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Madza
Madza Subscriber

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What's the best Linux distro for Windows users?

What Linux distros would you suggest for the users looking to migrate from Windows? It's best if you could suggest something similar UI/UX-wise.

Top comments (49)

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siddiqueshahid profile image
Shahid Siddique • Edited

Try Linuxfx, UI is same as Windows 10

distrowatch.com/table.php?distribu...

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itsraghz profile image
Raghavan alias Saravanan Muthu

Interesting. Thanks for sharing

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

Looks great 😉

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siddiqueshahid profile image
Shahid Siddique

haven't used it myself.

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tomassirio profile image
Tomas Sirio

Do you want to start using Linux? Then try Ubuntu or Pop-Os. Both are Debian distributions which are documented all over the internet.

Do you want to have a 'Windowsy' feeling? Then try Zorin-Os

Do you want to have a 'MacOsy' feeling? Then try Elementary-Os

Don't feel discouraged about the amount of Linux distributions there are out there. Linux is a pretty customizable OS and you'll find out sooner or later what do you like and what not.

I'd give Ubuntu a try as my first choice since it's the 'easiest' one

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matborowiak profile image
Mat Borowiak

WSL Ubuntu + Windows Terminal = ❤
The performance of this solution is amazing.

For those who don't know:
ubuntu.com/wsl

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itsraghz profile image
Raghavan alias Saravanan Muthu

Yes just to get a linux experience on linux. Be mindful of the fact that this WSL is a customized wrapper and has it's own restrictions.

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matborowiak profile image
Mat Borowiak

I guess the main purpose is to be able to work within linux dev environment when programming, when you are attatched to Windows for different reasons. I personally have never experienced any restrictions in that area yet. Woud you be so kind to name some? I am honestly curious about it 😃

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rishitkhandelwal profile image
Rishit Khandelwal

WSL is incomplete, you don't get hardware access (according to my memory).

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sandraw profile image
Anderlik Sándor

I would recommend Linux Mint or Ubuntu :)

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mccurcio profile image
Matt Curcio

Love Mint!
I used to play with a new different distro every month,
but now I just want my computer to just work, so that I can get down to work.

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madza profile image
Madza

Linux Mint was my initial thought too 😉

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patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt • Edited

I would recommend Ubuntu with default GNOME 3.

Forget about Windows looks. Focus more on out of the box experience and community support.

(Actually, if possible, I would recommend macOS. I haven't tried Hackintosh to recommend it.)

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jankapunkt profile image
Jan Küster

Two considerations you might want to investigate:

  • do you want all-inclusive out-of-the-box or start lean and configure a lot?
  • do you prefer a minimalistic desktop or a full-blown desktop

You should consider these questions, based on what you liked about Windows 10 and what not. Then you could add these preferences, so suggestions will be closer to meet your expectations.

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

If you want to use it as WSL, I'd say Ubuntu. It's not my favourite distro, but what's run under WSL is fairly approximate anyway, and Ubuntu is going to have the most support.

If you want to run it standalone, it honestly doesn't matter what distro you get but Gnome is probably the simplest desktop environment, or XFCE if you want something more like the classic Windows XP look and feel.

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ashiqsultan profile image
Mohamed Ashiq Sultan

Use WSL2 if you need Windows for office and Linux only for development purpose. Docker, VS-Code support WSL2. You can even containerize a dev environment in WSL2 using VSCode and Docker.

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paptoos profile image
Paptoos Inc.

LinuxFx like windows 10
forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/20...
Zorin Os is like windows ui too
zorinos.com/

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mvoloskov profile image
Miloslav 🏳️‍🌈 🦋 Voloskov

Yes, Zorin OS looks really good.

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reinhart1010 profile image
Reinhart Previano K. • Edited

For starters I generally recommend Ubuntu or Fedora-based operating system with KDE, for example Kubuntu or KDE Neon. Here's a screenshot of my desktop running KDE Plasma 5.19.5 on Ubuntu 20.04.

Desktop screenshot

However, if you feel that you have a less-powerful machine (e.g. those without dedicated GPUs) I usually recommend XFCE-based Ubuntu distros such as Xubuntu and Linux Lite.

I usually don't recommend Debian-based distros, except some such as MX Linux. Since Debian highly focuses on stability rather than frequent feature updates, some software in their repository may not be as updated as those in Ubuntu, including WINE (winehq-stable) which allows some Windows (.exe) programs to work under Linux. However, there is a workaround for this by manually adding new package sources/repository on APT.