Best Linux Distros
Is your current Linux distribution really the best in town, or are you missing something even better?
Voice
Feature
We’re going to get a lot of flak for writing these words, but we’re not scared – Linux Voice drops ice cubes down the vest of fear. So here we go: you might be using the wrong Linux distribution. Or to put it more diplomatically, you might not be running the distro that’s best suited to you. “What a load of codswallop!”, you respond. “My distro does exactly what I need it to do. I’ve been using it for years and I’m happy with it.”
That’s great, but could it still do a lot more? Have you really tried all of the big-name distros in depth? Could there be another distro out there that’s better than yours in a key area such as security, performance or documentation? Is your distro really the best when you’re trying to convert newbies to Linux? It’s good to settle on a single distro and learn its ins-and-outs, but given the rapid pace of development in Linux, it’s always worth keeping your eyes open for something better.
With all these things in mind, we decided to look at the current state of play in the Linux distro world. We wanted to see which distros excel in certain important areas, to find out who’s leading the charge here in mid-late 2014.
In tests like these, it’s often possible to bundle certain distros together as they’re so closely related. In the Packages section, for instance, we look at Ubuntu and Mint together because they share the same repositories. In any case, we want to give you all the information you need to make an informed choice about the best distro for you. So if the one you’re currently using comes up tops in the categories important to you – congratulations! And if not, fire up VirtualBox and start exploring…
For beginners, two things are important. One is whether you can work out how to do something by yourself. The second is how easy is it to find a solution if you hit a problem.
For a long time, the standard distro for any beginner was Ubuntu. However, since the introduction of the Unity interface, it has become less popular. The non-traditional layout of the desktop could lead to beginners feeling unfamiliar, and the Launcher and scopes can take a little getting used to. People coming from Windows may also get confused by the way the window menu bar blends into the top menu bar.
The others distros we’ve looked at are all based on a traditional desktop, and the layout should be familiar to anyone who’s used a computer at any time in the last 20 years. They have a task bar along the bottom and an applications menu in the lower right-hand corner.
Mint is the most popular of these. Its two main flavours (Mate and Cinnamon) are sufficiently similar that we’ll consider them together. The last of the contenders in this category is Mageia.
Overall, we feel the KDE environment of Mageia is a bit too cluttered to be ideal for beginners, though it does have an important place. Both of the main Mint desktop environments (Cinnamon and Mate), are clean with unnecessary detail tucked away. It also looks really nice, which helps give a good first impression – no one wants their new operating system to look worse than their old one.
The biggest difference between Ubuntu and the others from a beginner’s point of view isn’t the interface, but the huge amount of help online in the form of tutorials, forum posts, and solutions to problems. If you get stuck on Ubuntu, you’re far more likely to find a solution online than if you’re using another flavour of Linux. Of course, an experienced user will know that if they have a problem on Mint or Zorin (another distro aimed specifically at new Linux users, with an interface designed to look and feel like Windows), they could look for a solution for Ubuntu and it would probably work. However, we can’t really expect a new user to know this.
Ultimately, we think that the amount of help available for Ubuntu outweighs the unfamiliar user interface. However, everyone is different, and any of these distros would make a good choice for beginners. We would recommend Mint (either version) for beginners who had trouble getting used to Unity, and Mint Mate edition for people with lower-powered hardware.
The Ubuntu Launcher does far more than a typical desktop menu. This can take a bit of getting used to, and has drawn criticism from privacy groups for its internet searching.
This category is particularly contentious for two reasons. First, what is beauty, and who gets to define it? Second, since almost any distro can be made to look like almost any other distro, how do we decide which is the best looking? These are both valid questions, but we will crush them both with an authoritarian boot. Firstly, we know beauty when we see it, so we get to define it (if you don’t like that, start your own magazine). Secondly, we’ll look at each distro naked, straight after installing it.
Bodhi Linux is based on Enlightenment, which bills itself as the original eye-candy desktop environment. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Bodhi (and Enlightenment) is how many graphical treats it can supply with very little strain on the hardware. This makes it a good choice if you’re after a slick distro for a low-powered machine. However, some of the graphical niceties feel a bit like they’re there to show off, rather than to make using the desktop a more pleasing experience.
Lots of distros come with KDE, but default KDE is a bit lacklustre. OpenSUSE and Mageia do quite a good job of improving it, but they’re not in the top tier. Our favourite KDE flavour is Rosa Desktop Fresh. As soon as the desktop loads, you can see it’s not standard KDE. At the bottom of the screen, the RocketBar replaces the panel, but looks a lot nicer. Along with the usual icons and widgets, there’s a Downloads stackfolder that enables you to see the contents of ~/Downloads without having to open up the file manager. Simple Welcome takes the place of the KDE menu, and works a little like a souped-up Gnome Dash. All these enhancements mean it’s not the best distro if you prefer to use your own KDE configuration, but for people who want a good-looking distro on first boot, it’s great.
Mint Cinnamon does a good job of getting out of the way, while still being pleasing to the eye. It’s the least ostentatious of the environments we’ve looked at here, and this comes from having a clean desktop and a well-themed set of GTK widgets.
Pantheon – the desktop environment of Elementary OS – also uses GTK to provide a clean and elegant look. Elementary takes this approach further than Cinnamon, and the environment is stripped down to its bare essentials. Every icon feels like it’s been placed for a good reason, and every pixel tweaked to fit in perfectly.
All of these distros look good. However, Elementary OS does the best job of carrying its style through the wide range of apps that comprise it, and so we’re declaring it the best-looking desktop distro.
