is this a transparent png? I literally can’t see any of the lines and the background is black…
It’s an SVG
Lukewarm take: distro doesn’t matter, really. DE has a much bigger impact. I don’t care about package managers or init systems or whatever.
New to Linux, not fine with learning, and getting asked if you want apt or rpm… not sure if that works.
Welcome to Linux! I might say that the package system doesn’t matter too much, both are popular and more often than not large distributions have (almost) the same packages.
The things that you should worry about are:
- How stable are the releases? (How many times I’ll have to fix problems that I don’t want to investigate) There are Linux distros that are on the “bleeding edge”, meaning they get releases very often but sometimes things break and you will have to fix them either by using a backup or troubleshooting. (This doesn’t happen often though IME) But more stable distros tend to receive new updates later than everyone else.
- How adapted is the distro to what I want to do? If you want to use it as a desktop for graphic tools like office work, graphic design or gaming, it will direct you towards a group of distributions, rather than the other. It is also important to consider if a specific application that you want to use is available or not. (In many cases it should be, but if you don’t want to tinker, having your system working out of the box should be a priority)
- How compatible is it with my hardware? If this is a laptop, I’ll suggest searching with the laptop model and the linux distro terms, seeing if there is a wiki page for your specific computer; documentation in the linux world is essential. Otherwise, there’s a thing called usb live linux that can turn most usb pen drives in a live running OS, allowing you to test and trial how compatible the distribution is.
Finally, some advice:
- Figure out your backup method soon and test it. Backup before trying something new. (Top priority)
- Use flatpak, appimage or snap to install applications. I ordered by my personal preference, but sometimes applications are not available in all formats. Few applications like Gnome Software or KDE discover will simplify your life managing apps as if you were using a phone.
- Be easy on yourself and have fun. Sometimes this world can be frustrating, but I’m sure the answer is right around the corner, you just need time ;)
Thank you for the detailed response, but I was merely criticizing the flowchart. I am a Linux poweruser/sysadmin, and roll with arch at home, asahi fedora on my MacBook, and I manage mint/debian at work.
My flowchart would have two branches. You either are new and I recommend mint for work, popOS/maybe Nobara for gaming, or you’re not new and should go and do your own research as to which distro is good for you.
Ah ok, I misread your comment. Indeed having to worry about things like rpm or deb is totally a downer for someone just looking for a windows alternative.
Mint is also what I tend to recommend. Though Gaming users that are looking for a plug and play experience, I’m unsure if it would be better recommending something arch-based or an atomic image based distro like bazzite.
Hi, random new Linux user, as someone who games, and does Inkscape / Davinci stuff. Bazzite is awesome, mostly just works. Wife uses it too now and it’s pretty great. Only one issue I have is in relation to Bluetooth acting up on my system. Occasionally.
Only for corporate (Where presumably someone will tell you which is necessary). If you still think that’s a problem you can have server go to Ubuntu and Desktop go to OpenSUSE
Are you a Nixos fan? Why else would it be there 3 times and everything else once apart from 2 debians.
Yeah, seems like OP is here to promote NixOS. I ended up on NixOS on the top row because I’m a Linux veteran of almost 20 years and I’m still eager to learn more. But I had a look at NixOS a few times and I’ve decided on a hard no. Thanks but no thanks.
My way of seeing it is similar to yours: If you’re interested in learning NixOS, then go for it, but if you need an OS that gets out of the way but still gives us plenty of customization choices then I’ll rather go for something else.
The thing is, I want to have audio in my system without having to spend two weeks learning a new declarative language plus pulseaudio, alsa, pipewire, etc…
My time in this blursed earth is short and I want to focus learning what I care about.
In other words: There’s people that like crafting their own tools and there’s people that go to the shop and buy some, but NixOS feels like that youtube channel “Primitive Technology” where the guy builds the tools out of raw materials, including the furnace to melt iron, the casts, buckets, pliers, table, etc.
Exactly my sentiment. Learning this seemingly complicated language that gets me up to par with what already works on other distros, for very little gain. I’m not down for that. I will not be learning Nix in my lifetime, I imagine. Oh well.
