Linux Mint started out as Ubuntu with green theme and media codecs installed by default. It gradually improved. And when Ubuntu thought that it would be great to reinvent the desktop paradigm, Mint said "no way" and created The Cinnamon Desktop. Later, when Ubuntu decided that forcing Snap packages on everyone would be great, Mint said "no way" and maintains all mint packages as regular apt packages and no snap by default. Mint benefits from the popularity of Ubuntu, is nicer to use, and it's friggin beautiful.
and ubuntu started with some guys deciding that debian is a bit too stability focussed. let's take a less stable version and upgrade it. so with mint, ubuntu, zorin and a few others, you get the nice situation of a modern OS, but under the hood it is debian. which also means that hardware manufacturers and programmers just need to support debian and can support a rather large amout of other distributions just as a side effect.
@@F3EDER Depends on the games, but it's probably fine, especially for older games or older hardware. The only game I couldn't smoothly run without periodic crashing with Mint was Elden Ring, which has been notably better with Fedora for me (due to newer kernel and drivers). Other than that, I haven't noticed a difference with the games I've played (mostly Fromsoft and Falcom games). I'm only a couple of months into using Linux though. So far with Mint vs Fedora, I've noticed that things tend to work more easily with Mint, while with Fedora it can take a little more tinkering to get things to work smoothly. Some examples: - Brave wouldn't start when I first installed it in Fedora 38, and I had to install an older version first to get it working (which was recommended on a forum as a workaround). It worked fine with Mint. - I had to fiddle with permissions to get k3b working to burn an audio disc (not necessary with Mint) - I had to manually install a some python gl package to play some Renpy games with gl rendering (which I did not have to do with Mint). - Wine didn't work for me with Fedora like it did with Mint, so I had to use Bottles instead (which is great, probably better for my usage than Wine anyway) - The Steam client would rarely stop responding in Fedora somehow and took down the rest of the desktop with it. Not entirely sure why, but I haven't had it happen since I disabled some of the interface settings that were enabled by default (smooth scrolling, GPU accelerated rendering, hardware video decoding, I think). Never had that happen in Mint. So overall, Mint is pretty great. I only tried out Fedora because of the Elden Ring crashing that was probably something odd with my setup, and now that I've gotten it in a good spot after tinkering, I'm not interested in switching things around. I also preferred Cinnamon to Gnome, and Mint had a better "welcome" experience and default software installed, IMO.
@@ordinaryhuman5645 thank you for this nice info. I have a 5-6 year old gaming laptop, gen 7 i7. win 11 works just with workarounds, going back to win 10 means it is a complete reset and it is deprecated in 1,5 years anyways. so... mint it is.
@@robertheinrich2994 Yeah, I think if you're coming from Windows, Mint is probably the best place to start. Odds are it'll be fine, but if it isn't, you'll have a particular problem that would inform your next distribution choice (or giving up and going back to Windows, if there are too many unsolvable problems). In my case, I wanted the newer drivers for gaming (Ryzen 7 3700x + RX 5700 XT). I haven't booted Windows 10 yet since I started using Linux a couple of months ago, and I doubt that I'll need to boot it again for personal use.
Mint was my 2nd stop after windows. Ubuntu then mint. I had a hell of a time in mint with the nvidia drivers, finally giving up and back to windoze. Today thought I've been running manjaro KDE plasma, I love it. Been using it for about 2yrs now. Sadly though I still had to recently purchase win10 (I owned win7 but missed the free update to 10) to play my steam games...proton just doesn't cut it for me cause I hate F'ing around to get a game to work. Win10 for gaming ManjaroKDE plasma daily driver...
@@miketurgeon5506 Heh, i just avoid games the community say don't easily work with wine/proton, or don't have native ports. They will never feel any pressure otherwise. And I'm very experienced with Wine, i can make games work with wine staging+nvidia easily as long as they are in the appdb wine page, often they work without steam but not with steam, which is ironic, unless steam itself is also launched in wine, of course. I don't have THAT much time for that many games anyway, and Linux working games are plentiful.
Clem does NOT actually listen. The team STILL has not started work on Wayland and they killed the KDE edition, despite receiving outcry from the users.
In my opinion the huge problem Ubuntu has is that so many other distros and system infrastructure (like servers) depend on it working and staying somewhat consistent. It is just not possible for them change any core element and not get a huge amount of hate for it.
They already changed a core element recently, that it removed any support for flatpak that comes by default to force their users to use "Snap". Just like how Microsoft forces users to use their Edge.
@@edwinpj7637 ... and they get a lot of hate for that move. Maybe Canonical has a greater vision with snaps and they want to follow it. Why should anybody be allowed to tell Canonical what they can and can not do with their distro (that you can use free of charge). After all it's Linux: If you don't like it you don't have to use it. All I wanted to say is that Ubuntu is in a spot where changes can not be done without making some part of the community feel like Canonical deliberately stepped on their toes.
System infrastructure is not really a point for me as no reputable company would ever use a desktop version of Linux on a server and there would, at least in my opinion, not speak anything against going different routes on desktop and server versions of the distro. Other distros okay, but also meh. As a company in their own interest they could also go the route of saying: Well others completely relying on us is not stopping our own evolvement, so the would have to build around that. Not perfect and many would hate it but in my view absolutely possible.
@@Hardcore_Remixer to be fair, for most people, if you were able to have no browser on your computer by default, it would be considered a broken system. I know that people have this irrational hatred of having a browser they'll never use on their system, but the fact is it's kind of a necessity. That being said, they really should make it so that you can choose not to have it come back with updates, but that should be disabled by default because when you're designing products for the lowest common denominator, you have to design them for the assumption that people are absolute morons. You have to make a product that can save the users from themselves. That's why the steam deck uses an immutable desktop, so that you can't accidentally change system files by default.
