Update 1: Thanks for all the responses! I've gotten a lot of very good comments saying I should stick with Mint, and that's sitting comfortably in my top two picks right now. Between new distros, I'm most interested in Arch's rolling release model, as it provides some benefits for me for reasons I didn't really get into here. I'll be considering Manjaro Plasma as my leading "new" pick, and am considering EndeavourOS and rolling releases of other distros as other alternatives. I'll mostly be weighing my options between sticking with Mint Cinnamon, switching to Manjaro Plasma, and setting up my Mint install with Plasma for now. Many thanks to those that have responded, and to any new commenters, feel free to add your own thoughts!
Update 2: After trying out EOS, Arch, Manjaro, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Universal Blue, among many other options, I've come to the decision that I'm okay with sticking to Mint for now on my main desktop and setting up UBlue Aurora on my work laptop, but might consider switching to Kubuntu or Fedora if I want something similar at work and at home (one of my main draws away from Mint was that it didn't offer a KDE option), or to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed if I must have a rolling distro for some reason. Thank you all for your guidance, and happy distro hopping!
Hey all! I've lurked here for a while and not really posted anything, but here goes.
Title says most of it. I'm a hardware nut with a little programming background knowledge, who built my own beefy desktop about 3 years ago. I started on Windows 10, but I made the switch a few months ago and haven't looked back. I was worried about how much trouble I might have with Linux given my limited software background, and picked more beginner-friendly distros to start out. I toyed with Ubuntu for the first couple weeks before switching to Mint, and I've now been a happy Mint user for several months with no big hiccups. I'm a little bolder and wiser now, though, and I feel like I can still get more out of Linux by jumping to a more unstable and tweakable distro. I was hoping you'd have some suggestions - and knowing the nature of the Linux community, lots of options to consider. :)
Here's what I'd like in a distro:
- Tweakable. I like having lots of settings, and one of the things I liked most about Mint was how much more customization I could get than Windows. I like config and setting things up to my unique tastes, and knowing that many people say this is a weaker aspect of Mint, I'm interested in what other distros have to offer.
- GUI-friendly. I'd like to learn the Terminal, but I'm not confident enough in it just yet to use it for everything. Making my GUI look good and setting it up to fit my tastes are also important to me, and I liked Cinnamon's slick UI/UX features like Hot Corners and panel applets. I don't necessarily want something that imitates Cinnamon OR Windows, or even need anything outstanding in a UI, but having something more than Spartan would be much appreciated.
- Well-documented. I'm still new to Linux; I'll need a lot of help getting used to its quirks. I've been interested in Arch because of what people say about its documentation. A good wiki to follow and readily available answers for my nooby questions may be the deciding factor on whether I stick with a distro and spin/flavor/etc or move on.
- Reasonable gaming compatibility. My library is small, I don't play a lot, and all the games I'm serious about run with only a couple hiccups on Mint with Proton, Lutris, and Mesa. Most of what I do is browse the Internet, write in LibreOffice or equivalent, check my email in Thunderbird or equivalent, and maybe open GIMP or a game once in a while. I'm not so serious about how my games run, I just wouldn't want to daily drive a distro that's handily much worse than Mint for gaming, and would prefer a rolling distro or one with frequent updates, so I have the latest drivers. Anything significantly better for gaming is a plus, not expected. I've been interested in Nobara and Arch for different reasons, but I'd like to look at all my options before I pick one, including other distros I haven't heard of or looked into. Thoughts?
Okay, there will be people disagreeing with me, but I can't let a new user be misled by us nerds talking distros all day.
So, you want to choose a distro because you expect it to do things differently than your current one? Thing is: Ultimately, they (mostly) don't differ that much, really. There are extremely few things one distro can do that you cannot do in any other distro. Yes, some files will be in different places, they might use special versions for some packages (which often can be overridden) or use older and more stable versions of stuff (Debian). Yet, in the end, they are all the same OS. They all use the same window managers, the same kernels, the same drivers (mostly), the same logic behind many things. Another distro only feels really different, when you know a lot about the ins and outs of Linux systems. If you don't, the difference will often be that you have to type either "pacman" or "apt", or either change /etc/program.conf or /etc/program.d/foo.conf.
Play with the distro you already have and like. You ain't missing anything. Just don't get the wrong idea that Distros are like windows: monolithic monsters that can't be really changed. Like mint but want Gnome as window manager? Go for it. Dislike the way the standard terminal software does colors? Get another one. Don't like how Program X does some GUI thing? There will almost always an alternative that just plugs into your system exactly as the preinstalled one did.
A distribution is basically just a pre-selection of packages that can be changed at will. Hell, you could in theory get pacman on Debian or Apt on Arch. I don't know why you'd want to, but in theory you could.
Don't waste your time reinstalling your machine. Play with the things you already have!
Well said. Also, "tweakability" is ultimately going to be the same for any distro. Like you said the more beginner-friendly ones like Mint just start with some common tweaks already in place.
OP, do you know about GNOME extensions? It's not something the Jedi will usually tell you about. But it's a great start to the rabbit hole for newbies.
Great points, all in this thread! Yes, I'm aware of GNOME extensions, and I'm considering sticking with Mint more seriously now, given the response. I think the broader point here is very sage advice, and most users at this point in their Linux journeys, including me, need to hear that. I do intend to try out other distros in a VirtualBox VM for at least a week or so before nuking my current Mint install - however long it takes for me to be sure it's a better fit than Mint, which I imagine that many candidates won't be. For instance, I've decided from a quick try at Arch in a VM that it's still a good ways over my head - and may never be right for me, which is fine. I can say I've tried it now, and trying different things is good. Such is the nature of the beast! :-)
I'm not expecting a huge difference between my Mint Cinnamon and something like Manjaro KDE Plasma (the most interesting option to me right now.) I'm a tinkerer at heart, though, and while I'm not experienced enough with Linux yet to appreciate the differences for what they are, I do fancy myself the kind of person to care about those things... as soon as I figure them out, that is. :-)
While I understand now that I'm unlikely to see much of a UX change by hopping distro - thanks all! - I'm now mostly interested in an Arch-derived distro like Manjaro because I feel like its rolling release model is better suited to my personal tastes than Mint and the Ubuntu umbrella's stable releases, good as Mint has been to me. It's largely a preference thing for me, though, and I'll be investigating further before deciding whether it's what I want.
FWIW I really like Zorin, it's not dramatically different but it is prettier out of the box.