1y ago

I had a dream about windows and have decided to setup Linux on my laptop. What distro should I use?

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

124 comments

'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
  
  😂 I've done weirder things based off dreams. I'd say this is reasonable
  
  Are you sure that was a dream?
- I get my news from the only reliable source and I recommend going with MX Linux.

Anytime someone new ask for recommendation, I'd give Linux Mint.
- also this, start small with mint, and you can test other distros that people show here
  also, start with dual boot/VM, it's a different OS, keep windows there for when you need it
  
  Yes! It's good to start with something that's beginner friendly to maintain sanity and good expectation.
  A lot of potential novices would be repulsed if the first tutorial they'd see requires extensive use of command line.

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?
  
  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.
  
  Endeavour is very terminal centric. I’d recommend first something with an app gui
  
  I wouldn't say so - it requires terminal use.
  
  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.

What was your dream about windows?
- I was trying to run some weird nonsensical dream program for a work presentation and it kept opening M$Edge to show me ads. Every time I closed a window, two more would open. Eventually I was fired because "real dudes use arch". Then I woke up.
  
  @PRUSSIAx86 @BananaTrifleViolin damn, your dream really went full "I use arch btw"
  For real though, that sounds like a much better future than an OS from a company named after Elon's dick
  
  This is hilarious and awesome. Your dream is literally 90s malware and being fired for not being enough of a nerd.

Many people have asked me this (I'm the certified neighborhood tech guy :P), I always recommend Linux Mint, with the Cinnamon desktop environment, or KDE. Ubuntu used to be the best one and it's still very good, but pretty heavy on hardware and they keep adding frustrating features nobody asked for.
Please please please, at the start, stay away from Arch and it's derivatives. I daily Gentoo, but you need a decent knowledge of Linux to use both. If you need help, post to the Linux community or DM me :)

Clear vote for Fedora,

I'd recommend against Ubuntu. It uses snaps and it'll teach you that the hard way eventually by having very weird issues.
Mint is based on ubuntu but says no to snaps, so that's a good place to start.
- What about PopOS? Is it any good? Seems nice.
  
  It's plenty good out of the box, it was my first distro and I had a great time with it. But after learning more about what I like about a distro I ended up changing. But I'm glad it was my first 😉

You didn't give much info to go on, so maybe try Distrochooser. Honestly, most distros should work out fine. If you like Ubuntu, maybe try Mint.
- Thanks! What kind of info would be helpful?
  
  Well, some specs as to what kind of hardware you have, and what kind of software you intend to use (browsing, gaming, editing, what ever). Maybe a word on what kind of desktop experience you are looking for (Windows, Mac, something else). Do you absolutely need the latest versions of software. Tell us what you need from your OS.

https://distrochooser.de
- Thanks!
  
  You're welcome! I hope it was useful.
- I tried this for the hell of it and it suggested almost every distro I have ever tried, close enough to the order of how long I have used each. Didn't suggest kinoite and similar which I have some variant of on all my old people's computers and several of my own.
- Dog I just told it I wanna game and have game Dev supported distro. Guess what? OpenSUSE, Zorin, and every flavor of Ubuntu. I was assuming it would tell me Fedora/Nobara, Ubuntu, and Debian Stable.
  
  You can game on OpenSuse... never tried Zorin, and every flavor of Ubuntu is good for gaming (or has been in my experience 🤷 ).
- Weird, it's telling me to get OpenSuse and in never heard of it!
  
  It's also a way to discover distros :) Depends on what you entered, but OpenSuse isn't a bad distro, that's for sure.

Really recommend mint, or ubuntu. Please for the love of god stay away from arch and all of it's derivatives, or at least try Ubuntu/Mint first. Also do NOT use manjaro it sucks, it is not maintained well at all
- I feel so alone in my love for Manjaro :[
  
  Why do you love Manjaro? /genq

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.

Do yourself a favor and just go with Debian Stable
- Wanted to write the same. Normaly I would suggest Mint, but OP sounds like they are ready to learn and endure some things to end up very happy with Debian, the mother of all distros.
  
  I know of Arch wiki, but are there wiki's explaining easier distros? I'm on Nobara, because I want to game, but perhaps I could be learning to configure and install some of these tools to be able to one day use any distro for whatever I wanna do?

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.