NixOS is kind of awesome. It has a crazy amount of stuff packaged compared to other distros. And the declarative approach is super nice. And you get to learn a lot of things. First of all a completely new programming language to write these configurations. And lots of weird concepts and its internals which enable it to do what it does. And it’s mandatory to know about that stuff or you can’t do basic things. And then it also made me read a good amount of source code, because there’s often not enough documentation available, and I had to figure it out on my own (by reading the sources). So I’d say if you like learning new things… It’ll definitely make you do it. 😄
I like learning new things where I don’t have to do:
- “weird concepts”
- mandatory to know about [weird concepts; internals] or you can’t do basic things (🤯)
- made me read a good amount of source code [I do that enough at work, I don’t want to be forced to do that at home]
- there’s often not enough documentation available [fuck that noise]
- the error messages might be very basic or misleading 😐🙄
Like I said, I do like learning new things, but this ain’t it. I had a hard time figuring out if you were being sarcastic or not, based on how ridiculous these points usually are when it comes to defining a good piece of software. All those things, poor documentation, poor error messages, having to read the source… are steering me far away from something I was already hesitant about due to how little gain there is.
It’s like the whole project exists only to waste as much collective time as possible. 🙎♂️🤷♂️
I want to learn new things, that can benefit me in some way. Not for the sake of knowing something. 😆
Thanks, and that’s the right thing to do… I deliberately phrased it so you can’t tell if it’s sarcasm. I mean the “weirdness” is a bit due to how it works very differently than the usual Linux distribution. I mean it’s not really objectively weird, these things are there for a reason. But it’s subjectively very weird and confusing to anyone who dares to apply their pre-existing Linux knowledge… Because there’s a lot of additional stuff to factor in.
And I didn’t mention the upsides. You can easily define and manage reproducible development environments. Roll something out to 500 servers or workstations without any effort and it’ll install your Firefox addons and bookmarks and favorite shell customizations while at it. It’s highly customizable. And if it’s in there, you can install a mailserver or Nextcloud with 10 lines of code and one command. And it’ll usually be very easy to maintain after that. It can roll back the system and a few nice things.
So it’s gonna save a lot of time as well, if you use things to your advantage. But I highly doubt that’s going to be someone’s average desktop Linux install. Other than that I think my portrayal of the underlying complexity, the disorganized documentation and the learning curve (which is as steep as a wall) is somewhat accurate.
I’m glad we have all the options available with Linux. And there’s some valid niche for all of them. Just think twice whether those highly specialized ones are what you need. I think NixOS is quite an investment in learning things, poking at stuff and getting lost in side-quests. Whether that’s wasted time in total, entirely depends on what you do with it later. I tried it. And I like it and hate it at the same time. And I wasted more time on it than I’m willing to admit… It’s not bad, just a lot. And the average admin or user might not need all the things it’s good at.
Good follow up.
Yeah, I run like two or three computers, for which chezmoi is more than enough of a solution. I don’t run complicated services or anything. Firefox add-ons are synced already. All good. If I didn’t have kids and approaching my 40s with a growing games and movies/shows backlog, increasing demand for exercise, etc, etc, I might dabble. But now, too late for me. 😆
@slazer2au @Shadow_Glider And have you ever even tried Guix? Not systemd…
Na, I stick to the enterprise stuff for work Deb and rhel families.
Image is not loading on for me : “Invalid media file provided”?
This is confused all over the place…
Should probably also have a bleeding edge branch into Arch, Fedora, Tumbleweed and Slowroll
low amount of computing power
gentoo
99% OP was trolling. Two days later: “I don’t agree with all previous flowcharts…”
This is going to be the new tier list meme. 😂
Not sure about the “fine with learning” part. I’m fine with learning, but learning isn’t my primary motivation, but more like a bonus!
That being said, it did neatly capture why I chose CachyOS over Arch!
Redox has limited hardware support and I don’t think it’s ready to be a daily driver. It’s also not Linux.
I wouldn’t recommend Pop!_OS until the next version with Cosmic is out. It’s quite outdated right now. I guess you can try the beta.
It was a joke, BSD users probably don’t need a chart
Why is arch under “don’t want to learn”? I learned a lot of what I know about Linux from using arch.
That being said, the chart is supporting my inkling to try Nix… must be accurate
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Straight to the right. Simple as that, btw.
