I see often people say that the distro you are using doesn’t matter. One can turn any distro into another. And I do not agree with that. If that was true, why do we even have so many distributions? I always said, if distros don’t matter…
- … why distro hop?
- … why don’t you use Ubuntu then?
- … why don’t you recommend Archlinux to a newcomer?
- … why don’t you use Kali Linux as a server?
- … why don’t you use Batocera or SteamOS as your daily driver?
- … why do you trust a community distro more than a corporate distro? (or vice versa)
I don’t think that distros only matter to newcomers. Maybe it matters for experienced users even more.
I don’t mind them, except Ubuntu. Broken by default since it started. I don’t know how or why, but it is the most fragile least user friendly one of the bunch.
Agreed. I distro-hopped for months before settling on Void. It took a while for me to figure out (with help from the internet) that systemd was causing a lot of the problems I was having. It’s been smooth sailing since I found Void and I’ve never been happier with an OS.
It really isn’t difficult to install or use, and I think experienced users would probably appreciate it as much as I do. It does what you tell it to, out of the box. Nothing more, nothing less.
Ive been using fedora, my first distro, for about 5 years. I’m about to switch because it just doesn’t do some things I want, or not without a ton of config. I got it because it came up as “best distro for coding” when I googled it, and I was just beginning to code.
I can’t imagine its that much better than like Ubuntu though, which is what I think I’ll switch to. Meanwhile there’s several just complete and total roadblocks ive hit because of the distro. Kubernettes and Docker just doesn’t work for me. I was trying a teat install of CiviCRM and never got past the download. Recently, when trying to install Graphene on a new phone, Fedora in fastboot just refuses to recognize it. In the process of trying to work around this limitation, I somehow removed myself from the sudo su group, and fixing it has been a chore.
Its like every time I want to do x, it isn’t supported. Coding and developing on it is fine, for my personal projects. If I wanna do anything more than run a script though, its been nothing but hardship.
Its been a pretty good distro for me, but I have a dislike for extended config and sysadmin tasks and troubleshooting, and on my personal projects I keep hitting roadblocks over and over on Fedora. Open to other suggestions, but Ubuntu seems the most straightforward
ontop of other user comments where it boils down to trust in the maintainer and code reviewers of the project, another reason depends on the use case that you plan on using your Linux system. for example, if I were to setup a nextcloud server, i’d generally go with alpine for it’s lightweight design, or Debian for it’s stability. I wouldn’t necessarily use Kali Linux, because with those features it also uses a lot of resources for it to function, and I don’t need that for a server.
in terms of my personal device I generally build those from the tty and add other modules (like DE, utils, etc…) to give it more functionality. Much like my servers I like to have my laptop optimized – take as minimal resources as possible – which is a rather controversial take after seeing users bash at me that I’m not taking advantage of all my memory. anyways, I don’t think there is a specific distro that has everything that I want. I want a system that works that doesn’t use 2 GB from the DE alone and that is accomplished by adding the modules myself.
I don’t trust any other sub-distro other than myself. I generally go with one of the corporate base tty installer (arch) and I build the system from that. I’m not going to switch to say cachy OS for it’s aesthetics, or ease of use, I couldn’t really care less.
Why would you want your OS to use you’re memory? My browser already takes too much, and I really push my system trying to run dev-builds of games built for desktops.
so people reasonings are, that if you don’t use all memory then it’s just going to waste. which is true, but you also need to take into account the applications I use, ~10 GB of memory is used when i run vivado/vitis synthesis and bitstream.
the second thing i was going to add is, Do you know what also makes ram redundant? when the laptop is fucking dead. Which is ultimately why I’m trying to optimize it resource wise to extend battery life.
that said, i’ve optimized it to where I can beat the m1 macbook on idle. again, not something that is a benchmark, but to say an engineering student beat a trillion dollar company. I continue to smear that in apple fanboys faces as just a massive “fuck you.”
Weak.
If you’re needing to ask this question then you don’t understand Linux and it’s eco system.
Try and think real hard and you might be able to understand why you are wrong.
Are you bored? Did you just build a strawman version of your own community to argue about something that is trivially easy to answer for everyone in this community? I am seriously confused. I have never ever heard anyone say that you could turn any distro into any other. That is just obviously not true. And every single question on your bullet point list is equally easy to answer.
