Ask Lemmy

26734 readers

1449 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

AsudoxDev

What Linux distro should I choose? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm moving away from Windows and I'm looking for distro for coding and occasional gaming. If more context is needed please let me know.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] swordsmanluke 5 points 11 months ago

There are a bajillion distros out there and you already have a lot of suggestions here, so instead, allow me to note a few things I think are handy while learning Linux.

Most Linux distros are customized versions of a few base distros. Once you learn how the base distro lays things out, that knowledge is transferable (more or less) to other distros in the same family. But solutions that work in one family of distros may not work on another!

Some common base distros:

Debian: Stability-above-all; all-rounder distro. Updates slowly, but provides a very-well-tested base that many other distros build on. Ubuntu and its derivatives are built on Debian.
Red Hat: A commercially-focused distro that I haven't used in a looong time, so I won't say too much about it. Slightly less popular as a desktop basis than Debian, perhaps, but also a solid all-rounder.
Arch: If computers were cars... Arch is for the Hot-Rodders. You have a ton of control to optimize and tweak Arch to precisely meet your needs. When you want to really dig into the machine and tune it to peak performance, this is where you begin. Fortunately, Arch-based distros often forego the detailed install of their parent and just provide a fast-updating, highly-tuned Linux experience. SteamOS is said to be a customized Arch.

Software installation / updating is simpler and more confusing than either the Windows or Mac worlds.

It's very rare to have a Linux program require an installer like Windows, and it's not as simple as drag-and-drop install like Mac. Linux has had the equivalent of "app stores" for a looong time, just minus the tracking and selling parts.

Most programs in Linux get installed via a package manager tool. There are various front ends, but under the hood, there's usually a command line program handling installation and updates.

Generally speaking, Debians use "apt", RedHats use "yum" and Arches use "pacman". There are also "flatpak" and "snap" both of which are more recent managers that attempt to solve dependency hell.

The terminal is gonna come up. Love it or hate it, the terminal is still at the heart of the Linux experience. There are guis for pretty much anything you want to do, but because Linux is so highly customizable, help forums and such tend to give solutions in the one constant: bash scripts.

That said, you can get around just fine without it if you really want to. Just recognize that you might be swimming upstream at times.

You can customize anything! Your desktop environment is pretty much a given on Windows and Mac. On Linux you can install something comfy, like Gnome (customizable, lightweight, akin to Mac UI) or KDE (less customizable, very pretty Windows-style UI).

Or try something experimental like Ratpoison - a window manager that requires no mouse inputs!

Part of the fun of Linux is trying out alternatives and truly customizing your personal computer.

...That's it, I think!

Good luck! Have fun!