I recommend Pop! OS.
- Definitely one of my favorites, and highly beginner friendly
  
  Yup. It's a good allarounder.

Just use Ubuntu/Mint, because that's what everyone uses and has the most support forums.

Linux Mint or Garuda Linux

Arch, of course.
- If they are asking, not discovering, perhaps EndeavourOS would be a better intro to Arch.

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.

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.
- 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.

I still think Ubuntu or a flavor of it is the right answer for people new to Linux.
- If by falvour you mean linux mint: yes, absolutely! If you mean anything else thats more like ubuntu itself: hell no!

Do you got NVIDIA?

EndeavuorOS. It's a seamless base configuration of Arch which has a wonderful wiki that has a ton of stuff to tell you.
You can install pamac for a GUI for the package manager. Do yay to search for any package and install it; do yay (nothing else) to upgrade everything, and yay -Rcns to remove stuff and all their unused dependencies. I also recommend chaoticAUR
For the DE I recommend MATE but you can select any of the major ones in the installer. For me Steam didn't work when xdg-portal-gnome was installed though and firefox-like apps booted real slow, so you may or may not want to try GNOME.
Get synapse for a spotlight-like search; it uses the alt+space keybind by default
- I'm an EndeavourOS user and I love it, but I wouldn't call it beginner friendly

Since you're just starting out, I would probably recommend mint. I think it's the most stable of the "mainstream" distros and you'll have less frustrations. If you want to have a great experience with managing packages, I think installing and using the nix package manager is the best way to manage packages on any distros (and who knows, maybe in a year or 2 you'll want to try nixOs!)

I've been using arch for years, but finally removed my windows install a week ago and ended up on opensuse tumbleweed. It's rolling release like arch (so there's never a need to reinstall or have a big update once a year) and it has some extra fail-safes for when updates go wrong (there's an automated QA that tries to find package breaks before they're pushed for updates, and they have a tool called snapper that let's you revert back to a working state if you run into problems)
- I really liked OpenSuse when I tried it, but personally want slower releases. Very glad to hear that they just released the new Slowroll distro regarding this. Might have to switch back now... 😅
  
  I like bleeding edge (or leading edge as they call it), but leap is their slower release distro

In case no one else mentioned it: prboom for Doom 2
- Why prboom? Chocolate for a vanilla experience, gzdoom for an enhanced experience.
  Prboom was last updated 15 years ago. Prboom+ is... fine, but I'm not sure why you would recommend it over chocolatedoom or gzdoom.
  
  Because I just realized the last time I looked into this was 15 years ago 😭

I use my PC for gaming. Ubuntu works well for me with my new hardware: Intel 13gen, Nvidia 3080, Steam.

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-standard etc. 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 line ftp or a Windows port of wget to 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.)

Linux mint hands down

Any general purpose distro will work well for you. As others have said, Ubuntu and Mint are the standard recommendations.

Whatever distro looks good to you is a good place to start. Think of distros as default configurations, you can basically change most stuff whenever you want.
Avoid Arch, just in case.
- Screw you, Arch is great. It's not for everybody, but if you want to know how your system is set up, decide what's running on it, and don't mind researching and maintaining your software, it's lovely.
  Sincerely, I use Arch BTW
  
  I use Arch too, friend.

Debian with GNOME
- I'd agree with the choice of Debian (or a derivation as LMDE, *buntu, Linux Mint, ...), but would suggest KDE. Anyway, I think a beginner should try the distro of their choice on a live medium first to get in touch with the look and feel of the desktop environment.

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.

Linux Mint

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 :)

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

nixOS , because it's a completely atomic distribution, like a docker container OS style. You define the state of the system in a configuration file, which can even control the kernel, and you can switch to an older configuration file in any reboot. It's more of a pain than the others, but it works ok out of the box and when you fix something it stays fixed so you'll never end up in a situation where something breaks and you can't fix it.
Also, all the packages bring their own versions of their own libraries and directly link to them so they'll never break during upgrades, but conversely a lot of Linux installers that try to link to system libraries won't work.
- NixOs is so much fun (it is my main distro rn) but I would never recommend it to someone who is just switching from windows for the first time. Any more mainstream distro would be better, but I would still recommend using the nix package manager because it's just so good
- I love NixOS but it can be quite difficult to learn, so learning both linux and nixos at once would be pretty difficult. It'd probably be easier for them to use some normal distro while they figure out how linux works and then switch to NixOS later.
  
