The Ultimate Linux guide for Beginners

Chapter 1: Choosing a Linux Distribution

As mentioned in [Introduction to Linux], Linux is indeed a world of choice. There are simply a whole ton of linux distros out there. As a beginner, which one do you choose? The overloading amount of choices is one the reasons the made newbies fear. In this series, we are going to go through all the essentials from choosing a suitable linux distro to fully utilizing the functions and applications for daily use.

In the following, we will talk about how to choose your first distro according to your needs and your ideologies. Also, user-friendliness is also very important to ensure you will have a smooth experience. According to [Linux distributions], distros with installation hardness rated at tier S are highly recommended, as they are the easiest to use for beginners. Therefore, we will stick to those distros for my following recommendation.

Criteria:

• Installation hardness
• Community support
• Pre-installed utilities (while unbloated)
• Stability
• Ease of use of GUI
• Package variety and versions

General recommendations for daily use

Ubuntu

• Ubuntu is the most popular distro because it is very famous. It is known for its tremendous community support and decent stability.
• However, the default Ubuntu has an underwhelming interface (Unpolished GNOME) and the desktop environment is not very lightweight (GNOME). Packages from the official repository are stable, but they often lack the most dated versions.
• Ubuntu’s is often seen as a starting point for people to learn Linux. The apt package manager has an easier to understand syntax than other package managers, and most things work out-of-the-box due to the support from Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu.

Linux Mint

• Linux Mint is another rising distro, known for its familiar interface (Cinnamon) for Windows users. It is a close derivative of Ubuntu, therefore, they often share the same packages. Thus, community support from Ubuntu can often be applied to Mint users as well. Linux Mint is also very stable.
• Similar to Ubuntu, it uses almost the same repository with Ubuntu. Therefore, the package versions might not be the newest.
• The Cinnamon desktop environment is relatively lightweight and can run snappily with less capable hardware. Cinnamon also has quite good support for HiDPi support for monitors which are at a higher resolution and good support for nVidia cards, although they may not be as good as those of Pop!_OS.
• Mint inherits the apt package manager from Ubuntu, meaning that Ubuntu users will feel as comfortable using Mint to upgrade their system.

Pop!_OS

• Pop!_OS is yet another rising distro, also based on Ubuntu. Although it also uses GNOME, which is not very lightweight, it is well more polished than Ubuntu. Besides, Pop!_OS has a fairly broad and stable GUI package installer(app store), therefore, it is very suitable for new users.
• Another large advantage is that there is a version with Nvidia proprietary graphics drivers pre-installed. As for newbies, dealing with Nvidia drivers can be a headache. With this option, you would not have got into trouble finding the suitable way to install the correct drivers. This also makes Pop!_OS the most suitable for using nVidia cards to game on Linux.
• Again, GNOME definitely is not very lightweight, therefore, it may not be the most suitable for old computers with low specs.

Fedora

• Fedora is not based on Debian/Ubuntu. Instead, it is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux(RHEL). It acts as the experimental distro for the popular server distros -- RHEL and CentOS. Therefore, it is known for its balance between dated packages and stability, because it contains the stability of a server hosting distro, while keeping packages quite edgy. Updates are usually frequent while stable. Also, it is also very easy to install through it’s installer.
• It provides a wide range of “spins”, which means that like Manjaro, Fedora with different pre-installed desktop environments(e.g. KDE, GNOME, XFCE, LXQT) are available according to your own choice.
• As mentioned that it is based on RHEL, the leading enterprise server platform with commercial support, it also receives extensive security updates and patches as RHEL and CentOS. Therefore, on top of the already-secure linux kernel, Red Hat based distros including Fedora is extraordinarily secure.
• Red Hat based distros including Fedora use the package manager dnf/yum. While keeping the syntax simple, unlike pacman, some consider dnf/yum better for package rollback.

Manjaro

• Manjaro is arguably the “hardest” distro among the list. It is neither based on Debian/Ubuntu and RHEL, but the very advanced Arch Linux. Arch Linux is known for its simplicity, wide variety and dated package repo. However, due to its extreme simplicity, it does not provide a GUI installer. Therefore, it requires a lot of knowledge to master the installation process. Manjaro is basically Arch, but provides a much user-friendly interface for installation. Hence, it’s official repository is very close to Arch’s. Therefore, it is basically Arch Linux with its advantages, but provides a newbie-friendly experience.
• Manjaro has a lot of advantages over other distros, simply because it is based on Arch. For example, it has access to Arch User Repository (AUR), which literally contains every single natively supported package for Linux. This makes searching and installing any packages easy as a piece of cake. Also, it is a rolling distro like Arch, therefore, packages are updated rapidly to keep your system updated. Installing newly released Manjaro versions are not required. Besides, it has one of the most bleeding-edge repositories among all Linux distros. If you wish to have the newest technology of all, Manjaro is your choice.
• Manjaro, unlike Arch Linux, is not as “clean”. Arch Linux comes with very minimal applications, meaning that new users might find it hard to search for all their required applications and drivers. Manjaro, on the other hand, provides a decent amount of pre-installed utilities, such as libreoffice/freeoffice. It also provides a steam installer, which makes it very suitable for Linux gamers.
• Manjaro also has an additional feature -- MHWD(Manjaro Hardware Detection). This helps the user easily detect all required drivers for their computer to operate during installation, including required graphics drivers. Manjaro has a wide variety of desktop environments when downloading the image file. You can choose whatever you want regarding your taste and hardware compatibility.
• However, since Manjaro is based on Arch Linux, using the bleeding-edge repository, it is usually considered not as stable as Debian/Ubuntu based distros. As a result, it is considered easier to break if used carelessly. Besides, like Arch, it is a rolling distro, it needs constant maintenance. Therefore, Manjaro is generally not recommended for users who aim for stability and server hosting.

Elementary OS

• Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu. Yet, the desktop environment(Pantheon) is heavily inspired by MacOS. It is actually one of the easiest linux distros to use. Elementary OS tends to keep users away from the terminal, therefore for users who rely on GUI, this is a great choice. Because it is ubuntu based, it is quite stable as a linux distro. No active maintenance is required. Besides, the UI software installer is very easy to use, and is considered quite stable.
• Elementary OS is known for its “innovative” and elegant design. Some even consider it as the best looking OS of all time. Therefore, this distro is very suitable for users who either migrated from MacOS, or doesn’t want to use Linux the “traditional way” (which means working around with the terminal). Thus, for users who are fond of MacOS’s design, but are not able to purchase Mac products, Elementary OS would be a great choice for you.

Gentoo

• Gentoo, originally named Enoch, is one of the greatest distros among all. Gentoo is known for its user-friendliness, which some users consider it even easier than Elementary OS and Linux Mint. It uses neither apt, nor pacman as its package manager. Instead, it uses the superior portage. Could you imagine something even simpler than sudo apt install firefox? Yes, portage is even better. You just have to do sudo emerge -pv www-client/firefox. Easy, right? Another greatest feature is gentoo is its ease of installation. All you have to do is to type in some commands, compile a kernel, and you’re in! It’s even easier than Linux from scratch. Therefore, for users migrating from MacOS, or users who barely have any knowledge about computer systems, Gentoo is your way to go! (/s)

I hope you have chosen your linux distro to start your linux journey. If the above selections can suit you, feel free to search for other alternatives, such as honorable mentions: MX Linux, Deepin OS, Zorin OS, OpenSUSE. In the next chapter, we will start talking about the pre-installation process.