GNU/Linux Distro Links

I was asked by PM for a link to download GNU/Linux. I think that's a question that's better answered on the public forum because different people can benefit from this information. Since there are many different distros, I will post here the links to the GNU/Linux distros that I personally recommend for general/desktop use, especially for beginning users that want a pretty comfortable but still educational experience.

These distros all have a good support forum in multiple languages, can fall back on an excellent online documentation, and are bleeding edge but very stable and easy-to-use distros that put the focus on ease of use.

I personally think that after an initial jump-start into linux, which will require doing some research to help the users forget some bad habits and false beliefs about how computers work induced by software consoles, part of the process of really getting into linux on an enthusiast level, is to try out different distros, so after that initial exploration, for those that want to learn more about computing, I would definitely recommend getting experience with other distros also, just to know the differences like which package manager is used by which distro, or which other DE's and WM's there are, or to explore distros that are more focused towards the server-side operating environments.

I would therefore also invite other linux users to post links to the torrent downloads of their favorite GNU/Linux distros in posts in this thread, so that in the end, we have a thread full of referral links. Please do not comment or reply to posts in this thread, keep the posts for posting links, so that it is an informational thread. I will remove posts that reply or comment. If you want to discuss a post made in this thread, make a separate thread please. If you post links, make sure to also provide some background info and description of the distro you're posting the torrent link to, for what type of users within the standalone desktop users category you're recommending the distro for, and make sure it's the torrent link, no direct links please, unless you also explain how to perform a hash check. Do not just paste in a link or give a one-liner style "this distro is best" type of description. Descriptions that provide no background, will also be deleted.

I'm pasting the torrent links here. I'm not a big fan of the direct download links. The reasons for that are first of all that a torrent client does an automated hash check of the data integrity, so that you don't have to do that manually afterwards, and the second reason is that it puts less strain on the servers that provide the linux download services, which are all servers that are made available pro bono by various educational or scientific institutions, and I think part of the conscientious and responsible use of open source is to not take these public services for granted and to respect the bandwidth.

Make sure to go into the settings of your torrent client of choice, and set it to "force encryption" or "enable mandatory encryption". That is the only way to prevent a corruption of the data through MIM attacks, and to make sure that you're actually getting what you ask for. It's also a way to prevent download throttling by some agencies or companies.

 

1. OpenSuSE

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.2/iso/openSUSE-13.2-GNOME-Live-x86_64.iso.torrent

This is the live ISO with Gnome. Can be installed after starting it live, can be used as a portable live operating system (unlike the standard link provided on the opensuse.org website), but can (contrary to the standard link provided on the opensuse.org website) not be used to upgrade an existing install.

This is the stable version. It can be easily turned into the development or rolling release version. The info on turning it into the rolling release version (called Tumbleweed) can be found here: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed. This is fine for users that have Intel or AMD graphics and want to be using the opens ource graphics drivers. It is not advisable for nVidia users because the open source nVidia drivers do not offer a lot of performance (unless you have a really old card like the 9800GT/GTX). The use of Tumbleweed with proprietary graphics drivers from AMD should be no problem going forward because of open source kernel modules, but the use of Tumbleweed with proprietary nVidia drivers is NOT advisable, because it will be a bitch to keep up with the frequent kernel updates that come with a bleeding edge rolling distribution. So if you're on nVidia, stay with the stable release, which is OpenSuSE 13.2, and don't go for Tumbeweed. If you're on Intel or AMD, I would advise switching your initial 13.2 install to Tumbleweed, because it's more bleeding edge and that will bring several important performance and feature benefits, as well as make sure you always have a really up-to-date and secure system that is just as stable as the stable release, but will never need a distro upgrade, it will just always stay current (because it's rolling release). You can also switch to Factory, which is as bleeding edge as things get, and it's still pretty stable, but there might be occasional small inconveniences from time to time.

You'll find non-free software packages like mp3 codecs and stuff in the Pacman-repository, which can be easily added in Yast (the settings GUI for SuSE), add repositories, select "community repositories", and then add the Pacman-repo URL directly if you're on a rolling release version, or select it from the list that is shown there if you're on the stable release version.

 

2. Manjaro Linux

Manjaro Linux is based on Arch linux, and therefore it's also bleeding edge, but it's also stable and it has it's own repos to filter the new packages from upstream Arch so that there is no breakage when users are updating. Manjaro also adds a lot of ease-of-use and GUI features to Arch, and uses it's own solutions or solutions borrowed from other distros like Linux Mint for instance to complete the user experience, the features, and the ease-of-use.

