Best os for someone new to Linux?

[DoctorT]

I suggest Linux Mint (but to be honest the only other Linux distribution I have used is Ubuntu which was better than Windows technical-wise but I still use Windows 8.1.) But honestly, it's like asking where to go for a free medical checkup hosted at multiple clinics by the hospital staff. Some may be better than the other, but you are sure you won't get any serious casualties and it doesn't cost anything other than the time to reach the clinic.

[gray-fox]

If you have never used linux then I am not seeing the difference. In fact use all of them, distro hop for months till you find what you want to use. You will then be able to say "I've tried this one, this one, this one and this one but I like this one the best - Because......."

Don't depend on others for things you can figure out on your own - you are only hurting yourself.

Just wanted to add to this that new users to linux should try to avoid hopping between distros for the wrong reasons or too easily if/when they feel like they hit the wall with current one. What I mean is that if your current distro doesn't by default do/have something you want and some other distro does/has it by default then a linux newbie easily thinks he should change distro. But instead of immediately changing to new distro try to change your current one to do/have that thing you want even if it's something big. Other wise you just slow down your learning process and don't learn to appreciate customizability of linux.

Part 2 in the vezzy's guide that flowjob menntioned above is kind of what i'm talking about.

But in general your advice is good Opt1musPr1me, after all it's  same kind of advice I gave earlier in this topic.[emoji14]

[rogue.hackz]

I agree with Optimus, but since you've never used any Linux based OS, I would recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint if you want like Windows, you know too much GUI and stuff, mostly double click and you are good to go. If you want some less clustered but want a good GUI, I would recommend Elementary OS (myself using that), some sort of minimal with speed (Use Luna, Freya isn't that stable though they say it is). Then move onto some more minimal OS with some less GUI and when you are comfortable, I'd say try arch, building almost from scratch, you can also try Slackware, BSD but I'd say just get used to some Linux flavor, it'll help

+1 for recommending ElementaryOS. It looks so sleek and sexy, if I were a beginner using Linux that would atleast be on one of my top 5 list of distros to try.

Btw, if you don't mind I'm curious to know about your experience with Elementary OS. I've a lot of friends and relatives that want to try an easy to use distro and so far I don't see any other good alternative other than recommending Ubuntu or Mint.

[proxx]

+1 for recommending ElementaryOS. It looks so sleek and sexy, if I were a beginner using Linux that would atleast be on one of my top 5 list of distros to try.

Btw, if you don't mind I'm curious to know about your experience with Elementary OS. I've a lot of friends and relatives that want to try an easy to use distro and so far I don't see any other good alternative other than recommending Ubuntu or Mint.

Well everyone alway's seems to forget to good old distro's that stand for a long time like opensuse,debian,Fedora etc.
Those massive dvd's contain an entire OS + shitton of applications. basically anything you need, which is still tiny compared to windows.
And at least those don't do the funky silly frontends like ubuntu, like it or not KDE just works.
Also solid package managers with frontends on Fedora and opensuse, ofc Debian/apt.
My personal taste for a package manager is deft. pacman, apt is just way too complex in my opinion, thats one of the reasons I do not like debian/ubuntu much yet I use it on many machine's but rather the server and not the desktop stuff.

[v32itas]

One word: slackware

[geek.shanu]

I think Linux Mint Debian Edition would be a great distribution to start with. You can also try CentOS and openSUSE to get a taste of different distributions. Best way would be to try them on a virtual machine before doing a disk-install and then go with the one you feel most comfortable with.

[rogue.hackz]

Well everyone alway's seems to forget to good old distro's that stand for a long time like opensuse,debian,Fedora etc.
Those massive dvd's contain an entire OS + shitton of applications. basically anything you need, which is still tiny compared to windows.
And at least those don't do the funky silly frontends like ubuntu, like it or not KDE just works.
Also solid package managers with frontends on Fedora and opensuse, ofc Debian/apt.
My personal taste for a package manager is deft. pacman, apt is just way too complex in my opinion, thats one of the reasons I do not like debian/ubuntu much yet I use it on many machine's but rather the server and not the desktop stuff.