@@KuruGDI the problem with snaps is that (to the best of my knowledge) the server is source-unavailable, let alone free or open source. So they clearly don't have a greater vision for snaps if they can't at least release the source code for people to view If people are using snaps (which as we've established they've not only released to the public, but with stuff like this actively promote), it is one of their fundamental rights to be able to have the complete source needed to (in theory - disregarding monetary, expertise/competency, and legal issues) reproduce in fully-identical (with the sole exception of differing secret keys leading to slightly different but 100% identical in function) form and modify as wanted the product in question (snaps here). Canonical has failed to respect this basic right, and people are obliged to tell them what they can't do
I went from windows straight to arch. Was a difficult experience but I love it. Aswell the community around arch is amazing and really friendly for when you inevitably break something.
@@piecepaper2831 I hope the rude responses from some commenters doesn't ruin your opinion of Arch users. Reports of Arch being buggy or horribly unstable are greatly exaggerated. It's also really not that difficult to set up, and the whole process is documented so will in both text and video that it's basically a non-issue this point. It'll teach you a lot about how Linux works and how to customize your OS to be exactly how you want it.
Made the switch to Tumbleweed a bit over a year ago now, been fantastic so far. It does make me sad that openSUSE is basically never talked about, even in videos about companies in Linux.
NixOs' single file config and their take on preventing dependency issues by making each dependency version a hash and using symlinks to let apps use different versions on the same system at the same time is cool!
@@alexstone691 I switched to vim after I came to nix. I haven't had any issues. My plugins all allowed me to set the lsp executable by hand. Edit: I'm setting up neovim with Homemanager.
I'm stoked that you put Linux Mint at the top! It often gets a rap as being only a beginner distro for it's ease of use but honestly, I've been using Linux for almost 20 years and I while I continue to try different distros from time to time, Linux Mint is the one that I use the most as my daily driver.
No wonder, you are an old fart 😂😂😂 I too use Linux Mint, I am too old to spend time making my OS pretty or super up to date. Good enough is the way to go for me 😊
I was using Fedora dual boot with Windows 11. I tryed to use it with flatpaks, but it's visible more slow than .rpms or appimage. Then my Fedora just stopped working 3 times this years... The last one 5 days ago... I don't know a lot about OpenSuse, but after try CentOS, EndeavourOS and Kinoite(coudn't even install with dual boot....), I finally tryed OpenSUSE LEAP with flatpaks. It's impressive the performance with flatpaks, it works perfect in the same machine that I used Fedora with Flatpaks. I'm curious about Yast, it appears to be a very good solution for diagnosing a lot of infraestructure problems with an easy interface! I'm not using zypper yet because all softwares I needed was downloaded via flatpak, and that was one reason I was afraid to chance to OpenSUSE some months ago. But the system looks very solid and I'm enjoying use it with almost standard KDE interface. I hope it will last longer than my Fedora installations...
This video couldn't have come out at a better time for me. I've been looking for an update on the state of Linux distros, haven't been able to keep in touch with the Linux world much lately since my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed install has been going strong for over 2 years. Thanks for the tier list, Nick, Keep the awesome Linux content coming!
So pleased to see Gentoo ranked as good. It's so versatile. But, indeed, it has a pretty daunting learning curve, and it only makes sense in the first place if you want to spend time to learn how to make use of it. One thing that is not mentioned, though probably it's out of scope, is that it is very good for very specific use cases. Niches. Like, running the latest Linux on a 486 from 30 (yes, thirty) years ago. Because it gives you so much power, it can also be extremely minimalistic. Going forward, knowing that you focus on practical stuff in general, I'd say the top pick for what distro to check next has to be openSuse, by a large margin. It's the underdog of distros, seemingly always in the shadow of Fedora. Plus, you gotta show some more european love (if I'm not mistaken, they're from Germany). I'm also personally interested in NixOS, but I don't think it's a good everyday distro, at least not yet. But their package manager is very interesting.
This is what I came here to say. Gentoo's approach to rolling release is refreshing when compared to Arch where everything is immediately pushed. Gentoo has a nice balance of stable packages on a rolling platform with the option to get more bleeding edge versions of anything by just setting a flag on the package. Once the initial install is done, the update times are pretty reasonable (assuming you don't have an update for nodejs or go...). Even a full KDE suite update only took a few minutes on my 5800X. It's somehow been more stable than Fedora on my desktop, and I haven't experienced any of the Arch memes like things randomly breaking following a software update (which only took about 2 weeks the last time I swapped back to Arch). I can't shill it hard enough, it's genuinely a great distro.
NixOS is a great distro if you love the concept and the fiddling that Linux requires. It’s like how when you first switch to Linux you gotta learn all the different things when compared to windows, but now you do it again, learning the changes from NixOS to normal Linux 😂
I would definitely put Pop OS higher. System76 has done a bad job communicating this, but the reason Pop OS hasn't gotten a point release in a while is because they are actually treating the distro as a rolling release built on top of Ubuntu 22.04. All of the packages related to desktop graphic performance like drivers and kernels and libraries are all up-to-date, unlike Ubuntu or Zorin OS.
Yeah I like POP!_OS too. My first Linux was Mint, but I have a lot of hardware driver trouble. Wlan and Nvidia graphic doesn't work well. Then I tried POP!_OS and I am super happy with it.
I use Debian as a daily desktop. Softwares are not always up to date, but it's not really a problem. Why would we really need it ? The only flatpak I use is for Kicad 7, and Firefox from the official website instead of the Debian repo. I don't use Arch, but their wiki and documentation is impressive and very useful, even with other distro.
Should consider EndeavourOS as Manjaro substitute for the next tier list video. Used it before I switched to Arch, been hearing good things about it ever since.
I understand the purpose of Manjaro as a distribution, it's snapshots of Arch aiming for more stability, now Endevour is just Archlinux with an installer, why not install Arch right?