It's fast and comes with non-free packages like adobe flash player or mp3 codecs preinstalled, and has a dedicated GUI tool to switch to proprietary graphics drivers or switch kernels.

Because it's a rolling release AND has dedicated easy to use GUI tools to switch kernels and graphics drivers, I would recommend this distro especially for users that have nVidia graphics cards, want to use the proprietary nVidia drivers, and still want a bleeding edge distro. Manjaro is unique in that it's the only distro that really offers a user friendly solution for those users. Typically nVidia users are confined to distros based on very old kernels to avoid nVidia proprietary driver problems, but Manjaro offers them easy access to the added performance and features of bleeding edge kernels and packages.

Also a big advantage of Manjaro is that it is AUR compatible, right from the GUI package manager (which offers a front end for both pacman and yaourt). The AUR offers the largest collection of application software in the open source operating system world bar none. The use of the AUR is not covered by the same security guarantees as official repos, so check user comments before installing AUR packages!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarotorrents/files/latest/download?source=files

The standard version is the XFCE version. KDE lovers will find here also the only official release distro that carries KDE 5 by default, which is a bonus.

 

3. Fedora

Fedora is for those that love a steeper, more motivating, learning curve. It's easy to use, but it comes pretty minimal out of the box, not really minimal, but far less complete with preinstalled application software than the previous two. Fedora is also very strict in refusing non-free packages, and has very strict packaging quality rules, so for instance, Chromium is not allowed in the official Fedora repos. So for Google Chromium lovers, you'll have to compile yourselves, use the packages from OpenSuSE, or just go for OpenSuSE altogether.

Fc21 is a technical bleeding edge distro, the technology under the hood goes a step further than any other distro. You'll find things like alternative compilers, full 3D printer integration, the best Docker and Sandstorm integration (and on the Fedora Cloud version the Atomic server functionality for those that really want to taste the future of software development and marketing), the latest Eclipse packages with the latest plugins, all the latest development, scientific and computational tools, the latest kernels, the latest filesystem features, etc...

It's a distro for engineers, scientists and developers that are really into their game, and know what they want, but at the same time, it's also a very accessible learning platform for people that want to elevate their skills and are really into stuff like that. It's also the community distro that is closest to the reference enterprise GNU/Linux distro, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Together with SuSE (SLES), RedHat (RHEL) is the distro that pretty much makes the world turn around. These distros, called RPM-distros because they use the "RedHat Package Management" format, are the primary tool that enterprises and organizations use to shape the future of technology and the world. Fedora is also the only community distro (besides AOSP 5 Lollipop that is, but that's not a GNU/Linux distro) that comes out of the box with SELinux working as it should. SELinux is the most advanced mandatory access control system that exists for the moment, and that means that the users can benefit from quite a substantial extra security layer on their systems.

Fc21 (Fc stands for "Fedora core", the download link provided will however give you a full live distro, not just the bare core, it's just common to refer to a Fedora release as "Fc NN") is the most recent release, it's about two months old now, which means that there might still be the occasional rough corner, but nothing to worry about for most users.

To install non-free packages in Fedora, the easiest way is to use Fedy, a community tool that allows a plethora of non-free addidtions in literally seconds by using a very simple GUI (Fedy can be found here: https://satya164.github.io/fedy/).

I would not recommend using Fedora with proprietary graphics drivers. To be perfectly honest, that's asking for trouble. Fedora updates the kernel almost weekly, and provides no official source for proprietary kernel modules. On AMD, it should be easy enough to use the AMD provided installer since there are no binary blobs any more going forward, but especially for nVidia users, you'll face weekly or even biweekly manual kernel module compilings and associated system debuggings to even have a working system.

Fedora Workstation (aka desktop edition) with Gnome can be downloaded here:

http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-21.torrent

3 Likes

+1 to the post. Thx! For my informal "workstation" testing, openSUSE has been the most awesome and stable, so far. Videos coming soon.

 

I have no links to add since my two user-friendly, recommended distros are openSUSE and Fedora that you've already listed. But i'll add some notes as I think that's appropriate for the thread.

