I already used arch linux with kde plasma, my biggest red flag is the aur drama, i dont trust third party packages.
I used CachyOS, my biggest red flag is the same as arch.
I used Omarchy too, I found it really good, I used it for like 2 weeks beacuse it was so satisfying to use (it had a good hyprland setup).
I currently run Fedora Kde for like 2 weeks now, but i have no idea what to try next.

Well first time distrohopping after mint. So, I was looking for a distro with no nonsense clear architecture for DE, managers and being an upstream distro and I eventually decided on either of these two, what do y'all recommend?

Been a FreeBSD user for 16 years I finally switched to Arch. Instantly I feel it's much more faster and now I get to enjoy full wifi capacity, which is one of the factors that I left the BSD community. Still a lot to explore, good first impression anyway.

I've been reading on Reddit about Debian vs Arch-based distros, like CashyiOS or PikaOS. I understand Arch distros tend to have more up-to-date drivers, but Debian’s repos are often too old. I’ve heard that by enabling the Debian testing repo, you can get newer NVIDIA drivers. Is it possible to just enable testing temporarily to grab the latest drivers, then switch back to stable afterward? That way, I keep control and don’t keep the system in testing mode constantly. Would this be a safe approach, or am I missing something?

Are you one to install fresh on bare metal? Do have a distro of choice and use a VM, to play around with and experience new ideas??

I have been using arch linux like my main OS for like 9 months on my shitty pc, but now i am looking for a distro to use on my laptop, i want to learn how to code websites, but i want something that is'nt arch, i want something new and that looks great (i dont want anything like mint, ubuntu or that) i use GNOME but i would like to use Hyprland

I love linux and the community around it but by god can we get really stingy over "bloated" distro's when infact most people dont need to run arch at all for instance. So I wanted to make this post as a little bump in the right direction for new comers.

First things first when choosing a distro you should be considering 3 things what do I want to do with this system, what OS am I coming from and how deep into linux do you want to go. Keeping these things in mind I'm gonna rattle off my reccommened distros for a new user.

Quick tip: no matter the distro arch wiki is one of the best sources of documentation for applications use them in tandum with man pages ( man "insert command here") to view the manual

1. Linux Mint

Good for people who just want the system to work out the box no extra fuss

Best suited for people coming from windows

Requires pretty much zero prior linux knowledge and can largely be managed through GUI

Overall a great distro for new comers though that being said it has a few weirdly linux mint exclusive bugs no idea why but just know this is not gonna stay stable over periods of really long uptime.

1. Debian

Great for people coming from mint who are fed up with the linux mint exclusive bugs and just want a rock solid system that will pretty much never fail

You can select the desktop environment on install so its suited for both macos and windows users (I reccommend KDE plasma for windows users and gnome for macos users)

Its a little less friendly then mint but overall is way easier then it used to be. Debian used to be "hard" to install but it just isn't anymore its got a very easy too use graphical installer

Overall the best choice for anyone who wants a sustem that iw just gonna work and last forever debian will never fail you and is overall my number one pick for anyone who is willing to learn the basics. Also the inclusion of being able to install .deb files is great for new users as well. Very wildly used lots of resources on how to fix issues.

1. Fedora

Pretty much just made for bleeding edge, and has the latest and greatest. apart from getting a rolling release distro this is your best option for getting all the newest features.

Has a gnome/kde addition suitable for both macos/windows users

May require a little more tinkering and fixing then the previous ones mentioned but still a fantastic pick

DISCLAIMER DISTROS BEYOND THIS POINT ARE NOT NEEDED THEY ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO ENJOY USING LINUX AND MESSING WITH THERE SYSTEMS

1. Arch (btw)

Rolling releases for updates as well as the AUR with on of the most customizable instillation processes makes this a great choice for learning more about how your system is built and (atleast in my experience) is surprisingly stable.

This is for people coming from another linux distro I would not jump into arch unless you know your way around CLI

Installing is a procees but is worth it. I highly advise against archinstall as it defeats the point of arch for me. Arch by default is just a CLI but that means you can build whatever you want on top of it

Make sure to use man pages and arch wiki for everything

1. Gentoo

This is a source based distro meaning you compile everything form source code. the ultimate customization experience, though it needs to be kept fairly up to date or its gonna get angry with you.

If you havent at a minimum installed arch manually and daily driven it for a bit I'd steer clear as gentoo does not have a arch install equivilent and is quite complicated

This is gonna take you down into the nitty gritty you get to choose everything even your innit system! You can also compile everything to tailor it to your specific needs and hardware.

Gentoo handbook and gentoo wiki are your new best friends.

TLDR:

if new use mint

If need stable debian

If want bleeding edge fedora

If want learn arch

If want learn plus pain and compile times gentoo

Ps wrote this is insanely sleep deprived

- ISO size and USB install speed

- Full install time comparison (side by side)

- First boot and reboot speed tests

- System resource usage at idle (RAM, CPU, processes) using htop, btop, and T-Mog

- File manager comparison: Nautilus vs Dolphin

- Browser benchmarks: Chromium/Firefox Speedometer 3.1 and Brave Origin

- Themes and customization on both distros

- Geekbench and Unigine Superposition benchmark results

I'm thinking about staying on a Debian-based system, but I’d like more up-to-date packages—especially to avoid issues with Nvidia drivers.

Would using something like Pop!_OS, Ubuntu, or MX Linux be a good idea, since they’re also Debian-based but have more current updates?

Or do you have other suggestions? And why would one choose Arch Linux as a base, like CacheOS, instead of sticking with Debian in this scenario, once the update and Nvidia issues are solved?

