course there are distributions based on Arch (like SteamOS) and Gentoo (like ChromeOS) that can be perfectly usable for beginners to the Linux world. In general, though, I’d probably recommend using something common, and not using a rolling release distro as a beginner.
Realistically, though, the distro probably doesn’t matter too much for a first install, as long as you pick one where you get a reasonably well featured desktop environment out of the box. Beyond that the biggest difference between most distros is the package repository and package manager… You’ll probably pick up pretty quickly that you need to use dnf or yum or whatever on something like Fedora vs the apt suite on something like mint. It’s also kind of a time honoured tradition to do some distro hopping when dipping your toes in Linux, which I think is a good idea because you’ll learn about some of the different things that are available :). It’s not even too big of a deal if you preserve your home partition between installs (have a backup if you mess this up, though).
I’ve been in Unix land pretty much my whole life and I’ve been on Gentoo and NixOS for a long time so I’m not totally up to date on the beginner friendly distros either haha. Frankly, as long as you pick something with a short and simple install process (which most distros have) you’ll be fine in my opinion.
I’m running Endeavour right now o a desktop, bit mostly for the simplified install. After trying one of the GTK desktops for a few minutes, I realized I hate anything that isn’t a tiling WM. I was pretty sure, though, that I saw a GUI tool for updating and installing software, but I’ve gotten a lot of replies saying EndeavourOS is still heavily terminal dependent. So, there that is.
I think you were mainly addressing OP and not me, though.
Suggestions: Linux Mint: this is the most popular recommendation for new users. Its nice and stable, uses a familiar Windows-like layout, and should just work out of the box. Pop_OS!: this one is another popular option, which uses a layout similar to MacOS and has lots of features such as window tiling. It does use older package and isn’t often updated, however. Zorin OS: this one is pretty similar to Linux Mint. It also offers some additional desktop layouts, but some of these are paid, so if you want an entirely free experience, this is not the best option.
Suggestions for if you enjoy suffering: Arch Linux: Requires manual installation. You have to download and configure all the things yourself. Good option for advanced users who want complete control over their system and all packages installed on it. Otherwise, stay away. Arch-based distros (Endeavour, Garuda, etc): Far simpler to install, but will likely require regular maintainance, due to frequent updates.
Don’t overthink it. You’re not likely to pick the best first distro for you out of the gate, because the best distro for you depends on a whole pile of factors. Like – what hardware do you have? Did you win the hardware lottery and you just by chance have a fully working setup with libre drivers out of the box? In that case, you could use most anything and be up and running without much difficulty. Have some device that needs proprietary firmware or just a third-party, closed source driver? Might want to start on one of the more beginner-friendly distros, like Mint or PopOS. These won’t give you a great view of the possibilities of Linux, but they will get you up and running fast.
Best approach is to take a guess, install it, try it for like a week, and if you’re more angry at the end of the week than you were at the beginning, try a different distro.
Popular first choices are Ubuntu, Mint, Pop_OS or Elementary, I’d recommend trying Kubuntu as the UI is the most similar to Windows and it has a different development team than mainline Ubuntu. There are annoying things about Ubuntu that are less awful on Kubuntu.
Red Hat was bought by IBM a few years ago and they’re quickly moving to kill off everything that made the Red Hat ecosystem cool and useful for end users, so tbh I’d avoid Fedora or anything Fedora based. There’s a risk you’ll get comfy and then have the rug pulled out from under you.
Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent corporation, is drawing closer and closer to Microsoft and I honestly don’t trust that, especially with some of the decisions they’ve been making around software management, but using Ubuntu will get you ready to try Debian, which is the cool and community-oriented distro Ubuntu based itself off of.
This. The best distro is the one you stick with. AND you’re gonna bounce off from the first one soon enough. You might come back to it later, but just pick one and go for it.
Mint is currently my recommendation for Windows refugees and has been for a while.
