Best Linux distros for beginners!

If you want to dip your toes in Linux for the first time, you should definitely start with something well known, well maintained, something based off LTS version of Ubuntu and designed specifically for comfortable end user experience.

[bloxxer]

Gentoo is the best distro for beginners, very easy installation

[sideone]

Nothing better to start than Gentoo, It's lightweight, fast and User Friendly

[zephyr_kev]

Gentoo is a good recommendation. Very easy to pick up and learn for any beginner.

[jacques-dev]

I am very happy with PopOS it’s been my daily driver for over 2 years now. I don’t appreciate the training wheels metaphor… I think it’s fair to ask for and expect an end user experience that just works like windows or Mac does.

[adventuretuna]

Funny how a complete, functional, out of the box Linux experience is treated as linux-with-training-wheels when that should be the gold standard.

I daily drive Linux but I think this is one of the many reasons why Linux will never become mainstream.

[sudoGL]

Me: Literally starts with a Arch based distro.

[doniherald]

I've tried several linux distro and ended up using linux mint cinnamon, i agree that is good distro for begginer.

[tucatheman]

First time I used Linux I used Ubuntu and Pop OS and they gave me nothing but problems, tried Arch next and it was the best thing I could've chosen

[laskaofalaska]

Man, no matter what distro I hop, in a few months I always comeback to Linux Mint. Please tell me I'm not the only one like this lol

[jimcopeland]

Pop!_OS is my favorite Linux distro I've used so far. I've been working in IT for 10 years and Linux for 3, and it's still my favorite. Installing an OS should not have to be a headache

[skelebro]

Anything Ubuntu or Ubuntu based are good for recent machines while Debian and Debian based are great for old machines.

[kyethefungi]

I’d choose mint over pop os. If all you know is windows mint will be much more at home if you choose the MATE or cinnamon desktop environment. If you used Mac before, use pop os, you’ll feel much more at home with that. That’s really the only way I’d differentiate the two.

[psychopath_syd]

Choose manjaro and once you get comfortable switch to Arch. You'll be comfortable with pacman and various aur (along with their downsides). Beginners often find it daunting to use package mangers and think every distro uses apt. Knowing your package manager is one step to many

[ejcrashed]

Been using Linux for 24 years, still use it everyday for work, I love Mint because it works, no hassle, no bullsh*t, just works, Arch is nice, Suse is cool, but when you need a practical, well balanced Linux distro Ubuntu derivatives are amazing, and I think Mint is the best of them all, I don't like this narrative of Mint being a distro for noobs, its a good distro, period.

[Tonba]

See I never liked the idea of "distro for beginners" as it insinuates that you'll be constantly moving from OS to OS which ironically pushes people away

[setoman]

MX Linux or OpenSUSE if you’re new to Linux, but NOT new to computers. Doing anything technical on an Ubuntu-based distro is an exercise in patience.

[Jackthekin]

I been using zorin os. It's nice and user friendly

[Shonicheck]

As counter intuitive as my next take is i truly think that something like arch or gentoo is way better for beginner. They don't try to hide "the way things ACTUALLY work", therefore they actually TEACH you how to do things, they don't try to pretend to be windows alternative or whatever, and also when inevitably things break - its waaaay easier to fix, since you don't have to cruise through layers upon layers of obscure configs and abstraction layers. Not to mention there is waaay more documentation/forum posts on how to fix obscure issues.

[poppetx]

A distro with GUI tools to configure drivers, update the system, and download software. I'd recommend Mint first, and then Ubuntu for general use, or Garuda then Nobara for users wanting an out of the box gaming experience.

[ThingyThongy]

-tries out cinnamon
-doesn't like it