The clean, simple style of Elementary OS flows through the desktop and all of its included applications to make a beautiful computing environment.
Brace yourself for some controversial statistics. Counting the exact number of packages in a distribution can be tricky, and different distributions package up software in different ways. For instance: imagine you’ve got a program called FooApp that has support for 10 different languages for its interface. One distro might bundle everything together into a single package – whereas another may give each language its own package. Multiply this over thousands of programs with multi-language support, and it drastically changes the package counts between distros, even if they have the same number of applications.
Similarly, many programs support the use of plugins and extensions; again, these may be placed into the main package in some distros, or split out across dozens of extra packages in others. Quite a few distros make use of “virtual” packages, so installing, for example, the package xfce4 actually pulls in 20+ other packages. And some distros that provide long-term support include multiple versions of packages for maximum compatibility (eg older versions of SDL, SDL-mixer, SDL-image etc).
So the end result doesn’t necessarily reflect the range of software in a distro. Although it has twice the number of packages in its repositories, Debian doesn’t simply have twice as many standalone programs as OpenSUSE. But one thing is for sure: if you’re looking for a lesser-known or obscure piece of software, you’re more likely to find it in the distros with the high package counts. A big chunk of the programs in Arch and Debian are old and haven’t been updated in years, but they’re still being rebuilt to work with the latest distro versions.
Now, let’s talk about Arch Linux. We separated its package statistics into two parts here: one for the main distro (community, core, extra etc. repositories), and the other for AUR, the Arch User Repository. The latter is enormous and updated at a breakneck pace, but the packages are not in the “official” distribution (although they often end up there after extensive testing). Officially, Arch only had 6,836 packages at the time of writing – not actually that many, but that’s what you get if you stick to the main distro.
“But hang on”, you say, scratching your head. “I’ve just been to www.archlinux.org/packages, and it says there are 11,459 packages. What gives?” Well, that’s the total for i686 and x86_64 packages – there’s a lot of overlap. It’s unfair to count the packages for all architectures (otherwise Debian’s bar in the chart below would extend beyond the top of the page), so in the case of Arch and other distros, we chose the x86_64 and any/noarch repositories. Basically, the stats below show the number of packages you can install on an x86_64 box.
After all that a caveat: quality does not mean quantity. If you’re looking for a server box, packages of synthesizers, games etc aren’t going to be much use to you.
Quality is a lot more important than quantity when it comes to documentation. Over the years we’ve seen many free software projects that have reams of guides, tutorials and FAQs, but if the content is badly written, unorganised or out of date, it’s not much use. The same applies to distros: a short, concise and well-written guide is much more useful than poorly maintained scraps of information scattered around the web.
Debian’s official documentation is generally well crafted, but it suffers from a lack of centralisation. Go to www.debian.org/doc and you’ll see that there are plenty of resources, but it’s not clear where to start if you’re seeking help about a specific problem. Should you look at the FAQ? Or Debian Reference? Maybe the wiki has the answer… It gets a bit messy, but we have to give a mention to the separate Debian Administrator’s Handbook (http://debian-handbook.info). This is exactly what we’re looking for as end users and admins: everything you might need, in one place.
Ubuntu’s docs (https://help.ubuntu.com) are mainly focused on desktop end-users, with well categorised mini-guides to common tasks. The Server Guide has more advanced user material – but it’s not exhaustive. Plenty of other tips are scattered around the wiki at https://help.ubuntu.com/community, and there’s also
www.askbuntu.com, which is a good way for getting quick-fire responses to questions.
Many guides for Debian and Ubuntu apply to Mint, but the latter also has its own PDF installation guides in various languages: www.linuxmint.com/documentation.php. Some of the versions are very out-dated, however, missing the latest Mint releases.
Mageia, meanwhile, doesn’t really impress with its limited range of guides at
www.mageia.org/en/doc; there’s some information on the installer and control panel, presented in an unwelcoming fashion, but not much else on the wiki.
Back in the days of dial-up modem connections, SUSE Linux was our absolute favourite for documentation. You’d order a boxed set over the phone, and a few days later a hefty lump of Linux goodness would arrive at your door, containing three chunky manuals. It was bliss. Today, OpenSUSE still has an excellent set of documentation at http://doc.opensuse.org: the Startup guide (for regular end users), Reference (for administrators) and extra guides for security and virtualisation. There’s some overlap and we’d like to see them combined more effectively, but the information contained therein is clear and well presented.
Then we have Fedora and CentOS. The former, at http://docs.fedoraproject.org, is in a sorry state: you’re told to select a language and then Fedora version, and read the docs from there. Our test case was to find a guide to adding new user accounts – and for Fedora 20, it wasn’t there. Nothing. When we opened up the documentation list for Fedora 18, however, we saw the System Administrator’s Guide, which had the information we needed. So lots is either outdated or badly sorted – it’s hard to navigate and needs to be cleaned up.
CentOS doesn’t fare much better. The manuals at www.centos.org/docs don’t cover the last two major releases, while the wiki has some useful guides, but they’re scattered around and would be better organised into a single reference document. Of course, CentOS users can read the official Red Hat documentation at http://tinyurl.com/rheldocs, which is very thorough, straightforward, and polished. You can see the results of Red Hat paying people to work full-time on documentation.
Finally we come to Arch Linux, and we’ve saved the best until last here. Arch’s documentation is almost entirely provided on the distro’s wiki at https://wiki.archlinux.org, which has some of the most in-depth and detailed guides we’ve seen of any software project. The Beginner’s Guide is especially good, if a bit long-winded (but then, Arch is targeted at experienced Linux users). Then there’s the General Recommendations page, which is a superb one-stop-shop for all things administration: user management, packages, power management and so forth.
