Which Linux Distro?

[dvvdv]

I've finished setting up my Ubuntu 17.10, which is awesome!
Parallels being the superior choice, I'm just wondering what should I choose as my next Linux Distro?
All suggestions are welcome, thanks.

Here's a screenshot as an example of what I might be interested in:

 

[Winterfibre]

mint

 

[belvdr]

Go to www.distrowatch.com and you can see all the distributions you would like to. There's a gauge on the right side of the page that indicates the number of hits each distribution sees per day on the site. It's an indicator of popularity.

 

[Kawawolf]

I second belvdr and his suggestion to go to distrowatch and find something that works for you. If you want it to look nice like ubuntu there, try Mint first. It runs on the same code so you won't have to learn something different.

 

[raison]

Arch-linux could be fun and has a great documentation: https://wiki.archlinux.org/

 

[Geeky Chimp]

My personal choice is SUSE (openSUSE) or CentOS. SUSE is great as it has YAST to simplify setup and administration. I primarily use Linux with minimal text installs for servers but some of our servers run with a GUI in order to browse the web from remote servers across the globe.

 

[370zulu]

My personal choice is SUSE (openSUSE) or CentOS. SUSE is great as it has YAST to simplify setup and administration. I primarily use Linux with minimal text installs for servers but some of our servers run with a GUI in order to browse the web from remote servers across the globe.

Same distros here too.

 

[Stingray454]

I just started looking for alternatives to OS X, as I don't really like the way Apple are handling things nowdays. Tried a few but Mint really made me feel "at home". Easy to get an OS X-like feel, very stable and user friendly. Give it a go!

 

[krause734]

Mint is excellent. I thought it would be a downgrade from Mac OS but it definitely wasn't for my needs.

 

[SkyLinx]

Gentoo

 

[Stingray454]

Just tried Deepin, and can really recommend the latest (15.5) version. Coming from mac you expect it to be visually pleasing and coherent - while most distros work fine and look ok:ish, deepin looks like OS X 11 or something along those lines. Blurs, transparency, animation and such is awesome. Also the HiDPI support is better than on any other distro I've tried (sharp fractional scaling for example) so it works great on my retina macbook. Highly recommended for people coming from mac.

 

[S.B.G]

Just tried Deepin, and can really recommend the latest (15.5) version. Coming from mac you expect it to be visually pleasing and coherent - while most distros work fine and look ok:ish, deepin looks like OS X 11 or something along those lines. Blurs, transparency, animation and such is awesome. Also the HiDPI support is better than on any other distro I've tried (sharp fractional scaling for example) so it works great on my retina macbook. Highly recommended for people coming from mac.

Something to consider regarding Deepin.

and

 

[oldhifi]

I used Mint, it was nice and easy

 

[Fancuku]

Linux Mint with either Cinnamon or KDE desktop.

 

[crjackson2134]

Since you are using VM’s, try them all. I have a dozen or so at any given time, but Ubuntu & Mint are always my goto distros. Mint seems to work better for me in VM’s BTW.

 

[Stingray454]

Something to consider regarding Deepin.

I did see that, and it's completely ridiculous. People that do those doesn't seem to know what analytics is. Their store app is a wrapper for a web page, and that web page sends a request to a page that does the same thing as Google Analytics, without including any user information at all. But if you're paranoid that someone might figure out what browser you're using or similar, feel free to block the request and everything is fine.

Anyway, as the deepin DE is open source it can be installed on any distro, and several distros come with it out of the box. Just pick the one you're comfortable with.

 

[EugW]

I had some weird problems with Mint which were easily solved in Ubuntu. For some strange reason, one time when I plugged my early 2008 white MacBook4,1 with Mint into my Airport Extreme via Ethernet, the entire home network went down. Unplugged it and the network was fine. Plugged it back in and he network went down again. I don't know if the settings somehow got corrupted or something and perhaps it was just a freak one-time thing, but I took that as a bad sign. Plus, the Broadcom WiFi drivers were not automatically installed so I had no network support.

In Ubuntu, while the proprietary Broadcom WiFi drivers were not automatically installed, they were available as an optional install because wired Ethernet worked fine. Of course if I couldn’t connect to the internet via Ethernet in Mint, I couldn’t attempt to install any WiFi drivers in Mint either.

Also, in Mint after wake or some period of non-use, the trackpad pointer would not move until after a several second lag. It was annoying, as if when you wake the computer the OS is only partially awake until a few seconds later. This was not a problem in Ubuntu. Once Ubuntu was awake, it was fully awake.

The other I noticed when I was troubleshooting the network issues in Mint, was that a lot of the solutions posted were not specifically for Mint. They were for Ubuntu, with references to Ubuntu’s GUI.

And finally, Ubuntu’s releases come out earlier, since Mint is based off Ubuntu (which is in turn based off Debian). There is an 18.04 LTS release of Ubuntu coming in a few days. The corresponding Mint release probably won’t be out until a month or two from now.

So, as a Linux n00b who encountered some issues with Mint on my specific machine, Ubuntu seems more suited for me.

The main issue I have with Ubuntu though, which is also an issue with Mint, is the half-assed right click support on Macs. I don’t use tap-to-click, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to activate something like OPTION-click, which is the way it works in Chrome OS (which effectively is another Linux distro). Chrome OS has its own issues though. For example, while WiFi worked out of the box, the drivers aren’t very good with slow speeds through an AirPort Extreme. Furthermore, Netflix on Ubuntu is smooth and stable. On Chrome it is flaky. And as everyone knows, Chrome is by design limited in its flexibility.

