What distro?

EVE Technology and Research Center Linux
22

I want to thank THX for posting the laundry list of distros, at same time, I wish to explain to anyone new to Linux not to be intimidated by the size of this list. I have often made the analogy of Windows and Linux being tailor shops. Microsoft offers you a one-size fits-all blue suit, while Linux community has custom fits.

@Akkar_Kardashev Debian is one of the first distros to use the Linux kernel. I always thought the origin of the name was sweet, as it is named for the husband and wife team who created it. Ian Murdock and Deb Murdock, gave birth to it in 1993. They also named the distros after characters from Toy Story.

For everyone needs or wants to understand the jargon here.

Kernel - The core operating system that runs the CPU, memory, and devices through to the applications. That is why we refer to the scope of this as Linux OS.

Distro or Distribution - The product which includes all the programs needed to operate the OS. While the size can vary, the minimal would include a package manager, tools, libraries, and either a terminal, or graphic interface, to get the system installed.

Desktop Environment or DE - This is how your system appears on screen, a package of apps to interact with your PC. Most DEs typically consists of icons, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers, and desktop utilities. For example; OpenBox DE is nothing more than a black screen, right click and one gets a menu. Meanwhile KDE Plasma has numerous widgets the user can use to access CPU temps, monitor hardware, or just have a goofy set of “Eyes” follow the mouse cursor around the screen. Gnome, Xfce, Mate, LXDE, Cinnamon, etc. are the DEs and you can host as many as you are willing to install on your system.

WINE - Acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator. Most of us are aware of the redundancy loop within the acronym. Some people assume it means WINdows Emulator, which is not an accurate description at all. However no emulation or virtualization is used. WINE is a compatibility layer available for both Linux and MAC OS. Valve ( Steam ) works with Codeweavers to produce Photon a Wine-based compatibility layer for games. Meanwhile Codeweavers sells their customer supported version of Wine titled CrossOver.

Game Managers - Steam, Lutris, and PlayOnLinux are front-ends and game managers for the WINE application or one of its derivatives. Most will host scripts and various WINE builds for specific titles.

There are more layers to Linux than an onion, but in the end, it your OS, you own it.

1 Like
23

tbh i find this list of distros completely unhelpful. First and foremost i would choose a distro based on a large userbase and therefore lots of help sites and forums and tutorials available.
This also means there is a lot of bug testing and fixing on those distros.

Otherwise you end up like some people here who install a new distro every two weeks when they encountered a problem that they can’t solve even with the help of the internet.

24

I can understand that position. You need a community when running community software. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux . I recall seeing the box in Staples back in the mid to late 90’s. Back then, they were competeing against Windows 95 and 98. It is my opinion, Windows 95 is when it really started to take off. At the time, I was at work using UNIX on a mainframe VAX 9000 by DEC. I went home to Windows 95 or 98 had no problem with either of them.

I won’t discourage new users from exploring other venues. I have read comments about Arch being hard to set up. It can be, if you are doing it step by step from scratch. This is why I recommend Manjaro since it makes Arch Linux more accessible. Red Hat wants paid subscribers to their Linux OS, which is okay by me, but in recent years they appear to getting greedy. This is offending the open source community. I try to steer clear of politics but as the title says, here is the drama behind Open Source and Red Hat.

One might ask, why am I paying for something others give away freely? They offer customer support for their product. In essence, it is the same difference between WINE ( free open source ) and CrossOver ( a paid commercial product with customer support ). Open source programs get rebranded and sold all the time. For example; In the License Agreement of Blender 3D ( open source ), clearly states you can sell it for profit. Most people used it to make video games and videos. However once in a while one could find eBay video and game generators for sale that was nothing more than Blender 3D renamed and packaged on CD.

25

I ended up picking Fedora 42 with KDE

It works well and the video works in wayland and not stuck in X11

26

you know the list i posted al the distros there do have a certain feature which makes them hard to brick.
this was the issue OP had in the first palce.

and imo it realy dosnt metter wich distro you choose
the desktop environment is way more important for the end user fresh to linux.
and there is:
kde
cinemon
budgie
mate
cinemon
xfce

which can get close to the used and proofed windows desktop
all with their ups and downs

Personally im waiting for cosimc desktop to improve a bit and add some certain fetures i need to have.

@oumpaa_Podiene
i tink fedora with kde is a good choice
i think the best way for you would be fedora kinoite
its fedora atomic with kde

and its atomic wich means
ether your updates work completely or not at all.
and if they dont work they wont get applied
so you wont get stuck on a unusable system
and have time to figure out why the update was not successful

and atomic distros are superior imo for the enduser

27

I’m using Gentoo.
After you spent a couple of weeks on installing process (probably will take multiple attempts from the scratch) you know a lot more. After that its pretty easy to configure.

Great features are “Use flags” and “slots” (and not “1% of performance” as someone else said).

KDE as a desktop environment.