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  • Mint is my recommendation, having using it myself for many years now.

    If you have a Nvidia GPU, a case could be made for POP! due to the built in drivers, but installing Nvidia drivers is rather painless in Mint.

  • Mint is the most mentioned choice and an extremely great beginner distro with an huge community.

    ZorinOS will get a big update very soon and is also a very good choice. It was my first distro, especially because it looks very modern and pleasing.

    If you're a tiny bit more advanced and get the basics, then you might take a look at the immutable Fedora variants like Silverblue.

    They have many advantages compared to traditional distros like the two mentioned above, but atomic Linux is a relatively new concept. I also find them easier to understand and use, and, imo, they're even more user friendly, but not as refined.

  • I've been linux-curious on-and-off for years. I've toyed with it several times but always gone back to Windows eventually. I have a laptop with a 7th gen Intel CPU that is not supported on Windows 11, so I decided to wipe it and threw the latest version of Linux Mint on it. Everything (except for a fingerprint reader) worked straight out of the figurative box, and I've been happily running it on that machine for about 6 months now. I think Mint is a good choice if you want a simple windows-like experience.

    I still have a desktop PC running Windows for games and Adobe Lightroom and stuff, but I won't be going back to Windows on that laptop.

  • A couple of assumptions I will be making:

    • Your hardware is supported; consider to check driver support over at linux-hardware.org. Honestly, most hardware should be well-supported, unless it has been released very recently or is hardware from known troublemakers (i.e. Nvidia GPUs or Broadcom etc).
    • Your 'computer-literacy' is at least (slightly) higher than average.
    • You've primarily used Windows in the past.
    • You prefer asking others instead of finding it out for yourself; the existence of this post supports that. (It's either that or you like to have a second opinion in all cases; but I would have expected more input from you if that was the case 😅.)
    • Your hardware is somewhat modern.
    • You will mostly stick to defaults (at least initially).
    • You're aware that while hundreds of actively maintained distros exist, most of them are either niche or not worth your time in the first place. If, from the remaining ones, the less impactful derivatives are surgically removed, followed by the removal of newbie-unfriendly distros, then only 10-20 distros would remain; most of which have been named in this thread already. And your needs dictate which one out of these would suit you best.
    • You will educate yourself regarding desktop environments like GNOME, KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, Xfce etc. Perhaps you will even boot into a live environment to check them out for yourself; loading a bunch of distros on your USB through Ventoy is excellent for that. This is important as they're arguably the biggest contributor to how you perceive your Linux system. You should also be aware that in almost all cases a second (or heck; even third, fourth etc) desktop environment can be installed on your system and you should be able to switch between them relatively easily. However, in most cases, the one provided on first installation works close to flawless while others that have been tacked on later on are generally less polished.
    • You will educate yourself (eventually) regarding universal package managers (read: AppImage, Flatpak, Nix and Snap) and Distrobox as collectively they've (mostly) ridden the Linux ecosystem of problems related to software not being packaged in the native repos. Don't feel the need to indulge into all of them simultaneously from the get-go. But be aware that they exist and that they enable one to install (almost) any package that has been made available to Linux regardless of their chosen distro.

    Any distro I should use?

    Typically, distros like Arch, Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE, Pop!_OS and Ubuntu (or their derivatives) will be mentioned in these kinds of queries. And it becomes mostly a popularity poll that measures what the community thinks is the preferred distro for beginners. And honestly, I don't blame them as you haven't really given us a lot to work with. My entry to that popularity poll would be Linux Mint. If you prefer to use GNOME or KDE Plasma instead, then consider either Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed. Additionally, Pop!_OS should be considered if Nvidia causes problems on all the others.

    Feel free to inquire if you so desire!

    EDIT: I just noticed how you mentioned to someone that your use case will be primarily gaming. First of all, gaming is somewhat equal on most distros; especially with the likes of Bazzite-Arch and Conty providing excellent environments for gaming regardless of installed distro. Though, these containers do still rely on the hosts kernel, therefore any perceived difference on same hardware but different kernels might be attributed to said kernels. Newer kernels generally come with improved performance; at least for newer hardware*. Though, perhaps more performance could be gained through other means as well. I will spare you the details, however, as this is potentially another rabbit hole within the initial rabbit hole. Therefore, instead, I will name a couple of distros known for being excellent for gaming purposes: Bazzite, Garuda Linux, Nobara Linux, PikaOS and RegataOS. If you want a no-nonsense system, just go for Bazzite; while initial setup might seem slightly more involved, it's by far the most robust system out of these. This does come at the cost of being 'unique' amongst the others, but I believe it's a great fit for your use case.

