I found this site a while back - basically it will ask you a bunch of questions on your usage of your PC, and will came out with a list of recommended distros, and a list of reasons why YOU could like or not like it.
There are some similar sites to this one, but since I’m not familiar with them, I won’t post them. They are simply DuckDuckGo-able though.
While I appreciate this, there were far too many questions, which were pretty technical for a layperson. And even after picking the most basic options, I was still presented with like six variants of Ubuntu, including Mint and Elementary.
How about something like:
- Do you use your computer more for games, or for work?
- How much do you care about open source?
- Do you know what a makefile is?
What is a systemd and why do I need to hate it? /s
Unironically, you can hate it in one of the answers. I’m not even sure how why it is there.
@Franzia @SpacePirate Don’t hate it, learn it!
No i don’t find that site any useful
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This one is better. Much more accurate and robust.
I tried both. They have the exact same questions.
However the one op posted respects the “I don’t want systemd” request. And I personally prefer to get multiple answers.
But the mobile webdesign on ops posted link was not great. So it’s a wash for me.
The second one is a joke site that always recommends EndevourOS
Webpage literally said it was a joke
It was pretty accurate though.
And the one OP posted is a joke.
This put a minus on Debian because updates are slow but didn’t have one on Devuan or RHEL. I would not take these results too seriously. There is also no reason to rank Devuan and Artix as high as it did when I said I don’t care about systemd. The only reason to pick those over the upstream distros is for the init system.
It did recommend Arch as my top choice though which is what I’ve been daily driving for years.
Eh I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to know many distros such as Trisquel, Parabola/Hyperbola, EXE GNU/Linux and so on, leading to odd choices. It also has false information here and there, and the “do you want a Windows-like or a macOS-like UI” question is pretty asinine.
I never heard of this distros lol. I think distrochooser is a tool for newbies. If you know your mentioned distros it is not the tool for you I guess.
Trisquel is literally the most popular libre-only distribution, endorsed by the FSF, it is hardly obscure. Parabola/Hyperbola are libre-only Arch derivatives, and EXE GNU/Linux is the only distribution shipping out of the box with TDE.
Trisquel is the only one out of those that is really friendly for newbies, admittedly, but given that it has Gentoo in there out of all things, it just seems like a very “Reddit” distribution list.
Thanks for clarification. I think I heard about Trisquel but to be tbh most Linux beginners do not surf the FSF website at first, they just google stuff and find a ton of blogs and articles and dive into the pretty standard distros like Mint and Ubuntu.
Not enough curation. People can use whatever they want but you should never “recommend” many of these distros.
For example, with apologies to fans, nobody should be pushed to ElementaryOS anymore—especially not new users. I say this as somebody that loves the “idea” of it and find it beautiful.
I think they should have gone through the candidate distros, disqualified many of them for various reasons, and then mapped to the remaining ones with their questions.
If anybody is so clueless about Linux that they need to take a quiz like this, they should probably just use something easy like Mint or Ubuntu.
I’m not pointing a Linux noob to any site that puts a big ol star nex to “suitable for daily use” under Gentoo.
Or Arch. Or Void. Like, I really like Arch and Gentoo sounds cool (although I never tried it), but maybe recommend something you can actually use without getting an aneurism during setup.
All these are fine for daily use if you have the Linux knowledge to use them. By ‘not suitable for daily use’ they mean special purpose distros like Knoppix, Tails, and Qubes. It’s somewhat confusing wording though.
@JokaJukka I took the test and it said I should use Suse/OpenSuse which is what I’m using!
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In my opinion taking your time to find the Linux distribution you like the most, is not only a great learning experience, but also allows you to learn more about your own preferences.
If they are new to linux I think we should always point them to mint. Then they can use a distro chooser to explore the rest of what linux distro’s have to offer.
That’s pretty much what I do now. Choice paralysis is a thing, and Mint is solid for people to dip their toes. The exception I’ve made if it’s someone more techy to begin with, then I might recommend Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi as a starting point. But that’s only if it’s someone already into networking or Powershell scripting or similar.
What does Mint offer that other distros don’t? Cinammon DE? KDE is just as easy to use, and looks modern and doesn’t look like it’s from 2004. Why has Mint specifically become the defacto “beginner” distro?
It’s just another Ubuntu derivative with a DE nobody else seems to be using.
I dont know what if offers. Other than its very stable and if you ask for help and say you’re on mint people are more inclined to help.
Linux on boarding has the same problem as the fediverse. When people first join they dont know where to start and its overwhelming. Thats why its nice to give them a landing pad where they can go and then after using it for a week or so they can move on to other options if thats what they want. Thats why I point people to mint.
Mint requires you to use the terminal the least of any distro I’ve used. I’m very comfortable with CLI but for people who have only used Windows or MacOS and never ventured beyond the GUI, Mint is the easiest transition because of its plethora of well-integrated GUI tools.
It’s Ubuntu but without all of the crap canonical adds. It also just works and is similar to windows.
The “just works” thing applies to dozens of distros these days. And KDE looks and acts more like Windows 10 than Cinnamon.
Ubuntu derivative
Is one reason.
DE nobody else seems to be using
Cinnamon is easy to use though. Seamless transition from windows to linux for people who don’t know what they are really doing. When they get the hang of it, you can do some neat stuff with it.
Cinnamon is also an in house thing from the Linux Mint developers which is why it’s most common there. There’s a few other distros that have spins on it. Namely Ubuntu, Manjaro, Arch, Fedora, etc.
I agree that it’s a bad recommendation. That was my first distro and the dated look was a huge turn off and a bad first impression for Linux. It just feels like a downgrade from Windows or MacOS, which makes for a terrible transition.
What Mint offers that many other distros don’t is that it generally works well right out of the box, with just the initial install and no other tweaks, because it has proprietary drivers and other bells and whistles pre-installed. But so does Zorin and Pop_OS and both look much better. Those would probably be my top recommendations for a new user. All 3 of those distros have lots of online support (plus the general Ubuntu support that will usually be applicable as well).
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I recommend Kubuntu for people coming from Windows because a lot of the keyboard shortcuts are the same besides, the default behavior is more or less like Windows. And since it’s based on Ubuntu, they’re more likely to find answers to any issues that they run in because of it’s popularity. After a while they can choose to move to a distro of their choice once they are comfortable.
This is why I recommend Mint with Cinnamon DE. Same reasons. It’s always interesting to see someone come to a different conclusion with the same reasoning. 🙂
Plus one for Linux Mint Cinnamon. Easily the best beginner distro, IMO. If you’re technical enough to advance past Mint w/Cinnamon, you’re probably technical enough to not need a service like the linked website.
It’s still nice to see tools like this coming out, though, as a show of support for newcomers to the ecosystem.
I’ve stopped giving a choice because invariably newcomers I turn onto Linux pick the distro with the default wallpaper they like the best. Even within “don’t worry about distros, pick a DE” that’s still meaningless advice to someone who has only seen Windows. If you want me to install Linux for you, you’re getting Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition. Because it’s what I use, and it’s what I can help you with the easiest. I can find my way around KDE or xfce but I already know my way around Cinnamon.
Which distro has the best HDR and GSync support? The questionnaire didn’t even ask about it… :/
Well it can’t ask everything.
I took the test and it told me I should use Zorin. I’ve never even heard of that distro
It’s a fairly popular noob distro, it’s stylized to be very similar to Windows, to help people transition to Linux more easily.
Hey me too, even tho for the past few weeks i’ve been using Arch with no issues, i just suck at ricing and i alway end up imploding the os