But what makes Arch our winner is this: for the large part, its information applies to other distros. In discussions on the web, we’ve seen users of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and other distros paste links to the Arch wiki, simply because its guides are so good.
There are lots of different aspects to security – enough for eight pages on its own. Your first step is to understand your own requirements. If your first priority is the security of your own data, for example, you would require a distribution that’s happy to encrypt your home folder or root partition and handle the complexity that that involves. You may also want to extend that requirement to easy integration of GnuPG into the default email client, or even making sure Firefox is pre-configured to always use HTTPS. But most importantly, security needs to be easy, because if you don’t understand what you’re doing, a bad configuration is worse than no configuration at all, because it gives you a false sense of security. This is the problem with Arch. It can be the quickest distribution to patch a vulnerability, and it makes an excellent server, but you need to know what you’re doing, because a mistake could be costly.
We have to give credit to Ubuntu here. It took the relatively brave step of moving its full-disk encryption option from behind the advanced settings in its installer to the forefront of the installation processes, giving many more users the opportunity to encrypt their data. For a distribution as user-friendly and as popular as Ubuntu, this was a brave move. Even the EFF was impressed.
Ubuntu also made a lot of noise when its shopping scope searches from the dash sent unencrypted data through its own servers to Amazon. Many of us had strong feelings about this, especially as there was no way of turning it off. But these problems have been mostly addressed, and while it’s still turned on by default, there’s a simple way of turning the shopping scope off. If you wanted to be certain, for course, we’d recommend using an Ubuntu derivative, but Ubuntu is still a good choice for easy, comprehensive encryption.
Booting Tails from a USB stick will keep your connections anonymous through the Tor network.
The other principal concern is online security. This always used to mean the pre-configuration of a firewall blocking external access to services running on your machine. This can still be important – you may only want a web server accessible on your LAN rather than across the internet, for instance. But it’s more important to worry about the services and applications you run. This is where most problems occur, and the recent Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL highlights this issue perfectly. It’s used by so many applications and services that many became vulnerable as soon as this bug was found, and consequently, the best distribution for security became the quickest distribution to patch the vulnerability.
But it’s not just speed of deployment that’s important, it’s the quality of any patches as well as the testing that goes into the original distribution. And for that reason we’d recommend a distribution with a proven track record of defending itself online. CentOS, for example, with its Red Hat provenance is rock solid, although it still requires some know-how.
However, if security and privacy are of the utmost importance, nothing can touch Tails, a distribution designed for anonymity and secure communication, so we’re putting that top of our list, followed by more pragmatic solutions that can be used more as day-to-day installations.
Back in the olden days, when every megahertz was sacred and PCs were beige, the performance of your distribution was important. It would make the difference between a system being snappy and usable, or a system being re-installed or consigned to the bin.
Nowadays it’s the case that in some ways, especially for desktop use, performance has plateaued. Multi-core CPU cycles, storage and memory are cheap, and most of us barely touch their limits. Your choice of distro normally has much more to do with package provision and the default desktop environment than whether it’s making best use of your hardware. And because that hardware is always so different from one user to the next, it’s almost impossible to provide a comparative metric that’s going to have any meaning.
Therefore, if you care about performance it’s because you need to get the best out of limited hardware, and we can, sort of, test for that. In a completely unscientific way, we installed six diffeent distros alongside Windows 8 on the same PC and onto the same (large) hard drive. This is a real working computer (3.3GHz Core i5 with 16GB RAM) with dozens of devices connected, so it was a good real-world test. It also meant that the test was unfair on some distributions, as they made a much better job of parsing the many USB devices than others while taking longer to load for their trouble. This is why Arch does well at boot time – we haven’t installed anything to make it do otherwise.
All of which is a long way of saying benchmarking and tests say very little about the performance you can expect on your own hardware, but there are three lessons we’ve learnt from these tests:
- Firefox runs almost identically, regardless of your distribution or desktop. If all you do is browse, don’t worry about it.
- GUI tools for file management can have an effect on file operations, especially if you’re installing third-party applications. Use the command line if you can. If not, take the time to configure a cut-down window manager or desktop.
- If you’re looking for a distribution for low-powered hardware, use a low-powered distribution. Slacko Puppy 5.7.0 easily won nearly all the performance tests, only failing on the GUI compression. That’s mosty because its creators wouldn’t imagine the typical user not using the command line.
That makes Slacko Puppy our choice of distro if you need something to run on limited hardware. It’s also pretty addictive running it on fast hardware, as you suddenly realise the reason why the window isn’t moving immediately after you click it is because your desktop is drawing shadows and wobbly windows. Everything else suddenly feels sluggish.
But we also have to say that Lubuntu, the LXDE-based derivative, did remarkably well, which makes it our recommendation if you’re looking for modern fittings on a frugal desktop, and one that still looks fantastic. Our third place goes to Arch simply because it’s the easiest way to build your own minimal distribution for your own hardware, only installing exactly what you need.
Just as the sports team with the best stats doesn’t simply win the game, the distro with the best scores in six areas doesn’t simply get awarded the best distro status. To come up with an ultimate winner, we stared deep into each distro, and drew on our personal experience. We looked into every option, and meditated on the concept of distro nirvana.
We were looking for a distro that performs well in every area, and excellently in many, making it a good all-round distro. However this alone isn’t enough. It needs to have something that pushes it ahead of the competition – and the competition is getting better every year. It needs that certain X factor to make it stand out. It should be a distro people want to install; a distro that people get passionate about; a distro that makes you remember why you love Linux.
