For the past several years, I was running Debian stable & XFCE. It is a great combination. However, I started teaching technology (programming, Linux, and maker-space tech, like laser cutters & CNC routers), and I wanted to see how close I could get to an "easy button" interface, paired with a principles-driven, highly stable base. I gave LMDE a try, with an open mind, and was seriously impressed.
Linux desktop environments have come a long way, and Mint - with the "start" button (with application quick search), window management, "sane" defaults - it just works.
I will also mention that the Software Manager perfectly blends Debian source packages, and FlatPaks. From my experience, nearly all software that I want to install on it "just works" by searching for it. Those that aren't available there, it seems that downloading a .Deb to install it "just works" as well.
As background context, I have used Linux for 20+ years (Mandrake, Gentoo, RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, and now LMDE) - LMDE gets my roaring endorsement, and I think more people ought to check it out.
I’d just get one of the mainstream ones which will have the most community support available, and go with it. Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora most likely. I’ve had good luck with OpenSuse in the past, but not too many people use Suse outside of the enterprise, which can be an issue if you’re just starting out.
Curious what you’re doing for hardware. That’s always the biggest hurdle for me when looking to do anything outside of macOS.
https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy
It was working quite perfectly with 22.04 but there are some caveats with the recent Pop OS "Cosmos" version, I can't find the shortcut to cycle between instances of the same application (cmd + `) and in general the OS is a little buggy and functionality can be quite sparse in some applications like you can't rearrange tabs in their terminal yet and it didn't even have "open new tab to the same folder I'm in" until recently. However the trajectory they're on is a Mac-like system-wide consistency and thoughtfulness, it's just early-stage.
Everything seems to be tied to a subscription now on the Windows/Mac side in some way, its been very off putting for me.
I run Zorin on an old Mac and I am pleased with it.
For completeness: I use Windows too because I use some commercial software and can buy used Thinkpads for about $100 any time I want another laptop.
But on other machines, I just run Mint. It is just a nice and comfortable thing. The base Cinnamon desktop is basically just Windows 7 locked in place with a few quality of life improvements. Not too ambitious but that ends up keeping things simple and mostly just works. For those that want more power and tweaking it isn't the best choice.
Only thing that ever broke was a nVidia driver thing, once. Flawless with AMD, and Proton means Steam runs AAA games out of the box. Windows VMs work fine.
Also had good experiences with the Ubuntu / Mint family, and liked Manjaro (Arch) until pacman stopped working for some reason
OS is solid, everything works, I'm happy.
The older I get the more I feel myself thinking like Linus. The OS should just get out of my way.
Now I’m Debian for servers and whatever comfortable Debian based user experience is popular for a laptop. I played with zorin recently. It was fun.
I believe it's important to be part of the change you want to see (from walled gardens perspective)
I was always a Debian and Ubuntu guy, and hated RPM OSes, but between Debian's old releases and Ubuntu's decisions (snap), it was enough to drive me to Fedora. I get the latest versions and stability and a decent usable desktop.
With Ubuntu I didn't like how Canonical was trying to push things I didn't like into the OS
Arch was fun for a bit but turned into a bit of a pain in the ass needing to fix things, or manually configure it
Debian Stable has more or less just worked and I have no reason to switch
I would still recommend trying it out as your mileage may vary.
I really like the idea of NixOS, but it somehow doesn't flow for me
I rely on Debian for my daily needs and forced it on my wife.
I got sick of breakage when updating to new Ubuntu releases.
One thing that Linux just gets right compared to macos and windows is the package managers. Brew is nice and all, but it's nothing compared to pacman/apt. I also miss it for the window managers. Coming from i3, navigating a mac felt so slow and inefficient.
Linux can be intimidating, but I'd suggest just starting off and try it. Preferably in something more beginner friendly. I've heard good things about Debian. If you want the full on "I (kinda) use arch btw", I'd also check out Manjaro which runs arch in the background.
GL!