When people say that it doesn’t matter which distro you use what they obviously mean is that the desktop environment has the way more immediate and tangible impact on the user experience. So as long as the newcomer choses one of the many distros that have an intuitive installer (so obviously not Arch), are reasonably up to date, have a broad software package repository, and come with one of the major environments pre installed, it really does not matter that much.
I found certain hardware to be a problem with Debian based distros and had to install Fedora or OpenSUSE. There was a bios bug that those distros worked around, the debian distros either failed the install process or threw bug on boot that killed everything.
So sometimes you are forced to distro hop.
In a very technical sense, you can turn any distro into any other distro, in the same way you can turn Windows into OpenBSD.
It’s probably also true in a smaller way, where you could technically reengineer a distro manually by replacing components and reconfiguring things until it works, but why? Someone already did that.
In a ship of theseus kind of way i guess you can turn almost anything into anything else :p
I wanted to say Kubuntu but cloud not during the transition to Wayland. A few key features were missing. That required kde 6 to be fixed. At the time the next Kubuntu version were a LTS release so it was not going to include kde 6. Only solution were to choose something else that offered that but still were not bleeding edge. Fedora were the answer. Kept using since then. Also alogns a little better with my value of how things should be done like not so bloated , no snaps fight and BTRFs for backup.
For me it comes down to trust, since the distro maintainers have root on your system. You’d better trust their competence and alignment with your values!
This is actually critically! I love little distros, but it does break my heart that they cannot give the same reassurance on potential malware as Mint would. Many here we are anti-AI but FOSS could benefit a lot from it… it can automatized checking for malware on peanuts. DistroWatch, Flatpak store, Debian backports, etc should be using AI already across the board to check for malware and that would level dramatically the plain field for all.
I love little distros, but it does break my heart that they cannot give the same reassurance on potential malware as Mint would.
Don’t forget their ability to patch critical security issues in a timely manner.
Well, Void is not that large, but they quickly patch security issues, especially due to being a rolling release. OpenBSD, not Linux or rolling release though, is not a huge OS either, but they are patching - if there is a security issue - quickly. Similarly Slackware - if we want to come back again to a Linux distro.
In other words: No, the size of its dev team does not necessarily mean that they are behind with patching security issues. it depends on the commitment and skills of devs, and the community.
Being a “rolling release” has absolutely nothing to do with it. They still need to update their repositories and add patches to it.
No, the size of its dev team does not necessarily mean that they are behind with patching security issues. it depends on the commitment and skills of devs, and the community.
Sure - a one-man-band supported distro could do all that. But a larger distro with a dedicated security team will definitely do it better.
With a dedicated security team
Where is the difference between „dedicated“ and „commitment paired with skills“???
Being a „rolling release“ has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Sure, Debian and alike are up-to-date as are ArchLinux or Void. Oh, boy!
Where is the difference between „dedicated“ and „commitment paired with skills“???
One are paid to do the job, the others are assumed to be doing the job.
Sure, Debian and alike are up-to-date as are ArchLinux or Void. Oh, boy!
You’re mistaking “up-to-date” with “patched in a timely manner.” The two are not the same. But you’re an Arch derivative user (btw) so I have low expectations. Suffice it to say that Ubuntu / RedHat / etc. back-port security patches to the packages they manage. They don’t need to be running the latest version to be patched.
One are paid to do the job …
I suggest you better stay then with Microsoft or Apple. Suits more your ideology.
But you‘re an Arch derivative user
Wrong, but keep guessing.
Suffice it to say that Ubuntu / RedHat / etc …
Oh, I see, you like being hold by your hands 😂🤣
It all comes down to the repositories after all. Different distros have different update cycles and policies.
Oh, also some distros apply a little bit different graphics and customisation on the default setup.
After that, it is all the same. Distro choice does matter, but to the common user/newcomer is basically irrelevant.
why distro hop?
Fun waste of time, good way to learn how to setup a Linux system by doing that repeatedly.
why don’t you use Ubuntu then?
It’s a good system, go ahead with it. I don’t like very much their customisations, but it is cool system after all.
why don’t you recommend Archlinux to a newcomer?
He will have to read through a few guides and webpages in order to get a working system, compared to reading a single webpage which explains how to flash any other distro on a usb and be done with it.
why don’t you use Kali Linux as a server?
The advantage of Kali is that it is designed to live in ram and everything you do is destroyed when you switch off the computer, this is a bit of a pain in the ass if you want to run a server.
why don’t you use Batocera or SteamOS as your daily driver?
Don’t even know what those are, but pretty much because I don’t care: the system I have is good and I know there’s little difference between distros.
why do you trust a community distro more than a corporate distro?