    • sorry for being inactive here, I have other things happening at the moment. i'm just gonna put some stuff here

      You will mostly stick to defaults (at least initially).

      Kinda, I recently started to get interested in modding! It isn't stuff like homebrew (although I was planning to root my phone, until OEM unlock was disabled. Thanks wiko.), I mostly just use something like vencord and Bloxstrap (just tweaks the Roblox client a bit, no exploits tho) This might be not seen as modding, but who cares.

      Your 'computer-literacy' is at least (slightly) higher than average.

      slightly, I do know how to use HTML to an extent, and can know whats the difference between RAM and hard drives, I still have a long way to go.

      Ok here are some of the specs that I can remember (I'm currently not home as of typing this)

      I have a HP 2022 Laptop, decent enough to play games

      I have a 512 hard drive and 12 GB of RAM

      only has 2 USB ports, most of it was replaced by type C, so dual booting with.something USB related might be hard

      Dabbled a bit into linux with a VM (a few years ago tho, it was Ubuntu)

      and thats all I could remember, I do plan to do an update post after trying out some distros on a VM, hopefully it works!

    • Completely agree that these kinds of threads end up being more a popularity poll than anything more actionable and usable. Everyone has their own opinions and preferences (which is great!), but that can end up being extremely overwhelming for a newbie.

  • From my experience, download many distros from Linux Mint to Zorin, maybe Fedora and OpenSuse if you want something non Ubuntu bases, or Manjaro and Endeavor OS if you are up for a challenge.

    Then install them in a Virtual Machine like Virtual Box. This way you can test which OS you like, and see if the software you want works.

    In my experience the Desktop Environment makes the biggest impact on your user experience.

    Followed by the package manager (app store)

    Then available software (steam lutris libre office)

    Finally the terminal for when things go south (or you installed arch)

    • Absolutely!

      I started with mint. Hated it.

      Ubuntu, Pop_Os. Hated it.

      Fedora. Hated it.

      Archlinux, okay, but not so much.

      Manjaroo, hated it.

      And now I settled with Garuda and Nobara. Like them.

      I used Nobara for niche gaming (rarely use it now).

      And Garuda Linux for dev work, and downloading and installing stuff, including proprietary packages. And I don't have to configure all the things to make it capable of allowing me to download stuff from all the nice mirrors, such as the community arch mirror.

      Nobara, on the other hand, is great at handling compatibility issues kinda out of the box. Such [Edit1: as GPU] drivers.

      The reason I disliked the aforementioned distros was solely because of how much involved I had to be to configure them to integrate with my rare WiFi chip drivers, which triggered me when I banged my head at the keyboard for hours only to find out that my WiFi driver was not supported.

      But Garuda and Nobara or a blessing, and a chef's kiss.

      That's coming from a person who tried more than 20+ distros and/or their derivatives.

      [Edit2:] All in all, I would recommend what the comment above suggested, as that will help you find your own path. The samurai path, the kenjutsu path, or the kendo path, the peaceful path, or the hackers path. ;)

      [Edit3: sorry Debian users, but I DID try your distros, I just didn't want to bother with them much as they had compatibility issues too !]

    • I've been wanting to do this for years, and tried several years ago but my AMD graphics card didn't have available drivers. I now have an rtx 2070 super, do you know if it's compatible?

      I saw in a comment above that mint cinnamon is great for gaming, does that use wine or something similar? The gaming aspect is really holding me back.

      Also slight concern with my dev environment but I'm sure that's been solved 100 different ways.

      • Drivers. I've yet to run across any major issues except for Intel Compute not working with Davinci Resolve but that's well documented.

        Now for gaming on Linux. There are 2 ways to game on Linux.

        1. Native ports. Most valve games and some third parties (mostly indie) are natively compatible. I've had no issues playing these ports and they run like any other application.
        2. Windows Compatibility Layer. Now asking for 20+ year old games to be ported to Linux is a bit of an ask. Let alone asking devs to add Linux support to their games when Linux had such a small install base.

        So what some very smart devs did, was make 2 pieces of software that makes playing native Windows games on Linux possible.

        WINE, or WIne Is Not an Emulator, is a compatibility layer to run native Windows Software in Linux. With a primary focus on Windows System Calls. Gaming in wine isn't graphically the best.

        Then there is DXVK, or Direct X to Vulkan compatibility layer, which translates DX9-DX11 code to the open source Vulkan that runs in Linux. Intel's Arc graphics uses this for their legacy compatibility.

