Please help me choose a good distro


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Help me choose a good distro:

Ok, now I'm mad. I cannot choose/find a good distro because I run into some annoying problems and it's also because I'm inexperienced, but I really like & love Linux, running commands in the Unix terminal, everything running smoothly (if it runs), good development environment, customization and everything, so far so good. My biggest problem though is I cannot find a good distro or should I say a good Graphical Environment My problems so far and what I have tried:

 

Tried Archlinux: had to go through a lot in order to have a system ready up for everything, every was missing/not installed (I know this is how Archlinux works and that's what it's good for, you have everything to set it up yourself),

My problems: everything was missing, time consuming

 

Fedora: Fedora workstation was good but I didn't like GNOME & Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, didn't have the chance to try Xfce on it though but had to go through lots of updates

My problems: Everything got so messy by installing many graphical envirnoments (Cinammon leftovers configurations for other GUIs and I had lots of trouble to configure the Windows, how to install lots of repos to get the programs I wanted,)

 

Xubuntu: So far I love it, it's ready and everything and I also love Xfce but, yeah there is a big but. I have problem with Keyboard shortcuts, CTRL + F5 for Browsers doesn't work, I disabled the shortcut key for Wokrstation 5 but still I couldn't get it to work, CTRL + Shift + R didn't work either for me. Also I don't like that Super/Windows key work on keypress and not on release, that means goold old shortcut keys I use in Windows don't work on Linux such as Super + D, Super + L. Yeah most can be found on Google or Window Manager or Keyboard Shortcut settings but still had those problems.

 

Can somebody help?

Thanks a lot.

 

</madboy out>

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Have you tried Zorin? It's pretty much my go-to Windows replacement these days, including installing it on a machine for someone that is clueless about computers. He likes and knows Windows, he hasn't had an issue with Zorin.

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Yeah, as @Mindovermaster and @Nick H. said you can't really go wrong with Zorin or Mint. Mint in particular is the "go-to" for a lot of people (including myself), Zorin has a paid tier as well as a free version with limited functionality but you get a lot for the paid one including some one-house software that isn't available on other distros. If you're coming from Windows you'll be right at home on that one. I recommend the paid version, to be honest.

 

So, to sum up. Go with Mint if you don't want to spend any money, go with Zorin if you don't mind spending a bit.

 

Hope that helps.

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45 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Yeah, as @Mindovermaster and @Nick H. said you can't really go wrong with Zorin or Mint. Mint in particular is the "go-to" for a lot of people (including myself), Zorin has a paid tier as well as a free version with limited functionality but you get a lot for the paid one including some one-house software that isn't available on other distros. If you're coming from Windows you'll be right at home on that one. I recommend the paid version, to be honest.

 

So, to sum up. Go with Mint if you don't want to spend any money, go with Zorin if you don't mind spending a bit.

 

Hope that helps.

What in-house software is only available on Ultimate? I looked through the site but all I found was stuff I could get anywhere. What did I miss?

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4 hours ago, adrynalyne said:

What in-house software is only available on Ultimate? I looked through the site but all I found was stuff I could get anywhere. What did I miss?

Iirc, they've got a lot of themes and a Theme Manager that they've developed themselves; and it's my understanding that it's quite a piece of work in order to get everything to work as intended. It was meant as a way for Windows and MacOS users to feel more comfortable using Zorin. I think the free version was the one that had most of the themes disabled.

 

The "Ultimate" version comes, I believe, with games and other stuff pre-included in the OS Image. I agree, though, they're available for free or through Steam/other means if the user can be bothered to look.

 

I could be wrong about some (or all) of this, it's been a few years (late-Ubuntu 14.04 timeframe) since I messed with their Distro.

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6 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Iirc, they've got a lot of themes and a Theme Manager that they've developed themselves; and it's my understanding that it's quite a piece of work in order to get everything to work as intended. It was meant as a way for Windows and MacOS users to feel more comfortable using Zorin. I think the free version was the one that had most of the themes disabled.

 

The "Ultimate" version comes, I believe, with games and other stuff pre-included in the OS Image. I agree, though, they're available for free or through Steam/other means if the user can be bothered to look.

 

I could be wrong about some (or all) of this, it's been a few years (late-Ubuntu 14.04 timeframe) since I messed with their Distro.

