I’m ditching Windows in favor of Linux on my personal desktop. And so I’m looking for advice on which distro I should start with.

About Me

I use Linux professionally all the time but mostly to build ci/cd pipelines and for software development/operations. I’ve never been a Linux admin nor have I ever chosen the distro I use. I’m generally comfortable using Linux and digging into configs/issues as needed.

Planned Usage

I use this machine for typical home usage: Firefox, a notes app (currently Notesnook), maybe office style tools like word and excel. I also use this for gaming: Steam, Discord, etc. Lastly and least important, I use this for a small amount of dev work: VSCode, various languages, possibly running containers.

What I’m Looking For

I’d like an OS that’s highly configurable but ships with good default settings and requires very little effort to start using. I don’t want it to ship with loads of applications; I want to choose and install all of the higher level tools. Shipping with a configured desktop is perfectly fine but not required. Ideally, I can have all of this while still keeping the maintenance low. I think that means a stable OS, a good package manager, stable/automatic updates, etc.

Last bit. Open source is rather important to me. I prefer free and free.

Anyone have good suggestions??

Edit

I’m aware of tools like Distro Chooser. They’ve recommended Arch Linux and Endeavor OS to me so far. But I’m not ready to trust them yet. I’m looking for human input.

Edit 2: Hardware Info

I’m running on an ASUS ROG Strix GA15DK. It’s just over 2 years old. The hardware was shiny but not top-tier at the time. It’s not new at this point but also not old by Linux standards.

  • AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Processor
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
  • 16GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM

Edit 3

It’s official. I installed EndeavourOS! I got it to work without any issues. Yup, first try. It definitely didn’t take me ~10 tries :D

Thanks for all the input all! Wonderful crowd here!!!

  • muhyb@programming.dev
    111·
    2 years ago

    You described EndeavourOS if you ask me. It’s Arch but preconfigured, so ready to use after install while being as configurable as Arch if you want to go further. Has AUR so you won’t have problems finding a program.

  • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
    5·
    2 years ago

    I think saying “I’m a newcomer, recommend me a distro” will pretty much always result in everyone saying “Linux Mint”,
    and saying “I have quite a bit of experience, what’s your recommendation?” will result in everyone recommending their own distro of choice.

    But, to be honest, distro choice doesn’t matter that much anymore. You can get every software package in form of Flatpaks, Nix and in Distrobox anyway.

    For example, you can get the newest Gnome or Hyprland with the Arch Distrobox on your stale Debian base, or access the AUR on Tumbleweed. Doesn’t matter.

    So, what’s my recommendation?

    Fedora Silverblue (or the “normal” variant). Why?

    The normal variants (Workstation and Spins)

    • Very sanely configured, works out of the box
    • Extremely wide spread, huge community
    • Pretty much one of the default choices
    • Reliable
    • Good balance between stable and new

    Silverblue

    • The new cool kid on the block
    • Immutable distro
    • “Your” stuff is decoupled from the “OS stuff”
    • Extremely reliable, you can’t break it
    • And if you break it, you can roll back with one single reboot in a few seconds
    • Very flexible, especially with the uBlue project
    • Auto updates without intervention (no prompt to reboot), changes get applied when you reboot into the newly created image
    • Less buggy, since every OS install is the same
    • Ideal for “just using” your PC and not worrying about anything

    But yeah, as I said, there are many other good recommendations here in the comment section. I personally wouldn’t use something arch based if you want something simple and low-maintainence, but even that is your choice.

    There are pretty much no bad choices.

  • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Hi OP, I would like to state that my personal distro of choice is Arch, but I have used a wide selection of the more popular and some niche distros.

    First of: Just remember that as long as your distro works for your workflow and requirements, you’re doing fine. Don’t fall for some guilt of “This one is way better because of [subjective opinion for their needs].”

    If you want to experiment with distros, just remember to backup your files. One is none, two is one.

    Do you have newer hardware such as a brand new NVIDIA or AMD graphics card, or perhaps a new CPU chipset from Intel that came out this year? Then a rolling distro is probably best for you. There’s many tempting options, but my personal “sane default” is of course Arch. There is an installer once you load the ISO on a flash drive. Just ensure you have an internet connection. There will be a learning curve.

    If you want to have something to guide you along, then Endevour OS is good. While 99% of your questions can be found on /r/archlinux and Arch’s forums, they (rightfully) expect you to use Arch for Arch-based questions. It’s kind of like asking a question for Ford Mustangs when you drive an F-150. While there’s a lot of overlap, it’s not 1:1.

    But if you have something like a laptop from the last few years or more, or just need to focus on your tasks such as your programing and web browsing, and don’t need the latest and greatest, then something more stable is probably best. My top two “I just need it to stay there and remain the same without any worry” distros are:

    • Fedora Linux

    • Debian Linux

    Fedora is going to offer a nice mix of stable yet forward thinking, with major updates rolling out about every 13 months, and it’s a pretty smooth experience upgrading.

    Debian is the grand daddy of modern distros, and it is considered the gold standard. They recently made it so 99% of firmware support needed is now included for easier installation. The only thing that you’ll really get update wise is security fixes and any backports you enable.

    Keep in mind, Arch/Endeavor itself will not implode if you don’t update daily/weekly, it’s just intended to be refreshed often so when anything big is planned, it’s done in smaller chunks. If you install Arch and then go to a remote island for a few months, you’ll most likely be fine once you get back, but there might be some hiccups.

    So if you want more triple A gaming, I think something along Arch/Endevor is “better”, but if you don’t care about the latest and greatest, then I’d say Fedora is a solid foundation.

