First time Linux noob, which distro?

Phate · 8 Nov 2016 at 09:00

Hi all,

Have never really had much more experience than booting Linux off a USB stick to recover data. It's something I have always been curious about.

So, I've got the spare resources. I want to run a virtual machine with Linux of some description and begin using it daily. Experimenting with software installs. General daily use etc. With the hopes of becoming much more familiar with it and eventually being able to administer and troubleshoot it.

Any recommendations with a distro to try? On USB I've been using Ubuntu. Any others worth a look?

TIA

Jake

Smit · 8 Nov 2016 at 09:53

Ubuntu or Mint would probably be the two most recommend distros. A lot of help/tutorials around for those.

Personally I use openSuse but their rolling release version can be a bit hit or miss with updates breaking things.

joeyjojo · 8 Nov 2016 at 10:14

https://distrowatch.com/

Their most popular list is probably as good a 'recommendation' as you'll get: Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, elementary, manjaro...

I've used Fedora, Ubuntu, and Debian in the past. Next stop would probably be openSUSE or Arch (or maybe Slackware but only for the old-skool experience). Also interested in BSD though for variety.

Beerbaron · 8 Nov 2016 at 10:24

Gentoo, jump in the deep end

Phate · 8 Nov 2016 at 10:26

Beerbaron said:
Gentoo, jump in the deep end

Why do I have a feeling that I would regret listening to you?

stopper · 8 Nov 2016 at 11:26

Popular doesn't mean great, just means a lot of people use them.
I would go for some thing a bit more newbie friendly like ROSA or Solus OS.

ROSA is awesome, but is Russian so might be hard to get help on their forums.
Solus is still pretty new but very actively worked on, and updated more than any other distro out there. Their devs are on the ball all the time.

For a first timer I would go with solus.

Phate · 8 Nov 2016 at 13:05

Solus looks quite nice.

Question and apologies in advance for the ignorance. Are they all fundamentally the same but have different looks and behaviours?

Armageus · 8 Nov 2016 at 13:08

stopper said:
Popular doesn't mean great, just means a lot of people use them.

But a lot more people using something, generally means help is a easier to find, as you are unlikely to be the first person to try and do something.

bledd · 8 Nov 2016 at 13:48

Linux Mint is a very nicely put together package.

Steveocee · 8 Nov 2016 at 13:51

It's personal preference for the most part, try creating a few VM's and trying each out. Ubuntu and Mint would be towards the top of the recommended list.

I personally use Ubuntu on my day to day work laptop.

stopper · 8 Nov 2016 at 22:29

Armageus said:
But a lot more people using something, generally means help is a easier to find, as you are unlikely to be the first person to try and do something.

True. Though ubuntu forums can be a bit over saturated at times, you can get quite lost.

Phate said:
Are they all fundamentally the same but have different looks and behaviours?

The only real difference between all distro's is the package managers. But they are all the very same system.
Package managers will soon be a thing of the past though, developers will eventually start building for the new universal package manager.

pete910 · 8 Nov 2016 at 23:34

Vote for Mageia here, Not as big a forum like the *buntu's but helpful

https://www.mageia.org/en/

Casdawer · 9 Nov 2016 at 14:24

A vote for Fedora here.

Much prefer it to Ubuntu.

Sp00n · 9 Nov 2016 at 15:16

As you are just starting out I would stick to one of the more well known distros, Ubuntu/Mint or Fedora/OpenSUSE, this will give you access to systems that you are more likely to find in work environments and therefore you will gain some transferable skills.

Once you've started getting more comfortable you may then want to branch out and pick another distribution which more suits your requirements once you work out what those are.

Phate · 9 Nov 2016 at 15:18

Thanks all for the helpful info. I am sure there will be more questions soon!

stopper said:
The only real difference between all distro's is the package managers. But they are all the very same system.
Package managers will soon be a thing of the past though, developers will eventually start building for the new universal package manager.

Can someone tell me the definition of the package manager? What does this mean? Thank you

Sp00n · 9 Nov 2016 at 16:10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_manager

Basically, it's the program you use to install other programs.

Phate · 9 Nov 2016 at 16:25

Thanks, that makes sense

Got my laptop back now (gf was using it for work) so should be able to give this a go, hopefully over the weekend!

Stelly · 9 Nov 2016 at 16:26

Fedora or Ubuntu

Stelly

joeyjojo · 10 Nov 2016 at 09:20

Phate said:
Can someone tell me the definition of the package manager? What does this mean? Thank you

The 'app store' before there were app stores (mid 90s). Someone else gets the code and compiles it for your architecture. The files can then be downloaded and installed on demand. They also deal with dependencies automatically. Effectively it replaces installers.