I'm working on a distro recommendation flowchart/ list for newcomers and need your input please! (Post is not only this picture btw and is mainly text)

We often get the same question with

“I’m new, what distro do you recommend?”

and I think we should make a list/ discussion on what is our pick for each person, and just link that post for them to give them an easy recommendation.

So I made a quick flow chart (will get polished as soon as I get your input) with my personal recommendations. It is on the bottom of the text, so you see the rest of the text here too.

I will also explain each distro in a few, short sentences and in what aspects they do differ and what makes them great.

Here are my “controversial” things I want to discuss with you first, as I don’t want to spread nonsense:

Nobara

I don’t know if we should recommend it as a good gaming distro. In my opinion, it’s a highly insecure and experimental distro, made by one individual. I mean, sure, it gives you a slightly better experience ootb compared to vanilla Fedora, but:

  • As said, it’s made by one single guy. If he decides to quit this project, many many people will just stop getting updates.
  • There are many security-things, especially SELinux, disabled.
  • It’s severely outdated. Some security fixes take months until they arrive on Nobara.
  • It contains too many tweaks, especially kernel modifications and performance enhancers. Therefore, it might be less reliable.

I think, Bazzite is the way superior choice. It follows the same concept, but implements it in way better fashion:

  • Just as up-to-date as the normal Fedora, due to automatic GitHub build actions.
  • No burden of maintenence, either on the user or the dev side.
  • Fully intact security measures.
  • And much more.

Immutable distros

I’m a huge fan of them and think, that they are a perfect option for newcomers. They can’t brick them, they update themselfes in the background, they take a lot of complexity compared to a traditional system, and much more. Especially uBlue and VanillaOS are already set up for you and “just work”.
If you want to know more about image-based distros, I made a post about them btw :)

VanillaOS

It’s the perfect counterpart for Mint imo. It follows the same principle (reliable, sane, easy to use, very noob friendly, etc.), but in a different way of achiving that.

The main problems are:

  • The team behind it isn’t huge or well established yet, except for the development of Bottles.
  • They want to do many things their own way (own package manager, etc.) instead of just using established stuff.
  • The current release (V2, Orchid) is still in beta atm.

I see a huge potential in that particular distro, but don’t know if I should recommend it at this point right now.

ZorinOS

I think, for people who don’t like change, it’s great, but it can be very outdated. What’s your opinion on that distro? It looks very modern on the surface and is very noob friendly, but under the hood, very very old.

Pop!_OS

Same with that. Currently, there’s only the LTS available, since System76 is currently very busy with their new DE. I don’t know if we should recommend it anymore.

I made the list of recommendations relatively small on purpose, as it can be a bit overwhelming for noobs when they get a million recommendations with obscure distros.
Do you think that there are any distros missing or a bad recommendation?

https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/b6476205-f6fb-4022-b8ba-622e04054172.png

metawish,

I use Zorin OS for my laptop that’s gotta be at least 15+ years but still kicking it. Outlasted the newer laptop I bought that was only 5 years old.

As someone who is only mildly into tech, Zorin is certainly familiar and I would probably recommend it to people.

I downloaded Gallium OS for my mom on her Chromebook, that’s perhaps another important consideration to make…what laptop someone has.

trustnoone,

You forgot “I want those cool socks” for arch Linux :P.

I think it’s also worth noting that not everyone’s coming to Linux for an easy time. Or essentially sometimes people are looking for the full experience like I did when I was younger. So it might be worth including path ways for those who want to compile everything themselves or even run so minimalist they essentially just using a terminal.

Guenther_Amanita,

I quite like your idea, but I’m very afraid that if I also include Nix, Arch, Gentoo, etc., we increase the chance that some “I just want to play some games and do my school stuff”-person decides to go the route of frustration and pain.

I think we should mainly focus on “just works” and beginner friendly choices to give a good first impression, and if that’s too lame for them, they can always go the other route.
But those cases are relatively rare I think?

I don’t want to make the list of choices too big, as that could be overwhelming.

What do you think of including them completely separate and as honorable mentions with a big disclaimer?

trustnoone,

It’s up to you, I haven’t touched the Linux community for a long time (only came back last week to fedora) so it may just be that I’m out of touch.

When I was younger though, the biggest reason to change was because I wanted something different. If I was purely looking for playing games and homework I’d stay with Windows because it does work great for that and there would be no point to change.

So the question is, what is it that grabs me onto Linux, and part of that is implied in your your graph, but part could be seen as these aspects.