If your new to GNU/Linux and want to give it a go, it's important to remember that this is a new operating system to you. You will have problems, you will get lost, you might even break the system, and that's all perfectly fine. I suggest you give it a good go and stick at it. stackz0rs has a good thread going on his go at using Fedora for the first time. Do the same if you like, post questions, join mumble, or IRC, there are plenty of people who want to help, remember that you using a complex new (to you) operating system for the first time, it takes time to learn, and the benefits are great when you start to get the hang of it.

Fedora

As mentioned Fedora doesnt ship any non-free software. If your nor familiar, non-free does not mean price but freedom or liberty (libre), this means that by default Fedora doesnt include a number of things, from closed source Linux programs (like skype), to programs containing binary blobs (proprietary closed source parts), or code with non-free licences, that can include things like VLC which can ship with patented codecs or non free codecs (mp3 for example).

So, Fedoras main repository doesnt include these types of applications. Instead a separate repositories are available. Fredy is available that Zoltan has talked about. Additionally rpmfusion is available, that is not included in the list of repositories Fredy uses.

Enabling the repository is simple, you can go to the configuration page on rpmfusion, and click the links for the free and non-free repositories for Fedora 21. Fedora will set-up the repository for you when you download and run the .rpm file.

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(If you use the command line) Fedora's package manager is changing over to dnf, which is for all purposes the same as yum (both are available), both are command line interfaces for the package manager. If you see documentation using dnf, its safe to use this in place of yum, in fact its safe to use dnf in place of yum for everything.

The search functionality on the command line (dnf/yum search <package>) is not very good, especially if you don't know what your looking for. The default GUI package manager also isn't the best. Installing yumex (dnf install yumex, or: yum install yumex) will give you a simply to use GUI package manager for yum that's a lot easier to search though than the CLI or the default GUI package manager.

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Arch and Funtoo are two systems id talk about but are a lot more time consuming and a more of a learning experience, if your up for the challenge, have some time, and don't mind breaking things a few times, give them a go (maybe on a virtual machine). Instead of linking to the torrents ill link to the install guides since the torrents alone would be pointless. 

Funtoo: http://www.funtoo.org/Funtoo_Linux_Installation

Arch: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

Maybe if a community wiki is set up sometime, ill write an install howto for Funtoo or Arch.

This looks promising:

https://susestudio.com/a/Z7bZKy/ark-nightly-64-bit

Its practically a minimal openSUSE install with Cinnamon. OpenSUSE itself is practically a distro that's good for developers, the average Linux user, and for those migrating to Linux. OpenSUSE has amazing documentation despite a semi small community. Xen has great support, the repositories allow for the source of programs to be manually compiled, Zypper has several Syntaxes that allow for easy package management, and Yast is great for system administrators. That's about it really.

I really appreciate what the Korora project is doing:

https://kororaproject.org

The goal of the Korora Project is to offer codecs out of the box for Fedora, whilst implementing add ons (for instance Gnome has a more Gnome 2 esque menu). I used to use Korora until I started using SUSE just due to the fact that it didn't make sense for me to add codecs and add ons to Gnome shell when Korora did it for me. Korora is for those who want the edge of Fedora with the simplicity of Mint.

http://torrents.linuxmint.com/torrents/linuxmint-17.1-cinnamon-64bit.iso.torrent

http://torrents.linuxmint.com/torrents/linuxmint-17.1-mate-64bit.iso.torrent

Linux mint is Ubuntu based which is Debian based. It's dead easy to use and install. It has great hardware support and plenty of programs in the repo's as Ubuntu is a very popular distro to target for. It's also easy to find help, manuals and documentation for the same reason. There are several desktop environments to choose from and configuration is all GUI based. Cinnamon and Mate will be easy for any windows user to figure out. Although I don't believe it to be a bleeding edge distro, it is very stable and is consistently among the top downloaded distro's. It's linux your grandmother could use. 

Juliette has read the rules for posting! Thanks dude!

Eden, I'm in limbo about your post, lolz.

Zippy and Third, could you guys edit your posts as required by the original post, please? Thanks in advance! I wouldn't want to have to edit your posts, I'd rather see you guys expand on the distros that you propose!

This thread was meant from the start to be a reference thread, it's not meant for short casual posts, it's meant as a source of a little more information, so please follow that principle! Thanks for understanding!

(Re-Written) 

Okay so I am an Arch person, I love Arch allow me to explain.

Arch Linux is a disto optimised for i686 and x86/64bit systems, compared to say debian that has support for major different architectures, using Arch method for architecture it makes it more focused, but there are efforts for different systems.