Arch Linux does all this and more. The two things that make it stand out aren’t fancy bits of software, or slick user interfaces, but its philosophy and its community. Arch is built around the simple principle that the user should control the system. Instead of fancy graphical tools to autoconfigure everything you need, it provides you with just the bare essentials you need to build your own system.
Just as a mountain climber becomes one with the raw mountain in order to climb it without technical assistance, and a surfer needs just a carved plank to harness the power of a wave, so a computer user needs just the basic tools that Arch Linux provides to get the most out of their system.
The community keep the documentation up to date, and build the Arch User Repository – one of the largest collections of software in the world.
All this doesn’t mean that we think everyone should stop here while they go and install Arch on every computer they have. While we think it’s the best Linux distro currently available, it’s not perfect for every situation. For example, Tails is still the best distro for online anonymity, and the cutting-edge nature of Arch means that only the bravest sysadmins will use it on public-facing servers.
There are hundreds of Linux distros for a reason, and that reason is the hundreds of different uses people have for Linux. It’s an endlessly flexible system, so there will never be just one form that is perfect for everyone.
That said, we think that Linux users should try Arch at least once. Even if you don’t fall in love with the distro, you’ll learn a lot about how Linux works, and get a better understanding of why other distros do the things they do. It’s not just for super-geeks – it’s a distro for the masses.
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About The Author
Ben Everard
Ben Everard is the co-author of Learning Python with the Raspberry Pi and hacks hardware projects held together with a big dollop of Linux and Free Software glue. He's @ben_everard on Twitter.
the best distro is now and always will have been. ‘the next one’ 🙂
I’d entirely agree on the Unity interface being a bit rubbish – worse than that in fact, I can’t stand it. The first thing I do with a new Ubuntu install is install cairo-dock, which I much prefer, pretty much out of the box. That one little change transforms the look and feel of the system to something halfway between a Mac style interface and the traditional Gnome layout with easy access to applications and settings from a main menu at the top left.
I feel just the opposite. It’s nice to have choices, isn’t it?
I build PCs for charity whose users are utter noobs. I specifically chose Ubuntu because it DOESN’T look like Windows. I prefer Mint myself, but I figure these recipients need to SEE that it’s different and not get confused when trying to install/run Windows programs 🙂 I’ve also found that once I’ve gotten used to it, it’s been not that bad after all and I’ve become reasonably fond of the DE.
Since people are going to be saying “I am very disappointed to see that you failed to include…”, I might as well start: I genuinely think that people need to look into Deepin as the beginners’ distribution more. The Control Centre is excellent, the interface is different, but understandable. It encourages, to quote, ‘personalization’, if not customization; so in some ways, a controlled experiment with some interesting options. I am a Slackware user for my main system, but I would definitely recommend Deepin to a beginner – and remember to change from the default mirrors in China, they get a little sluggish for installs and updates.
I have to agree with you on this. When I switched to Deepin 2014 earlier this year, I realized how complicated and user-unfriendly windows metro was. I kept thinking this is the kind of interface they need. Simple, clutter free and elegant. I really hope it gets the recognition it deserves.
Oh, and as for choosing Arch… you still get a lot of the benefits of Arch if you choose they beautiful Manjaro. Even their KDE version is usable.
I am a Manjaro-user myself. I think it has the advantage over Arch that you get immediately a usable system and do not have to be scared by breaking your system because of untested packages. But the Arch-documentation still applies and you have access to the AUR.
Arch packages are tested. (That’s the repo where gnome 3.14 has been since last month.) The risk of breakage on Arch way over-hyped. You might try for yourself sometime and see. On the other hand, if you’re already using Manjaro, there’s little reason to. Manjaro has certain advantages as you point out, and others, but in my experience they are both quite stable.
Speaking of looks, here’s one more list:
http://tuxdiary.com/2014/09/18/most-beautiful-linux-distros/
Kinda useless list of wallpapers.
BTW, who ever draw KaOS wallpaper, needs to learn about anatomy and proportions. 🙂
Newbie here. Never heard of Evolve OS or LXLE before. Downloaded and explored after seeing the above link. With all respect, it didn’t seem “useless” to me and serves the purpose of introducing more options.
BTW, LXLE runs great on my old Pentium. 🙂
The days of one-size-fits-all distros are over.
Check out Distroshare:
https://www.distroshare.com/distros/get/14/
People sholdn’t have to fiddle with configuration files for hours just to get all the laptop components working.
In your comparison you use KDE with Arch.
No one does that.
Arch is used by those who want a small footprint with fast results. Recent Arch user surveys put Openbox in at the most used DE.
Try your little test with that. Also, don’t just use the basic install. Be sure to tune your system to your drives and various hardware. Once that is done, Arch will be faster than all the rest of those shitty OS’s that you listed.
Again, you mentioned Arch. Not us. That means that you were doing this test and assuming that people reading the results were capable of installing Arch. If that is so, then you are capable of understanding that Arch users ‘tune’ their systems and do not expect ‘default’ settings to work best.
I use Arch with KDE, on production machines, every day. I’ve tuned my installations to a certain extent but for me, the goal is a robust and comfortable environment (for example, I’ve yet to find anything as good as kscreen for quickly setting a laptop up with a projector, in any OS). The great thing about Arch is that you can learn to make the computer you want (but not everyone cares about speed over other attributes)
I have run KDE on Arch for about 5 years. It’s a fantastic combination.
I use Arch Linux with KDE since 3 years ago on 5 computers and it rocks. m/
The point of Arch is that it can be anything you want.
Saying “no one uses KDE on Arch” is not just wrong but daft: you can’t speak in absolutes for something like this.
