Well if you are a new Linux user and you want to start with something that is really userfriendlly.
Then Ubuntu Mate might tick all the right boxes for you.
It has a great welcome screen with a guide that leads you trough setting up the entire distribution in only a couple of minutes, including theming, codecs, drivers etc.
The Software bootique is a very nice software manager that contains most popular applications for Linux.
And they are easy to install with one click, skype, steam the whole nine yards are there.
Next to that Ubuntu Mate also contains a layout switcher on which you could choose whatever layout you like allot.
Ubuntu Mate is a really nice starter distribution, with a very stable base.
Of course this is not the best way of learning Linux and learning to do things the Linux way.
But once you found your way in it, you could allways jump ship towards another linux distribution.
Linux Mint is also really nice for new users aswell.
One of the reasons why i often recommend a Ubuntu based distribution to new users,
is because there is a very large support community arround Ubuntu.
And manny issues and questions can be easally found that way.
Linux Mint is also based on Ubuntu, so fixes that work for Ubuntu mostlly also work for Mint.
I’m always wary of these thread in general, because wherever it’s posted, people will inevitably chime in with shit that is just NOT simple, NOT for new users, and then just go OH YAH JUST RECOMPILE THE XORG SERVER WITH YOUR VAR AND SYMLINK YOUR DOT FILES TO GitAND PUSH PULL YOUR CONFIG STACK TO THE MAIN BLOB, IT’S SOOO EASY BRAH.
Has anyone mentioned that Solus is STILL VERY NEW and may not have all the stuff OP needs in the repos?
Has anyone informed them that by default, Fedora DOES NOT COME with codecs or other “third party” things required for quality of life?
Has anyone explained that seeking HELP will be an absolute gamble due to there being so many people with bad attitudes, and that they should probably test the waters before posting on Reddit etc?
Which is why I recommended Solus instead, but that is not to say that Pop! is not a viable alternative. I have heard good things.
I brought up Solus, and I did explicitly state that the repo (and snaps and flatpaks) might not have everything the OP needs. I did not mention how new/old it is.
OP is actively experimenting with multiple distributions in VB, so I didn’t think emphasizing the need for testing was paramount to the discussion. That said, it is important, and your warning is valuable.
Your tone here comes across as very accusatory. “Has anyone…?” This is a relatively young thread. Not all perspectives have been expressed. If you think, “why hasn’t someone said…”, then that means this is your opportunity to add to the conversation. Why blame others for not expressing your point of view? Own it and express it yourself.
Also, you do not present a better alternative. No solution is perfect, and the reasons you provide are legitimate, but you don’t provide better alternatives.
For example, what is an alternative to Fedora that does come
it’s weird because I am NOT a Linux user, yet I’m the only one besides Mystery that has bothered to address the new user angle. Don’t you think that’s a bit of an issue?
Excellent! I think this is a great suggestion for the OP.
Do you suggest sticking with WIndows? If so, that’s definitely a legitimate position! There are many merits to Windows, and if you wanted to enumerate them here for the OP, I think that would be a constructive contribution to the discussion.
I definitely think that @Eden had “new user” in mind with the Fedora recommendation.
I did as well, as I only recently switched DE to Linux and ultimately decided on Solus.
I suppose we should have stated this more clearly, but we were not ignoring the parameters of the OP.
No it is not, I rarely use linux myself as a daily driver because I am not compelled too. I subject myself to the torture that comes with LTSB (This is not a viable option anymore). If I was to switch over to linux which wouldn’t impact my daily use, just gaming, I’d choose Ubuntu LTS w/ Budgie. Just because I want a distro that I am familiar with where googling for an answer is easy with a desktop environment that I like which is budgie.
As for the OP I would suggest doing something similar, what Goblin mention (Korora) looks great as a starter’s linux. You can generally get the same solutions by googling fedora with your problem, another is looking at the different flavours of Ubuntu.
I’d vote for a Ubuntu LTS as well. It will have Xorg with support from NVidia, the most likely troublesome part of the install. If are running with new hardware, then Fedora is my choice.
@oO.o is correct in his reply. I recommended Fedora with a new user in mind. Based on @Faller’s original post and the research and information he gave I thought it would fit well.