I had been very satisfied with the hardware quality of my Apple laptop, but I had mixed feelings about the Apple software. There were a few things that I liked, but overall I was dissatisfied because there were too many constraints in what I was allowed to do and I like to have absolute control over my computers.
In the beginning, I had experimented with many Linux distributions, but eventually, around 2003 I switched to Gentoo, also because it allowed me even better control of everything that a computer does than most Linux distributions available then (or now).
At that time, Gentoo had exceptional documentation, similar to that of FreeBSD, which had been a major source of inspiration for Gentoo, and I learned a lot of things from that documentation and from configuring and managing Gentoo on various desktops, laptops and servers.
I have continued to use Gentoo until today. Unfortunately, while Gentoo still has a reasonably good documentation for newbies, nowadays no Linux distribution has documentation as good as that from a couple of decades ago, because many new features have been added and a lot of the old features have become obsolete, but much of the documentation, at all Linux distributions, has not been completely updated with everything that has changed.
Until now, I did not have any reason to change from Gentoo, as it continues to allow me the fine control that I want. I have used from time to time other distributions, like Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Arch, but all were more difficult to customize.
My parents had used Gentoo for more than a decade, until being around ninety years old, and they did not know what "Linux" is. Nonetheless, they did whatever they wanted, like reading and writing various kinds of documents, browsing Internet, watching movies, listening music, watching TV (with a TV tuner card) etc. That was possible because they had me for installing the OS and the applications that they needed. Once everything was installed, nothing was more difficult than it would have been in MacOS or Windows. Actually many things were simpler.
Nevertheless, it is likely that Gentoo is not recommendable for someone who does not have programming experience and who does not have someone to help, like my parents had.
Among the other Linux distributions, the one that implements some features that I want, so it is tempting to try, is NixOS (or its derivative Guix). But until now I have not found time to experiment with it, because there was no pressing need, as Gentoo, with which I am habituated, still works fine.
Gentoo is renowned for slow installations, because typically you must compile all the programs from sources.
But with modern fast computers that is not really true. With a fast CPU with many cores and high frequency, most packages can be compiled in seconds and there are only a few outliers, like Chromium, Webkit, Firefox, LLVM, which may need a long compilation time.
Moreover, for installing Gentoo on a slow laptop or mini-PC, you can run the installation on a fast desktop, where you install everything in a temporary directory after a fast compilation, and then you just copy the contents of the directory into the root file system of the target computer. Running the Gentoo installation can be done even if that desktop uses a different Linux distribution, or even if it does not have Linux, but you boot it from a USB memory containing some live Linux image.
I use it since ~20 years on most of my notebooks/PCs/root servers mainly because of its flexibility and I often end up wanting to use the very latest versions of software (e.g. ZFS, kernels, etc...) without struggling as most things are available from the official central package repository. I admit that updating/upgrading the OS is a pain from the time perspective (because of the long compilation times). As a programmer/developer the experience is as well fantastic as most of the libraries, compilers, interpreters, etc are very well integrated or easily installable.
I did try to use a few times Linux Arch, but I never fully liked its AUR.
For VMs I basically use always either Debian or Linux Mint with Xfce.
For gaming, mediacenter-PC and webradio-miniPC I use Linux Mint with Xfce.
It's funny that whenever I need assistance with some task (fixing a problem, doing something weird, ...) and I mention to Google Gemini something like "I'm using Gentoo Linux blahblah" then often Gemini starts its reply with something like "Ah, a picky Gentoorian, I see - then let's do this the complicated way..." :o)
- Primary desktop (custom-built): NixOS + Windows 11 (latter currently unbootable because installing NixOS nuked Windows' UEFI; whoops lmao)
- Primary laptop (Framework 16): Aeon (immutable openSUSE variant) + Windows 11 LTSC
- Secondary laptop (Framework 13): OpenBSD-current (+ occasional Windows, Haiku, NixOS by booting from Framework expansion cards)
- Band room recording laptop (Dell G5 15): AV Linux