Oh ok— I thought you meant that there were some in-house stand-alone applications you couldn’t get elsewhere and it piqued my interest. Thanks for getting back to me :)

 

Im currently running Arch. 

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To be honest, what makes a good distro is really user preferences. Each Linux distro has its pluses and minuses. There are different desktop managers, different package managers, and such. One good place to start is Distrowatch. They offer updated reviews of all distros of Linux, links to websites, and which are currently the most popular. I started there first and experimented with many different distributions. Love that site!

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7 minutes ago, Barney T. said:

To be honest, what makes a good distro is really user preferences. Each Linux distro has its pluses and minuses. There are different desktops, different package managers, and such. One good place to start is Distrowatch. They offer updated reviews of all distros of Linux, links to websites, and which are currently the most popular. I started there first and experimented with many different distributions. Love that site!

Thank you, Barney. THAT is the answer. You have to TRY each one and make your own pro and cons. As you said above. There is no "perfect" OS.

 

Personally, I had a bumpy ride, tried at least the top 20 listed on DistroWatch. Some things I liked, others, I did not. I'm set on Ubuntu MATE 18.04 right now.

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Linux Mint (current version is v19) is pretty much the most popular and it's what I use on a 10 year old laptop I have.

 

p.s. I use the 'Xfce' version as it's the lightest of the three main Mint distros which are... Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce. Cinnamon is the most popular of the Mint distro's.

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27 minutes ago, ThaCrip said:

Linux Mint (current version is v19) is pretty much the most popular and it's what I use on a 10 year old laptop I have.

 

p.s. I use the 'Xfce' version as it's the lightest of the three main Mint distros which are... Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce. Cinnamon is the most popular of the Mint distro's.

Actually, going by Distrowatch, Manjaro is currently the flavor of the month.

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Just now, adrynalyne said:

Actually, going by Distrowatch, Manjaro is currently the flavor of the month.

 

But what Linux distro has the most total users? ; the last I knew, Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition) was the most widely used Linux OS.

 

because I would imagine as a general guideline.... whatever distro has the most users will likely be your all around best choice because if a lot of people use it, it will likely have plenty of support for it.

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12 minutes ago, ThaCrip said:

 

But what Linux distro has the most total users? ; the last I knew, Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition) was the most widely used Linux OS.

 

because I would imagine as a general guideline.... whatever distro has the most users will likely be your all around best choice because if a lot of people use it, it will likely have plenty of support for it.

By what measure?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/whats-the-most-popular-linux-of-them-all/

 

Unless the distro has telemetry in it, there is no accurate way to know. Hence we rely on sites like Distrowatch to get a maybe accurate picture. 

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11 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

 

Well naturally I am talking about general Desktop/Laptop Linux users, none of the smart phone junk.

 

even by your article, which is dated March 2018, says...

 

"So, what's really the most popular?

By my reckoning, for end users, it's Android, followed by Chrome OS, with the Debian/Ubuntu/Mint family coming on top of the Linux desktop distributions."

 

so what I have heard is likely correct in that Mint (Cinnamon) is still #1 especially since it appears, to my knowledge, that anything based on Ubuntu is always a safe bet for wide support.

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5 minutes ago, ThaCrip said:

 

Well naturally I am talking about general Desktop/Laptop Linux users, none of the smart phone junk.

 

even by your article, which is dated March 2018, says...

 

"So, what's really the most popular?

By my reckoning, for end users, it's Android, followed by Chrome OS, with the Debian/Ubuntu/Mint family coming on top of the Linux desktop distributions."

 

so what I have heard is likely correct in that Mint (Cinnamon) is still #1 especially since it appears, to my knowledge, that anything based around Ubuntu is always a safe bet for wide support.

So you read the beginning of the article but nothing else? Heh. I wasn’t talking about Android. 

 

Read further. What you read was the writer’s opinion. 

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Just now, adrynalyne said:

So you read the beginning of the article but nothing else? Heh. I wasn’t talking about Android. 

 

No, that quote was from your article in saying that for actual computers (desktop/laptop) that Mint is basically still king especially given, even though it shows Manjaro Linux making a run recently as the top spot on DistroWatch, it's not based on Ubuntu which likely makes it more off the radar/less popular overall since it's based on Arch Linux.

 

like Ubuntu based Linux is the safest bet for Linux straight up, correct? ; since it's got the widest all around support etc.