And not everyone using Arch “tunes” their system, I don’t.
What I do is only install what I need. And that’s what Arch encourages.
I use Arch on KDE. In fact, I chose Arch *because* I use KDE. I used to use Kubuntu, and was fed up with the lack of support. I went distro shopping for one that had good KDE support, and picked Arch. I’m very happy now.
I understand why you say as you do – I would definitely never go to Arch and then go KDE.
However, I think a lot of KDE people got attracted to Arch because every version brings significant changes – possibly assisted by the gateway drug Chakra.
You are simply wrong… https://www.archlinux.de/?page=FunStatistics
With that said… it was not especially fair to compare Arch with KDE with Lubuntu and other light desktops. It takes about 10 sec for me from the press of the power button to a fully working desktop.. and that on a 10 year old machine.. I use a wm though.
ease of use? My 9 year old son uses Ubuntu (having used OS X at school and Windows on our other desktop). He has no problems whatsoever switching back and forth.
I don’t love Unity but I think the complaints about unity being confusing are overstated.
My 7 & 8 year old granddaughters have no problem with Bodhi on an old laptop. The E17 desktop is slick and fast, and it uses Debian repos.
Decide to try Arch Linux as suggested. Got a # prompt, and the mouse does not work.
Arch does not install a graphical interface by default, nor does it have an installer in the traditional sense. You need to go on the Arch Wiki and follow the Installation Guide if you want to install. Once you’ve got the system installed, it’s up to you to turn it into a desktop by installing the Xorg, a WM/DE, and whatever applications you want.
If you’re brand new to Arch why not try an arch distro that has a desktop and codecs preinstalled and configured? Then when you’ve got some experience you can build a system from core if you want (I never have b/c you can do just as well starting from a prebuilt). Your best options are Bridge Linux and ArchBang. You might also strongly consider Manjaro. It uses its own repos, but it’s basically Arch and uses the AUR. You get almost all the benefits of Arch, some other benefits beyond Arch, and it’s more newbie friendly.
This gave me a very nice laugh, thank you. Not because I am trying to be condescending, but because I have been there, and it brings back memories wondering WTF I am supposed to do once Arch is booted up.
You left out one of the only few giving you a non-systemd option: Gentoo!
Linux sucks! It’s a bloated monolithic disaster and needs to be rebuilt as a OOP microkernal. There are much better alternatives than Linux. It’s too dependant on Linus. What would Linux be without him? A house of cards that topples down.
And this all from and Apple Fan Boy. If it sucks then why are you even on this site to begin with ? Go back to apple fan boy..
I think you have it all backwards. What does Windows/OSX have without the company backing them up? What if they companies just quit and leave everyone in the dust? That won’t CAN’T happen with Linux, due to the very nature of open source.
Great article, just the right balance of fact and humour while still admitting the whole thing is subjective anyway. I’m gonna go give Arch a try!
Linux is a monolithic disaster. The OS world needs new leadership. At least At least Apple has a better more advanced UI than Linux. Not to mention Apple created Clang and LLVM which is more than can be said for Linus and Linux.
You bow to GNU/Linux.
Thanks for your input, Tim.
I totall disagree I think the strength of linux is the choice of gui from simple and plain like soydx to the more stylish like guis like those offered by Voyager os, and Makulu the operative word is choice. I for one dislike apple and windows so this gives alot of choices.
George, i hate to say it but you’re an idi…. OSX has its foundation in Darwin with is……. wait for it ……. UNIX!! and even you have to admit that OSX looks a lot like Gnome.
There is nothing, and i mean nothing, better or good in Apple.
My favourite for old hardware is AnitaOS for which is build as you go:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/anitaos
not being biased…seriously…but you guys need to try arch out. Ubuntu is so yester year.
Honestly? Arch even won the thing.
take some more nicorette “i love arch” – get over your addiction (and grow some biceps)
Salix – Linux for the lazy Slacker
http://salixos.org/
I concur with this comment. I use Salix on all my old(er) devices. Very lightweight and still graphically pleasing.
For best new comer perhaps Ubuntu MATE is a consideration.
* https://ubuntu-mate.org/
New to the Linux distro line up in 2014, it is the sequel everyone has been waiting for.
Any distro that doesnt have any of lennart poettering’s trash unportable stupid non working overly complicated trash software in it.
yeah – Berkley DISTRibution. unsecure, primitive and feature lacking, ideal for the basement elitists to worship, waste lives and save us from their trolling. Enjoy!
I find Linux Mint17 Xfce runs fast on older computers and is easy to dualboot for Windows users to get a faster Linux introduction.
Performance benchmark without Gentoo? This can’t be serious.
Kubuntu just works.
(package count)
Package count is a very bad measure, debian always has had the tendency to fragment a package over many subpackages and work with meta packages.
So even for quantity, simply counting the pkgs in a repo is fairly useless. (unless you compare debian derived distros only)
A few thoughts…
First: I don’t understand the “flow” in the article. Why discuss 6 major elements/qualities, and in the final result basically say “yeah but you know what, in the end we decide on gut feeling and just prefer Arch”. Are we talking journalism or personal preference? Either one is fine, just asking.
Second: AUR. Should not be included in the overall package count. Support levels are just not there, and out of the box Arch has no tools to use AUR. If you include AUR, you should also count PPA’s, debian unstable/testing, and even tar.gz packages or any other resource that requires manual intervention.
Third: I would really include support for Touchscreen devices and HiDPI if you want to recommend distro’s nowadays, especially in the beginners section.
