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?
Sounds like you should just use Mint, especially if you tried and like it. It’s customizable, GUI friendly, it’s based on Ubuntu so most guides for either will work, and you can download Steam to it and play native games (or Windows games through Proton).
I don’t know what you’re looking for, that Mint doesn’t provide. You can download different DEs or window managers, you can write your own bash scripts, and the core functionality for regular use is already there.
The only two draws that are really pulling me away from Mint are my taste for a rolling release model and my preference to learn the terminal if it’s there. I’m no power user just yet, but I’m determined to learn to use the tools available to me in the Terminal for if/when my GUI tool inevitably breaks. Having a fallback is always nice… but dual booting into EndeavourOS or Manjaro is a good motivator to get acquainted with the terminal, and quick, which is a level of effort I’m not at all opposed to and for knowledge I see as very helpful; knowledge I feel I’d take much longer to get in a distro that’s well-cloaked in GUI like Mint. Taking this advice in stride, though; I’ll certainly be hanging onto the foothold I have in Mint until I get confident with Arch-based and can personally assess my options with my own experience in both, whenever that (hopefully!) happens. :-)
I like the idea of rolling release in theory, but stability is extremely important to me because I use Linux as my daily driver.
EndeavourOS and Manjaro aren’t really going to do much to address your desire to use terminal more than Mint IMO, either; most mainstream distros like that emphasize usability first and foremost.
If you’re looking to really get under the hood, go with Arch ans follow a guide so you don’t bork anything too badly. Arch uses a different package manager than Mint/Ubuntu, so some of the commands might look different if you’re not following Arch-specific guides, but terminal is terminal is terminal in many cases. You can run Steam on Arch, and building the core functionality on your own will get you acquainted with terminal.
Although I’ve used everything from Arch to Zorin, and eventually you will have to use terminal for something. Just depends on what your longterm goals are, what usability you will need to rely on quickly, and how you think you’ll get to those goals most efficiently.