I agree with what you mentioned regarding those massive dvd's. There was a time when I had really shitty internet connection & since I'm from a third world country slow internet was the norm back in the days and those dvd's were a life saver. It saved a lot of time and bandwidth when you consider the fact that you wouldn't have to download all those packages manually for each and every install. Fedora, Opensuse, Sabayon, there was another that went by the name Mandriva I think that got dissolved later...were / still are really great distros.


Pacman in my opinion isn't really that complicated but I find apt-get to be really annoying to use. In my opinion the features of pacman are what makes arch so special....similar to gentoos portage. Portage is one hell of beast back in the days when I used to run Gentoo, could compile anything and everything from source but you'd have to mess around with the eflags, etc. and due to my lack of patience I gave up on the idea of compiling everything from source and moved to Arch.

[fayesafe]

To be honest, I do not think it matters, with what distro you start out when using linux. Everything that matters is your own will to commitment, and if you want to start with arch / gentoo / crux or the similar 'more advanced distros' it is fine. But then, you need to accept the fact, that this will lead to a much steeper learning curve that you would have gotten with ubuntu or mint. I got the impression that a lot of people are much more unwilling to help you, if you ask basic questions in channels or forums of advanced linux distros, but that might be an unobjective opinion.

[proxx]

To be honest, I do not think it matters, with what distro you start out when using linux. Everything that matters is your own will to commitment, and if you want to start with arch / gentoo / crux or the similar 'more advanced distros' it is fine. But then, you need to accept the fact, that this will lead to a much steeper learning curve that you would have gotten with ubuntu or mint. I got the impression that a lot of people are much more unwilling to help you, if you ask basic questions in channels or forums of advanced linux distros, but that might be an unobjective opinion.

Because those questions are well documented , learn to read or die.

[fayesafe]

Because those questions are well documented , learn to read or die.

That's true, but I also wanted to say that in forums for ubuntu / mint and the likes, people are much more forgiving towards beginner question or stupid questions than they are in others. Also, using an advanced distro needs much more self-administrated.

[TheWormKill]

That's true, but I also wanted to say that in forums for ubuntu / mint and the likes, people are much more forgiving towards beginner question or stupid questions than they are in others.

...which makes you learn nothing (or not enough).

Also, using an advanced distro needs much more self-administrated.

...which is a good thing (if you mean that one has to man up and actually get your own shit done).

I don't really see your point. A shallow learning curve is nothing to be especially proud of if it comes at the cost of being like Mint, Ubuntu etc.

[Bluecow]

I started with Ubuntu and really like it. It has a nice community to support it and most questions I've had can be found with a simple Google search. I've also ran Mint from a USB a few times and it seems pretty user friendly, not sure how the community is though. Overall, I would suggest Ubuntu.

[g14diator]

As a start Ubuntu is definetly the best. It's super user friendly and most of the problems you'll encounter will most probably have already been solved on the forums. You don't have to worry about drivers and so on. You can also try Debian though it's not as popular as Ubuntu. If you really want to learn about linux and do things the linux way, then I would recommend Arch. The arch wiki has a detailed article on how to install the base system and GUI. You'll learn a lot and will be able to solve prolems yourself after some time. Yet, as a start use Ubuntu just to get the feel of it.

[0E 800]

I put a windows spin on Ubuntu for users more familiar with Windows or for those who want to use Linux without being labeled a hacker at their employment.

http://oe8007.wix.com/cotton

I also did the same thing with Kali (not Kali 2). Pentest in public.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/solakkd/

[Pyromaniac]

I started off with mint just because a lot of people recommended it, since I was coming from windows. The just messed around with other distros on virtualbox + vagrant. Just created the base box and keep the template since I tend to mess up a lot while I was learning