My go to back in The Day was just Ubuntu because I was lazy. We’re talking the 14.04/16.04 days. Ubuntu was simple and mostly just worked. I now find myself needing to de-spywareify as the coming administration is likely to force Microsoft into tracking “dissidents” so need to get back into weaning myself off the Windows teat.
I recently dualbooted my main desktop with Ubuntu 24.04 and have been… entirely underwhelmed. The whole separation between APT and snap packages doesn’t work well together and is really the big problem I have, as a lot of standard deb packages just refuse to install properly now. the UI is hard to use and doesn’t make me happy, and it’s not been playing nice with my Zen 4 desktop when it comes to ACPI power states (no sleep, doesn’t reliably turn the power off when i ask it to turn off, etc). So overall, I am just not terribly interested in using Ubuntu anymore.
What I primarily want is the sort of “mostly just works” like old 16.04 but still gave you the full ability to monkey under the hood- and is also something based on a normal distro that most people write guides for because I am a smoothbrain. Should I just head to using basic plain jane Debian or something?
Linux Mint and PopOS are usually listed as friendly distros and are derivatives of Ubuntu without Ubuntu controversies like Snap. Mint even has an alternative direct Debian base skipping some Ubuntu packages, so might be ironically closer to old Ubuntu in that flavor.
If you’re open to going non-debian, Manjaro is often sold as the more user friendly Arch. (Edit - a recent Manjaro controversy has people recommending EndeavorOS instead for an Arch wrapper. I’ve not tried that one myself).
Debian or Arch aren’t bad to use directly either and are far more newbie friendly than they were a decade ago even if not as out of the box opinionated as their derivatives.
I’ve never really used Linux as a daily driver. Back in the same Ubuntu period as you, intrialled it but got sick of software compatibility problems. So much is cloud web based these days, that it’s less of an issue.
What surprised me as a distro hopped looking for my home laptop flavourz was how different it was to install different software, such as docker. Some distros it was a hassle to run well. Some it needed workarounds, whichh surprised me.
So, I’d look at what you plan to run, then decide between opensuse, pop, mint or fedora and how easy they support what you want to do. I dipped back into Ubuntu but they have started to make some m$ style choices where you have to take back control as they try to make your PC act like they want not how you want.
All can be made to support whatever you want but not all do our of the box.
At this point, I am an LMDE shill because it works so well for my non-tech wife. She has only had to use the terminal 3 times since I installed it for her in the summer and most of what she needs for day-to-day desktop computing came pre-installed.
It “just works,” even for multi-monitor setups, which I thought it would have trouble with.
I would say OpenSUSE Leap. I tried many distros on my sister’s PC (Mint, PopOS, Manjaro) and all of them got borked at one point by normal updates. The last one I installed was Leap and she still uses it without any problems.
I may sound like an asshole, but before Linux Mint, I would seriously think to go with Debian with KDE. I don’t see any downsides, and there are many upsides.
downside that made me move from debian:
dist upgrades broke all the time, because I had software installed from PPAs.
That’s on you 😅
Use Flatpak instead of PPAs if you can. That way they won’t cause problems.
There were no flatpaks a decade ago.
Oh, if you were talking about back then, then you’re right. At that point, compiling them yourself would’ve been a better choice, but with lower powered CPUs that was another downside. I never stood Gentoo because compiling times were way too long for me, even though I like Gentoo.
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All the good stuff from Ubuntu has mostly been upstreamed into Debian. And Debian’s rekease cycle is much faster these days than it was back then. So, just run Debian.
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I think OP wants something that also minimizes the "set“ part. Arch is for enthusiasts who like to put a lot of effort into creating their own perfect Linux system. I’ve tried it once and to be perfectly honest I don‘t want to fiddle around with basic settings if there is no need to. I’m pretty busy with other things in my life and want stuff to work out of the box with sane defaults if possible. It’s essential that stuff can easily be customized afterwards though.
Arch is very good for people who want to invest time into learning what goes on under the hood. Perfectly valid use case, but probably not for OP.
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I use EndeavourOS and really enjoy it. It’s effectively Arch but without the fuss. You get a GUI with just a few steps to set it up and you’re good to go. I tend to upgrade once a week, while checking the forums to see nothing too bad broke. That’s basically the maintenance I have.
When I do a new install on a new device, I just clone a repo I keep with the most important config files. Then I copy them to where they belong. There’s really not much more to it.
If you’re used to Debian based distros, Linux Mint. I personally use OpenSuse if you want to check something different.
I’ve been using ParrotOS as a daily driver and it’s been good to me. I don’t need much though. Based on privacy and security and for that field of work. They have a pen test version and a home DD version.
pop os or fedora
Sadly I can’t recommand pop-os. In 2 years, the updates broke twice on me.
The resolutions where simple enough if you can use the command line to run
sudo apt update,sudo apt upgrade. But the GUI shop updater just crashed on me without the apt error message visible.It is a nice distro overall with which you can even try tiled windows without commiting to it.
-> pop-os is nice but it may break from times to times. So if (like me or most dev) you are ok with the CLI and just a bit of fixes from times to times then go for it. But if you are affraid of the CLI or never want to fix anything, then some other distro may be a better choice.
Zorin for sure. Set up like a couple months ago, fiddled with some settings since I’m new to Linux for a couple days and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
Pop OS is a good choice
I’ve heard good things about Fedora. It seems to be mostly set-it-and-forget-it while still being flexible enough for power users.