@@joaopauloalbq It's awesome for intermediate users which may not want to get into Arch yet but want to try something more advanced than, say, Linux Mint. EndeavourOS is basically Arch + great installer + a bunch of little utilities that make the experience more straightforward for new users
I found MX to be a complete experience. With easy access to common package downloads, flatpaks, testing branch, and back ports packages, makes this handy. Also, if you are running Intel graphics, you can choose the Intel graphics driver. I don't know if it works with Iris graphics. It also provides the option to install Nvidia drivers. .The kernel is a bit older, but a newer kernel version is available, for newer hardware, if needed. XFCE, isn't the prettiest desktop,but it can be themed. Appearance doesn't matter to me very much. I'm ok with an older look. MX is the best distro, if being used as a live USB, with persistence, bar none.
Did you experience upgrading from 19 to 21? The thing about evaluating a distro, is that its not limited to the "i just installed it" experience, but what comes later down the road. He just gave a lower rating to Pantheon for the same thing MX Linux did there... Distros that can't upgrade are an obstacle to the user.
Try Nobara - I installed it as a "gaming distro' initially but when nothing broke I never got around to changing it and after a few months I realised that I'd stopped thinking about what distro to try out next, which had been my default way of thinking about Desktop Linux for several years. I'm a little uneasy that so much depends on GE, but he really does seem to be hitting it out of the park and with the rapid improvements the Fedora people are making Nobara has an exceptionally solid base that's also very current. Importantly for me, I also know that I can always just pivot to mainstream Fedora should Nobara development tail off at some future date.
I'd be interested in comparing gaming-related distros like Nobara, HoloISO and ChimeraOS. It would be interesting to know whether they offer noticeable advantages in performance and how do they work for non-gamining daily desktop usage.
Very good video ! I personally really like Pop OS for its simplicity (mainly NVDIA drivers and all), it was the only distro to work out of the box with my NVIDIA card and my 144hz monitor
I'm using Zorin os lite so there's hardly any difference, since Xfce has hardly changed much❤. (Zorin os is still a good distro for windows to linux, it's very intuitive to use) if a distro works for you you should keep using it❤
I personally abandoned ZorinOS because of their payware 'Pro' variant which only includes some additional freely available packages and the inclusion of a macOS like dock. Things like this should be in a single free variant.
I've been using Linux for about six months now, and while I am sometimes tempted to go and rice Arch (my friend has this *gorgeous* hyprland install,) I find myself sticking to pop because it consistently works, it has some awesome features, and I've only had a major break once! And that was day one trying to connect Airpods. Love Pop! Sticking with it for the forseeable future.
Crazy enough, I've been using Manjaro on three different PC's, my work laptop, work desktop, and gaming PC for about 3 years now and have never had a single issue with it. I love the rolling release, even with the slight package delay updates. Provides stability for me and still close to the latest packages.
Same for me. It's fast and stable. Faulty driver on several pc and laptops since long time. Ligger mein is number two for me but while Manjaro always work stable life Neon have few hiccups and required reinstalling
@@hardbrocklife yup that's how I feel, but the business side doesn't really matter to me as long as everything else is running as expected, which it has.
I still run and like Manjaro. It adds some stuff like extra window switchers, nice theme tweaks or a nice default terminal configuration. I know these can be added to other distros, but when I first installed Manjaro it felt like a really polished experience. The only thing I'm not so happy about is that it takes quite a long time sometimes to get new versions of some packages. It took over 3 months since I saw the review of KDE 5.25 on this channel until it arrived in Manjaro. I have no idea how long it takes in other distros, but if it's called rolling release then I'd like to try new things before I forget about them 😀
The reason Manjaro delays Plasma so much is because they ship it on their computers. They don't want to risk shipping a broken system. Other updates get out a lot faster, but they messed up keeping 5.25 for so long. Going from Manjaro>Fedora KDE led to an objectively superior experience. What I think would really help Manjaro is a "housekeeping event" or something. A lot of their editions ship with old/broken themes, some Manjaro-specific apps are GTK, some are QT so require a bunch of extra packages on Gnome and have inconsistent visuals. You'll see there are inconsistent teal shades used, etc. If you install Zorin or Elementary, you see this super-consistent visual polish, whereas Manjaro IMO has THE BEST branding, but little bits of jankyness that make it feel more unstable than it is.
I've slowly gained more and more problems running Manjaro, to the point i think it has no good reason existing. It is arch based, and i love pacman as a package manager. However, because they keep their own repos for the main but also allow you to access the AUR over time a you'll get a significant amount of desync, after running it for a year updating the system became a gamble on when the star aligned on dependencies or not. All in all, it is Arch made easy, but at the same time takes away most of what is good of arch. It makes more sense forking a different distro to run it like this.
@Guitarzen I'm sorry, but this comment does upset me a little. Even though i personally often am the cause for many of my own computer problems, if you have read my original comment, you aught reconsider if this is a picnic case or not. I am glad Manjaro is working out for your choices, but I don't think your experience invalidates my competency. I wouldn't consider the user the problem when that which fails the updates literally, as reported by pamac itself, is out-of-date dependencies. Using the AUR on Manjaro is very hit-or-miss, which they themselves obviously usually acknowledge. However at the same time the facilitate this use by providing the options with pamac. After having moved away i have realized Manjaro itself offered little but annoyance over other distros about. As a more experienced linux user, an easier experience installing has not been worth it if over a system that runs and updates more reliable. The same combinations of software is not giving me any problems on Arch now thankfully.
Imo it's hard to justify choosing Manjaro when there is OpenSUSE. Sure the look and feel might be different and the package managers are different, but both OS' are for more advanced users who customize everything to begin with, so you can make both distros look and feel identical. In the end you get one on the bleeding edge full of instability and another on the cutting edge which might cut you from time to time, but you're not likely to bleed from these cuts. This gives an all around far better experience once setup. I will say though that Manjaro has less out of the box necessary configuration to do than OpenSUSE so at first it does seem better.
I moved from Debian (stable) to LMDE a couple of years ago. Recently, to get some newness, I went to Mint 21 and haven't been this happy with a distro for a long time! So glad to see it ranked well here. As for others, Where's Lite? I can't believe it got left out! And Endeavour? I'd like to see your take on DistroWatches' #2.
