this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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NixOS, and hopefully soon SnowflakeOS which makes it more approachable for more casual users.
https://snowflakeos.org/
Another user mentioned Guix, which I'd like to try soon to compare to NixOS.
It's hard to compete with how much there is in nixpkgs though... as much as I... a professional Haskell programmer... hate to acknowledge the realities of network effects.
So, I have only ever known Windows, but am becoming more and more Linux curious. I see all these different distros you guys talk about and I have to ask, do all the distros run any of the available software or would I have to try to try to find one that will run what I'm interested in running? If so which distro will run the available music production software? I'm sick of microshaft. Help a brother out?
Welcome to the Linux community!
There's a certain set of us Linux users who cling to the adage "for beginners, distro doesn't matter much." A lot of the differences between distros are things under the hood that you won't notice or care about. The main two things that will change your experience are the DE and the package manager.
DE = Desktop Environment. The GUI, what it looks and feels like. This is a matter of personal taste, you can find DEs that look and work more like Windows, more like MacOS, or neither. Try out a few, pick which one you want. I like Cinnamon because they tend to put things where someone who's used to Windows, but doesn't really like Windows, would look for things. Again your choice of DE is personal taste.
Package manager = app store. Think about smart phones, a major deciding factor is which app store(s) it has access to. My Samsung Galaxy has both the Google Play and Samsung Galaxy stores. If you buy a Pixel, you don't get the Samsung store. If you buy an iPhone, you're stuck with Apple's App Store. Go back to what? 2014 or so and buy a Fire Phone, you're stuck with Amazon's app store. Same thing with Linux distros.
In practice, most mainstream distros will support practically all Linux software in some way. I run Linux Mint, Mint comes with APT and Flatpak, and between the two I can find all the software I want. (Asterisk: video games, for which I have Steam). Other distros will have technically different but functionally similar package managers; on Arch you'd use Pacman, on Fedora you'd use RPM. The Steam Deck uses only Flatpak for user apps.
So go with a fairly mainstream distro that has Flatpak support either out of the box or easily installed and you'll be okay.