In saying that, I do get your point too, and for beginners it may be the better recommendation. In fact I may just be the outliner now that I think about it lol and maybe people don’t try to set up Gentoo “just coz the community said it’s hard and I took that personally” lol so an honorable mention may be better.

idefix,

if I also include Nix, Arch, Gentoo, etc.,

You can add other distros and remove Fedora. I don’t really understand why you would recommend it to a beginner anyway (too unstable).

Caboose12000,

sorry if this is harsh but this seems like kind of a waste of time when distrochooser.de exists? I think it’d make a ton of sense to link that in the sidebar but a wall of text (or a huge flow chart) is just gonna be skipped by the type of people who are asking what distro to use first instead of researching it themselves anyway. if someone’s asking in a forum like Lemmy or even in discord servers, they usually just want quick answers. if we’re gonna link them something instead of just saying “mint” or whatever, it should at least be something easily digestible like distrochooser.de

toastal,

My prefered OS is missing. Must be a bug. Plz add NixOS kthx

Guenther_Amanita,

Already done in the final version ;) But you won’t be happy, I’ve put it into my “pain”-category :D

Dad,

Guix > Nix, because I’m more angry about not being able to run the former than the latter.

PropaGandalf, (edited )

What do you think about something like this? It’s more of a “build your own sandwich” approach.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/502c427e-9de6-4d86-ae36-952b79bc362e.png

acockworkorange,

Debian and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed should be in there somewhere.

Guenther_Amanita,

Do you think that those are great beginner distros?

I think TW is a very good distro, but not specifically for beginners. In your opinion, what redeeming qualities does it have for that use case, compared to other, more well known distros out there? I especially think that the rolling release is not needed for the beginning.

For Debian, same thing. I mean, especially since the newest release, it’s definitely a better ootb-experience than it was before, BUT:

  • the installer (first impression) is very ugly and needlessly complicated
  • Zorin has a similar release schedule, but looks better by default (Debian is very vanilla) and has some very useful tools for beginners specifically.
  • Debian is relatively lean, which might be good for intermediate and advanced users, but for noobs, I quite like the idea of “bloat”, aka a lot of pre-installed software.
reallyzen,
@reallyzen@lemmy.ml avatar

The Tumbleweed installer is beautiful, and straightforward. I am not sure how a newcomer would understand, or not, the partition setup if they need to keep windows and dual-boot ; if it’s about to wipe the entire machine, it is one of the best, sleekest installers out there. Then package management can be a nightmare if you need to stray out of he beaten path unfortunately. Another argument for TW is the perfect integration of BTRFS, Snapper and Rollback (it is an opensuse project after all) ; I swear I’d still be on TW if it wasn’t for some exotic software availabiity.

To me, debian does bring bloat: LibreOffice comes to mind. A default install will feature calendars, mails, weather whatever.

acockworkorange,

Well, TBH I’m far from a distro hopper so I’ll leave comparing install experiences to those who have experience with that.

That said, Debian was the first distro I’ve hopped to from Conectiva, back in the late nineties / early aughts. So the Debian installer asks you for a few more questions. I don’t think that’s a big deal, and if the newbie thinks it is, perhaps they need some help installing any distro.

The absolute stability of Debian is a great asset for a newcomer. I remember the absolute bliss and relief that everything just worked on it. Not like my previous experience with Linux and definitely not like Windows. This newfound stability emboldened me try new things - new DEs, new apps, everything! This is perfect for a newcomer. The only thing preventing me from getting more stuff was my dial up bills and my hard drive.

I also chose Debian back then because of the restrictions of the DFSG. I wanted to have a completely free system and Debian delivers an awesome free system.

Back to Tumbleweed. It’s not your run of the mill rolling release. Their packages receive a lot more testing and it’s considered a very stable distro for desktops. Like the other commenter said, the right integration with Btrfs snapshots is awesome. All package operations are preceded by an automatic snapshot. Recovering from a snafu is quick and painless. So, though a completely different route, it’s also a great distro to try new stuff.

Tumbleweed also has the advantage of OpenSUSE’s philosophy of being able to configure everything graphically. Their YaST2 control panel is a great piece of software, if a little daunting.

So, while I wouldn’t say they are for everyone, I do say they are great beginner distros, for the right beginners. Debian for those that don’t care for the newest version of programs and just want the system to always work (and want to get free from proprietary software as much as possible). Tumbleweed for those that do want the newest versions but want peace of mind and GUI configuration.

BradleyUffner,

You need to seriously up the contrast on those colors. Pink text on a slightly lighter pink text block is virtually unreadable.

a_wild_mimic_appears,

i agree, my eyes are pretty good, but this is not useable. funnily enough my chosen lemmy frontend (alexandrite) would fix the colors, but its too small to read; and when you open the image in a new tab to zoom in, the colors are unuseable.

