Sharan

Posted on Sep 18, 2020

What is the best linux distros?

#windows #linux

My windows machine sucks after updating.
So I am in a decision to change to linux. But there are number of linux distributions out there.
Which one to use?
Which is the best?

Yeah I know, there is no such thing as THE BEST. But there must be one which is good in its own way, right?

Suggest me some linux distros of your choice.
Comment down your linux and it pros.
I will choose one😂.

(Edited) Overall alternative of windows.

Thank you.

Top comments (16)

John Robertson • Sep 18 '20

THE BEST is highly subjective ;-)

Debian stable is the most reliable and easy to administer.
Ubuntu (& derivatives) most likely supports new laptops.
Redhat Enterpise best to get a Linux job.

huncyrus • Sep 18 '20

Highly subjective indeed.
For end-user - without knowing what kind of processes, tasks, application will you use it - I would suggest the following list - personally think - they are equally great:

Ubuntu
Fedora
Mint

If you would like to go closer to devop things:

Debian
Redhat

Austin S. Hemmelgarn • Sep 18 '20

It's very dependent on your exact needs. My personal picks for specific use cases however would be:

General everyday usage: Manjaro/Arch, LMDE, or Debian. All three are very user friendly and versatile enough for everyday usage, though I'd probably pick Debian Sid over the stable releases.
High reliability server usage with 'common' configurations: NixOS. Transactional updates plus declarative system configuration make it very easy to work with for high reliability setups provided what you need fits within the configuration options.
VM or Docker host OS: Alpine. Small, simple, and secure. In the event that Alpine for some reason couldn't do what I need, I'd fall back to NixOS for this.
VM or Docker guest OS: Also Alpine for stuff that requires minimalism, otherwise Debian as it's still rather lightweight but allows for easier customization.
Highly specialized usage with lots of tuning and configuration options: Gentoo. Quite simply, you can generally tailor your system to a wider range of use cases with Gentoo than almost any other distro.

You'll notice I did not list Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, or CentOS here at all. All four make significant assumptions about how you want to use your system that make them difficult to work with in some cases, which is a major negative in my opinion (also, I very strongly dislike Snaps and the various RPM front-ends for a rather large number of reasons).

Heiker • Sep 18 '20

Apparently you have some experience with linux so I suggest you research about desktop environments (DE) on linux, pick one and then choose a distribution that uses that DE.

The desktop environments that I have tried that have a "familiar feel" close to windows are:

LXDE
LXQt
XFCE

Currently I'm using Debian stable. I can recommend this if you don't mind spending some time customizing the UI of your desktop.

The good:

You get a "rock solid" system that will never, ever break (unless you mess around with it).
The official repositories have a large collection of packages.

The bad:

Every desktop environment you choose will just have the default settings. Sooner or later you'll want to change those settings.
Outdated software.

Let's talk about that last part about old software. It's the price you pay for stability. But it isn't that bad, is not like you're going to get firefox 3.5 or VLC 0.1-beta. The applications you download from the repositories may not have the latest features but I bet their basic functionality it's still intact and they work. There are also prebuilt binaries, appimage, flatpacks, snaps... anyway, a whole bunch of ways you can download an app on linux.

LaMbA3 • Sep 18 '20

I recently tried many distros, and for me zorin os seems like really good choice for someone coming from windows to linux. I installed it on my asus strix laptop and everything works fine, battery life is great. Only one issue i have is with some fn buttons on keyboard. This isnt zorin problem, but rather linux in general. If you are on desktop you wont have any issues.

Amber 🏳️‍🌈 • Sep 18 '20

I prefer Debian, it's reliable and supports most everything. If you want something a bit more user friendly ([with a bit more shady business practices])(hackaday.com/2020/06/24/whats-the-...), Ubuntu or it's derivatives are great.

Daniel Newell • Sep 18 '20

It all depends on what you want, what features you want, the kinda of GUI (if any) you'd like, etc.

Sharan • Sep 18 '20

Let me rephrase it...
A best overall alternative to windows.
Gui, performance, everything

Daniel Newell • Sep 18 '20

Your question is still hard to answer. There's no definite answer as per 'everything.'

If I say I'm tired of eating bananas, what's the best type of fruit to eat now, there's no single answer.

Do I want something crunchy? If so, I might want a pear or an apple.
Do I want something sour? If so, I might want a lime or a lemon.
Do I want something with edible skin? If so, I might want a peach or an apricot.
Do I want something tropical? If so, I might want a pineapple or a mango.

All the fruits I mentioned are excellent choices, but depending on my exact needs. If I'm making pie, I would probably use an apple. If I want something small and won't make a mess, I'll probably pick a peach. But, if I just ask for a fruit without saying my intentions, you could give me a fruit I don't want or have no purpose using at the moment. If I told you what I wanted to do with the fruits, say make a smoothie, you could suggest the pineapple or the mango. If I say I want to make juice, you could suggest the mango or the lemon.

So, what exactly are you trying to do? Are you looking for something for general office use, something with high customization, something for iOS development, something for server-side development?

Anthony Sutton • Sep 18 '20

Fedora with kfce desktop
Pop OS
Linux Mint

Antonio Fernandez • Sep 18 '20

Mi choice is Manjaro.

The reason because I like it over other distros is because is based in arch and I can use the AUR repository without having to deal with the difficulty of installing arch. (There are other alternatives such as Antergos with similar characteristics)

In fact to install the distributuon with a complete desktop environment (such as KDE, GNOME, XFCE...) is as easier as any debian based distribution.

As I mention before the main reason why I'm using it, it's because of the AUR repository where you even can find packages of apps with the last github version.

I've used Debian, Suse, Fedora and Mint in the past and I always had to struggle when having to install or uninstall something that wasn't in the official repositories and even that there are similar alternatives like PPA repositories for ubuntu it's nothing comparable to AUR.