Hello! I’m new to Linux, and I’m thinking of switching from Windows to Linux because I don’t want anything to do with Microsoft, Google, or any other evil corporation, and I don’t want them spying on me. I’m thinking of using Linux Mint since it’s the most recommended for beginners, but there’s also Ubuntu. I don’t really care if it looks a lot or a little like Windows, I just want it to have a nice design and be easy to use. Kubuntu is also recommended for those coming from Windows, and ElementaryOS for those coming from macOS. I don’t know which one to choose; they all seem very good to me. Here are some of the features I would like the distribution to have:
- Nice design and easy to use
- Customizable
- Focused on privacy and security
- Easy to install
- Best for Linux beginners Which one do you recommend? Which one do you use?
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Anything with Cinnamon Desktop or KDE Plasma is going to be the most ‘Windows-like’ in how the UI works.
If they’re coming from Windows, but they prefer macOS-like interfaces, GNOME or COSMIC fit that bill.
It doesn’t matter what distro you select, for the most part, as Linux is Linux. The only differences are immutable or not, desktop environment, and package management type, for the most part.
That said, Mint, an Ubuntu flavor, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE…all good options.
Mint. It’s so easy my mother in law can use it! Very easy to maintain, virtually no terminal use if you dont want to. Cinnamon (Mint’s desktop environment) is fairly customizable too iirc.
Really! I looked into Linux Mint, and it’s a very nice, customizable operating system. But I’ll also look at other options to see which one is best for me.
I’m another vote for mint. Coming from a windows environment its very similar in feel. Get use to how Linux works then you can always change to another distro if you want.
Also FYI, many distros can be loaded from a USB stick to test out. If you like it, you install. If you don’t, you move on to another. Mint does this, so you can test it without commiting to it, and just get a feel for the UI.
Honestly, it’s about learning how Linux works. Its a different mentality than Windows (or Mac). Learn the file structure, file permissions, how things update, etc. Nothing is crazy (and it’s better in so many ways) but you don’t really learn that stuff until you start using it.
I’ll take my time to learn more about Linux!
Ah hah! I went to write “Fedora”, and someone beat me to the punch! I find that you’ll get a lot of Bazzite, Silverblue, KDE Neon, Pop OS recommends, but I find that Mint and Fedor tend to work without too much fussing. I sometimes need to get rpmfusion or flathub stuff for Fedora to be 100% for me, but it really works quite wonderful after that. Mint is funny, because it’s the one everyone recommends for beginners, and, well, I keep coming back to it. It somehow manages to be more reliable than the Ubuntu base it’s built on.
I would not recommend pop!_os for beginners if they have nvidea drivers. A few of the recent updates have had problems
Pop!_OS was personally a terrible experience for me, even when not on NVIDIA. It seemed great until I actually tried it lol, but I’d recommend almost literally anything else.
I’ve had a mostly good experience with pop. It’s definitely a different workflow than I was used to, but it works for me. Looking at switching to nobra though.
I was just reading through /r/NobaraProject myself, haha! I may try to stick with Mint Cinnamon for now, though, since I’ve already got it installed…
Good choices!
Fedora
I’ll keep that in mind!
- ZorinOS (especially for Windows users)
- LinuxMint (especially for Windows users)
- Fedora (if users want something radically different than Windows or macOS, it’s closer to macOS than Windows tho)
- Bazzite (Fedora-based atomic distro, if most of usage is gaming)
The only thing MacOS and Gnome have in common is a top bar and app grid. Other than that, MacOS is closer to Windows than Gnome.
- Windows and MacOS have always visible panel showing favorite apps and open apps, Gnome dosen’t
- Windows and MacOS have appindicators on panels, Gnome doesn’t
And to further differentiate Gnome from MacOS,
- Gnome’s UX is closer to Windows. There are many, many reasons why, but some are: don’t need to click a window to focus it before you can interact with it, fullscreening behaviors, assumes Windows-style keyboard layout
- No global menu, Gnome doesn’t even use that paradigm.
Honestly the closest DE to MacOS is Cosmic. The launchers work similarly, the overviews work similarly, it has the option to handle minimized windows similarly to MacOS, uses menubars (but not global).
Maybe I don’t remember the defaults on macOS and assume my setup is macOS UX but it’s quite tweaked yeah. I find my config closer to Gnome than my memories of Windows. But I agree that Gnome is radially different and that’s what I’ve write in my comment.
Isn’t Cosmic based on Gnome? I have to try it, I was hyped when they announced it and now it’s realeased.
What about the DE used in ElementaryOS? ZorinOS Pro has some macOS themes and KDE is heavily flexible to replicate macOS’s UX.
The old Cosmic was built on top of Gnome using extensions, but the new Cosmic was written from scratch. It largely mimics the look of old Cosmic, but has introduced a few new things.
There are desktops try do mimic the look of MacOS, but none I’ve used actually felt like using MacOS. The first time I used MacOS, I was shocked at how many quirky things it does, the way it operates. No Linux desktop prepared me for that.
Honestly I fined macOS fine feature-wide but the defaults aren’t great for me so I tweaked many things and the annoying part of this is that I rely on multiple third party tools for what I consider should be native settings to change.
I’m pretty new to the whole Linux thing as well and personally, I’ve been liking ZorinOS much better than Mint. Mostly just because it’s prettier, everything else works just as well haha
I’ll try ZorinOS!
I liked ZorinOS quite a bit at first but ultimately found it didn’t have enough customization for me. That and installing a secondary desktop environment bricked it so hard I couldn’t fix it no matter what I tried.
Moved back to Mint and I couldn’t be happier. Especially with Timeshift, I don’t have to worry about bricking the thing, which is a huge bonus for me over Zorin. I’ve barely had to touch the terminal in the whole process of setting it up (even for more advanced tasks like adding an extra desktop panel and configuring apps to run on startup)
Nobara. I’ve always had issues with Mint and any other Debian/Ubuntu based distro but that was during my NVIDIA days so it might be because of that.
Nobara is cute! I will take it into account.