    Sorry for the small novel, but I wanted to state that there is no explicitly wrong option, all that matters is what you consider important. The defaults, the packages, and your workflow. Anything else is secondary.

    • Lodra@programming.devOPEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Hardware has come up a few times in this post now. Seems I should share a bit about what I’m running 🙂

      I bought an ASUS ROG Strix GA15DK just over 2 years ago. The hardware was shiny but not top-tier at the time. It’s not new at this point but also not old by Linux standards.

      • AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Processor
      • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
      • 16GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM
  • glasgitarrewelt@feddit.de
    4·
    2 years ago

    I like the video by Chris Titus Tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyADkmRVe0U

    He puts about 40 Distros into a tier list and I completly agree with him. Spoiler:

    Supreme: Debian, Arch

    Amazing for new users: Kubuntu, Mint, Zorin, Nobara

    Devil: RedHat, Fedora, Ubuntu, CentOS

    But it is a nice short introduction to the goal of each distro.

      • glasgitarrewelt@feddit.de
        3·
        2 years ago

        I think it is summarized by “because it is backed by a big company”, like Ubuntu. Compared to Debian or Arch, which are community based distros, many people think (me included) that it is a bad thing, that one company has so much control over one distro. They tend to make decisions that benefit them, not the user.

        • samsy@feddit.de
          2·
          2 years ago

          In theory that’s correct. But if you look at the list of progressive changes and contribution. RHEL created a lot of common standards. And we don’t talk about stuff like snap here, we talk about systemd, pipewire etc.

          • glasgitarrewelt@feddit.de
            1·
            2 years ago

            You are right of course, the advantages of big money and great engineers are obviously there. But using a system means also supporting the system and I want to support the debian devs more than Redhat. And it has no downside, Debian is awesome.

            Common standards can be devolped by big companys, they also can be developed by communities. GNU utils and the Linux kernel came out of a community. I like this way much more. And if companies decide to back those projects, it is fine by me. As long as they don’t overtake the project and become too dominant.

            • samsy@feddit.de
              1·
              2 years ago

              Don’t get me wrong I support Debian, too. I decide to use it at work and we have actually more than 40 systems running on Debian.

              Fedora is mostly my choose for client desktop. And I prefer to advice new people to it, just because installing fedora is easier than Debian.

              • glasgitarrewelt@feddit.de
                2·
                2 years ago

                I understand Fedora user completely, it is a great distro and great for beginner. But so is Mint, especially now that there is a Debian based version. So for me it comes down to the question, who do I want to support, RedHat or the community? So I go with Mint most of the time. But no hate for Fedora or Fedora-recommendations.

    • Lodra@programming.devOPEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Ha yes! It’s within my ability to research and choose… but that would cost more time than I want to pay. I’m definitely appreciating the input from the crowd.

  • JoeyJoeJoeJr@lemmy.ml
    4·
    2 years ago

    When you install, whatever you install, partition your drive so that /home is it’s own partition. Then if/when you reinstall, distrohop, whatever, you don’t have to worry about copying over your data. Just use the same /home partition, and format the others. You can actually use this to try multiple distros at the same time - you can install them in different partitions, but have every install use the same /home partition. This is a nice way to test new distros without blowing away your stable install.

    Now, for my distro recommendation - Ubuntu gets a lot of hate, but honestly, after 15+ years of Linux, and having tried Mint, Fedora, Arch, Manjaro, and many others, I always end up back on Ubuntu. It’s easy, it’s stable, and it stays out of my way.

    The defaults are good, but you can customize as much as you want, and they offer a minimal install (as of 23.10, it is the default) which comes with very few applications, so you can start clean and choose all the applications you want.

    Unless you are excited to tinker, I’d really recommend starting simple. Personality, I just want the OS to facilitate my other activities, and I otherwise want to forget about it. Ubuntu is pretty good for that.

      • Chris@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        I used to do this when on Windows too: C was for the OS and apps, D was for user data. The same principle here - separating OS from data is a game changer - and even easier on Linux I think. Makes it so easy to wipe a partition and try something new.

  • aleq@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 years ago

    Given your background it should come to no surprise that it doesn’t really matter much.

    That said, I recommend Arch with some caveats, mainly with regards to the “very little effort to start using” requirement. If you know how to follow instructions, it should only be about 30-45 minutes to install it. It will on the other hand fit your other requirements of good defaults and not shipping with loads of applications. When you install an app you will get that app and nothing else, and the defaults will either be exactly what the upstream defaults would be if you built it yourself or something very close to that. You also have everything available through the AUR, and after using it for years I’ve yet to run into an update not going smoothly.

  • hottari@lemmy.ml
    3·
    2 years ago

    You should listen to the advice from Distro Chooser. Arch fits the bill. You’ll just have to take care not to convolute the system too much with workarounds & all sorts of packages and it will take care of you.

  • vaselined@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 years ago

    Arch is best for you. As you have experience with Linux, you won’t have issues configuring it according to your needs. Arch wiki is a gold mine.

  • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
    3·
    2 years ago

    Once again I am gonna shill Garuda Linux. Use the KDE light version without all of their theming. Personal preference of course, but I absolutely cannot stand their theme.

  • Cihta@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 years ago

    I have to agree with most people, arch is probably the way to go.

    But given the subject I’m gonna piggy back on you and ask about KDE Neon. This is what got me back into desktop Linux after installing it on an old crappy tablet.

    Now i currently run it on a couple older but upgraded AIOs and even my server that primarily does VMs.

    If i understand it’s a little more bleeding edge than people would normally like but I’m curious the community thoughts on it as i don’t hear much. Am I missing out not running arch or mint?