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10 minutes ago, ThaCrip said:

 

No, that quote was from your article in saying that for actual computers (desktop/laptop) that Mint is basically still king especially given, even though it shows Manjaro Linux making a run recently as the top spot on DistroWatch, it's not based on Ubuntu which likely makes it more off the radar/less popular overall since it's based on Arch Linux.

 

like Ubuntu based Linux is the safest bet for Linux straight up, correct? ; since it's got the widest all around support etc.

My point was that I wasn’t talking about the Android pieces on the article, but instead the parts that show why it’s impossible to tell accurately. Let me show you what you didn’t read: 

 

But, setting Android aside, what's the most popular Linux? It's impossible to work that out. The website-based analysis tools, such as those used by StatCounter, NetMarketShare, and the Federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP), can't tell the difference between Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu.

 

Depending on the industry or use case, it can vary greatly. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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@adrynalyne

 

Okay, my bad. I was just going by what I have heard as I did not read the entire article and missed that part you quoted.

 

but lets just say that article is technically correct and that it's impossible to tell what's the most popular (and by popular I mean most widely used) Linux OS. ain't it still likely that Ubuntu based OS's are more used than non-Ubuntu based Linux OS's for the common Linux user? ; so if that's true, it's probably not a stretch to say Linux Mint is the most used Linux OS, or at least one of the most widely used.

 

or look at it this way... is there a way to tell what general Linux OS has the most software for it? ; if so, that should be a pretty good indication of it's popularity.

 

p.s. I was not referring to android at all either as I was referring to real computers... Desktop/laptop.

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3 minutes ago, ThaCrip said:

@adrynalyne

 

Okay, my bad. I was just going by what I have heard as I did not read the entire article and missed that part you quoted.

 

but lets just say that article is technically correct and that it's impossible to tell what's the most popular (and by popular I mean most widely used) Linux OS. ain't it still likely that Ubuntu based OS's are more used than non-Ubuntu based Linux OS's for the common Linux user? ; so if that's true, it's probably not a stretch to say Linux Mint is the most used Linux OS, or at least one of the most widely used.

 

or look at it this way... is there a way to tell what general Linux OS has the most software for it? ; if so, that should be a pretty good indication of it's popularity.

 

p.s. I was not referring to android at all either as I was referring to real computers... Desktop/laptop.

Any distro can run all Linux software regardless of package manager, but that is dependent on the knowledge of the user. 

 

That said, I would say the largest managed software repos are through Ubuntu. Even Mint uses many of them. Ubuntu also has commercial distribution through Dell. I would go so far to say that as entry level consumer use, Mint is up there with Ubuntu. Once you move away from entry level, I would say Ubuntu takes a huge lead. That’s based off of personal experience though. 

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@adrynalyne

 

So in this case it seems your pretty much saying what I was suggesting in that Ubuntu based Linux (Mint etc) tend to be the safest bet for most people.

 

while I am no Linux expert by any means (as I am sure I got a lot to learn), Mint seems like a better/less bloated version of Ubuntu. like Mint is especially great for those who want to dump Windows and want a decent OS for basic internet and the like and it's only around 1.9-2GB for the ISO and helps keep things snappy as it's interface is similar to Windows which everyone knows.

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7 minutes ago, ThaCrip said:

@adrynalyne

 

So in this case it seems your pretty much saying what I was suggesting in that Ubuntu based Linux (Mint etc) tend to be the safest bet for most people.

 

while I am no Linux expert by any means (as I am sure I got a lot to learn), Mint seems like a better/less bloated version of Ubuntu. like Mint is especially great for those who want to dump Windows and want a decent OS for basic internet and the like and it's only around 1.9-2GB for the ISO and helps keep things snappy as it's interface is similar to Windows which everyone knows.

I suppose although nothing in Mint really stands out over other Ubuntu based distros. In fact, you can instal cinnamon on Ubuntu and theming aside, you would be hard pressed to find much of a difference from Mint. 

 

I myself prefer having the latest and greatest of whatever I’m using. These distros don’t cut it. 

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4 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I suppose although nothing in Mint really stands out over other Ubuntu based distros. In fact, you can instal cinnamon on Ubuntu and theming aside, you would be hard pressed to find much of a difference from Mint. 

 

That makes sense.

 

but since people just tend to download a ISO and install... that's probably what makes Mint better than most. simple/familiar interface and effective for the common user.

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