Linux Distribution reviews from Reddit

"Mint Linux running on VirtualBox (Windows Host) is probably the easiest and best setup I've come across."

"My main computer is Mint and sometimes I forget that I'm not on a Windows computer."

"Mint has the support base and community to help with different hardware issues if and when they arise."

"Linux Mint was my go-to for years. I still use it on at least a couple laptops."

"Mint"

"Mint though is about as close to a perfect introduction as I've seen."

"Linux Mint Cinnamon, easy to use and reliable. UI is similar to Windows."

"Mint, always"

"Linux Mint Cinnamon. Reliable, stable, and easy to use. Better than any Windows..."

"Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition) is hard to beat."

"I used Ubuntu LTS with live kernel patching for years. Literally over a year; my server had an uptime of over 600 days and would get all of the automatic security updates."

"Just use latest Ubuntu Server LTS release (for now it's 24.04)"

"Ubuntu, it's what my 75yo MIL uses and it couldn't be more simple and stable."

"I would go with Ubuntu and remove every icon that she will not use."

"I booted Ubuntu 22.04 from USB stick to show her."

"Ubuntu LTS makes it as easy as possible."

"Debian or ubuntu. Simply no point of running a bad ass distro"

"All things being equal, I prefer - Debian - Ubuntu - Redhat - Centos/Alma"

"Mostly Ubuntu LTS or Amazon Linux 2"

"Dedicated VM still get latest ubuntu lts release"

"Debian Stable."

"Debian + Backports + unattended-upgrades"

"Debian 12 is my fav, and if you configure the unattended-upgrade package it should be good to go."

"Debian stable or Ubuntu LTS. They are solid."

"Debian is made for that reason, you wont get added features at all just security updates."

"Debian. Deliberately installed it on a secondary laptop I didn't wish to spend active time maintaining. It'll just work."

"Debian (my favorite for this reason.)"

"And finally the ultimate choice is the original **Debian XFCE**."

"Debian stable if you want a distro that runs smoothly as expected."

"I’m a Debian guy. It is a stable and proven OS."

"I'd recommend fedora, for gaming bazzite (based on fedora) and to get work done."

"I would take a closer look at Fedora."

"If I were to change I probably go with fedora and KDE."

"Fedora. It's stable, fast, current and works very well for most use cases."

"Fedora KDE seems to be the perfect choice. Easy to setup LUKS+Bitlocker, Secure Boot, Howdy."

"Fedora for long-term. It will heal your distrohopping."

"I can recommend Fedora KDE spin."

"Fedora is a great distribution for developers."

"As a FS developer myself, I use a Fedora spin from KDE called Plasma, and it's great."

"I am running Fedora 37, and been using it since 35."

"Was very happy with Pop_OS as well! High recommend!"

"Built with gamers in mind, it has excellent Nvidia support and works well with Proton and Steam."

"I'm on POP OS now and I love it."

"I think PopOS is a great distro to try."

"I have been using pop os for more than a year now and never had any major problems."

"I'd say give Pop!_OS a try"

"That said, Pop! OS (which is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian...) is a great, user-friendly option."

"Pop!_OS is the easiest to use for beginners."

"My bet would be PopOS 22.04."

"Personally I'd use Mint over Pop. Maybe change when they get Cosmic released (it still in alpha). Mint offer pretty much same tweaks and driver detection as PopOS (System76)."

"Zorin OS"

"ZorinOS. https://zorin.com"

"I did use Zorin Os 16, on a AMD Ryzen / NVIDIA machine."

"ZorinOS is a perfect choice! Give it a try before anything else."

"Recommended Distros: Fedora, Pop Os, Zorin Os , Linux Mint*"

"Recommended Distros: Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop OS, Zorin OS or Bazzite(immutable like SteamOS)."

"Zorin os is also pretty good."

"I suggest to look into Zorin (built on Ubuntu LTS), Pop OS (again on Ubuntu), and Debian."

"I’d probably go with Zorin OS because it will have the same feel."

"ZorinOS."

"Arch"

"Arch Linux + KDE Plasma is the best way to go."

"Using Arch with Hyprland. Runs real smooth would recommend."

"I run archlinux and it’s been a breeze."

"Arch linux."

"Others really like Arch."

"Arch just for the ux and key bindings. setting it up is hectic."

"Arch with a manual install for daily driving and RHEL for enterprise server stuff."

"If you want to learn more about how computers in general work, installing Arch or Gentoo will be illuminating."

"I'd like to recommend Arch but you should go with RHEL."

"I've had great KDE experiences with MX, Manjaro and Ultramarine."