  Maybe Fedora Kinoite instead?
  
  That's fair. nixOS can be savage. But I think it's also helpful for a beginner since you can't break it. A beginner is much more likely to break their system than an expert.

IF you want Steam, THEN you want one of the Ubuntu family: Steam doesn't support any other kind of Linux distro.
openSUSE gave me compatibility-issues after I had it running properly, both Tumbleweed AND OpenLEAP versions, when they broke my wifi-driver, early in 2023, so I'm kinda leery of recommending them.
If you want the most Unix-like system, Slackware used to be that, haven't used it in years, though...
Funtoo should probably be the go-to distro for compute-oriented machines, like Blender renderers, or such... optimize to use ALL the hardware-advantage you can...
Many enjoy Void Linux.
just some opinions & experiences...
( :
- SteamOS is Arch with Steam components on top, so I would hope they support other distros! :-) It works great for me on Fedora as well.
  Depending on their previous experience, a new user may be overwhelmed with any extra configuration involved in getting their computer running. In those cases a Debian/Ubuntu based distribution such as Mint or Pop is a stable foundation to learn what they want out of their system.
  
  When I complained to them about Steam being broken on my ( either openSUSE Tumbleweed or LEAP, or Void Linux ) system,
  they told me they only support Ubuntu, period.
  I'm not talking about rumors, or feelings, or heresay, they put it in text/"writing", through their Steam support system, in a message to me, that they only support Ubuntu.
  People downvoting me for stating fact is stupid ( I've no idea if you were one of the people who downvoted my comment, I'm presuming that statistically, 1 of the others who commented against my factual-reporting did. ).
  If people have a problem with Steam not being the way they want-to-believe, then ought tell Steam to make a statement contradicting what they told me, and making explicit that they support Arch.
  I've seen enough comments on various Lemmy communities, to know that I do not want to try running Steam on Arch: I've had enough obstacle-induced migraines in my life.
  IF they tell you something contradictory to what they told me, fine: you get more-recent information that what I got some months ago!
  Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?
  ( :
- Excuse me??? I use Steam on Arch with Endeavour and it works perfectly fine after uninstalling xdg-desktop-gnome.
  
  Worked perfectly fine out of the box for me too
- SteamOS is based on arch, and there are alternatives based off of steamOS, and more targeting gaming and Steam generally.
- I would love to pick your brain as well if you don’t mind! I have a 2016 MacBook Pro, Intel processor one of the last ones, that is actually in pretty great shape but I just don’t use a lot these days. I’ve been thinking about turning it into a Linux machine. I would like steam to run on it, but mostly it’s to teach myself Linux/experiment. Steam is definitely not a requirement so if that’s really bogging down my options I’m down for some versions that don’t have steam. I’ve got a steam deck and a Mac Studio that pretty much covers my PC gaming bases.
  
  Decide, 1st, on the point of your installing Linux on it:
  IF you want the most-fundamental-understanding,
  THEN you want the book "How Linux Works", the most-recent edition of that, and maybe you want a Debian/Ubuntu in order to guarantee that any problem you encounter will already have been encountered by somebody else, while you are getting competent in the fundamentals... There are 2 Linux System Administration books to consider, after you work through that one, 1 is from OReilly, the other .. I can't remember who published it, but it has several authors, & a cartoon on the front cover, and it is huge, and it is the one you want.
  Neither of those books are cheap, but try comparing them with a university-year of a course, and the competence you can earn through those 2 books is at least that level.
  You also are going to need, around the time you get partway through the 2nd book, a book on Linux Security.
  IF you are just a crazy hack-at-things person who likes technical toys, then maybe Void is more likely to be fun for you...
  Linux From Scratch is how you get the every-last-step-of-the-way understanding, but I haven't done that one yet, because I want to keep using my computer for things like writing, and LFS might make me avoid my machine ( I spent years burnt-out from geekery, several times, and am leery of getting myself that way, again, but LFS really is the way to get truly-competent as a sysadmin. ).
  You will need the same books listed above, though.
  Do well!
  ( :
  
  MacBooks are amazing for Linux. Dope hardware. You can use Proton w Steam to game, works nice.

124 comments