The package manager used here is Pacman for binary, and AUR/PKGBuild for source based files, there is also a very handy tool called Yaourt, this makes PKGBuild even easier, it asks a few questions and then continues with your download and builds everything for you.

Arch Linux is not the best for new Linux people, even the very to install script method requires a little knowledge, but also for new Linux users, this is a very good way to learn quickly the basics of the system and how they are put together, the reason for this is there is no official GUI installer, it is all terminal based install, from the drive setup to the GUI setup, this may sound rather scary, but its not, you have the brilliant Arch Linux Beginners guide found "Here"

When you have finally got the system booting into a desktop, this can take new people a while, more experienced users can do this in about 15 mins depending on internet speeds, you are given a very bare system waiting to be built for what you need, want it just for the Internet, fine just go install your browser of choice, and have your way, Want a programming only environment, again go ahead, Arch gives you the flexibility and choice to make this system yours.

With this there comes problems though, while Arch is very powerful and simple, that simplicity can have issues in terms of drivers, I normally have sound issues with my laptop in Arch Linux, but this is where the ever expanding and well written wiki comes into play, this massive wiki explains most things Linux related, combine that with the massive Arch Linux forums, it is very difficult to find a problem without a solution.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/

With all this you can get a very powerful system designed specifically for your needs, and is faster than a lot of other distros, and when you are past the initial installation and setup, the system is very simple to keep running, while been bleeding edge, is rather stable.

As Zoltan as asked, the torrent link is provided below, most of the mirrors in the download section provide a torrent and md5/sha1 files for cross reference and validity, I personally would use the torrent provided by Arch Linux to ensure maximum security, it is at the top of the page linked below.

https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Antergos:

http://antergos.com/

(No Torrent Link available at the time of posting)

http://mirrors.antergos.com/iso/release/antergos-2015.01.11-x86_64.iso

I've been using Linux for around 10 years now and although I have no technical background I believe I know my way around the system.

Ubuntu is fine for beginners as it's easy to install and run but is based on snapshots of the current state of development (as most distros are).

At some point (mainly because of Jupiter Broadcasting's Linux Action Show) I decided to try out Arch Linux as I felt that I had enough experience to make the jump.

I really like the concept of having a rolling distribution that updates it's repositories so I could alsways get the latest software. But there was one huge caveat for me and that was installing the (damn) thing in the first place. I know it's not Arch's fault for sticking with their keep it short and simple philosophy but installing a distro that way really frustrated me.

This is why I tried out Antergos after it was mentioned on LAS, and I have to say it makes it sooooo easy to install Arch I almost couldn't believe it.

  1. It boots to a Gnome session
  2. Enable WiFi to gain Internet access
  3. Launch the graphical installer and set your stuff up (Timezone, Keyboard, Partitions)
  4. Select your Installation scheme (base, KDE, GNOME, Xfce, LXQt)
  5. Enter user data and hit install
  6. It pulls down the latest packages and applies them to your system
  7. Reboot and you're running arch

If it wasn't for Antergos I would still be on Ubuntu (don't get me wrong, it is a great distro)

I need just need the latest stuff as my gaming rig runs on radeon mesa drivers so I need the latest stack  (kernel, llvm, xorg, mesa) and I'm also planning to try  out btrfs raid on my server so latest kernel and btrfs-tools is also mandatory (but I think I'll use OpenSuSE Tumbleweed for that as YaST is just unbeatable for managing a server) 

Can you please adapt your post to the rules set forth in the OP? Thanks man!

Debian

The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system. A large part of the basic tools that fill out the operating system come from the GNU project; hence the names: GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD, and GNU/Hurd. These tools are also free.

Of course, the thing that people want is application software: programs to help them get what they want to do done, from editing documents to running a business to playing games to writing more software. Debian comes with over 37500 packages (precompiled software that is bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine), a package manager (APT), and other utilities that make it possible to manage thousands of packages on thousands of computers as easily as installing a single application. All of it free.

Debian will run on almost all personal computers, including most older models. Each new release of Debian generally supports a larger number of computer architectures. For a complete list of currently supported ones, see the documentation for the stable release.

Almost all common hardware is supported. If you would like to be sure that all the devices connected to your machine are supported, check out the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO.

Debian supports all kinds of graphical environments from fully-featured desktop environments like Gnome and KDE, to lighter environments like Xfce and LXDE, to even lighter window managers like Openbox and tiling window managers like Wmii.