They’re for different purposes (mainly). Redhat provides tech support. Canonical, well I don’t know what canonical does. If you want good support for maybe a large installation with many computers, paying for red hat may very well be worth it.
I think this kind of supports his argument though, kali would make a bad server by its design. Whereas you followed that point by saying there isnt much difference in distros.
I think its just that they are designed to take some of the leg work out of set up in most instances and in others they are designed for specific uses that conflict with other uses.
If the distros didn’t matter nobody would have strong preference. Instead there are Distro wars raging for years now, with plenty of casualties.
For me the preference came from reliability. I tried many distros and they never worked well. They either had bugs or didn’t work the way I wanted to. When I finally found what suits me, you can be damn sure I will tell everyone who listens that its the best distro on the whole planet… FOR ME. But I will gladly recommend it as well 😊
I think the combo hardware + kind of person can create many unique preferences… almost distro-count amounts of preferences 😀
I’m just gonna say that Fedora has completely solved my distro hopping, for me it has the right balance between cutting edge and stability.
It’s been years since I changed distros
Distro wars?
Most I see is “my Debian system is very stable” Vs “I can setup arch in 5 seconds while blindfolded”.
Doesn’t look to me like a vim Vs Emacs case.
The big difference between distros is really how they build their distro and for what ends. Some distros are “general purpose”, some are focused on specific roles/tasks like gaming or programming or servers, some are about stability, others are about cutting edge features. And you also have different underlying design philosophies - OSS vs proprietary, or Ext4 vs BRTFS, or Immutable vs mutable, pre-packaged vs build yourself.
So yeah, distro choice really does matter. The wide range of choices don’t exist because people are being contrarian; they exist because linux can be shaped to different purposes and goals.
But I think the message to new users is also correct: distro choice doesn’t matter much if you’re starting out and just want a basic desktop environment. Whats going on in the backend or the design philosophy of the distro doesn’t change the experience for most end users doing day to day tasks. A KDE or Gnome desktop environment with Firefox will feel the same, and gaming or word processing will be largely the same. It’s when you want to go beyond generic use that the distro choice starts to matter…
After the first year fully immersed in Linux, I would say most would agree with that statement “One can turn any distro into another”, at least in what matters to them.
To any newcomer I recommend to choose the environment (The tendency is for the tech-minded that come from Windows is to choose KDE, less tech-minded or straightforward thinking choose Cinnamon and exclusive Mac and Android users tend to choose Gnome).
The second thing to select is your stand on Stability vs Cutting edge. The rest of features are far, far less relevant and you can easily fine tune to your like and these is what people mean with that above statement (even the environment and stability could be customized too but most would not be able to do it).At the end, the distro is a choice where you pick the first two parameters and the exact distro you pick is more based in convenience and/or philosophical criteria.
My case: I played with 5 environments and KDE is my cup of tea. Then, I choose a distro in the middle of the road with updates (OpenSuse Tumbleweed) and while extremely happy two updates within 8 months gave me two hiccups (nothing mayor) but I decided I needed more Stability. While I consider Fedora to be the “best” distro by just a hairline, since it has the most resources, but philosophically I am against due to IBM being its main backer, not to mention, US may cause problems “exporting” in a near future… yes you can fork, but you still being dependent in the main source for a while, not to mention supporting IBMś aims. So I am Debian (MX Linux actually) all the way now. However, I recommend to most Mint (for the most conservative) and TuxedoOS (for those looking for a more contemporary look) to most people I encounter.
The rest of distros, or are just niche (for instance Deepin and Kylin cater for Chinese language, Cachy for gamers, etc) or are distros with far less resources to do it properly, but I passionately applaud their existence since they all are contributing with the good cause.
Who says that?
I think recommending archlinux as a first distro is fine if the person is so inclined. (CS students)
Who says that?
You with your next sentence.
if the person is so inclined
That means it does not fit everyone. So you agree with me, that the distribution matters. As long as there are reasons to choose one over another, it matters.
learn to read
Doesn’t matter if you come with that attitude.
I see often people say that the distro you are using doesn’t matter.
For certain things it doesn’t. Usually this is brought up in the context of someone wanting to choose between 5 possible valid alternatives to start using Linux, and the advice is “it doesn’t matter, just pick whichever and when something annoys you you might understand the difference”
One can turn any distro into another. And I do not agree with that.
You can disagree all you want, it’s 100% possible, stupid, but possible.
