The beginners friendly linux list of 2017!

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.

https://mauilinux.org/

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.

https://www.linuxmint.com/

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.

https://ubuntu-mate.org/

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.

https://manjaro.org/

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.

https://www.mageia.org/en/

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

https://www.ubuntu.com/

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.

https://getfedora.org/

6: Debian: the ol reliable of Linux, while not beginner friendly it does offer a massive amount of packages and is very stable

http://www.debian.org/

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

https://www.archlinux.org/

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.

 

Ubuntu Mate unlike Ubuntu is created people who are not insane

I am not insane, My parents had me tested and I passed by 2 points.

Great list, thanks

Oh...my...God.

Hannah Montana Linux (again yes I am serious)

 

Thanks (I think..?!!) for reminding us about, erm.....shall we say, 'varieties' of Linux like this one...

And here's why you'd want to avoid it...

http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/about.html

Only the truly crazy think they're sane, y'know..! 

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 19 July 2017 - 04:25 AM.

YOU HAVE TO BE CRAZY TODAY TO BE SANE.

I use openSUSE Leap 42.2 as my daily driver, and I love it. I don't know what is wrong with me. It is easy to install, easy to maintain, offers everything I need and has a great support network. There is never any downtime and it is very intuitive.

YOU HAVE TO BE CRAZY TODAY TO BE SANE.

^^^ +1 !!! 

Mike. 

 

 

Ubuntu Mate unlike Ubuntu is created people who are not insane

I am not insane, My parents had me tested and I passed by 2 points.

 

Great list, thanks

 

Oh...my...God.

 

Hannah Montana Linux (again yes I am serious)

 

 

Thanks (I think..?!!) for reminding us about, erm.....shall we say, 'varieties' of Linux like this one...

 

And here's why you'd want to avoid it...

 

http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/about.html

 

Only the truly crazy think they're sane, y'know..! 

 

 

Mike. 

I clicked on the link....I had to!

I'm probably going to set this up in my Hyper-V...I just have to see it.

I love this place!

Winterland

Thank goodness there's not a Justin Bieber Linux.

The interesting thing if you really look at all these "different" distributions:  they're the same with a different default interface.  Ubuntu Gnome can become Ubuntu Mate if you install the Mate desktop environment.  Heck Ubuntu is basically Debian "made easy".  The base distribution of them seems to be either Ubuntu or Arch, Mageia is a fork of Mandriva.

I'd be willing to bet that you could install any of these and make them "look" like any of the others by installing the appropriate packages.

Fedora/RedHat/Centos are a bit different than the others but are closely related.

Not saying there's anything wrong with all of this, just that it's interesting when you look under the hood.

Here's one.

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pisi

I use openSUSE Leap 42.2 as my daily driver, and I love it. I don't know what is wrong with me. It is easy to install, easy to maintain, offers everything I need and has a great support network. There is never any downtime and it is very intuitive.

I have had so many issues with openSUSE

Thank goodness there's not a Justin Bieber Linux.

Mmmmm...  Biebian

 

I use openSUSE Leap 42.2 as my daily driver, and I love it. I don't know what is wrong with me. It is easy to install, easy to maintain, offers everything I need and has a great support network. There is never any downtime and it is very intuitive.

 

I have had so many issues with openSUSE

 

For me, since I consider myself a real Linux newby, openSUSE was one of the easiest and most stable distros that I have tried. It is easy to install, easy to configure, and everything just works right. I would actually say that the out-of-the-box experience is the best, as far as Linux distros go.

No sorry but I was on openSUSE and had issues on it, I had issues with my printer and chrome and i asked for help and you know how its community responded?

With a ban, I made a legitimate complaint and I used my experiences from other distros so i can have a basis of comparison... and i was met with a ban.

I did nothing wrong other than criticize what I felt was a big mistep for the distro, no trolling, no discourse nothing other than me having a issue.

But no that is trolling and asking for help is forbidden and heaven forbid you mention Ubuntu.

The openSUSE forums are ran like Jonestown, just dont drink the Kool Aid.

I was on the forums of openSUSE under the same name and yes I did have legitimacy with my complains as for me 42.2 was a failure, I let my misgivings known in the soapbox and was met with a ban.

Edited by MadmanRB, 19 July 2017 - 12:12 PM.

I appreciate the list and there are obviously different personal experiences that different people have. Your list can certainly come in handy for the new Linux user to go by as a general guide. As for me, I prefer Hannah Montana over Justin Bieber any day.