 

[EugW]

I had some weird problems with Mint which were easily solved in Ubuntu. For some strange reason, one time when I plugged my early 2008 white MacBook4,1 with Mint into my Airport Extreme via Ethernet, the entire home network went down. Unplugged it and the network was fine. Plugged it back in and he network went down again. I don't know if the settings somehow got corrupted or something and perhaps it was just a freak one-time thing, but I took that as a bad sign. Plus, the Broadcom WiFi drivers were not automatically installed so I had no network support.

In Ubuntu, while the proprietary Broadcom WiFi drivers were not automatically installed, they were available as an optional install because wired Ethernet worked fine. Of course if I couldn’t connect to the internet via Ethernet in Mint, I couldn’t attempt to install any WiFi drivers in Mint either.

Also, in Mint after wake or some period of non-use, the trackpad pointer would not move until after a several second lag. It was annoying, as if when you wake the computer the OS is only partially awake until a few seconds later. This was not a problem in Ubuntu. Once Ubuntu was awake, it was fully awake.

The other I noticed when I was troubleshooting the network issues in Mint, was that a lot of the solutions posted were not specifically for Mint. They were for Ubuntu, with references to Ubuntu’s GUI.

And finally, Ubuntu’s releases come out earlier, since Mint is based off Ubuntu (which is in turn based off Debian). There is an 18.04 LTS release of Ubuntu coming in a few days. The corresponding Mint release probably won’t be out until a month or two from now.

So, as a Linux n00b who encountered some issues with Mint on my specific machine, Ubuntu seems more suited for me.

The main issue I have with Ubuntu though, which is also an issue with Mint, is the half-assed right click support on Macs. I don’t use tap-to-click, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to activate something like OPTION-click, which is the way it works in Chrome OS (which effectively is another Linux distro). Chrome OS has its own issues though. For example, while WiFi worked out of the box, the drivers aren’t very good with slow speeds through an AirPort Extreme. Furthermore, Netflix on Ubuntu is smooth and stable. On Chrome it is flaky. And as everyone knows, Chrome is by design limited in its flexibility.

Uh oh. I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 and there is some behaviour, like the settings applets taking 1 minute to load. I then did fresh install of 18.04 and same thing. Did a fresh install of 17.10 and the bugs went away, and it loads faster too.

BTW, my 10 year old battery couldn't take the constant usage and charging through all the repeated OS and software installs. Started to bulge. New one on the way.

 

[Mikael H]

Uh oh. I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 and there is some behaviour, like the settings applets taking 1 minute to load. I then did fresh install of 18.04 and same thing. Did a fresh install of 17.10 and the bugs went away, and it loads faster too.

Protip: If you don't want weird bugs, don't install a beta version. If you really want to minimize bugs, wait a point release or two before installing.

 

[EugW]

Protip: If you don't want weird bugs, don't install a beta version. If you really want to minimize bugs, wait a point release or two before installing.

FWIW, this is the version that will be released on Thursday.

Luckily, 17.10 will be supported until the end of July. I’ll stick with that for now.

 

[lowendlinux]

If you really want stable and bug free CENTOS/Scientific, Open SuSE, or Debian stable will be the places to look Ubuntu is in perpetual beta.

 

[EugW]

If you really want stable and bug free CENTOS/Scientific, Open SuSE, or Debian stable will be the places to look Ubuntu is in perpetual beta.

Aren't all three versions of Linux you listed suited to more advanced Linux users?

The reason I'm on Ubuntu is ease of use. Yeah, 18.04 feels very beta-ish, but 17.10 seems pretty solid. This is only laptop #4 for me anyway. My laptops are below, in this order:

16 GB 2017 12" MacBook10,1 (High Sierra)
8 GB 2009 13" MacBookPro5,5 (High Sierra)
8 GB 2008 13" MacBook5,1 (High Sierra)
4 GB 2008 13" MacBook4,1 (Ubuntu 17.10)

 

[Mikael H]

Aren't all three versions of Linux you listed suited to more advanced Linux users?

If you get them to run on your hardware out of the box, I wouldn’t call any of them particularly advanced. That said, most of my Linux servers run Ubuntu simply because it’s the system I’ve found it easiest to find community support and software packages for without resorting to rolling my own or getting stuck in dependency hell. With stuff that’s connected to the Internet I’m more concerned about keeping up-to-date than with huge uptime numbers on individual machines.

 

[EugW]

If you get them to run on your hardware out of the box, I wouldn’t call any of them particularly advanced. That said, most of my Linux servers run Ubuntu simply because it’s the system I’ve found it easiest to find community support and software packages for without resorting to rolling my own or getting stuck in dependency hell. With stuff that’s connected to the Internet I’m more concerned about keeping up-to-date than with huge uptime numbers on individual machines.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm not really concerned about uptime on this thing, since it's just a secondary laptop for basic stuff here. As long as it doesn't crash in the middle of a Netflix video or while I'm surfing, I'm happy enough. And I really like the fact that there seems to be a lot of free support out there for Ubuntu, given that I'm a Linux n00b, and don't really know my way around the terminal.

I tried to like Mint but it seemed more sketchy in that regard. I didn't bother with elementaryOS based on reviews out there. The common theme for elementaryOS was that it looked great, but that was about it.

Interestingly, ChromeOS was a lot more robust than I was expecting, despite its obvious limitations. My main issue with Chrome was not its browser based approach. It was the flaky (unofficial) Netflix support, and the fact that the built-in WiFi drivers are not good (and there doesn't seem to be any way to install alternate drivers). Ubuntu installs no WiFi drivers at all for MacBook4,1 by default, but the proprietary Broadcom drivers are very good.

 

[S.B.G]

I just started giving KDE Neon a look the other day. The UI is pretty nice so far, but I haven't done a lot with the OS yet. Hopefully this weekend I can use it more.