If that was true, why do we even have so many distributions?
Because philosophy matters. You don’t pick a distro because it’s technically superior or because it has features others don’t have (with some exceptions like NixOS). You pick a distro because it’s philosophy speaks to you, be it “I aim to be user friendly” or “I aim to follow KISS”. This is why for the most part distro doesn’t matter for newcomers, because they’re looking at 5 examples of “I aim to be user friendly and…” distros.
- … why distro hop?
Because I want to try something different and see how I feel about it.
- … why don’t you use Ubuntu then?
I did, for a long time, then I decided that building my system up was easier than tearing it down. If I was using Plasma or Gnome I wouldn’t have switched probably.
- … why don’t you recommend Archlinux to a newcomer?
Because Arch philosophy is KISS, meaning you have to build everything from the ground up and you’re expected to understand the steps and read the manual. This is why I believe distros like Manjaro or CachyOS cause issues, they remove the initial hurdle of Arch but don’t change the core philosophy, making them ticking time bombs for people who don’t know their way around Linux.
- … why don’t you use Kali Linux as a server?
You do you, my servers don’t usually need all of the extra tools a distro with the philosophy of “I’m a pen tester tool” has.
- … why don’t you use Batocera or SteamOS as your daily driver?
Because usually I want my daily driver to do computer stuff, and those distros philosophy is “I’m a gaming console”
- … why do you trust a community distro more than a corporate distro? (or vice versa)
I don’t trust either more inherently than the other, I trust distros that have a track history of good behavior.
I don’t think that distros only matter to newcomers. Maybe it matters for experienced users even more.
Distros matter, they tell a lot about what you’re trying to accomplish. But most newcomers are debating for days whether they should use Ubuntu, Pop, Mint, Fedora or CachyOS, and realistically they’re unlikely to even understand the difference between those. Think on distros like clothes, if you’re just going to the market it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, if you’re going to a job interview it matters, and if you’re going to do something very specific like swimming some clothes are simply better than others. But if someone asks you “do clothes matter?” You will probably reply no, because for most stuff you do as long as you’re not wearing clothes with holes in them you’re fine, but you can tell a lot about people by the clothes they decide to wear. It’s a similar thing for distros, for most stuff it doesn’t matter, for certain things it’s important for others it gives some information and for some specific cases it makes a huge difference, but for the most part it’s a personal choice.
One can turn any distro into another. And I do not agree with that.
You can disagree all you want, it’s 100% possible, stupid, but possible.
You misunderstood my disagreement. I’m not saying its not possible, I am disagreeing that his is a valid point as an argument for “the distro does not matter” statement. My bad for not being clear about it.
You pick a distro because it’s philosophy speaks to you … Because I want to try something different and see how I feel about it.
These are not the only reasons, but good reasons WHY the distribution matters. BTW I also think that some distributions are technically superior for certain use cases. In example CachyOS is more up to date, has optimizations even on Kernel level, compared to an old Debian distribution that is focused on stability. These are technical differences that matter, for whatever you want to achieve. It’s not just a personal taste.
I don’t understand why you answer all questions, because not all questions are meant for a single person. I chose many questions that are meant for many different people, just to illustrate some points. They are thetorical questions, like why you don’t use Kali as server.
But most newcomers are debating for days whether they should use Ubuntu, Pop, Mint, Fedora or CachyOS, and realistically they’re unlikely to even understand the difference between those.
If they don’t understand the differences, then they SHOULD research and debate until they do. Choosing a random distribution and hopping until they understand is not only waste of time and resources, it will teach them wrong lessons this way. I for myself researched for months before I landed on Ubuntu in 2008 as the default, to replace Windows XP. Then I kept using it for… I think 15 years straight or so (forgot the exact numbers).
I don’t like the analogy of “clothes” or someone else with “colors”. Distributions are extremely complex and there is way more work and knowledge involved, they have way more impact and dependencies. And to your point if someone asks me “do clothes matter?” i will say “off course”. Not just to contradict you, but because I think clothes do matter depending on how they fit to me, to the situation I am and how nice it feels, how it looks and so on. Even on practical side, if it rains or if I want to swim. While I don’t like this clothes analogy, I still wanted answer that question you assumed I would say “no”.
Just because it does not matter for most, does not mean that it does not matter at all. They don’t know it does not matter. I think there are choices better suited to them, even if they don’t know and say it does not matter - it does, they just don’t know it yet.
