I’d rather someone’s first choice about Linux was which DE to use. This plays a way bigger part in first impressions.
The obvious choice is KDE, ofcI totally agree, that’s a way more important factor when you’re starting out with Linux.
Gotta be Gnome thoughThat’s a strange way to spell Xfce.
Maybe you misheard LXQT?
DEs are clearly bloat, so the best DE is no DE.
Definitely not just because I prefer i3I used to be a huge Plasma evangelist. At first I hated it, the old versions I mean. You just moved the mouse pointer the wrong way and your whole DE was fucked. Too many options and settings. But KDE 5 changed my world. Stable and lighter than Gnome, but still fully configurable. Last night I switched to Debian 12, Gnome. Maybe I’m getting old, but I’m loving it. I don’t tinker with my DEs that much anymore. Just a couple Gnome extensions and I was good to go.
KDE is lighter than GNOME? In my experience GNOME uses slightly less resources.
Maté is awesome
You missed the step where you tell everyone what distro you use, and that its the best.
Five minutes after you installed it and haven’t tried anything else.
I feel personally attacked lol
HaHa Same
I use Mint, btw
I use SteamOS btw
(Which is arch based meaning… I use arch btw lol)
Otherwise Debian stable is my go-to set it and forget it server OS
Searched, not googled. Google is bad, M’kay?
Reference
Drugs are bad, M’kay? Don’t do drugs.
me and the boys out here still asking Jeeves
Fellow old fart detected.
Fellow old fart detected.
Just ddg-it
Just duck it.
Brave it
Install Gentoo
the ultimate beginner’s distro, it’s a great start before moving on to something complicated like mint
Oddly, Gentoo was where I started out when I got serious about using Linux. That was when I was in my 20’s and I wanted to get every last bit of performance out of my computer. Also, breaking stuff was fun and gave me a chance to figure new stuff out.
Now I just want stuff to work and be relatively up to date. So I use Debian testing.
What a madlad
I was a huge distro hopper until I started using immutable distros. One thing no one tells beginners is that you do have to maintain your system more on Linux than other OSs because Linux gives you the rope to hang yourself with. I would always bloat my OS and things would get unruly, everything would slow down or become unstable and I would lose track of how I had everything set up. Immutability make things so much cleaner.
Okay, but when most people are looking for advice on which distro to use it’s because they don’t know what they want.
Yeah, this meme is mostly to poke fun at the people who genuinely think that Linux Mint is only for beginners or you have to switch to Arch or whatever else, that kind of crowd.
I’m a little bit tempted to try and make an actual flowchart with distro recommendations since I’ve used and like most of the major ones at this point, but there are better resources out there than what I could contribute.
Linux mint is the sort of distro newbies start with and long time linux users retire to after theyve explored the distro multiverse.
Hannah Montana Linux is the best distro! It leaves out all those newfangled things like Wayland, GNOME 3, SysVInit and gives you Hannah Montana.
newfangled… SysVInit
You mean systemd? Cause SysVInit was created in 1991 based on Unix System V from 1983. Which means it’s literally older than Miley Cyrus.
The endgoal: Linux from scratch.
Honestly from experience I’ve learnt that the yes answer also usually applies to the no answer because it’s important to everyone. Advanced users tend to hit advanced issues and surprise, surprise, then community size matters all the same!
So since Linux is highly customizable and the choice of e.g. desktop environment matters little (just install whatever you want on any distro, including DE), community size is the most hard-earned property and thus usually trumps all.
So I personally try to keep closest to upstream regardless experienced or less experienced users => Debian if you adore those DEB packages and management, Fedora if you love those RPM packages and management, indie ones for indie packages e.g. Alpine, Arch… If you still run into issues it’s usually you, not the distro because it’s already battle hardened. :) But no worries, then you’ll find a lot of help and the problem has usually already even been discussed and is googleable! It’s 2023, none of the huge distros are plain shit and annoying, that’s been ironed out like a decade ago. So just go with a (big) flow somewhere.
Which distro should you pick? -> openSUSE tumbleweed
Started with Ubuntu ended up with arch
@sharkfucker420 @atmur Same, its funny Kubuntu died on me twice on one year due to updates, while Arch hasn’t died yet. Yes, it almost broke completly twice but I was able to fix it with help ( and always the error was related to my clumsiness ). And also, using arch has lead me to understanding many things about linux that I wouldn’t pay attention in ubuntu.
Also, now I can say Arch BTW which probably is the main reason for moving ngl
Unironically moved to arch for the meme
Arch btw
What if I don’t want to use whatever I want? What if I want my distro forced upon me?
I’ve decided that you have to use Slackware
Thank you sir. May I have another?
Yes, you have to use Softlanding Linux System. You can’t go back to Slackware
Thank you sir. May I have another?
You must use all these systems as VMs under Proxmox
Lfs
It’s been a long time since I’ve played around with Slackware, wonder how it’s doing lately. Might need to find an extra machine to throw it on.
Wow, 1.3 was fun, as was RedHat 4.2 (guessing,. version on infomagix nov '95 CD set, can’t find it now). Most fun though was kicking them off and dumping Debian on there early '96. (yeah,
fan boylazy admin that doesn’t want re-installs for major upgrades)
If beginner, use PopOS.
If Linux nerd, use Arch.
That’s my guide. I don’t like any other distros. :)
I started with Ubuntu and then migrated to Arch. I learned a ton about Linux and how tune everything for optimal performance!
…And then I went back to Ubuntu because I just want to work with my computer, not on it.
Yeah many people say that but Ubuntu is not very good in my opinion. Outdated packages, snaps, commercials in the installer and so on. I would pick PopOS any day over that myself. But it’s because I’m really sensitive to those things.
Yeah, I honestly agree that Ubuntu is getting worse. For better or worse though, it’s a base that I’m familiar with. I end up customizing and tweaking it, but I’ve automated enough of that to where I can just run a few scripts on a fresh install and be back up and running.
Basically, I built myself a shittier, highly specific version of Nix in self-defence. 😁
I started with PopOS. Didn’t like so many decisions being made for me so I started using Arch instead. Easy customization. Got tired of breaking systems. Jumped to Debian Testing. I think I’m settled.
(Web developer) I distro-hopped for years, after discovering Ubuntu 8.10 (OpenSUSE, Fedora, Linux Mint, Ubuntu Mate,Manjaro, Ubuntu Budgie, etc). Then left Linux altogether for some time. 4 years ago returned to Kubuntu, using only LTS. My best Linux experience ever. Until yesterday, when I installed Debian 12. Hated Gnome before (I don’t remember why), but not anymore, the stability is astounding.