Me too. Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon for the past few months has been working pretty good. However, LMDE left a bad taste in my mouth many many years ago, so I won't ever try it again. Lite was okay when I also used it old school. However, when it broke, another bad taste. No need to go Lite ever again. I will only stay with the best track records since if they broke in the past there is too large of a chance to break again. Linux Mint for the win!
I've been using EndeavourOS for several months and - as someone who worked with Windows for 15+ years - it's a great fork of Arch that doesn't throw me in a tumble dryer immediately, and lets me get my sea legs as I adjust, adapt, and adopt Linux. Any problems I have at this point I logic out as "Every computer has problems" and do my best to fix it
Manjaro has been legendary for me. Incredibly flexible, yet rock solid and easy to fix if I break anything. Been running 3 systems on it for 4 years now.
I have been using manjaro for four years (after using antergos), but I grew tired of fixing my system after regular system updates and I disliked their Gnome desktop Implementation.
I haven't had any issues I didn't cause, and it was related to display/nvidia nonsense I created. Been using it on my laptop and desktop for months as my DD. The most rece t update fixed the multi display issues I was having. Work, play, and run a small business on the side with it. Its all I've used on my laptop for a year. Proton allowed me to transition my desktop over to manjaro too. The company has def been derpy lately, but the distro itself with KDE has been a wonderful experience.
@@hardbrocklife I can't even have issues I try to cause haha, I mean, a year or two ago I've done a full copy of my OS drive (symlinks and all) to a new ssd and to a new filesystem (from ext4 to btrfs), I was fully prepared to have to reinstall, but its just kept going. Even got AMDs ROCm working in manjaro before I could get it to work in ubuntu (which its supposed to officially support). I did have a period of time where updates only showed in terminal and not in pamac, which could be related to their certificate shenanigans, but that's about it.
can you please make this a yearly serie .. like every year do tier list of the distros you ve tested that year im sure it will something special i imagine like the mkbhd phone awards XD
I have tried all of these distros and while mint was ok for a bit I finally settled for Zorin OS and to this date it's my daily driver. I get updates almost every 2 weeks and its blazing fast and I get everything done in a jiffy. Im a photographer so video and photo manipulation softwares which are resource hogs run seamlessly for me. No issues at all
I'd like to suggest a deeper dive into the Arch (Garuda, EndeavourOS, ArcoLinux) and Fedora (Nobara, Regata, Ultramarine (You already mentioned openSUSE)) areas, as well as Vanilla and Blend OS.
Honestly, I would compare Fedora to Linux Mint. They both are great for beginners and advanced users alike. The thing I love about Fedora is that it lets me customise things I care about to my heart content, while also providing sensible defaults for the rest. Other than the Flathub issue the rest are just minor pain points in the beginning, but after you get past those it's a very nice experience.
I have been using Mint for 2 weeks. It's my first time Linux experience, only one thing I'm missing is that lack of Photoshop, rest is far better than windows
I was surprised to see Gentoo come up, I thought I was the only one still interested in it. I adopted it in 2006 because it was the only one I could get to run well on the old and outdated hardware I had at the time and I just stayed with it, it's the one for me. Thank you for an interesting video.
I run it as well as the main desktop, won't change it for anything, rock solid + updated, you just can't have that with binary distros. Everything i hated from Arch updates just works pleasantly with Gentoo updates, oh and the flexibility of picking the things you want in the compiles, plus the fact that compiling things just work and you don't end solving a gazillion issues like when you want to compile in a binary distro. Its just another world, its so good, Mint is bloat, old and unstable at the same time in comparison. But sure, Gentoo is not for newbies. Of the binary distros its decent, i guess with the others being even worse; except maybe Void, which is like Netbsd. Of course Gentoo was originally inspired by Freebsd which is also a source distro, it is a thing of pure beauty, things work, things don't break, etc. But you need to remove habits from using other distros, for sure, and learn new things in the process, things you didn't even knew you could do but the other distros just didn't let you do... Long live Gentoo!
A few distros I love that never got mentioned: - Mageia, the continuation of Mandrake since 2011. It's just generally competent and the fact it has a getting started screen is a very good touch. - Slackware, one of the OGs and it shows. It's a fun breather from all the high tech of a more modern OS, with just what you need for a desktop. Plus, there are some cli tools it has that I miss when using other OSes. - Honorable mention: OpenBSD. I have it installed on a tiny little Mebius PC and it just works. I can install it on a PowerBook if I want, and in fact for some of them (especially the ones with nViia graphics), it's the best OS for them.
I mean this is a list especially for new-comers to the linux world and a intuitive workflow and style. Of course slackware just like some others will take more space on our hearts older linux users (just like i love Gentoo).
@@draftofspasiba2 > older linux users Oh yeah. In 1996 I got Slackware with a "Learn Linux" book and it led to my first Unix job (transitioning from PC networking).
Would love to see Garuda in the next tier list if possible to rep as an Arch based distro. Would be interesting to hear your experience Nick especially since it uses the zen kernel by default.
@@BNBPhotofr Yeah, its got to be one of the better ones out there, nice and pretty stable. Except the 2 times when Dr460nized KDE broke my activity switcher setup😅. Other than that, very performant, super pretty plus a slightly spicy community forum(depending on the issue), whats not to love about that🤷♂.
I tried MX Linux for the simple reason that it was on the top position of the list of distrowatch. I've been using it for years and the experience has been great. It would be nice of you to review it.
I am a Zorin 16 Pro user. The first month was a little disappointing, but after that it has been a pretty good stable experience. Zorin does deliver on their promise of a user friendly experience. I love the idea of Elementary OS, but hate their execution of the idea. Not having an office suite and the better browsers available early on is a terrible idea. I think I am going to wait a cycle on POP OS the Cosmic version, so they can get the early bugs out of the way.
