Best Linux distro?

I'm trying really hard to get in to open source, and having an nvidia card doesn't help. But like Logan, I'm hoping for a 390x to beat it's competition and sell my card for that. The issue I have is there's so many distros out there, and I know they're all targeted for different uses. I have issues going to ubuntu because I feel like it's more of a babying experience compared to other distros that are just a pure linux experience. I've heard a lot of good things about Fedora and I plan to use that, but what exactly is the difference with fedora over ubuntu or mint? Is it newer code and more features? I want to try to dual boot with a linux distro on windows 8.1 to transition but have had issues before, having to manually change the boot drive every time. Thanks for any advice you can provide!

Edit: I mostly game and design websites. With a little bit of messing around with audio, if that targets me towards any specific distro.

Take a peak at the Linux subforum there is a lot of good info on distros there.

I personally recommend Opensuse, Yast  it's control panel is very nice.

I personally started on ubuntu 12.04 went to fedora 21 out of interest to see what fedora was like, used it for a few months, switched back to ubuntu server edition 14.01, experimented with implemented my own gui (openbox) then eventually went to mint. I personally prefer Debian over red-hat there just seems to be more support in general, I found installing the drivers for and utilizing my GTX 860m a terrible ordeal on fedora compared to mint (it was still a huge hassle but I actually managed it on mint}. Maybe its just me but when you run into issues with drivers and such, there seems to be a lot more people discussing the issues on ubuntu/mint which ultimately makes finding a solution easier.

I've recently gone completely Linux, no windows installations or software, using purely open-source software on Mint. Been about 2 weeks now and I've finally got my laptop to a state I'm happy with.

Just try as many as you're willing to. It's ok if it's not a "pure" linux experience or looked down on by a certain group. Linux is linux, and they're all simillar unless it's a closed source variant. I've used many different types of linux distros in the past and even ran ubuntu for four years on my main rig. Just pick what's important to you, and definately lurk the linux forums for more info and help. Here's a general rundown of what my opinion is of what the distros are, please don't take this as fact as I know I will be corrected.

Ubuntu: stable, based on debian, HUGE repositories for software, lot's of help (since it's popular), somewhat against open source and not the best ethics.

Debian: stable, extremely customizable, the kernel is definately not very new, pretty much de facto linux.

Arch: extremely minimal, fast, rolling release, (IMO kindof snoby userbase), unstable (almost no testing goes into updates be careful)

Manjaro: based on arch, does testing so it doesn't break as easily, customizable, beautiful, in my current rig.

Opensuse: pretty nice for server/desktop, very stable, good for samba shares

RHEL: The best server distro, very stable,  awesome support, not free

CentOS: the opensource version of RHEL, the teams that work on both colaborate. RHEL - support = CentOS

Fedora: based off RHEL except it's for desktops, faster release dates, stable (But not as stable as RHEL)

LFS: basically a book that teaches you how to make linux (not for beginers)

Gentoo: 4channels way of screwing with people, seriously ok if you do software development and need to mess with compiling flags, very fast. (Not for beginers, but you can try)

Sabayon: gentoo but easier, has a binary package system with the source one.

there are many others but these are what I have experience with and would reccomend.

My advice is to get a 16gb usb and use a program like YUMI to put several distros in liveCD form on it.

I tried Fedora, Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint, Debian, Crunchbang, Kali, and ubuntuGNOME.

I finally settled on a distro called openSUSE that Taco Bell already recommended. I like it because of Yast. It also has very large repositories and is extremely stable.

I'm a fan of Manjaro and OpenSUSE. I use Manjaro as a daily driver on my laptop and it runs great. Uses way less than 1 GB of RAM at idle, finding applications/packages is a breeze, updating the whole system is just a couple clicks, and everything is tested beforehand so I've never had any software break on me. I also find the stock icons and theme it comes with to look nice out of the box.

OpenSuse would be a good start.

@Dastardly

Try as many distros as you can, and be careful what advice you listen to, as there's a lot of really bad advice out there, especially on these forums.

Try to stay away from the distros that have been audited by SC's and found to be full of NSA backdoors, like RedHat, Fedora, and OpenSUSE.

I won't get into system components with NSA backdoors, as that will cut your distro selection down 78%.

What NSA backdoor can be found on Fedora/OpenSUSE. The source is open, none of the code is proprietary, and if said backdoors existed, they would've been found.

+1

..."and if said backdoors existed, they would've been found."


Are you saying security teams that audit open source code haven't found NSA backdoors in OpenSUSE and Fedora, when some of their top developers including those from RedHat are on NSA's payroll?

Or do you just not know what you're talking about?

aaaaaaaand cue Zoltan in 3..... 2...... 1........

I'm just saying Torvalds denied the NSA from implementing a backdoor in the Linux kernel back in 2013, nothing more. No backdoor could exist if it was explicitly denied by Linus himself.

@Zippy

When was the last time you received an sketchy anonymous one-line patch for any packages you manage for whatever distro you work for - and you laughed at the absolute audacity of its sender?

How many of these patches accidently get pushed through and later blamed on developer/maintainer laziness, or have yet to be found?

This is why we audit as much code as we can.

My Linux installs are minimal, so never otherwise I'd of noticed it.

I'm not interested in learning the positives of libre-office.

I will agree that temporary backdoors may occasionally pop up, but they are swiftly eliminated.

@Zippy

It matters not, unless you're a developer/maintainer you're not going to know any different.

You'll just install a distro based on someone else's advice and be blind to what goes on.

Food for thought is all.

Unless you compile from source (I do rarely). Then you're deaf, not blind.

Now you sound like someone from MS :). It does in fact matter.