        Now you don't need to worry about installing any of this since Valve packages these apps, and some choice software like .Net Runtime in a package called Proton. This is a checkbox in Steam and when Steam Play is enabled, the Windows versions of games will be installed and will work.

        Compatibility is very good at this point but there are edge cases that still need to be ironed out. Like anti cheat, DRM, and more.

        Lutris is another prices of software that can be used like Steam Play but for non steam games. Its also good, but can be fiddly.

        Install process is no more involved than actual Windows, but when a Ubisoft game crashes it won't take your entire machine down with it.

  • Use a VM and play with different DEs

    Fedora is a good base and comes with most DEs as spins so you don't have to swap live.

    Choose the one you like the most.

    Personally, XFCE for all around customization amd performance, KDE for out of box solid functionality (and wayland if you care).

    Once you feel comfortable, then go ahead and install or dual boot.

    Silverblue is okay but kinda overrated because Flatpaks are not a silver bullet and will break or have basic FS dependency issues. Plus, it's not a great intro to Linux experience because you can't shoot yourself in the foot easily most tutorials on Linux will be for a regular system.

    As for the distros themselves:

    Personally, I have stuck with Fedora for a long time. Debian or OpenSUSE would be second choice. Arch only if I'm forced to like the steam deck lol.

    Also ArchWiki is your friend. Even if you're on any other distro, it has a wealth of the latest information and tutorials for whatever you want or need.

  • I have a blog article about this. Here is the short version:

    I can tell you how not to choose a distro: what its screenshots look like or what its default desktop environment is. Many begin shopping around for a distro that suits them best, which means visiting a website like DistroWatch.com, looking at the various screen shots, and picking one that looks nice. But any Linux distro can be made to look like any other distro without too much effort, what you see in the screen shots is just the default look. Really, the the screen shots should be the least of your concerns.

    So don't worry about Xfce, KDE, Gnome, LXDE, LXQt or whatever else right now, you can try all of those in good time. First, just get Linux and, worry about figuring out which apps that you can get that work best for your work flow. Almost none of the apps you use now are available in Linux, the hardest part is figuring out how to replace the apps you use daily right now.

    You should choose the distribution with the best web service, and the best apps.

    • Is the service reliable? Do they have a good team of people making sure the packages are always online, and making sure they are providing timely security updates?
    • Do they have corporate, or non-profit, sources of funding? Do you trust the people who are running it?
    • Do they have the apps you want, are the apps up to date? Do they have things you need, like word processing, presentation software, photo scrap booking, file sharing, video editing, music editing, personal organizers, video conferencing (can you install Zoom, for example?). Can you easily install Flatpaks or AppImages?

    Many of the really big Linux distros all provide completely reliable service, which satisfy the above requirements, but I recommend any of the following four:

    • Mint
    • Fedora
    • Ubuntu
    • Pop!_OS

    Mint and Fedora are community-run with backing from various sponsors, Ubuntu is run by the Canonical corporation, Pop!_OS is developed by the System 76 company (a medium sized US-based business that sells laptops and PCs).

  • Get Ubuntu, Mint, or PopOS don't bother with the others at first as it will be more difficult to find help on forums with lesser known versions of Linux. If you have an Nvidia as your main graphics card you might have a better time with PopOS as it comes pre configured with the right drivers and everything.

    1. Switch over the software you use to stuff that also works on Linux. alternativeto.net
    2. Get an external SSD case if you are on a laptop, or just a second one and install it there
    3. Extract your Windows License key!
    4. Fedora kinoite from ublue.it

  • I approached Fedora workstation with little knowledge of Linux, as a former windows and Mac user. My workflows involved graphic, print, UX design, DFP, front end web dev, and some light 3D modelling. Getting acquainted with alternatives to certain apps (namely adobe suite) took some getting used to, but it's wonderful to no longer feel as if your industrial skill set is beholden to a massive, shitty company.

    It was surprisingly easy to get along with. I feel like your experience in will mostly depend on your desktop environment rather than the distro itself, bear in mind that you can use any DE with any distro.

    You don't really need to touch the command line anymore to get going, though I got familiar with it as I found it faster for certain tasks.

    KDE plasma is probably more familiar for Windows users. I use the GNOME desktop with some plugins.

    As a bonus, Fedora 39 is more performant for me in AAA gaming than windows 10/11.

  • Here are some of my default choices: Linux Mint, Pop!OS, Nobara, MXLinux (if your PC is kind of a potato).

    These distros should work regardless of your configuration with very minimal effort on your side.

  • I had several drives in my PC, so I wiped a small one and just installed a few different distros and figured out what I liked. I ended up sticking with nobara with KDE.

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