Guenther_Amanita,

The graph was just a quick sketch in my note-taking app Logseq.

I mainly wanted to know if the flowchart made sense. When I do it properly, I’ll use a different software :)

BradleyUffner,

I’ll let you know if it makes sense when I can read it 😁

Right now this is literally what I see:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8ee327a5-38de-46c6-a37f-4b2d8b9d9195.png

Guenther_Amanita,

I’m very sorry! This is just a sketch for discussion, the final version will look WAY better and be more legible :)

BradleyUffner,

Ohh no apology needed. I think doing it as a flow chart is a good idea. I just included the screenshot to make sure there wasn’t something going on where the colors were different for you vs everyone else.

KISSmyOS,

I know people will disagree, but the correct answer to “I’m new, what distro would you recommend” is Mint. No list required.
It’s a capable, easy to start with, general purpose distro that works like Debian, one of the Linux gold standards, under the hood.

It has its flaws, but it gives you a fully functional system with everything an average user can expect from Linux, by clicking “Next” a couple of times. And it’s never really the wrong option no matter what you want in a desktop system, freeing newcomers from the overwhelming options that are out there.

So use Mint until you know which distro fits you better.

acockworkorange,

Unless you want to play modern demanding games. Not so modern and not so demanding ones play fine on Mint though.

KISSmyOS,

Where’s the difference to other distros for this?

acockworkorange,

Newer kernels and, in case of Nvidia, newer drives. Mint, being based off of LTS, will always lag behind. For the most demanding games, the performance hit will make a difference.

n2burns,

That’s not modern games, that’s brand new hardware. It’s a good suggestion, but different than what you originally said.

acockworkorange,

Sorta, but not exactly. New kernels and, more importantly, new GPU drivers bring improved performance. It might be the difference between a game being playable or not, or looking better with more graphical features turned on.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

imho getting windows-based games running on linux isn't for someone 'new' to linux. they gotta get their feet wet first, and mint is an excellent choice for that... or they will be spending all their gaming time--not gaming.

acockworkorange,

Fair point.

gens,

Kubuntu. Unless you come from osx(then gnome), or have a really old computer.

rufus, (edited )

What about recommending something like MX Linux if someone has an old laptop lying around and wants to revive it, and get into Linux this way?

And the question “Win 7 was the last good version” made me laugh. I remember the old times. All the viruses on XP… but it used to crash way less that it’s predecessors. Vista which was super slow and annoying. Feels like they’re making some progress since 7. (Okay, now they’re adding more and more data collection and annoyances to it.) But if I look back to Windows 7… I’m not feeling nostalgia 😆

Guenther_Amanita,

Good idea. I’ve never used it or saw it recommended that much.

Can you tell me more about it?

Do you think there’s a big need for laptops with way less than 4 GB RAM? I’d say no, because there are barely any this old devices around, and most people here ask for their gaming PC or a mid range laptop.

I’m just afraid people tend to overestimate their need to choose a “lightweight” distro and then complain that it feels old and barebones and that “Linux sucks, I go back to Windows because Steam behaves weird”.

Can you tell me your experience and provide more information?

rufus, (edited )

Uh, my knowledge is a bit lacking. But I’ve been asked that question before. I don’t think there are that many devices with less than 3GB around anymore. And they’re probably 32bit, too. And have all kind of other issues, like modern webpages being way more demanding than in 2003. I’d skip all the details, people know what feels old and needs special treatment. If someone has an Athlon K7 with 512MB of RAM, they either need to get it recycled or a dedicated tutorial for that. Everything above should be handled by a good (32bit) distro with LXDE, LXQT, XFCE or something like that.

I think MX Linux is a good choice. I’ve also used a plain Debian with XFCE desktop for that. Other choices include: Bohdi Linux, Zorin OS Lite, AntiX, Linux Lite, Puppy Linux, Q4OS, LUbuntu, Linux Mint Xfce, Tiny Core, LXLE, Slax, peppermintOS, crunchbang++ and Sparky Linux.

kronarbob,

I would stick to basic recommendations and go from easiest to more and more advanced distribution, to avoid scaring beginners :

  • graphical installation + easy to setup (nvidia + codec )+stable : basically Ubuntu based distribution (but not Ubuntu, some snaps, i.e. steams, are more bugged than the flatpak and the .deb . I wouldn’t recommand a distribution that force bugged app for beginners ) + others
  • graphical installation : user will have to install nvidia drivers, codec or other useful things manually. The distribution can have several update a week with more risk to break, but is still considered solid and has a preconfigured way to roll back (snapshot) or more lightweigth and stable depending of the choice : fedora, opensuse tumbleweed, Debian+ others…
  • do it yourself distributions : for advanced users or motivated people that want to learn it the hard way. Distributions are up to date and have either a risk to break or user has to manually configure about everything (or both ) : arch, void Linux, gentoo, …

“Gaming” distributions could be placed between the 2 first categories as they are a kind of out of the box distribution but more up to date than the stable distributions.