I'm liking Zorin as well, but I also don't have much linux experience. I've only ever tried Ubuntu/Xubuntu, and Linux Mint XFCE. I did try out Debian via Live CD, but that was ages ago and even back then the version was outdated.
I'd love to see a comparison of immutable distros like openSuSe MicroOS, Fedora CoreOS/Silverblue/(their KDE variant), nixOS, Ubuntu Core(?), SteamOS(?!) ... This seems to be the next great paradigm shift for Linux - especially for the Desktop.
I would suggest trying out Void Linux. A custom package manager and the runit init system are the loudest standouts imo. The documentation is sufficient and the void-packages helps out with the rest too. It is on the deeper end but worth a try. I saw you like a openSUSE comment. I want to try it as well.
I daily Void because it's such a problem free distro. It's so incredibly stable, yet rolling so you aren't left in the dust. I've never had an update related breakage in the year or so I've been using it.
Another great standout yet nobody seemed to cared or mentioned is that they offer musl variant. When you can't run glibc on your machine, or tired about GNU, it's such a breeze to have it. Right now I can see only Void and Gentoo are offering this flavour.
I almost forgot that Alpine uses musl too. Sorry. If you read this, OP, please also try out Void Linux and Alpine Linux, both offering similar minimalistic user experience yet feature rich and super stable.
I used MX Linux 21 Wildflower with the xfce environment for 10 months last year. I think it is a very good distribution. It has a lot of what you need. Good for beginners and advanced users alike.
Yep. I tried it and stuck with it. I have it on 3 laptops now that, one or the other, gets daily use. XFCE seems to not get much love but it's perfect for me and I love it.
I can definitely vouch for mint. It was the only OS where I could fix literally anything without pulling my hair out. My dad runs it by default. I had to help him set it up and he does music production and gaming. All of the other operating systems seemed to insist on themselves too much. Mint is low key and since it is based on Ubuntu you can run very up to date stuff as well as keep some of the more stable stuff. I myself am looking to fully transition to mint once they have HDR support as a few things I do still require it (like video editing). Anyways I think it's a good tier list. I started with Red Hat 7 that I got in a book from a computer store. Ever since then, I've seen it gradually grow from something only really nerdy people used to actually being a solid choice for most users who just want a simple and easy desktop experience. The greatest thing about Linux though is that it challenges you to take on a growth mindset and actually learn more about your computer as you use it.
Initially, I thought it's just another tier list but you explained and gave context to to your choices. So I feel like this is a video all beginners should watch before switching over from Windows or MacOS.
Zorin was I think the 2nd distro I tried when I finally came back to Linux. And honestly the built in tools and out of the box customization It had, is why I still use Linux as my preferred daily driver. Enough hand holding to keep you from doing anything to stupid, and enough tools to make it feel usable out of the box when compared feature to feature with Windows or Mac OS.
I use both MX and Mint as my goto distros. Sometimes my choice is driven by whichever works best on the target PC. Other times the choice is driven by which USB stick I find first and whether or not the distro on it works OK.
As a mint user, I love it, the only thing I didn't like was the cursor and so I just installed kde desktop on it and called it a day with a better cursor and a tad bit better animations.
If you have a little knowledge how to use linux, the best option is still to create your own distro by taking a stable core version and use programs like cubic to add/remove stuff from the ISO you feed it. Violla..you got a slick fast distro with just the stuff you need preinstalled.
Same here but I also like Slackware. Used SuSE for years long time ago. Now I settled for Fedora on my main PC with backup RHEL installation, Ubuntu on servers and Kali on my laptop. Couldn’t be happier.
I've been all linuxmint at home for a few years now, with Windurrs relegated to VMs when I absolutely need it. Good call on having it at the top of the list!
Nobara OS fixes alot of of base Fedora's issues. It's what I started using Linux on about half a year ago and it's been a very seamless and user-friendly experience so far!
This was honestly a great way to make a tier list. Not the generic "lets just drag icons around", but actually explaining the reasoning. My recommendations would be MX Linux and Slackware
I am mostly using Garuda Linux KDE dragonized edition. In my opinion it’s a good one, brings arch power without need of terminal, a lot of customization and good looking with all animations and neon effects. Also, stable with zen kernel and doesn’t let users break it easily. Besides has performance tweaks and power saver tweaks that users can choose based on PC or laptop for example. Also has strong build on chaotic-AUR which offers pre-compiled packages 📦
The arch's power is minimalism, you kind of lose that if you bring the kitchen sink and everything because arch packages are never optimised to work together They are simple and close to source as possible to keep them stable
@@mrmoomoo3373 On my 8 years laptop works faster than Manjaro and Deepin that I tried in the past. It is using some more RAM but for own performance goods like cache.
I installed Arch only once, to get the arch experience. Even after a successful install I ran into problems with nvidia drivers. I've been using Manjaro ever since. I'd recommend Manjaro over Mint to newbies simply because of the AUR which gives you access to every package out there and it has KDE Isos which gives an almost completely setup system (for my preferences) in just a few clicks and it is a rolling distro, so no reinstall with the update cycle (which mint usually recommends on new releases) and you get much newer packages way quicker than ubuntu/mint. Its like debian Sid with a minty twist. I was in love the first time I tried it. The only thing I hated about it was lack of remastersys type system to iso backup but penguins-eggs fixed that recently.
Using Nobara here. It's based on Fedora, but includes a lot of things you'll install anyway if you plan to game on it. It does some tweaks and fixes to Fedora and feels like it would be a better experience for a newbie, than Fedora
I agree that it has a better first time experience for than Fedora Workstation. It uses the Calamares installer and enables the RPM Fusion repo by default. The Nobara welcome app guides the user for steps I’ve seen recommended as post-install for Fedora. I personally had issues with Fedora recovering from suspend which does not occur in Nobara.
Ubuntu is my distro of choice largely because, like you, it's the first Linux distro I ever used and it's generally very stable and runs great on anything I throw it at. Recently though I've been toying with Linux Mint and it's really growing on me.