"Try MX Linux it is very lightweight."

"Try MX with Xfce. The 64 ISO..."

"MX will be the most stable for her."

"MX Linux is my choice for distro because it has very good hardware compatibility."

"MXLINUX is very easy to use. The only real you-have-to-get-used-to thing is that the panel (close enough to what windows calls the taskbar) is up and down the left side of the screen by default instead of across the bottom. Bonus points to default MX for it being light on your hardware and feeling speedy even on the crappy laptop I use it on."

"My goto is mx linux which is pretty lightweight, and popular."

"MX Linux. Install it and use it. It shows an icon in the system tray that turns green when there are updates."

"Nothing wrong with MINT, I like it, but I like MX better."

"**MX Linux XFCE** is the second choice."

"I use Manjaro KDE as my main OS."

"Has run most everything I've thrown at it and when paired with Heroic does the trick."

"Running it on Manjaro for over a year now without any problems."

"I reinstalled Manjaro XFCE on the advice of u/nikgnomic."

"I have been using Manjaro Xfce for many years to produce live audio and it has been very reliable."

"Put them on Manjaro KDE. Works like charm, 3 years or so and counting."

"Manjaro or CachyOS"

"The only derivative of Arch that I would use is Manjaro."

"I like Manjaro in general because it offers excellent driver support. With Pacman and Yay (thanks to the AUR repository), you can access a wide range of software packages. It also works exceptionally well with NVIDIA laptop graphics cards."

"I use Manjaro."

"Use antiX instead since you are already familiar."

"I would recommend Antix Linux, is the best."

"Have you tried antiX? I have a laptop with slightly slower CPU."

"Then go for Antix"

"I would try Antix, it has a 32 bit version."

"Antix"

"Antix > Bodhi > Slitaz."

"I tried anti x, and that's fantastic."

"You are going to want at least 4GB of RAM. I would try Antix and see how it does."

"Only thing I would even bother trying on that would be antiX."

"I'm really liking OpenSUSE Tumbleweed right now."

"I also reccomend openSUSE that I had been more than 2 year."

"I recommend openSUSE which has Kiwi or Open Build Service and makes building custom images a breeze."

"I'd recommend openSUSE MicroOS."

"Opensuse Aeon looks to be the most promising though still in release candidate phase. I hear nothing but good things."

"I'd suggest either OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for something more traditional or Aurora/Bluefin for minimal configuration and maximum stability."

"Try Opensuse Aeon, it looks very promising!"

"OpenSUSE."

"I use Suse Leap 15.6."

"I'd recommend you openSUSE, its NVIDIA repo contains everything you need."

"CachyOS is a gaming and performance centered Arch based OS tuned for latency at the cost of throughput (FPS)."

"I Love cachyOS"

"The fastest distor I have ever used is CatchyOS."

"If you want to try now, go for CachyOS, as they already implemented ntsync into their kernel."

"CachyOS on ReFind and using KDE I thiiiiink is going to be my stable setup."

"Just installed CachyOS with Cinnamon as my preferred desktop and hibernation works!"

"I recommend using CachyOS (using it since 500+ days). They put some real work with optimisations."

"CachyOS, or Fedora."

"Difficult to install perhaps, but CachyOS has an automatic installer."

"CachyOS is explicitly optimized for speed and you should give it a spin."

"Have used talos myself and im absolutely in love"

"Talos +1"

"In other cases I would use Talos, it is quite open, easy to get support and extend it"

"We are using Talos in our company"

"Talos by a mile."

"If Talos doesn’t get you a Kubernetes cluster faster than the other distros and lower maintenance... then it’s a bug."

"I used talos, it’s pretty nice and I also run rancher on it"

"If it only needs to run containers: Talos."

"Ubuntu studio."

"I plan on getting a laptop and loading it with ubuntu studio."

"Ubuntu studio."

"I've used Ubuntu Studio for 10 years."

"I do use Ubuntu studio 24.04 for the moment and it works great for me."

"I had the best time with Ubuntu studio."

"I used Ubuntu Studio and that was by far the easiest to setup."

"I really liked using ubuntu studio."

"Lubuntu"

"Try Light weight LUBUNTU."

"Lubuntu is modem and streamlined without too many bells and whistles to fool with, but it has excellent hardware support, works well on older machines, and is easy to troubleshoot if need be."

"I would try Lubuntu or Xubuntu & visual studio code for IDE."

"Lubuntu, Xubuntu, fedora, endeavourOs"

"Lubuntu, Xubuntu and Linux Mint (Cinnamon) are a good start."

"Lubuntu."