Low ram/CPU consumption could be a side option at every step (easy, mid, hard)

I didn’t tried immutable distributions in a while, so I don’t know how to place them. My experience one year ago (kinoite, silver blue, blend os), was that it was more complicated than a regular distribution to do what I needed, but it was 1 year ago, so I wouldn’t know where to place it.

I’m quite a beginner in Linux, I love to test distributions to see how far I can go without using the terminal, and without breaking the distribution. So my vision can be quite narrow comparing to more experienced users.

dream_weasel,

BTW you got a bunch of weird distros no one has heard of and you don’t have the champion of distros. “Do you know how to read and follow directions and do you like the stack overflow answers that are the shortest -> arch”

stewie3128,

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/52e9e5e6-2cd6-4325-944e-468ef3c75208.jpeg

dream_weasel,

Not everyone has mad CPU resources (or time) to support portage tho.

Kangie,

You don’t need to, we have official binary package hosts if you choose to use them.

dream_weasel,

Really? I might have tried before had I known that. My hardware is circa 2010 so I thought I was up the creek

bloodfart,

I ran compiled Debian on a 600mhz pentium m. It takes much less time to build packages from source than you might think.

dream_weasel,

Might be time to try then!

Kangie,

This link might be useful in quickly getting a binhost configured while following a standard handbook install.

wiki.gentoo.org/…/Gentoo_Binary_Host_Quickstart

Guenther_Amanita,

What do you mean with weird distros?

TuxedoOS is basically the same as Pop or Mint.
Based on Ubuntu, but without Ubuntu shit (Snaps, etc.), focused on newcomers, and with KDE.

And Fedora Atomic (Silverblue, Kinoite, Bazzite, uBlue, etc.) are the same. They’re the immutable versions of Fedora. Silverblue is the Gnome variant, Kinoite the KDE one, uBlue a community project with some QoL-tweaks, and Bazzite is the gaming variant.
Nothing weird there. I basically only provided a small bunch of identical distros with other DEs.

GenderNeutralBro,

A few suggestions:

  • Start with a question of the user’s technical proficiency. This is probably the biggest deciding factor for picking a distro, since some lean heavily toward technically-adept audiences and some are designed for people who’ve never used a computer before.
  • Include questions on device type, such as desktop/laptop. Using Linux on a laptop typically requires more research.
  • Instead of asking about Windows specifically, maybe ask “which OS are you most comfortable with?” with arrows for different versions of Windows, macOS, iOS, Android (and even Linux?).
  • Make every endpoint self-contained and unambiguous, with at least one concrete recommendation. Avoid vague statements like “use what you want”, and avoid referring to other branches of the flowchart. If it makes sense to converge with other branches, use a labelled arrow to point to that branch instead (this will probably require curve support in your design tool to be legible).
  • Write each box in the form of a question, and label the arrows with answers to that question. I honestly have no idea how to read the “gaming focused” box because it has two bullet points and no indication of what each arrow means. I also can’t tell how to read the “general purpose/gaming” box without reading down both paths. And why does the Bazzite box point to popOS? What does this mean? Clearer labels would help.
  • The red endpoints on the left could be in a single box, since they follow the same path. Alternatively, add more questions to that path to meaningfully differentiate each option. Same with the two clusters of blue endpoints on the right.
  • Be more explicit in the terms for use cases, since “general purpose” is a bit vague (I would consider gaming to fall under “general purpose”, myself). You could have paths for e.g. “web browsing and office work”, “gaming”, “media creation”, “software development or scientific computing”. Some of these paths might converge later, and that’s okay.
  • Move the “This is too complicated” box up top. It’s funny and probably more useful there as a kind of “TL;DR”. Since it’s not related to Nvidia, its current placement is odd.
Guenther_Amanita,

Thank you for your very valuable and helpful criticism!
I like especially your “what OS are you the most comfortable with?”-question, that one is very great!

The rest is also very well thought out, I will implement it as best as I can! :)

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

As long as Mint is at the top I don’t care what’s underneath 😁

spider,

Do you think that there are any distros missing

Yes, my easy to setup and use Debian-based daily driver, Q4OS.

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