Over the past 15 years or so, I've had a look at some different distro's and have recently downloaded their iso on to dvd's and have even tried them out (without a full install) and wondered whether you have already looked at them: 1. Peppermint (32 bit) 2. MX-Linux (32 bit) 3. AntiX Linux (for older PC's) (32 bit) 4. Void Linux (32 bit) 5. Qimo 2.0 (for younger users) (32 bit) 6. Bionic_Pup 8.0 (32 bit) or Puppy Linux (32 bit) 7. Twister OS (32 bit - ARM) for Raspberry Pi 400 8. Google Chromium OS (64 bit - ARM) for Raspberry Pi 400 (like other Chromebooks Linux apps can be installed inside it like in a sandbox). Great video as usual and I look forward to your review of the above. I generally use Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Mint for my main computers and Google Chromium OS, MX Linux, Twister OS and Raspbian OS on my Raspberry Pi 400.
I'm considering switching from Manjaro to Endeavour OS. It seems to follow Arch more closely and looks quite cool from what I can tell. In addition, Pamac hasn't been able to install or update AUR packages for a while now, which was one of my reasons for going with it in the first place.
I use AUR with Manjaro. Occasionally there is an error on update saying it can't sync with AUR. But that has always gone away if I wait and try again later.
@@me_fault honestly, 'try again later' should not really be a/the way to fix a problem. For me these kept stacking up, and eventually i got sick of it. I moved away to proper arch, and the same combination of software has had significantly fewer problems. If you just use the linux to toy around and don't really depend on it, why not try out arch either way. If your system is more important to be stable to you, i am not sure if any arch based distro is a good call.
True, a 'try again later' fix isn't ideal. At the moment Manjaro works well enough that just sticking with it is easier than trying Arch. Although, I would like try it out at some point.
I think a good idea for a video would be to compare (not rank as it would bring war in the comments) the different immutable linux distros and their approaches to it, what advantages they have over normal distros, over the others immutable distros as well as their drawbacks due to the way they implement immutability.
I'm glad that you added super stable Debian, and I use it on my laptop and servers. The issue with somewhat 'not the latest' desktop version is not a huge concern for me. For the apps, the back ports application repository is usually not that far behind. I also had the love/hate relationship with Ubuntu., but once Debian eliminated most driver/hardware tweaks, I never look backed to Ubuntu - and that was a decade ago. Cheers.
Longtime Debian user here. Perhaps because I don’t game on it is why Debian stable has never been an issue for me. It does everything that I need. For me I will trade a bit of cutting edge for super stable environment. Perhaps if I used a cutting edge linux distributor my opinion might change.
About debian, I use it a lot on my desktops (this and fedora) but not the iso they first expose on their website, a few more clicks lead you to a much lighter (less packages) version which allows me to pretty much create my custom distro
@@0xKrem this was for my work computer so I didn't need much more than neovim and a web browser The main things I installed were bspwm with polybar, picom, nix and kitty But I then switched to NixOS last week
A great tier list. I find myself agreeing with a lot of your arguments as to why you're placing things in certain places. The only one I disagree on is Pop, I'm of the opinion it should be a place higher. It might be based on 22.04 LTS, but the Pop devs are doing a lot of work to keep things up to date. They're compiling their own kernel, so that's pretty up to date (in fact, it updated for me today and I'm on 6.2.6 now) The software shipped in the app store is a bit older, but that's the LTS base right there. Looking forward to seeing you try out immutable systems. Stuff like Fedora Silverblue is super fascinating to me and I can see them being the future one day.
I'm using Mint at home and Pop at work. The Pop Shop is just a train wreck but I'm really looking forward to their next release, there is SO much work going on there.
We have Pop at the office and although I'd personally rank it the same category (gave me a lot of work to do) I can see its appeal and I thougth he was going to rank it higher too.
Debian has backports for newer applications / kernels. Also, they are in Freeze for Debian 12, so will have a nice bump in everything soon for users who wish to have a stable operating system.
@wikingagresor Also, I think yhe GNOME 43 (not 44, but still a HUGE improvement over 3.38) and KDE Plasma 5.27 (the latest and last Plasma 5 release) inclusions are important! I'm especially glad they put in 5.27 in, given its an LTS release and it really does bring some nice changes over 5.24 and ESPECIALLY 5.20, which was on Debian 11!
@@cameronbosch1213 Right, Debian 11 was released in August of 2021. By the time 12 comes out, it'll be 2 years old. But there is this weird thing where people think latest is always greatest, and that's not always the case, especially if you want some stability. Look at something like RedHat, if they were releasing new versions all the time like Ubuntu, no one would use them in the mission critical situations where they do. Granted Ubuntu has the LTS release for this purpose, but they release at about the same rate as Debian does, every two years or so. Though Debian only does a release 'when they're damn well ready to!' instead of going off a strict schedule like Ubuntu does, which is why even the LTS releases of Ubuntu are best to wait about another 6-8 months before utilizing it.
@@slaapliedje I used to think like that about a decade or two ago. Until i seriously went with Gentoo. that's true stability right there. I can now say its more stable than Debian Stable (yes, i had experience with .deb packages in the stable repository that somehow passed testing but had major bugs). You think that there is no other choice, either old stable or new unstable... Well think again, there is. But it takes time to adapt, once you do; you won't believe how your distro was holding you back so much. Its incredible. I wish more people put effort to learn Gentoo rather than Arch, that was a pure waste of my time, like 3 years wasted there, not looking back.
@freeculture arch is definitely worth learning, if for no other reason than they have some of the best documentation for everything. I have used Sabayon in the past, and my biggest complaint about anything Gentoo based is the need to compile most things, and quite frankly, I don't have the patience for it anymore.