I think it would be fair to count PPAs if the AUR is included. For my purposes they function in approximately the same way. For example, if I need Google-Chrome or Sigil or something else not in the regular repos. The AUR is sort of like having all the ppas installed without having to hunt them down and add the repo. I don’t know what you mean about support levels. From a user point of view the AUR is awesome: works great, no trouble, super current, very extensive. There are a few things I can’t get with PPAs that I can get with the AUR. The AUR requires almost no manual intervention you just type “yaourt ” choose what you want to install, confirm “y”, and that’s it. Not anything like building from source. That’s what non-Arch users don’t get (and I shouldn’t be saying this), but it’s easier. Debian testing/unstable is not the same. You’d have to pare down to just those additional packages that aren’t available in stable, and, I don’t know about you, but I’ve only run into trouble trying to run a mixed(pinned) Debian system.
The above should say “yaourt packagename (or keyword)”. The thread ate my greater/less thans.
Good Article,
You succeeded in annoying enough people that your comment box is full, and one or two arguments have broken out already.
Pity about the facts. Pity that you didn’t mention or analyse what distros are good at. Distros like Slackware, are not even mentioned. Red Hat is ignored. Tails, Caine, Puredyne & LFS all have their niche.
Gentoo not in the reckoning, esp for performance, for die hard developers? Gentoo has got out of the box support for challenging hardware config’s. I couldn’t get my CUDA env running with debian, I switched to gentoo and it was working out of the box!! It’s got great documentation for all and sundry. Seriously, this study cannot be serious.
In terms of package numbers, since the AUR counted for Arch, I’d add that the EPEL repository maintained by the Fedora folks adds significantly to the RHEL/CentOS/Scientific universe.
It’s a cliche that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, eye candy — extraneous glitz — needs to be distinguished from consistency of design and aesthetic appeal.
Missed one; “BEST FOR FREEDOM”, after all isn’t that one of the most attractive points for going Linux.
At least http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html cover the options, but I guess gNewsense is one of the better ones.
go back to bed troll, you get grumpy after midnight
Debian isn’t even listed here?
Debian has the best KDE and amazing package options, far more than Ubuntu and Ubuntu’s derivatives. Debian is also far more stable and has better upgrade successes than Ubuntu and derivatives.
Sigh.
I count 10 mentions of Debian.
Debian is also well outdated with 95% of those packages, not trying to be negative, alot of users want the latest package not something 2 years old
Here’s my “Why didn’t you include….” post. For the beginner, I would recommend PCLinuxOS. It is one of those “just works” distros that I’ve had the pleasant experience of dealing with over the years. It started out as a Mandrake fork but has grown to its own distrbution.
+1000
I’m always disappointed that PCLinuxOS gets overlooked in these articles. The rolling updates alone makes it better then all the distro’s listed.
It’s funny how the point of the article was clearly for newcomers, yet all the readers that come on this site aren’t newbies at all hence the comments of “You didn’t even mention ‘insert_name’ distro!”
Great article for its purpose but perhaps write another article aimed at your loyal geeks.
A silly article; it should suffice to list all the Linux distributions that published a new version in 2014.
Dear reader: your distribution is obviously the best. The authors seem not to have done any meaningful testing, and leave out important issues, such as support, lanuages, and supported hardware.
And remember: a Linux beginner usually has a University degree and Microsoft Developer certifications.
Hey Dan! So new windows – new issues – new reinstallation? You happy man, dan, lots of free time, always choicelessly accepting! Ugh Dan, I heard consoles require no reinstallations, all is nicely fit between their games and your vallet.
Never mentioning GNOME is really weird. It’s the main desktop focused on user experience, it’s really pleasant and good-looking and well suited for beginners. Both Cinnamon and Pantheon that are cited here share many things with it, not only the technologies. And it’s the default desktop in the Red Hat ecosystem (RHEL, Centos, Fedora).
Great decision to put Arch at the top. I’m new to Linux. Only a few months and still learning a lot all the time. I haven’t loaded up any of the Arch-like distributions, but I find the Arch Wiki an absolutely first class source of information. Authoritative and gets right to the point.
I’ll be contributing to various open source projects along the way, but Arch was the very first I sent money to, as a way of sending thanks for their incredibly helpful wiki.
Freeslack is currently the best distro and it’s not really even a proper distro. It’s a series of operations performed on a slackware install to render it 100% libre. Freeslack has no merchandise, no home page, no forum and no install disk.
Freeslack has no systemd pollution.
I feel that Ubuntu Gnome is the best beginner distro. First, it is Ubuntu. Second, it has Gnome instead of Unity. Third, Ubuntu Gnome comes with all the extensions (via the tweak tool) to add whatever you feel are missing, such as a taskbar, files/shortcuts on the desktop, minimize/maximize buttons on titlebar, Applications and Places menu. All of these can be added at your preference, making it so much more friendly than Unity. I’ve grown tired of Mint due to random bugs; I feel their team is either spread too thin, or they don’t care as much about stability.
Arch is a fantastic option teaches people about the kernel and the user-land on top. But after a while you need something more sane i find it amazing not to see much of opensuse in this review. Yast allows you to play with everything in much the same way that arch does except you can drop to command line kung foo. And after we all meet a point in our knowledge where the pleasure of building your own intramfs or writing your own xinitrc wears off. It’s great to know but even better not to touch, start with Arch learn what you need to know then move on I say, haha sorry just offering an opinion. Only problem is now if you really really want to learn its best to start off without systemd (not that its bad just that you learn more with scripts) but i spose this only leaves slack or gentoo or if your feeling strange some freebsd or open. Thanks for the round up guys a pleasure to read.
i can’t do without knoppix. it has more on a live disk than all the others.
