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  • It’s severely outdated.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

matcha_addict,

I feel like this should be more about DE choice than distro.

pixxelkick,

This by a long shot, I agree.

just_hiroshi,
@just_hiroshi@pawb.social avatar

Yes, I think it should end with a desktop environment (and why it was recommended), and then distros with good support of that DE (with one of them being the recommended distro for that category)

I really like the bottom Linux Mint recommendation tho, I would keep that

9488fcea02a9,
  1. Install debian
  2. Try some different DEs
  3. Profit
junezephier,

while i find the colours you chose appealing, a bunch of the font colours are too close to stand out well over their backgrounds? there are a few that are genuinely hard to read-- some better contrast would help a lot also, the vertical column is a bit weird to follow? like, what’s the process of going down after being asked about windows versions to get to gaming preference? it’s a weird way to have the path work. even if you just put something like “i don’t particularly care about windows” as the third option would help a little, i think?

sorry that’s mostly about your graphic, and not the actual recommendations, lol

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 :)

d3Xt3r,

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.

It’s great for people who have simple requirements and older hardware. Basically for folks who just want to use a PC for basic computing tasks like Web browsing, emails, document editing, printing/scanning etc. The thing about Zorin is that it uses a traditional UI/UX which is easily to navigate for non-technical people, and it’s stable enough that you almost never run into any issues (assuming you’re sticking with standard distro packages and config).

My elderly parents have been using Zorin for several years now and they’ve never had a issue. The only time they called me was to help install their new printer last year (which was reasonably easy to install), and that was it.

So I’d recommend Zorin for anyone who has very basic computing needs, and they are not using a brand new/high-end PC.

Guenther_Amanita,

Alright, thanks!
I see it very similar. Zorin was my first distro too, and has been the best first Linux impression I could have got at that time.

It looks very modern, and I don’t think the outdated packages from the LTS are a huge concern for most (not techy) people.

Crack0n7uesday,

Do you hate yourself, if yes then Solaris is the OS you’ve been looking for.

stewie3128,

Instead of “use anything” you could put in “Debian.”

eager_eagle,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

I think beginners spend too much time and effort on the “choose a distro” quest. Choosing a DE is far more important than that.

Pantherina,

Just that you need a Distro packaging that DE. I chose KDE and never switched, but I hopped distros as they where either too old, or broken, or unstable.

5.27 on Kinoite is pretty great though. Would recommend and I think Kubuntu etc. staying with it do the right thing.

Plasma 6 works pretty well too though, so it was many many KDE problems. But as switching DE was no option, I hopped Distros.

Pantherina,

Okay, nice so far

  • TuxedoOS has nvidia drivers
  • Budgie, XFCE, Mate, LxQt in the “old but traditional” desktops; all will switch to wayland and no longer really fit

I would also add the category

  • "I want a stable experience without many changes and accept old bugs that are not fixed for an eternity" (Debian stable, Almalinux, Rockylinux, Opensuse Leap, *Ubuntu LTS & derivatives)
  • “I want new updates with the latest and greatest but breakages” (Arch, Gentoo, Fedora rawhide, opensuse tumbleweed, Debian testing?)
  • “I want something in between” (Fedora, Opensuse slowroll, Ubuntu)
cooopsspace,

If 1=1, EndeavourOS.

GravitySpoiled, (edited )

I really like that you want to spend time and effort into exploring this problem formulation.

At first you need to formulate the problem and the current setting and goal.

  1. A user searches a distro and has a minimum requirement demand.
  2. What are the necessary tools a distro must have in order to fit the demand of the user?
  3. The goal is to find a distro that fits the demand, at least the minimum.
  • Does the user start with a computer or will he buy a new one?
  • what are all requirements?
  • which distro fits those requirements, which doesn’t, and why? Is it a out of the box problem or is just a package missing?

it’s very difficult

GravitySpoiled,

Imo, First requirement should be that it has to automatically boot, always. If a distro is not able to ensure this without major user input it’s not a state of the art distro. Any system has to boot always. You shall never be left with a broken system.

GravitySpoiled,

You have to provide info why the distro of choice is the best distro for said use case. Otherwise the reader will just pass if he doesn’t like the distro. It has to be convincing

callyral,
@callyral@pawb.social avatar

I can’t read some text on there, you should make the image have a background since, at least my browser (firefox) seems to default to white for PNGs

catloaf,

This is unreadable on a light background.

“Use anything” is unhelpful for people who are looking for specific recommendations.

Mentioning other nodes goes against the whole point of a flow chart. Use the arrows.

Guenther_Amanita,

Thanks for the feedback!

darkmatternoodlecow,

https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/156dfaac-d780-4840-a92b-a8be147b5739.png

corsicanguppy,

Never SuSE again.

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