I built a new desktop computer about a year ago (my first build) and wasn't in the mood to spend $100+ on a new Windows license, so I decided to install Linux "for the time being." I knew Mint has a good reputation, is easy to install, and is an easy transition for Windows users, so I went with it. A year later, I'm still happy using Mint and plan to keep using it for the foreseeable future. I've been pleasantly surprised by its quality, so I'm not at all surprised to see it at the top of this list. The only thing I miss from the MS ecosystem is Excel, which Libreoffice Calc does a mostly good job replacing, but it isn't as good as I'd like. I certainly can't blame that on Mint, so it still gets my enthusiastic support!
Would you be up to try out MX Linux? Has good hardware support, Debian base, flathub support, great updates. Mepis was my first Linux OS that I ran back in the 00's, moved to ub, then Elementary. Mepis merged with anti X. I find MX Linux' customizable interface and hardware support so fantastic for every type of device. Living room, office, laptop, even as a server if needed, wish I had it for my phone too.
Being the top in Distrowatch one would thing he would at least try it, but yeah we all know Distrowatch stats are a bit, shady. Its a fine distro, and i like antiX for old pcs as well. Basically Debian with some extras.
You should make the next episode as the continuation to this one, rather than as a separate one, as I'd like to see how you'd score the ones not already covered against the ones you already have. Oh, and by the way, please rank MX Linux as well - preferably the XFCE edition, as none what you've reviewed so far had the XFCE DE.
I switched from Linux Mint to Ubuntu at some point and I am loving it so far. At the end, it really does not matter: All debian / ubuntu based distros seem to be a great choice if you want a stable experience.
@@level-zero999 Understandable! Snaps are not a big deal for me though as they work fine for me and I can still install flatpak or from the apt repository.
Please test OpenSuse and MX. Then remake this list. It would be interesting to see where you put them. But one thing is certain, Mint is almost irreplaceable from the top! 🙌
Hi, I think you should also cover Garuda Linux. It is really cool Arch based distro, with many features enabled by default. I would definitely like to see Garuda Linux up there.
As a seasoned software developer of +30 years experience, I have used Linux desktops for many year. Sure, Debian, Mint - all were great over the years, things moved on, and I've being using MacOs for a decade plus since then - the confusion and disjoint opinions in the Linux eco system is not a good thing. Personally, I just want my hardware and software to work sensibly, reliably and prudently. I just want to get my work done without all the faff. This is why MacOS is a slow moving boat, it just works, the eco system works. If you want the new shiny thing then MacOS is not for you. If you want driver conflicts, or kernel upgrades, then use Linux. I'm currently 40 / 60 in the debate of Linux / MacOS, I would love to use Linux but it's not looking good with all these endless options - at the end of the day we need to get work done!
The reason you knocked Debian down to good (understandable, not arguing as it is a valid reason) is the exact reason why I will be switching back when 12 is released. Stability is king in my setup and I don't mind being a couple versions behind if the packages I'm using are "recent enough". The only reason I'm currently on Fedora is because Debian 11 doesn't support my wifi and has a few issues with my AMD chipset, but with 12 having kernel 6.1 I will be off to the races.
Please include Slackware. First released in f 1993, Slackware aims to be the most "UNIX-like" Linux distribution, complying with standards such as the Linux File System Standard.
Whenever I see a tierlist of this, at first I can't avoid thinking that the more hostile the distro is to the inexperienced user, the higher it will be XD
EndeavourOS is amazing for me. It sometimes broke but that made me more experienced in linux. Also the fact that AUR has so many more packages than any distro is amazing.
Debian hands down! It's super slim and efficient and the stability is remarkable. Stable mostly means, that nothing will bother you. You don't need the latest release of the system calculator. But if you need the latest and greatest, just add another repo and you're good to go.
Exactly. Even tough I'm using Arch right, if I were to crap out my system I would use Debian stable + flatpak and backports for the software I need to be bleeding edge.
I use Arch, but in the form of EndeavourOS with the KDE Plasma DE. I used it's predecessor Antergos too, and so have been using Arch Linux for over a decade, and yes, in a production environment and run my business with and on it. It's rock solid and I haven't had any problems with it; Sure, it allows you to hose your system, but I don't see how you can say it's easy to do so, because that requires one to not read the documentation and seek help from the Linux community before trying things without making sure it's what you really want, and know what you're getting into. You can hose any Linux distro and even Windows for being ignorant. EndeavourOS is very close to plain Arch, but with an easy and fast installer and a few additional system utilities. You have a choice of many DE's on install, and they come as released by the DE's maker with no other additions than a little bit of theming so you can tell it's Endeavour in looking at it, and all that can of course be changed if you like. It may not be beginner friendly as so many distros are, but with simplicity you often loose great features and the ability to customize things to your hearts content, and for all of the good you think you have, it's the better you may miss out on. I have found EndeavourOS with KDE plasma to be the ultimate Swiss army knife of computing! It's also not true anymore that Arch being a rolling release is plagued with bugs, as Arch developers now pay much more attention to detail, and make sure things are stable before rolling out new features. In the Arch Based Distro world, Manjaro is more for beginners, but it is way more buggy than EndeavourOS, because they are trying to simplify it by adding all kinds of stuff, and that stuff is buggy where Arch itself cannot be blamed.
I used Zorin for a year or so and I have to say it is a great distro. Yes, it does not have the newest packages, but I think this is the whole point of this distro. You get incerdibly user-friendly, easy adjustable, awesome looking and super-stable/reliable distro (better than Mint in this category, in my opinion). For someone switching from Win/Mac, this would be my go-to distro. But in the end, Fedora is the best :)
Gotta say , Manjaro Community is the most friendly one out of all these distros . And I believe Manjaro will be back will some great changes and updates again in the future .
:) THANKS MUCH and WELL DONE! Mint is a go to a LONG TIME! BUT I stumbled on Spiral and have switched all my machines over, seems to do all that I want and KDE ROCKS on it! ALL the BEST and Cheers! :)
3 secs to detect a french guy. What I heard conviced me than linux is still a weird goat: "no nvidia drivers", "reverse clock for certificates", prompt to install, repo offline for 3 months, etc, etc, etc
Thank you friend. I recently purchased a Lenova T430, which I plan to upgrade and convert from Windows 10 to Linux. It’s an uphill journey, but I am eager to get into. Your advice is valuable to me. Peace from Texas.