- Cinnamon desktop environment works like Windows’ UX
- Ubuntu-based, so you’ll find help online for basically anything
- Not just Ubuntu; follows more popular, community decisions rather than Canonical’s (e.g. things like Flatpak instead of Snap) which will help you in the long run since you’ll be using what everyone else is using
- Ubuntu-based, so Debian-based, so pretty stable with lots of available software (even outside of Flatpak)
- Significant amount of work put into UX with less you have to do
If you’re not worried about high-performance gaming, you’ll be fine with whatever. For developers, any Linux distro is gonna be leagues better than what you’re used to on Windows. For Assembly, NASM + VS Code will be great.
I used to think this was sound advice but I’m on KDE Plasma and it’s almost exactly like windows but with the Alt-F2 search menu, stay on top is installed by default. I don’t know all the desktop environment options but it sounds like there’s more reasonable options.
My vote is for mint. If you’ve been a long time windows user it should be the easiest one to get used to. PopOS is also newbie friendly if you’re not into the feel of Mint for whatever reason.
My biggest recommendation though is to spend some time with a few different OS’s and try setting things up different ways. Like if you start with Mint, try something new a month or two later. It’s a good way to get used to the way linux OS’s work under the hood.
I’m not a programmer at all, but if you have some background with computers and are willing to sink some time into learning and setting up a new system you’ll be fine.
Linux mint hands down
Ubuntu is a good starting point.
You can follow the general idea of: “Are you new to Linux? If yes, use something you know other people know too. If no, use whatever the fuck you want, heck, make your own distro if you want”.
I’d say try whatever looks good to you, you can always install something else if you don’t like it, as long as it isn’t Manjaro. (backup your data before you install something new)
Some distros that I think are a pretty good choice for starters (no particular order):
- Pop!_OS
- Ubuntu
- Fedora
- Endeavour OS
- Linux Mint
- openSUSE Tumbleweed
You can also use Distrochooser to maybe help you make a decision.
Not a great programmer but I’d like to learn.
That’s alright, you don’t have to be a programmer to use Linux. You don’t even have to use the command line if you don’t want to (tho I recommend it, getting good at it feels pretty great).
Additional to the Mint suggestions: Mint tones down the “Ubuntu-ness” of their default distribution, but it’s still Ubuntu under the hood. LMDE is the version of Mint based on straight Debian skipping the Ubuntu “middle-man” if that sounds more appealing.
Can’t speak to compatibility one way or another, though.
My computer is old and made of parts from well-known manufacturers. Everything in it is pretty well-known to the open-source community at this point, so that might well be giving me a huge advantage with regard to drivers and such. (Case in point, I have an NVIDIA graphics card and Intel i7 from the tail end of the era where people wouldn’t advise you against getting either, and in fact might have outright recommended them over AMD. Yes, that old. Legacy proprietary drivers work fine for me.)
does LMDE have KDE flavours yet? Ive always thought cinnamon was pretty ugly
Official support of KDE was dropped by the Mint team a while back, and I’m pretty sure LMDE has only ever been Cinnamon too.
Despite this, it is possible to install and use a different desktop manager.
KDE and all the usual KDE packages remain available from the Software Manager, and a different DM can be selected at the GUI login screen (once installed, of course).
If you don’t even want to touch Cinnamon once, I suspect you could jump to a text-only terminal, enter
apt install kde-standardetc. and then jump back to the GUI login to see if it knows about KDE. A reboot (or similar) might be needed? That should be all though. (Very reminiscent of deliberately using command lineftpor a Windows port ofwgetto get Firefox back in the day when people didn’t want to touch Internet Explorer, but Cinnamon isn’t that bad, surely? ;) )(FWIW I don’t mind it. I switched from Win7 back in the day and Cinnamon was similar enough that I felt at home. One day maybe I’ll switch to something else. KDE probably won’t be it, but you never know.)
thanks for the info, I won’t hold my breath haha. I’ll probably just stick with Kubuntu for now, it’s not so bad after removing snapd