“We have to give credit to Ubuntu here. It took the relatively brave step of moving its full-disk encryption option from behind the advanced settings in its installer to the forefront of the installation processes, giving many more users the opportunity to encrypt their data. For a distribution as user-friendly and as popular as Ubuntu, this was a brave move. Even the EFF was impressed.”
Fedora has had it very visible in the partitioning workflow – just a single checkbox, in a screen everyone sees – for, um, I think at least five years.
On the documentation – Fedora just doesn’t have the people to keep all the official ‘documentation’ up to date, unfortunately. When a guide isn’t touched during a release cycle it isn’t just posted for that release, it’s left out to indicate that it hasn’t been updated, but you can go and get it from an earlier release (as you did). Often the information will still be good, but we just do this to make it clear that the info hasn’t been updated for the more recent release. There is also quite a lot of documentation on the wiki at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki , and also of course on our second wiki at https://wiki.archlinux.org 😉
Surprised no mention of XFCE, which competes with Lubuntu’s LXDE (whose days are numbered) for resource efficiency and is more refined and better looking out of the box. Manjaro presents as a fairly newbie friendly Arch-based desktop and is worth a look – the big end user advantage of “rolling release” Arch over Ubuntu/Mint is you (in theory anyway) shouldn’t need to continuously reinstall and then spend hours reconfiguring the OS and third-party software in order to keep software repositories up to date. The biggest shock to Windows users is this continual reinstalling to keep software up to date.
Agreed about the rolling vs. release upgrade model. Users that I have helped away from MS find it a very intimidating hurdle to do a release upgrade, and the ncurses config file questions completely befuddle them. Many times right after an upgrade there are popup error msgs, which sometimes go away on their own after a few reboots, and which sometimes require intervention. And of course there’s always a risk of breakage so severe that a new install is required (probably why Linux Mint discourages upgrades). I’ve never had a breakage on a rolling distro that wasn’t fixable.
Arch is Ok but its just Linux at the end of the day. Nothing special.
If you have OCD and want to really get inside your system.. want to read your email in a terminal and use Vim to edit some text when Leafpad would do and use a tiling manager than works with less than 2000 lines of code then Arch is the place for you.
Otherwise Mint will do.
Here is how to release update Mint from the Mint Community pages. Have fun in 16.04.
Slow: APT will download the new version of all the packages installed on your system. Using a fresh upgrade you could have downloaded all that data by simply getting the ISO.
Unreliable: Depending on your modifications, your sources, your added software and your configuration you could end up with a system that acts and feels really different than a brand new version of the newer Linux Mint release. You’re far from the beaten track and the added features might not work as well on your system as they were designed to.
Risky: The temptation when you upgrade with APT is not to perform backups… since your partitions aren’t overwritten, nothing “forces” you to make backups… think about the risk though.
Complicated: Packages conflict with each others, they can bring complex dependencies and put you in situations that are difficult to solve.
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2
I keep all my data backed up and on another partition. New version released, just wipe my partition and install new ISO. Not ideal for most but it works for me.
I use Arch when I’m bored on a spare desktop and its fine. But every so often there are issues with systemd and login managers, programs such as VLC crashing. I like the Cinnamon desktop but it kept crashing and going back into fallback mode. I spent ages trying to figure it out and I gave up.
To be honest all I do is browse, listen to music and write bash scripts and do some python and C programming so Mint suits me.
Arch things I miss… Pacman, AUR, uptodate packages.
Things I don’t miss about Arch. Long painfull install, Random errors/crashes eg. Cinnamon, VLC, Login managers, updates which require manual intervention. Hostile attitude to any slight criticism on forums.
No long painful install if you use Bridge, ArchBang, Manjaro, etc.; no random errors crashes for me (if they were often and random I wouldn’t be going on 6 years with the same install); cinnamon, vlc, login managers all work beautifully on Arch (huh?); updates do require updating config files occasionally (preferable to release-upgrades); you probably don’t consider calling a whole user base OCD to be hostile.
I am disappointed, no testing was done on Gentoo. I generally prefer Gentoo it seems faster than anything else I have tried, it seems much more stable and it is very configurable. It also seems to have most of the packages that I search for already built for it. It also helps that it is a rolling release so there are no version numbers, you just pick what version of what library you want and if it is in the repo you can install it.
Oh, Gentoo is awesome. If you have at least four cores, 8 Gig of RAM and wall-powered. And you don’t use amazing systemd and USE flags actually have some use to you (you cut features, increase performance through recompilation) etc. Gentoo was my favorite about two years ago, till they moved more to “server/workstation” area from home/dev machines.
I never thought I’d find myself commenting on a Linux-off article, but never mind that.
Just throwing my vote in for Crunchbang (http://crunchbang.org/). Having to use an old netbook (1.6 GHz Atom), and even after upgrading to an SSD and the max 2 GB of RAM, Crunchbang (or #!) remains the only distro that runs anywhere near tolerably well.
Debian underneath, so you get all the distros, online communities etc but pre-configured with OpenBox DE for a very minimalistic and, more importantly for me, lightweight experience. Despite a lot of sdistrohopping over the last few years I always come back to #!
Why does my archlinux distro with gnome 3.12 crash when i try to launch RDP from Citrix.
Why does epiphany not respond whenever it is processing anything like opening a Url or if it is loading anything.
From all the comments, we can all pretty much agree that the best Linux distro is the one that works the best for you. Personally, I use Ubuntu with Unity, and also OS X (please, don’t shoot me. 🙂 ).
