Linux users fall into three categories. People who want stability over everything else, people who want everything to be bleeding edge, and people who don’t use desktop environments.
The most important thing for a new user is understand which of those three they are.
I’ll be honest, unless you have been using Linux for…a long time, of your job requires you to manage servers, your probably not that last category.
If you enrolled in the windows insider/test doohickey then you might want look into the rolling release distros. If not, something with a standard release cadence will be better.
I my self? All of the servers I manage have no desktop environment (core infrastructure does not need graphics). But if I am on a workstation? LMDE - Because I care about the graphics getting out of my way so I can do my job.
What about people who want something up to date AND stable? I don’t want to be stuck on an ancient Debian base when I want up to date goodness for running newer packages. This is what Manjaro promises, but I think we all know the problems with what they’re trying to do. Fedora is probably the one distro that most closely fits imho, but I’ve never liked RPM distros too many bad memories from 25 years ago.
EndeavourOS or raw Arch would both fit that bill, you don’t need to run updates every day just because they’re available. Manjaro delays packages to “increase stability”, but that’s what causes it to break.
Linux users fall into three categories. People who want stability over everything else, people who want everything to be bleeding edge, and people who don’t use desktop environments.
The most important thing for a new user is understand which of those three they are.
I just want to get away from the future hell that will be AI-controlled Win 12
I’ll be honest, unless you have been using Linux for…a long time, of your job requires you to manage servers, your probably not that last category.
If you enrolled in the windows insider/test doohickey then you might want look into the rolling release distros. If not, something with a standard release cadence will be better.
I my self? All of the servers I manage have no desktop environment (core infrastructure does not need graphics). But if I am on a workstation? LMDE - Because I care about the graphics getting out of my way so I can do my job.
What about people who want something up to date AND stable? I don’t want to be stuck on an ancient Debian base when I want up to date goodness for running newer packages. This is what Manjaro promises, but I think we all know the problems with what they’re trying to do. Fedora is probably the one distro that most closely fits imho, but I’ve never liked RPM distros too many bad memories from 25 years ago.
EndeavourOS or raw Arch would both fit that bill, you don’t need to run updates every day just because they’re available. Manjaro delays packages to “increase stability”, but that’s what causes it to break.
I’m quite happy with Tumbleweed. It’s best of both for me, but still RPM based.