this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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(page 5) 5 comments
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[–] [email protected] 116 points 1 week ago (49 children)

Linux comes in a million flavors but most people should start with Mint. That sounds like a pun, but it's also true.

Mint is a nice, safe, up-to-date, simple, Windows-like choice that won't unnecessarily complicate the transition to an entirely different operating system. It has good hardware support and good defaults. Most things will feel very familiar and be very accessible. It is popular enough to find plenty of help on the internet and answers to almost every question you could have. It mostly just works and when it doesn't it's usually not a deal-breaker.

It's not my favourite distro, but you aren't ready for my favourite distro. Honestly I'm barely ready for my favourite distro. It's not elitism, it's just practicality. You'll learn as you go, and you'll eventually want to try other distros, but start with Mint, and keep a Mint system around for when you break everything else. Which you will if you start playing with other distros.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Please god not the distrochooser site, when someone asks you where to install Linux you send them anything but that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'd never heard of it so I tried it out, it seemed fine until the end where it listed about ten different distros with no real way to differentiate them.

Like, yeah, mint and Ubuntu and elementary and zorin and xubuntu all work for my use cases. I wanted it to give me a reason why one is better than another.

So, yeah, can't recommend that website. It's trying to help, but it won't, really.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Exactly. Too much choice can lead to analysis paralysis. I've been telling everyone who brings up Windows 10's expiration date that now is a good to install Linux Mint as a good beginner place to start.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yes, Mint is good advice. Beginners will need something mainstream with a solid base and good community support, that works out of the box and doesn't require manual configuration, and that doesn't look too different from Windows.

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