I have an okay amount of knowledge of Linux and I want to start using it. The twist being I'm really bad at decision making and with the amount of distros available to people its really hard to pick one right for me. I've went through all the forums but I still am not sure what is right for me.
I want to do light gaming and programming. And I also like having security.
I'd suggest Manjaro. To me it was the easiest to use when switching directly from Windows, the package manager is easy to use, it comes with a bunch of the proprietary packages already installed (Flash, MP3 codec, etc), is bleeding edge yet has tested releases, and is just overall nice to use. Oh, and it's Arch based, so if there is a program made for Linux, it's probably available in some form through AUR.
Second suggestion would be openSUSE. It's a user favorite and offers pretty much similar things to Manjaro, it's just that the rolling release variant is a little iffy for Nvidia drivers according to Zoltan.
You could also go deeper and start with Gentoo or straight Arch. I personally wouldn't, but that's just me.
Could you explain to me bleeding edge. I see that thrown around a lot and yet I don't really know what that means. Arch is a bit too hard for my liking. What do you think of fedora?
I have heard Sabayon is a good one for gaming, however I have never used it. I believe openSUSE is a great distro to start out with. Any linux distro will allow you to do programming. It is all preference. My favorite right now is Fedora, I started with openSUSE though. If you need any help in your ventures let the forums know, we will all be learning right beside you.
So many choices oh my god.
So now i've got, Manjairo/Fedora/Opensuse
Fedora is one of the "bleeding edge" distros, that means that all of the features/kernel/everything is the latest possible revision that is moderately tested, if at all. You get all of the newest features/improvements but at the cost of not knowing if it is 100% stable. Fedora is also a distro that is mainly for work/developers. I highly recommend Manjaro or openSUSE if you are just starting out. I know Ubuntu is one of the more popular "user-friendly" distros, but I believe a lot of the things you would learn in Ubuntu are only for Ubuntu, where as something you learn in Fedora/openSUSE can be easily applied to other distros.
Don't quote me on that though, I only used Ubuntu for about a week, I didn't like its user interface.
I won't use ubuntu, also what is starting out in linux. Because i'm familiar with linux and i can get stuff to work after a while but whats your opinion on that?
Define familiar :p
These are all just recommendations, you know how much you know. You need to decide how advanced you are and go from there.
Starting out in Linux I would describe as not knowing basic commands in the terminal, like package managers, and such. You should know how to use command line text editors, how to run scripts, install software that is not able to install from the gui, know how Linux stores things in the file system, etc.
I am currently experimenting with Arch (a distro installed only from the command line) although in my opinion their install guide is pretty hard to follow.
Could I add you on steam for further questions?
Fedora is bleeding edge, but arch is much more so. Maybe manjaro is ahead of fedora too.
So would you recommend fedora or manjaro for me? ;l
Why sure!
My Steam: ProComputerGaming
P.S. If you use Fedora, do not install the Proprietary Drivers from your graphics card vendor, use the open source ones, the new Proprietary Drivers do not agree with the Linux Kernel Fedora uses (at least I did not have good luck with it).
If you don't like Ubuntu because of unity, Linux Mint has easier to swallow UI's. If you have other philosophical objections, Mint is Ubuntu based. It also has all the non-free codecs and great repo's. What distro did you learn linux on?
I learned mainly on openSUSE and Fedora, but also learned quite a bit while distro hopping until I found the right one.
I tried elementaryOS and linux mint for a while, didnt really like it
Sabayon is pretty nice if you stick to using rigo the binary package manage. If you use portage, the source package manager it gets tricky.
It very bleeding edge and if you want proprietary drivers it does it better than any other distro.
Fedora or Sabayon?
At least try manjaro, along with taco bell's recommendation sabayon. Both come with steam preinstalled and are nice about proprietary drivers.
I would recommend Arch over Sabayon, arch is more personal