When I first began researching Linux, for my needs, I found the number of different Distros to be overwhelming. So I made this flow chart, with the intent to help new users find a starting point for choosing a distribution.

I’m open to critique, as to making this chart as helpful as possible.

EDIT: Chart updated based on suggestions in the comments.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
    10·
    3 months ago

    In my current and seemingly final jump from WIndows to Linux I had played a bit with Ubuntu, Mint, and Debian. Ubuntu “felt” more like something I could work with, and certainly when you look at installing things from terminal there’s usually Ubuntu or at least Debian, so it seemed a good fit. After running it a while and having no problems (not even with Nvidia which I keep seeing comments on) I noticed regularly things like this on “what distro to pick”, and it always seems from the suggestions that I’ve gone the wrong way. And yet… it’s working great. I’ve got far too much set up and running well to backtrack again and start over, so I guess either Ubuntu users are the silent group or I’m a lone wolf and everyone’s gone to Bazzite or some other offshoot.

    • ghen@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      3 months ago

      Now I’m right here with you. I like it when my updates don’t break the machine right before a gaming session. I like it when I can just Google my problem with the word Ubuntu after it and get a result. I like having gui solutions. But what I like the most about Ubuntu is just telling other Linux nerds that I use Ubuntu and seeing what happens.

      • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        Ubuntu is great. Lots of guides for things, great community support, and things usually just work. Plenty easy enough to do what you want to do without having to learn a bunch of stuff all the time.

        I think this is why it is not the preferred choice for experts who want to configure everything themselves, or have strong opinions about the internals of how it works.

        But I basically want to never have to think about the os if I don’t have to.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        3·
        3 months ago

        Updates never break the machine with Bazzite. It’s kind of impossible. And if you do manage to fuck something up you just rollback by choosing the previous ostree image on the boot menu.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
    91·
    3 months ago

    All this is telling me is that 2025 probably won’t be Linux’ year of the desktop.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
    81·
    3 months ago

    That flow chart is overwhelming.

    How about, just use what you want? If it doesn’t work the way you like, try something else. Nvidia works fine on pretty much any distro, find a PPA or repo or something and it’s largely OK.

    How about:

    • new to Linux? Mint or Fedora - pick the flavor that looks cool to you
    • not new? You know what you like, use that.
  • Angelevo@feddit.nl
    71·
    3 months ago

    Too much focus on Nvidia, AMD is da wae!

    EDIT: Seriously though, the chart is convoluted. If you like to game, you will always end up with Bazzite or Nobara. In theory you could also add SteamOS, right?

    Still cannot really decide which distro to try sometime soon. There is so much information out there, much of it opinionated.

      • Angelevo@feddit.nl
        2·
        3 months ago

        Interesting. Keep reading a lot about some builds being less compatible with certain kinds of hardware. Just running games is one thing. Having them run optimized is another. Thanks though, will check it out some more.

        Having owned a Steamdeck for a bit; was surely impressed with Valves’ work on Linux gaming.

        • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
          3·
          3 months ago

          Just running games is one thing. Having them run optimized is another.

          Frankly, you’ll probably not notice a 1 or 2% difference. The main difference is probably that everything gaming related will already be installed, which is nice I suppose, if you’re not comfortable poking around at your stuff. But all in all, most distributions will end up being fairly similar in the end. They all install the same software after all. The only real thing that has changed lately is the immutable ones, should you want to go that way. Apart from that, it really doesn’t matter that much. Find one that works on your machine, isn’t too exotic so you can find other users in case of trouble, and be happy.

  • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
    5·
    3 months ago

    I’m open to critique, as to making this chart as helpful as possible.

    The entire “New to Linux” section should probably just be “Mint” for anyone without an Nvidia graphics card.

    For newbies, live USB test and installer experience are key, and Mint is still unmatched.

    • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Out of curiosity, is the live USB / install experience that different than kubuntu? I’ve never tried mint.

      • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
        3·
        3 months ago

        I’ve used both, and been very pleased with both.

        Mint stood out, last time I installed it, because every decision was easy and factual and about me (what time zone, what keyboard).

        I essentially just pressed “next” a bunch of times.

        Kubuntu was nearly that good last time I tried it, as well.

        Between the two, I generally recommend Mint primarily because it keeps the messaging simple and consistent with the community.

        Secondarily, because Mint doesn’t have Snap (and I consider Snap bad, in a way that new Linux users are unlikely to appreciate until much later.)

        • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          3·
          3 months ago

          Ah, gotcha.

          I’m not technical enough to understand the functional difference between flatpak and snap, but I know that snaps are centrally controlled by Canonical and thus I assume not as enshittification resistant as flatpak.

          But from the end user perspective, they can be a lot simpler to use than PPAs for random software. For me they’re kind of a guilty pleasure.

  • glorkon@lemmy.world
    4·
    3 months ago

    Is it just me or is the distinction between a rolling release distro and one that you have to upgrade on a regular basis important to other people as well? That’s kinda why I went from Mint to Endeavour. No regrets so far.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      3 months ago

      Yes. I’d rather have small breakage every so often on small updates where it’s easy to tell what happened than large breakage on a release upgrade.

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    4·
    3 months ago

    Whats the difference between a debian base and ubuntu base? Just packages? Wouldn’t each distro bring its own repository source anyway?
    Call me crazy but I like how debian handles things (apt and deb) but I’m not a fan of ubuntu’s snap everything philosophy. Will a ubuntu based distro bring that as well? Pop for example.

    • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      AFAIK it is packages but also default configurations. I am not an expert though this is just a guess.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I figured they probably meant a barebones NixOS install needs way more disk space than anything else, due to how it’s set up?! And that’s why we don’t call it minimal? I can’t come up with any other reason… Well… and I tried nixos-rebuild switch on a Raspberry Pi once and that took like 8 hours or so.

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    Is the graphics card really that important when picking a distro? I think most distributions I used over the years had all the drivers available. But I didn’t try gaming ones except Batocera and Lakka and that was on an Intel iGPU. Or is a GPU faster on one Linux and slower on another?!

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      3 months ago

      AMD has released official Linux drivers, while Nvidia has not. So I believe they were reverse engineered or some shit, so some users have reported issues and/or instability.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        The reverse engineered drivers often struggle with the more recent cards and they lack features and performance. But Nvidia has official drivers as well. I’ve used them on workstations, my old computer and for Artificial Intelligence stuff. It’s just that they’re proprietary and always come with some small annoyances while AMD has good open source drivers in the Linux kernel.