DEV Community

Discussion on: What is the best linux distros?

Collapse
 
vonheikemen profile image
Heiker

Apparently you have some experience with linux so I suggest you research about desktop environments (DE) on linux, pick one and then choose a distribution that uses that DE.

The desktop environments that I have tried that have a "familiar feel" close to windows are:

  • LXDE
  • LXQt
  • XFCE

Currently I'm using Debian stable. I can recommend this if you don't mind spending some time customizing the UI of your desktop.

The good:

  • You get a "rock solid" system that will never, ever break (unless you mess around with it).
  • The official repositories have a large collection of packages.

The bad:

  • Every desktop environment you choose will just have the default settings. Sooner or later you'll want to change those settings.
  • Outdated software.

Let's talk about that last part about old software. It's the price you pay for stability. But it isn't that bad, is not like you're going to get firefox 3.5 or VLC 0.1-beta. The applications you download from the repositories may not have the latest features but I bet their basic functionality it's still intact and they work. There are also prebuilt binaries, appimage, flatpacks, snaps... anyway, a whole bunch of ways you can download an app on linux.