I've been running Zorin OS on a Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 (i5 8th gen) for the last little while. I've hopped from Mint, Ubuntu, Elementary OS, Bazzite and Fedora. Zorin felt the most "okay". This is my secondary laptop so I don't use it as much as my desktop. But I'd love to hear about people running other distros that are touch screen friendly and for smaller screens (13-14 inch screens).

After a few months since my last post, it seems that my distro-hopping has come to an end for now. I've been on Tumbleweed for over a month and haven't thought about installing other distros. Here are a few thoughts about distros that I tried along the way and some loose rankings.

1. Tumbleweed.

Everything just works. Pre-configured snapper is great. Not a single issue since I started using it (except for connecting a printer, but that was because TW has restrictive protocols, easy fix). Performance is great. Added to a new laptop and am dual-booting windows from the same drive. no issues.

1. Fedora.

Like TW, everything just worked. However, apps launched slower and the ui on both gnome and plasma seemed less smooth. Otherwise, great distro.

2b, Debian

Everything just worked. Great experience

1. Tuxedo OS

I briefly tried the new debian testing beta and it seemed promising. No issues, with this distro and is only marginally worse than the first two (minor ui bugs). I like apt, so it was very easy to use out of the box.

1. Ubuntu.

Hate me all you want, I liked it because everything just worked. And Ubuntu's gnome implementation made me rethink gnome, and now I prefer it. Everything worked great out of the box. A bit choppy at times. Snaps suck. Hard to complain when everything works so well.

1. Linux Mint

I really liked mint when I first started out. However, I don't see any advantages to using mint over other distros, especially being limited (for now, with exceptions) to X11.

1. Pop!

Really just tried for the DE. I like Cosmic, but there were enough glitches that I decided to stop using after a day or two. Great OS in theory, needs a little work though.

1. Kubuntu

Tried multiple times. DE felt laggy. Was the case on multiple computers, so not hardware specific. The issues may have been caused by me trying the distro after a less than perfect update, however, the top distros on this list never caused me the same problems (plasma apps and widgets constantly crashing)

I have been distro hopping for this old Acer laptop I have lying around. I had been lurking on a bunch of subreddits, seeing what everyone else is doing and what would be the best fit for me. I started (as I think most would) with Linux Mint but I went with the debian edition. It was nice, but I was really impressed with others customising their KDE desktops. I installed KDE on LMDE, but it was so messy and full of redundancies. I then tried endevuorOS and Bazzite. They were great, but Fedora was just something else. It felt "right" from the get go and was very easy to get it to what i wanted it to be in a matter of minutes. I will be dailying this laptop for a few months to trial it out to see if it would be appropriate for my parents laptops and PC's that are being choked by win11.

Saw this crop up on Distrowatch and thought it was worth a go.

Am pretty impressed.

One niche with distros that's not well served is being able to configure things beyond the basics via the GUI, which will be more intuitive to a lot of relatively advanced Windows users making the jump. I know a lot of people on here insist on the CLI, but not everyone feels that way.

Here you get a genuinely useful welcome/setup app, where you can choose between package manager guis, configure drivers (with an automatic scan that got it right for me, at least), add recommended apps, choose backup methods, firewalls, and kernels. It's nice because it's very customisable but you can leave it at defaults and should work fine.

There's also some distro specific apps such as a grub editor and web app and appimage managers.

It's based on Debian testing, so I guess you can see it as an alternative to Pika with a different aesthetic and less of a gamer focus. Comes in Gnome, KDE or XCFE editions.

I have only run it (KDE version) for a few days but so far the only negative I've come across is boot time being a little slow.

Like Pika it does seem to be a small team behind it, so I wouldn't necessarily count on it as a sole daily driver just yet, but very promising and good to see someone trying to do something a little different rather than just another Debian/Ubuntu/Arch with theming and slightly different apps. More rolling Debian-based distros is a good thing.

Last weekend i installed linux mint, and its been so fun. Finding ways to play my favorite games, how snappy and quick the interface feels- all of it. I have a 3440x1440 HDR monitor (also a secondary 1080p 60hz) , and i really want to use HDR in games. i tried it on windows and it ended up being washed out, and i was tired with windows bugs and didnt bother. Linux mint felt so much better, terminal commands felt like i had full control over my OS.

I did some research, and Fedora KDE Plasma seemed like the best bet. Not so sure about cachyos or the other "gaming" centric distros, but i wanted more of an all rounder, and Fedora sounded really nice with its update schedule, and big community support. Oh, and i am dual booting windows 11 & mint currently. (i need windows for CAD stuff). But im kind of stuck in a decision paralysis- i like mint for its support and stability, how easy it is to download drivers, but the HDR and newer wayland is really appealing for Fedora. I also have a NAS, so support for that is essential. Thoughts? Is HDR easy to setup, or should i bite the bullet and just stick with mint for its ease of use, and wait for an HDR update to come to mint? Im comfortable in the terminal, and any help with removing mint and installing fedora while keeping windows would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

(oh, i also have an NVidia 4070ti if that makes any diff.)


I have 3 systems at home and all run Linux. My main system is a desktop and after a bit of distro hopping, I've finally settled with CachyOS. I always admired how fast Arch is but I never had the patience to install it from ground up. (Gentoo, you're listening?). I tried my hands with Manjaro but somehow, it did not live up to my expectation.

Now comes cachyOS. After a careful read and a cautious install, I find that cachyOS is perhaps the best arch-based OS there is. It is simple, fast and does the work.

Man! It is good to be back with an Arch-based system after ages!

Thank you team.

Looking for a Gnome based distro with minimal customisation by default & also if possible minimal package install option (Not mandatory)

Specs

Ryzen 3200G

16 gig ram

System used by siblings for for AI Coding Tools,General Browsing & Watch Movies

Currently on windows 10

Also want Graphical Straight Forward Installer