I tried arch from the start and really liked it.
I’d recommend you just read a few of the philosophies and goals of different distros, then decide based off that. All of the distros are good in their own way as long as the devs are passionate and the community is active.
Just stay away from the strange distros that no one uses, as the lack of community and documentation would make everything more difficult than it needs to be.
Basically this; chances are you won’t stay on the same distro forever as you start getting more comfortable with your environment. The starting point doesn’t matter as much.
Or he might. I’ve been on Ubuntu since I started. And honestly like the transition from Unity to Gnome. Even though, I did like Unity.
Unity is still in the repos on 18.04
But you should!
Pro tip: They’re all the same thing.
Also, Praise Unity!
I disagree with that; there are plenty of differences between distributions, the most obvious example being repositories and package managers. Most repos under the same package manager are slight variations on one another, like netrunner is just Debian with extra KDE stuff. Many distros have something that differentiates them from their peers. Arch is known for AUR, OpenSUSE has YaST, Ubuntu had Unity.
Why do you use Debian? Any real answer to this question is evidence that Debian is different from the other stock, thus choosing it over something else.
Package managers are just automated software installation. You can install the software on another distro if it’s not in the package manager.
Repo, software manager, and desktop environment. I could install Unity on Arch and I could use a software manager similar to YaST on Ubuntu.
They all manage hardware resources, handle user input, produce output, and process data. Using Arch daily is no different than using Ubuntu daily.
I like the logo.
Yes, but it’s easier to install software without going out of repo.
YaST is not just a software manager.
That isn’t as easy as you think. It is possible, but you have to compile special patched versions of almost every GTK package.
If you live exclusively inside of Firefox, maybe.
“it’s easier to install software”
“YaST is not just a software manager”
“That isn’t as easy as you think”
I’m not speaking in terms of easy or difficult. I’m talking about someone proficient in the command line, with years of experience as a systems engineer or software engineer, you sit them down at a keyboard with Arch and Gnome, openSUSE and Gnome, or Ubuntu and Gnome, and they’re going to generate the exact same results.*
“If you live exclusively inside of Firefox”
I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’ve used both operating systems extensively and I can tell you that aside from a few quirks, I behaved the same on Ubuntu as I did on Arch Linux. Same with Debian and Fedora. man pages exist on the package managers, and I’ve not used a software manager in years. If you’re talking about a new user perspective, the graphical managers don’t do that great of a job indicating when dependencies are missing or why a package has failed. If you’re arguing from the point of welcoming new users, I’d argue that the “Linux world” abandoned that a long time ago.
* Assuming they don’t update or reboot during that time. At which I’d double down on Ubuntu or openSUSE providing the better experience.
Which is why I’m saving them time and saying stick with one distro. The benefits another operating system offer are superficial at best.
I love Arch and use it for my daily drivers. I wouldn’t trust a system that blindly uses the AUR.
Ubuntu is great for newcomers to the GNU/Linux world. Small steps and such.
I agree with you, I don’t really suggest anybody use Arch. Ubuntu is a great place to get familiar with things. I helped my friend with a $90 gaming PC that we picked out, I put Kubuntu on it for him. As a lifelong Windows user, he loves it.
depending on what you play, gaming on Linux is probably going to be awful. Even if you play one of the supported games, it still may be awful if you run into issues.
I disagree with you there about gaming on Linux. There are ALOT of good games that have been ported to it, or were made for it specifically. And honestly, alot of the games I find on the software center on Ubuntu, aren’t that bad. You just gotta be good at sniffing out the bad ones.
So far I haven’t had any bad experiences gaming on Linux that I haven’t been able to look up the fix to. Probably because my disto is Ubuntu and there’s LOTS of help out there and documentation on Ubuntu for you look at.
I would say that there are bad ports in some cases, but the same is true about porting to Windows as well. The experience is similar to gaming on Windows, albeit with a smaller library.
the main difference is people who use already use Linux will benefit from that. People who already game on Windows who are just NOW thinking about switching to Linux should be warned that their AAA games might not work. People who are willing to abandon those in favour of switching to Linux have probably already made up their minds about it, and therefor don’t really need a warning.