Which Linux distro should I choose?

[Rainbowdash_82 404]

Hey everypony, I was wondering about linux and I want to give it a try! But does everypony know which distro to choose because there is a lot of distros out there!

 

[Celtore 2,770]

Ok, it really depends on your needs. Linux Mint is the really beginner friendly Linux distribution. It comes with flash and all the media codecs already installed. It's also the best distribution to experience the cinnamon desktop environment on because the mint guys created it.

 

Zorin OS is another beginner friendly desktop if you're used to windows. They've basically taken the windows UI and tried to emulate it as closely as possible. My dad uses it on his laptop and he seems to have taken to it much more than he took to Linux mint.

 

Another beginner friendly distribution that seems to have risen as of late is elementary os. It's basically Ubuntu made really pretty, those guys really care about aesthetics while providing a simple user experience. It can be a bit frustrating for power users, but I can't help but love it's visuals.

 

Debian is more of what id recommend to an average user who's willing to learn the OS. It takes some configuration to set up and reading some documentation to fit your needs, but it can make for a solid system. This is what Ubuntu is built on top of.

 

For advanced users or the daring, there's arch Linux. With arch, you essentially build the system yourself. You get a basic toolset for system maintenance and for downloading packages and you download your graphics drivers, the desktop environment, the audio stuff, everything from the command line. You benefit in that you install everything, there's no bloatware unless you put it there. You also learn a lot along the way.

 

And as a final advanced distribution, there's opensuse. There are two big selling points to opensuse. It's one of the big frontrunner distributions that uses KDE as their primary desktop, an incredibly configurable but somewhat heavy desktop environment. The other selling point is yast, their configuration tool. I'm not lying when I say that this tool is one of the best system configuration editors in the Linux ecosystem, it's incredibly convenient and not all that hard to use.

 

Hopefully I've been of some help, I've been using various distributions of Linux for my primary desktop for 6 years now. Arch is my backup for when things go wrong, but I'm still shuffling about myself.

[jjbluesam 38]

Ubuntu or Kubuntu. 

 

Choose either (it doesn't matter which) and you'll stop world war 3.

[Rainbowdash_82 404]

Ubuntu or Kubuntu. 

 

Choose either (it doesn't matter which) and you'll stop world war 3.

Yea I chose kubuntu! It is really stylish and its perfect for ponyfying!

Ok, it really depends on your needs. Linux Mint is the really beginner friendly Linux distribution. It comes with flash and all the media codecs already installed. It's also the best distribution to experience the cinnamon desktop environment on because the mint guys created it.

 

Zorin OS is another beginner friendly desktop if you're used to windows. They've basically taken the windows UI and tried to emulate it as closely as possible. My dad uses it on his laptop and he seems to have taken to it much more than he took to Linux mint.

 

Another beginner friendly distribution that seems to have risen as of late is elementary os. It's basically Ubuntu made really pretty, those guys really care about aesthetics while providing a simple user experience. It can be a bit frustrating for power users, but I can't help but love it's visuals.

 

Debian is more of what id recommend to an average user who's willing to learn the OS. It takes some configuration to set up and reading some documentation to fit your needs, but it can make for a solid system. This is what Ubuntu is built on top of.

 

For advanced users or the daring, there's arch Linux. With arch, you essentially build the system yourself. You get a basic toolset for system maintenance and for downloading packages and you download your graphics drivers, the desktop environment, the audio stuff, everything from the command line. You benefit in that you install everything, there's no bloatware unless you put it there. You also learn a lot along the way.

 

And as a final advanced distribution, there's opensuse. There are two big selling points to opensuse. It's one of the big frontrunner distributions that uses KDE as their primary desktop, an incredibly configurable but somewhat heavy desktop environment. The other selling point is yast, their configuration tool. I'm not lying when I say that this tool is one of the best system configuration editors in the Linux ecosystem, it's incredibly convenient and not all that hard to use.

 

Hopefully I've been of some help, I've been using various distributions of Linux for my primary desktop for 6 years now. Arch is my backup for when things go wrong, but I'm still shuffling about myself.

Yea I am going to use kubuntu! It looks beautiful! And because it is open source, I can install a pony theme or something

[jjbluesam 38]

Yea I chose kubuntu! It is really stylish and its perfect for ponyfying!

Yea I am going to use kubuntu! It looks beautiful! And because it is open source, I can install a pony theme or something

You should post a picture once you ponify.

[Rainbowdash_82 404]

You should post a picture once you ponify.

Yup and I will So stay tuned

[Fhaolan 4,484]

As this doesn't seem to have anything to do with MLP as such, I'm transferring it to the Everfree.

[Omega Centauri 317]

If you want something user-friendly that's not a pain in the ass to install/maintain, I'd recommend Manjaro as a starting point.

[Scrubbed user 3,417]

I have a couple of friends that use Gentoo. One of them had experimented with others, and he is quite computer smart, so personally,  I would trust him.

[baba_booey 4,303]

Linux Mint is my favorite OS, especially Cinnamon Edition. It has the same feel of Windows, but with all the advantages of Linux, plus it runs well for me.

[YoshiFanGM 50]

I'd recommend trying out Xubuntu, which is what I'm using right now because it's very stable and user-friendly. You can customize 99% of it (XFCE is a very customizable desktop environment). Just be sure to pick an LTS release (current is 14.04) if you want a stable and bug-free OS

[Untitled Goose Q 5,137]

I started with Xubuntu, and then moved to Mint, but I'm sure I'll switch to another sooner or later.

 

It's all free, and you can generally try a fair bit from disk, so trying different distros only costs time.