Although no precise statistics are available (since Debian does not require users to register), evidence is quite strong that Debian is used by a wide range of organizations, large and small, as well as many thousands of individuals. See Who's using Debian? page for a list of high-profile organizations which have submitted short descriptions of how and why they use Debian.

Although a fork of Debian, Ubuntu is similar and as I pulled up to get my oil changed, I saw it running on their computer that they use to input customer information!

TL;DR - Debian supports a very wide range of hardware, has a ton of packages to pick from, supports a LOAD of desktop environments and window managers. Debian is extremely stable but offers testing versions if your system needs more up to date software.


Link to the directory with every torrent for the current stable version of debian:

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.8.0/amd64/bt-cd/

I'm sorry, but would you mind moving your comment over to another thread on the forum, because this thread is for reference only, as explained in the OP.

I don't want to simply delete your post, I'd rather you'd cut and paste your comment to a thread where it belongs (or you could make a new thread about Linux Mint of course and share your experiences in more detail), so I'll leave it here for some time to give you that opportunity. When you've moved the post, just delete this one if you would, thanks!

Ah yes, sorry. I am guilty of reading some of the comments from the thread and not the original posted message. Hopefully this new system of sub-replies will keep idiots like me from doing this in the future.

Elementary OS.

Its a rather new linux disto Based on Ubuntu LTS. Elementary OS follows a design philosophy based on a more minimalist, intuitive and speedy design. It does focus on being as user friendly as possible. The default GUI is Pantheon developed for elementary specifically. The aesthetic bares resemblance to the MAC OS design (which follows similar a philosophy ) but the similarities are superficial. Pantheon is based on Gnome desktop. Elementary comes with its own media applications and also easy configuration options.

Pre-installed applications:

Midori – browser
Files – file manager
Software Center
Noise – Music player
Totem – Movie Player
Empathy – IM client
Geary – Email client
Shotwell – image viewer and editor

No office suite pre-nstalled but the software center includes both Libre and other office suite options to be installed.

Current version is Luna : http://sourceforge.net/projects/elementaryos/files/latest/download

The next version of the OS, Freya, is in Beta and it will soon get a full release

For a server:

  • Either Debian wheezy (stable) for web and HTTP stuff and compiling or BSD for file sharing
  • Nginx (from the official Nginx repo) as a static webserver and proxy
  • PHP: HHVM when possible, but it is usually easier to use php5-fpm
  • NodeJS from it's official repo

For Desktop:
- Either Lubuntu, Debian shell (no GUI), or Linux Mint Cinnamon Debian Edition
- LibreOffice
- Firefox (x86_64)
- WINE NAAPI Plugins (Silverlight and Flash)
- Clementine as music player @Logan you should try this it's really great. It has by far the best album art manager.

Why I like Debian so much more than Ubuntu: Debian receives less updates because it has less bugs and security flaws. Ubuntu is based off of Debian testing (not beta or stable). Ubuntu has a package repository that warrants a Google search to make sure it's the official package most of the time. Also, I've always had more setup problems with Ubuntu (WiFi, Ethernet, display, headphone jack detection, etc.).

I really want to try some more BSD, openSUSE, Fedora, and Arch, but I haven't had time. They all use the same kernel, but a lot of the similarities end there. Debian and Ubuntu are used a lot as servers in the professional world, and I enjoy the shell of Linux more than the GUI (compared to the Windows Command Prompt which is...well...ugh).

Hey Zoltan, I do not have an issue with the torrent links, but maybe you and everyone else can also link the donation pages as well. Some of these projects are really cool and need all the help they can get. : )

Ubuntu 14.10

http://releases.ubuntu.com/14.10/ubuntu-14.10-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent

For a list of other languages and builds, please check out the torrent page here http://www.ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads

If you like the project, please consider contributing here: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.10&architecture=amd64

Or you can support the project by picking up some cool T-Shirts here: http://shop.ubuntu.com/


Ubuntu (and ubuntu based distros) is really good for the pure beginner. There is lots of information on how to install it and use it, and it comes with a lot of different codecs right out of the box.

The other awesome thing is that you can EASILY make it look like and pretty much function like the OSX, or windows environment which is great for people who want linux security and stability without giving up the desktop that they are most familiar using.

For people who are coming from OSX, noobslab has an AWESOME tutorial on how you can take an out of the box ubtunu 14.10 installation and turn it into a very OSXish style desktop. Find out more info here.

For people who like windows, here you go.