"#Lubuntu"

"Lubuntu is also pretty good, it's lighter than Mint."

"Q4OS with Trinity DE consumes little resources."

"Any Linux distro works fine, but my recommendation is Q4OS, it is relatively light"

"I would go for q4os or bodhi."

"If you can possibly upgrade that HDD to a SSD you can easily install Q4OS."

"You might try [Q4OS (Trinity)], which is very lightweight."

"Q4OS is based on Debian with minimal tweaks to add Windows-like usability."

"My short list for installing on my ancient 32bit laptop from 2002 was * Q4OS trinity DE * Debian LXQt DE * Emmabuntus LXQt DE *"

"Q4OS with the Trinity Desktop only needs 256 MB of RAM."

"My short list for installing on my ancient 32bit laptop from 2002 was Q4OS trinity DE."

"Arch is the way, always have been."

"ArchLinux - updated daily (rolling release) - stable - fucking well documented - tweakable easily - simple and light - no ad like Ubuntu cie - great community"

"I recommend against using raw Ubuntu. If raw Arch has kernel v6.12 then EndeavourOS has it as well."

"If you're up for it try arch."

"Arch (with archinstall), it's easy enough to use and has the AUR."

"Personally i recommend an arch based distribution."

"Arch is the best way to go."

"One of the guys at work uses arch"

"If you want even more reliability you get LMDE."

"My elderly parents use LMDE on their 16 yr old desktop PC, they used windows 7 and windows 10 before that."

"I really like LMDE 6 "Faye", it's Linux Mint with Debian, instead of Ubuntu."

"LMDE6 or Lubuntu."

"LMDE, take some time to optimize it."

"LMDE."

"LMDE would probably be better than regular mint."

"I vote Fedora Silverblue on this."

"Fedora Silverblue."

"I use Silverblue and I am very satisfied."

"I think she would be better served with Fedora Silverblue or one of its derivatives"

"Something like fedora silver blue, because in a fedora fan boy lol."

"Fedora silverblue"

"Redhat, Ubuntu, Suse and Debian."

"All things being equal, I prefer - Debian - Ubuntu - Redhat - Centos/Alma"

"I would recommend Red Hat, which seems favored by larger companies in the Enterprise space."

"As other have said, Red Hat or Ubuntu (maybe Debian)."

"It depends on job. basically Redhat and, Debian are common in business."

"Red hat for wide exposure."

"It's well-tuned for gaming and doesn't get in your way."

"Hands down: Bazzite"

"Recommended Distros: Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop OS, Zorin OS or Bazzite(immutable like SteamOS)."

"If you game I recommend Bazzite. It's like SteamOS but better."

"Try Bazzite. When you kinda get used to it maybe you'll flipfflop over to Fedora."

"Try out [bazzite.]"

"Install Gentoo linux following the handbook."

"I personally would probably put something like Gentoo on it."

"Any modern Linux distro. I've had success with Gentoo, Debian, and ubuntu."

"Gentoo has amazing tools to make this really easy so check them out with some others."

"Might as well take a look at Gentoo ;)"

"Gentoo"

"Gentoo or LFS, both are good distros."

"Debian Stable, Ubuntu LTS, and Rocky where we used to use CentOS."

"If you are looking for an open-source solution then probably I would recommend Debian or RockyLinux."

"I’d say Rocky Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Rocky Linux is 100% compatible with RHEL."

"Rocky"

"We are now using RockyLinux."

"Try the other RHEL distro like , Rocky linux or Almalinux."

"Kubuntu Opensuse tumbleweed"

"Kubuntu has the Plasma Desktop Environment which is amazing, very familiar to Windows today."

"You can never go wrong with the usual ones that are LTS models."

"But you can never go wrong with the usual ones that are LTS models and very popular. Kubuntu LTS, Linux Mint, Debian, SUSE Leap."

"Switched to Kubuntu and everything is running fine now."

"Mint or kubuntu."

"Puppy os is the most compact i know."

"1GB RAM? That's Puppy Linux or even Alpine level low-spec."

"Try PuppyLinux."

"Puppy linux."

"Puppy Linux."

"Puppy comes to mind."

"Some flavours of Puppy Linux, go check them out."

"RHEL (or Almalinux, Rocky Linux, Fedora) or Ubuntu, probably."

"Red Hat or a relation, like Rocky, Oracle, Alma, or even Fedora Server."

"RHEL"

"RHEL/rocky/alma feels more stable."

"We stay on that flavor, using Rocky for customers who want a free distribution."

