Are you willing to switch to linux or maybe give it a shot? Well I was too and to between all these hustle of distros and desktop environments I did what you did to find this article, I googled,"top linux distos". So here are my top distros that I'd recommend to a new comer.
1. Ubuntu
Let's begin with probably the most popular distro, Ubuntu itself. Ubuntu is based on Gnome desktop environment. It's comes with a side dock by default good for people who want something different than windows' taskbar and mac's dock, though it is customizable like any other linux disto. It comes with libre office preinstalled. Overall I'd suggest ubuntu to anyone who have heard about it and want to see what ubuntu is.
2. Pop OS
I'm currently using pop os as my main distro. It has probably the cleanest desktop out of every distro. It is built on top of ubuntu but there are several key differences. By default it has a hidden dock like default gnome, it's latest release has built in windows manager for people who are into that. It comes with a only a few basic software. It's made by system 76 for their hardware but it runs like a charm on any device. Overall I'm loving it and I'd recommend it to you if you want a clean desktop. I'll write an article on how I customize my pop os for learning and developing python.
3. Linux Mint
If you're a windows user and want similar user experience on linux then Linux Mint is for you. It is built to attract windows users with a similar user interface and props driver installation and media codes on boot. I've not used it for long but with the short time I spent on it I'd say it was really good and polished.
4. Elementary OS
If you're switching from mac and want a similar user interface by default then I'd recommend you Elementary OS. It's clean, it's simple and it's beautiful. It does a few things different from other distros, like having a 'Pay what you want' model. For apps in it's app center you can pay whatever you like to the developer to get that application, of-course you can choose to pay nothing. It also has something called Curated app, i.e, apps developed specifically for elementary os keeping it's theme in mind. Do give it a shot if you want something clean.
Bonus
If you want something with arch then give manjaro a try. I've personally never used manjaro but I've heard some good things about it.
Top comments (25)
Aren't they all Debian based? I used to recommend Ubuntu but not anymore — they break packaging of Python stuff all the time. Now I only advocate for Fedora.
These are Debian-based, indeed, but it so happens that these are the distros most friendly to new users.
While Fedora is a good distro(for example), I would not recommend it to new users... Their videos will not play “for some reason” and their Nvidia graphics driver does not work “for some reason” - that user will not want to touch Linux ever again, because of that experience. Not everybody is technical.
Well, it looks like they do so at a cost of making other users' experience bad. For example: gist.github.com/tiran/2dec9e03c6f9....
Besides, the reason Nvidia drivers don't work is usually Nvidia.
It's not like fedora can't play videos, I'm using fedora workstation from fedora 29 as a daily driver on my laptop, I've never ran into any problem related to media playback whether it's a video or audio file.
Explained better than I could, thankyou
I'm a Fedora user and as awesome as it is I wouldn't recommend it for new users. Not sure how many new users use Python but I'd bet that the pluses of using these distros far outweigh the negatives - like python problems.
Bonus one Manjaro is Arch based;)
Yes they are but these destros maintain their own repositories and uses ubuntu's repositories negligibly.
You may include in the list the Garuda Linux. Based on Arch Linux it is stable, btrfs file system, eye candy out of the box for newbies. Lxqt is not resource hungry, all drivers included, snapshot presence. Moreover, made in India.
The choices are good, but they are all Ubuntu-based. I would at least include Fedora - it's made by Red Hat, stable, pretty popular, and targetting programmers. However, they have a bit stricter policies on open source software, so you have to install and enable more proprietary codecs, like mp4, by yourself. Despite this little caveat, I still recommend it for devs, and even for everyday home use.
For diversity's sake I'd also throw Solus in there - an independent distro with a focus on personal computing. Most things should work out of the box and it should be pretty easy to use, without the need for much configuration.
I included the distros I used and tbh community support for ubuntu based distros are much better than most other distros. And for a new user that community can be a selling point. Thanks for the opinion though, I'll keep soulus in mind next time I write something similar.
IMO, there should've been Manjaro.
I mentioned manjaro in the bonus section because I've personally never used it.
I'm working on Fedora, but with newbie I think Debian-based + GNOME desktop enviroment is friendly.
After trying out Fedora, i tend to recommend it to everyone, it feels more like a final product, if i could search for non gui apps through gnome-software it would be perfect!
I'd also recommend Manjaro to beginners, it's based on Arch and is very user friendly.
IMO, Deepin OS have best UI, very smooth and friendly for new linux user.
youtu.be/XQHGfApfFmY
Para principiantes salidos de windows recomendaria Linux WindowsFX, entorno grafico clon de win10 lo que facilita la transición al principiante
linuxfx.org/
Manjaro is another great distro for noobs. Arch Linux in my opinion is much better than Debian/Ubuntu based distros because of the community support.