You are correct though I missed out talking about rpmfusion, I could have covered this in more detail, I don’t think that makes my recommendation any less valid. Nvidia drivers are fairly easy to install (as easy as Windows until the recent builds of Windows 10), and your concern about codecs isn’t a huge issue, Fedora will normally ask you to install a codec if needed, and if there is a codec issue, well, Faller is in the right place to ask.
They are here not reddit. Plus, help for Fedora is in my experience quite good so long as you don’t install fedy you’ll get support from Fedoras IRC channels for example, and there a numerous experienced Fedora users on this forum.
May look a bit scary, for a new user. It’s not. Get the steam native runtime library from the package manager (default way to install/update/remove) or install SolusOS (MATE,BUDGIE,GNOME available) which has it’s own steam integration tool, you can download.
Both, any Arch based distro and solus have better general steam support, as it’s runtime far as i know runs on newer libraries, then default with SteamOS,Ubuntu yada yada etc.
I am a big fan of the rolling release distros, so I use Antergos at home and openSUSE Tumbleweed at work.
I would recommend both. If you don’t want to do any tinkering at all though. I think, like others have said, a Ubuntu-based distro or Fedora would be your best option.
Same here, been rolling with Manjaro and Antergos for quite a while, awesome distro’s and pretty stable on latest kernels, at least for me.
Anyway, using the software center and/or package manager to install 1 simple package is considered tinkering? c’mon im sure you can find something more worthwhile of the tinkering title. Also SolusOS has the least of them all, even ubuntu in terms of ui, ease og use etc.
I absolutely agree he is. But this idea that if you want to use Linux, you should pull yourself along by your bootstraps and nobody is going to “spoon feed” you attitude that I have seen in tons of places, irritates me to death because I have been there, needed help information or a straight up tutorial, and haven’t gotten it because of this extremely confusing Fight Clubish rule that people should help themselves.
But anyway, I’m probably dragging it off topic so that’s all I’ll say.
Not at all. But the nature of rolling release means that sometimes packages break, which in turn requires some troubleshooting. I have booted in the past to have no desktop environment or X11 session at all.
From the OP’s/beginners point-of-view, I would consider that tinkering.
Picking a Linux distribution is very subjective as everyone has their own.
I love solus, it has everything I want, it’s simple stable and rolls, never had an issue.
I think (not been evil here, but honest) you need to go through the long journey of finding what suits you best, play with each for a week, make notes of what you like and don’t then decide when you have played about a bit.
I was in the same place a year ago and from asking this question a handful of times, you will never find a perfect answer. To be honest you could pick the distro with your favorite logo and an installer and be fine. You will find your distro after you learn about the community and features you care about as well as the sigmas associated with each. From my experience your first distro really dosen’t matter, just learn Linux you will find what you need out of the distro later as long as it works and looks nice, you are pretty much good for your first distro. I went about it completely wrong and started with something just because I was told it is “hard” that was a bad idea. I would honestly agree with @Eden and/or @MisteryAngel, Fedora or Ubuntu Mate are great places to start. I wish I took their advice last year around this time when I first started it would have saved me lots of time, but i was hard headed. It came with it’s benefits, but meh. I mean they are all free when/if you decide fedora isn’t for you than you do not lose anything when you switch and the majority knowledge you gain is transferable to any other distro especially when you first start to learn, everything, but the package manager (still new-ish only a year so may be missing something)
That is obvious in many ways. The reason for me asking, is to know for instance what distros that can handle Steam, which is one of my requirements. So far, I seem to have received good answers for this, and also why I will be testing each distro in a virtualized environment until I can afford an SSD where I can run natively.
I don’t believe you are evil for saying that at all! Learning something new in life always require a learning curve (which can have different levels of steepness) and the tips for writing down notes for pros and cons is a really good idea!
No, and that is something I am aware of for two reasons; 1) there are quite a lot of distros out there. 2) people are different and each recommendation will have a subjective idea behind it.
I asked the question to narrow down the amount of distros I need to test by stating some of my requirements.
That is an interesting observation, but it makes sense from a learning aspect.
That is the beauty of Linux For all I know, maybe I end up with multiple distros in dualboot for different tasks.
Just throwing my vote out there for exactly what @MisteryAngel said. Mate is my DE of choice most of the time anyway. It’s windows like enough that even a non computer person can navigate without too much trouble. Having Ubuntu means you are likely not the first person to have the problem you have when you inevitably Google for help. Even in obscure cases.
