2017 has been a rather interesting year for linux, its saw the death of Unity on Ubuntu, the death of remix OS and 32bit arch support and the rebirth of a distro I thought dead in Mageia every year something new and interesting happens in linux so here is a new list for 2017 for those new to linux:
1: Maui Linux:
Maui is what happens of you put windows, Linux mint and KDE into a blender and served nicely with a good looking desktop.
Maui uses KDE neon as its base so is always on the cutting edge of the KDE desktop and it offers out of the box multimedia support.
Perfect for those coming from windows 10.
Its a new project so it needs some more members but is still a great option and most of its issues can be solved by using Ubuntus doccumentation.
2: Ubuntu Mate 16.04 and Linux Mint 18.1:
Mint is back on the list with Linux mint 18.1, a nice stable easy to use distro for those new to linux
The Cinnamon desktop is at a state of good maturity and can only get better as stability gets better over time.
Its the fine wine of linux desktops it gets better with age as opposed to having regressions like KDE and Gnome.
Ubuntu Mate unlike Ubuntu is created people who are not insane is a impressive and surprisingly enough easy distro to work with for new users.
It offers loads of customization options and while its default UI has two separate panels it will be easy enough to get into.
With great features such as the Welcome screen and its incredibly awesome software boutique it would be more upfront to new users who may not have a clue what to do.
Its ubuntu base offers loads of info and makes it easy to work with.
3: Manjaro linux:
My relationship with Manjaro isnt as good this year, but still it belongs on this spot
Currently there are only a few reasons why I would rank the others higher, yes Manjaro offers multimedia playback by default but its not immune to the bugs from its arch base, use with some caution though it has a great community.
4: Mageia: this offshoot of Mandriva offers a very solid distro, stable and reliable.
It recently has had a new release that will hopefully draw in new users, just be wary it does have some bugs in it and doesnt have the same resources as the above distros.
5: Fedora and Ubuntu
Since Ubuntu has lost its mind and now is going gnome shell it belongs here along side fedora.
Ubuntu used to be my go to distro but they lost their minds with unity, then unity became good then they lost thier minds again and now want users to use the very new user unfriendly desktop gnome shell.
Still it does have some nice tools here and there and has a lot of good documentation
Fedora: Fedora offers a great community forum and while I think its installer rather bad it does offer a nice system for those willing to take some learning.
6: Debian: the ol reliable of Linux, while not beginner friendly it does offer a massive amount of packages and is very stable
I have my roots in debian, I owe it a lot.
7: Arch: for those willing to look up documentation and instillation guides and want to learn the nitty gritty, NOT for beginners but has a awesome wiki
Now for this year I will start a new category I call the garbage bin, distros you should under pain of death never use:
openSUSE
PClinuxOS
RedStarOS (seriously its a north Korean distro and its indeed real)
Hannah Montana Linux (again yes I am serious)
Justin Bieber linux (aaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!)
Edited by MadmanRB, 19 July 2017 - 01:47 PM.