I was a programmer and systems administrator for over 20 years, and I am at the point, where I just want things to work without hours and hours of fiddling, just to get my system useable. I still do programming, plus a lot of photo and video editing. I would rather be doing those activities than fuss about with just getting my system to work.
We all have our reasons for using whatever distro we do use. One of the very nice aspects of Linux is that there is just about any distro out there to suit every individual’s needs.
It is all personal preference. To me Unity interface is the best.
Just throwing in my 2 pence worth. That’s the beauty of linux, everyone has their own perspective. I think if you’re going to recommend a distro to a complete newbie you should recommend a long term support version as I’m sure a new user doesn’t want to be upgrading their system every 6 months. I wonder why no one has mentioned Black Lab Linux for new users, it is brilliant.
As far as performance and benchmarks go why was Linux Mint Debian Edition, Trisquel, Trisquel Mini and Crunchbang linux not mentioned as these consume tiny amounts of ram.
Where was the best server distro section…..a bone of contention I’m sure.
Hi – very informative article. Am on Mint Cinnamon, feel Cinnamon is very intuitive and does not need much guidance for most of the tasks. However, agree that Mint’s documentation is very limited and outdated. However, hope things will change soon as Mint is working on an integrate help feature.
https://github.com/linuxmint/mintdoc
I personally think Ubuntu is still the best distro. It has changed and become more modern recently. However, people often forget that Ubuntu has many, many people who love unity and can’t leave it despite most of the time it being mentioned that some people don’t like it. Ubuntu looks nice and gets out of the way so you can focus on using applications. Something any good OS should do.
Ive tried other distros but at the end of the day im still using Ubuntu since I first tried it 6 years ago.
Archlinux/KDE user since June, 2004. Never changed, even in the early days of KDE 4.0.
If you want some comprehensive assistance while installing, you can use the semi-official Archboot ISO images- to be found in almost all archlinux mirrors.
Manjaro is great, but I do prefer the real thing.
I’m definitely a raw beginner. I found the entire process of wiping Windows and installing Linux Mint to be so easy that I initially thought I must be doing something wrong.
The only thing I asked a friend for help with was getting into the bios so I could install from the disc I burned, but other than that, it practically installed and set itself up.
Familiarizing myself with it and playing around with customizations was so much fun that I actually forgot to go to bed the evening tha I installed it and it was dawn before I realized it lol
I love it and I’ll never go back to anything windows ever again.
If only I could do the same with my windows phone. Sigh.
– x86_64
– rolling
– powerful yet simple package manager
– allows seamless binary and source installations
– a LOTs of packages
– fresh software
– very fast implementing modern technologies
– GUI, installer and management
– top-down, ready system
– includes codecs and videocard drivers
– highly modifiable
– friendly, responsitive community
You cant really beat Manjaro. You cant.
If Arch is for “advanced” (which is not always true due to maintaince costs), then Manjaro is for beginers. Really shame LMDE missed the train.
Thought i would post my exsperience after reading all this. I have only been using linux for 8 weeks after my windows cd broke which im glad it did. I went to Mint for 2 weeks got bord then i was distro hoping after a week on the arch wiki browsing google i decided to install Arch xfce the arch way and i love it! So fast on my system no pre installed programs i have had no trouble with it i like the fact that you install the base then build it making it YOUR SETUP not some bloated distro aimed at a newbie coming from windows.
Nice insight about Linux. I am going to install Linux for the first time in my life. I have not even seen Linux with my bare eyes in a PC. So please suggest me one. Most probably Mint will be the final option I think. I am not a PC hardware or software geek, so my requirements are excellent browsing and download capabilities along with office suite operations. Also I enjoy a lot of media content. I am currently using Windows 7 whose support is going to end soon.
I’d go for Mint, or Ubuntu 14.10. Both let you add media codecs during the installation. Good luck and have fun!
Thanks Mike. I will first download Mint and will give Ubuntu a try later after familiarizing with Linux.
Many distros provide live cd images for you to try them out without installing. You can download an ISO then burn CDs or DVDs from which you can try out the look and feel of the distribution.
What about Elive ?
I have CentOS installed on my VPS at https://rosehosting.com and I think that it is one of the most stable Linux distributions of all time. At home, I am using Ubuntu and Elementary OS which are great Linux distros too.
Hi from Tübingen University,Schwaben,S. Germany.
Why DOESN’T the linux community REALLY work together. WITH MORE THAN 20 MAIN DISTRIBUTIONS & OVER 4,500 FLAVOURS. This is MADNESS. Almost every IDIOT who has learnt programming wants to start their own DISTRO / FLAVOUR. NOBODY wants to work on COMPATIBILITY ( BACK- or SIDEWAYS- ) ISSUES (that is TOO BORING). The RELEASE CYCLES are OUT OF SYNCH. There are other BIG PROBLEMS including the fact that 3rd. PARTY DEVELOPERS are BEING ALIENATED…. There are only so many ways of doing a thing… There are BIG KERNEL PROBLEMS etc., etc., etc.,….. Ciao … Dhan Hurley :- https://www.seen.is
Why so much hate and ignorance? 😕 Look at the handbook. Minimal for x86 architecture is i486 CPU, 256 MB RAM 2,5GB HDD.
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:X86/Installation/Media
I need to be able to use Dragon speech-2-text program.
Requires Windoze to run so I think mebbe a dual boot or VBox (?) may be possible.
Some years ago before I had a stroke, I DID have (I’m pretty sure… 🙁 ) Windows 8 and Linux installed and Dragon running off the Windows Install.
As I’m back to almost total Newby any simplified advice appreciated.