"Commercial ECAD and EDA apps always require Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

"I can recommend Nobara (running 40 with KDE and X11 atm due to my KVM software not being Wayland-compatible). Been running it for like year+ on one and 2 or so months on my main rig. No issues really."

"Nobara Flagship, take it or leave it."

"Nobara, for example, provides significantly higher FPS in games."

"If you prefer something traditional you can opt for Nobara, Bazzite and Garuda."

"I’ve installed Nobara on the computer of my son for gaming purposes and Nobara seems to manage NVIDIA driver and Cuda really well!"

"All things being equal, I prefer - Debian - Ubuntu - Redhat - Centos/Alma"

"I have used CentOS on three machines with no issues."

"CentOS, with plans to move the bulk of things to k8s on EKS or RKE on Rocky."

"CentOS for now. It's what we have all of our stuff on, it's what is known."

"Honestly, i would go ChromeOS flex."

"Chrome os flex"

"Chrome OS Flex"

"Chrome OS Flex and use Debian or install Arch in the Linux VM."

"EndeavorOS is good imo, it's basically Arch but easy mode."

"I like arch based like endeavour, not ubuntu or fedora, because everything is in AUR"

"Endevoour changes quite a few things with respect to Arch."

"I would recommend looking into EndeavorOS, which is basically Arch with a GUI installer."

"Controversial take: NixOS, and administer it for her."

"Nixos, easy rollbacks so you might as well forget updates breaking stuff while not being 5 yrs behind the world on terms of software."

"If you're willing to learn, NixOS."

"Been running openSUSE tumbleweed for a few years now i really like it"

"OpenSuse Tumbleweed would be a good choice. It's secure and stable."

"I use OpenSuse Tumbleweed with Heroic Launcher and lots of games work fine"

"KDE neon"

"I'd recommend KDE Neon or Kubuntu."

"KDE Neon Make it look like Windows and say it’s a newer version of windows."

"Linux lite worked pretty good for me on old laptops."

"If you want to stay with a windows type desktop while you get started in the wonderful world of linux, try linux lite"

"Linux lite!"

"Slackware is known for being stable and predictable."

"Slackware or arch."

"If you are not too lazy to make modules yourself, Slackware is the best solution."

"Alma Linux since it tracks redhat closely and is run by a non profit."

"If you're coming from CentOS - I'd choose AlmaLinux."

"There are some philosophical differences between Alma and Rocky that make Alma more attractive to me."

"If you're goal is to learn then the best is LFS - Linux from Scratch."

"LinuxFromScratch without a doubt"

"I have settled on EndeavourOS with Xfce4, never want to change to anything other distro."

"EndeavourOS with KDE 6 on X11 worked very well for playing my GOG library."

"RHEL then Ubuntu LTS"

"RHEL all day."

"Mint Cinnamon, the common choice, or Nobara Flagship."

"Mint would be best for those who are used to Debian."

"This will be almost a perfect laptop for linux."

"Might have to wait a few days/weeks before an update is out."

"Red Hat or SUSE"

"Suse, arch, void, debian"

"Tuxedo OS, German made, uses Plasma KDE and very stable."

"I would say Tuxedo OS, because the Kde Plasma desktop can feel almost like windows."

"Parrot is good too. Heard newbies like mint and fedora a lot."

"Parrot OS, it comes with pre-installed VS Codium."

"Xubuntu works even on 1,6Ghz single core Intel atom."

"Xbuntu"

"Chromebook with mediatek processor and flash linux on it"

"Chromebook. It's what I did for my 70 year old mom."

"Void linux"

"Void Linux."

"In order of least to most demanding on system resources: Tiny Core Linux, AntiX, Puppy Linux..."

"TinyCore?"

"Kali if you wanna get into CyberSec early on."

"Newbies inappropriately using Kali is a meme."

"Ubuntu MATE is the shizzle."

"[Clear Linux]. The distro is all about being as fast as possible."

"Bluefin is an immutable version of Fedora that automates the setup of NVIDIA and NVIDIA Optimus drivers."

"ArcoLinux of Fedora."

"Mint, Pop OS, Elementary OS"

"**EliveCD**, **Spiral Linux XFCE**, Antix, MX Linux and AV Linux are fine for your hardware."

"We use oracle Linux for both free and licensed installations."

"With the end of centos we moved everything to fedora coreos."

"Pepermint os or mx linux might be what you are looking for."

"I like av linux mx because i use antix."

"Linux MX."

"I like Void and Alpine for ancient potatoes, but they require some setup."

"I, personally, use Sparky Linux for older systems."

"I use Twister OS."

"I am using LXLE (32bit-Version) with my Acer Aspire 5100 Laptop and I am happy so far."