I’m not saying its not possible, I am disagreeing that his is a valid point as an argument for “the distro does not matter” statement.
But when the question is between Ubuntu and Kubuntu you can “convert” between them very easily. Not to mention that the fundamental difference between all Debian based distros is the version of the packages they offer, so you can very easily jump between them expecting most things to be the same.
These are not the only reasons, but good reasons WHY the distribution matters. BTW I also think that some distributions are technically superior for certain use cases. In example CachyOS is more up to date, has optimizations even on Kernel level, compared to an old Debian distribution that is focused on stability. These are technical differences that matter, for whatever you want to achieve. It’s not just a personal taste.
Yes, that matters for you, it doesn’t matter for someone who just wants something to use. That contributes to the decision paralysis of switching to Linux, when we say distro doesn’t matter we’re trying to remove that hurdle, because for the average guy that will just use his computer the difference between Debian and CachyOS is the name. Someone without experience in Linux doesn’t understand what stability means, they think it means the system won’t crash so they always try to use stable distros and get frustrated because they’re out of date, or alternatively they think they want bleeding edge until it cuts them. And that’s the crux of the issue, when we make a distro choice, it matters because we understand the differences, when a new user is trying to pick their first distro they’re essentially throwing a dice, it doesn’t matter where it lands, it matters how they feel about it.
It’s hard for us to put ourselves back in the shoes of someone just getting started,
They are thetorical questions
But they’re not, they might be to you or me, but for someone without Linux knowledge they’re very real questions. I have answered some form of some of those from people in the past.
If they don’t understand the differences, then they SHOULD research and debate until they do.
Oh really? Would you mind telling me what’s the difference between Pop, Ubuntu and Mint in a way that would matter for someone who doesn’t understand anything about Linux?
Choosing a random distribution and hopping until they understand is not only waste of time and resources, it will teach them wrong lessons this way.
Having to research what to use before understanding the difference will teach them nothing and make them give up before starting.
I for myself researched for months before I landed on Ubuntu in 2008 as the default, to replace Windows XP. Then I kept using it for… I think 15 years straight or so (forgot the exact numbers).
Yeah, but 2008 was a very different playing field than it is today. 2008 we were almost unanimously recommending Ubuntu or Mint, every forum you asked, every thread you found online it would have been essentially the same recommendation. It’s easy to make the decision then. Today if you open 4 different articles from 4 different sites you will likely get at least 4 different answers to which distro you should choose. And theyake it seem like it’s this big important decision that you have to get right the first time around, that’s the mentality we’re trying to fight.
I don’t like the analogy of “clothes” or someone else with “colors”. Distributions are extremely complex and there is way more work and knowledge involved, they have way more impact and dependencies.
An expert in clothes might tell you the same about them, and that’s what you’re missing, you are an expert, to you the difference between Mint and Pop is concrete and mensurable, to someone who doesn’t understand what I package manager is it’s just vague words without any meaning.
And to your point if someone asks me “do clothes matter?” i will say “off course”. Not just to contradict you, but because I think clothes do matter depending on how they fit to me, to the situation I am and how nice it feels, how it looks and so on. Even on practical side, if it rains or if I want to swim. While I don’t like this clothes analogy, I still wanted answer that question you assumed I would say “no”.
Cool, now explain to an alien who walks around naked why this jean and t-shirt is different from that jeans and t-shirt.
Just because it does not matter for most, does not mean that it does not matter at all.
And if the alien above asked you what clothes to wear to go to the supermarket, you would just say “any jeans and t-shirt would do”, only to have dozen of other people telling him “use this shirt and this pants”, “No, that’s a bad color combination for your eye color, use this one instead”, “No, that show is hard to lace, use this outfit instead”, “You’re not really dressed unless you wear a custom tailor suit”, etc, etc…
They don’t know it does not matter.
Precisely why we tell them it doesn’t.
I think there are choices better suited to them, even if they don’t know and say it does not matter - it does, they just don’t know it yet.
Yes, exactly, but they won’t know until they understand, and you won’t know until they understand, and they won’t understand until they do, and no amount of reading will make them understand. The initial choice between 5 different “noob” friendly distros doesn’t matter, the understanding you get from that will guide your next step, trying to take the next step before knowing where you’re standing is a recipe for disaster
If that was true, why do we even have so many distributions?
Don’t ignore the fact that part of the reason there are so many distributions, desktops, window managers, etc etc is because a large number of skilled coders have outsized egos
Why egos? Maybe they are having fun doing it? :)