Gentoo is not just about compiling everything from source. It is mostly about offering users every possible choice and letting them configure it in an easy way. It doesn’t tell users how to do things but it will aid users in the more popular choices. On gentoo you can switch out your kernel, C compiler, C library from glibc to musl and back and even the init system. All that without reinstalling. All that while keeping a basis for the users to operate on. Gentoo is not like LFS (or windows) that is just a random bunch of software that is scrambled together. Gentoo offers railings to users that want them.
Personally, I'm not a fan, I've had a lot of issues with it but if they were solved and it's more in line with Ubuntu in terms of stability, I can see it being a very good entry point as it's more Windows-like in terms of UI, and the rest kinda works the same way on modern distros.
Fedora ftw, I'm very satisfied with where it was put in the tier list with the mentioned reasons. Would love to see Endeavour on your list next time ;)
Download Safing's Portmaster and take control of your network traffic: safing.io
Can you please make a tutorial on postmaster setup on linux
What about CachyOs. ArchLinux Derev
Arch over Ubuntu, f. e can you find display docking station drivers? Amd pro drivers, etc. etc. No - your videos are complete and utter garbage.
You forgot CentOS, VMWare and Proxmox as virtualization platforms, and Kali(really my favorite distro), ParrotOS and Blackarch for pentesting purposes
@@ernestoditerribile He didn't forget them. This is his list of distros he used or tried recently.
Linux Mint started out as Ubuntu with green theme and media codecs installed by default. It gradually improved. And when Ubuntu thought that it would be great to reinvent the desktop paradigm, Mint said "no way" and created The Cinnamon Desktop. Later, when Ubuntu decided that forcing Snap packages on everyone would be great, Mint said "no way" and maintains all mint packages as regular apt packages and no snap by default. Mint benefits from the popularity of Ubuntu, is nicer to use, and it's friggin beautiful.
and ubuntu started with some guys deciding that debian is a bit too stability focussed. let's take a less stable version and upgrade it.
so with mint, ubuntu, zorin and a few others, you get the nice situation of a modern OS, but under the hood it is debian.
which also means that hardware manufacturers and programmers just need to support debian and can support a rather large amout of other distributions just as a side effect.
How is Mint for gaming?
@@F3EDER Depends on the games, but it's probably fine, especially for older games or older hardware. The only game I couldn't smoothly run without periodic crashing with Mint was Elden Ring, which has been notably better with Fedora for me (due to newer kernel and drivers). Other than that, I haven't noticed a difference with the games I've played (mostly Fromsoft and Falcom games). I'm only a couple of months into using Linux though.
So far with Mint vs Fedora, I've noticed that things tend to work more easily with Mint, while with Fedora it can take a little more tinkering to get things to work smoothly. Some examples:
- Brave wouldn't start when I first installed it in Fedora 38, and I had to install an older version first to get it working (which was recommended on a forum as a workaround). It worked fine with Mint.
- I had to fiddle with permissions to get k3b working to burn an audio disc (not necessary with Mint)
- I had to manually install a some python gl package to play some Renpy games with gl rendering (which I did not have to do with Mint).
- Wine didn't work for me with Fedora like it did with Mint, so I had to use Bottles instead (which is great, probably better for my usage than Wine anyway)
- The Steam client would rarely stop responding in Fedora somehow and took down the rest of the desktop with it. Not entirely sure why, but I haven't had it happen since I disabled some of the interface settings that were enabled by default (smooth scrolling, GPU accelerated rendering, hardware video decoding, I think). Never had that happen in Mint.
So overall, Mint is pretty great. I only tried out Fedora because of the Elden Ring crashing that was probably something odd with my setup, and now that I've gotten it in a good spot after tinkering, I'm not interested in switching things around. I also preferred Cinnamon to Gnome, and Mint had a better "welcome" experience and default software installed, IMO.
@@ordinaryhuman5645 thank you for this nice info. I have a 5-6 year old gaming laptop, gen 7 i7. win 11 works just with workarounds, going back to win 10 means it is a complete reset and it is deprecated in 1,5 years anyways. so... mint it is.
@@robertheinrich2994 Yeah, I think if you're coming from Windows, Mint is probably the best place to start. Odds are it'll be fine, but if it isn't, you'll have a particular problem that would inform your next distribution choice (or giving up and going back to Windows, if there are too many unsolvable problems). In my case, I wanted the newer drivers for gaming (Ryzen 7 3700x + RX 5700 XT).
I haven't booted Windows 10 yet since I started using Linux a couple of months ago, and I doubt that I'll need to boot it again for personal use.
Mint checks all the boxes for me. Clem actually listens and meets the needs of his user base. I like the simplicity and reliability.
Mint is so cool. I love it above all the other ones I used.
Mint was my 2nd stop after windows. Ubuntu then mint. I had a hell of a time in mint with the nvidia drivers, finally giving up and back to windoze. Today thought I've been running manjaro KDE plasma, I love it. Been using it for about 2yrs now. Sadly though I still had to recently purchase win10 (I owned win7 but missed the free update to 10) to play my steam games...proton just doesn't cut it for me cause I hate F'ing around to get a game to work. Win10 for gaming ManjaroKDE plasma daily driver...
@@miketurgeon5506 Heh, i just avoid games the community say don't easily work with wine/proton, or don't have native ports. They will never feel any pressure otherwise. And I'm very experienced with Wine, i can make games work with wine staging+nvidia easily as long as they are in the appdb wine page, often they work without steam but not with steam, which is ironic, unless steam itself is also launched in wine, of course. I don't have THAT much time for that many games anyway, and Linux working games are plentiful.
Clem does NOT actually listen. The team STILL has not started work on Wayland and they killed the KDE edition, despite receiving outcry from the users.
@@miketurgeon5506 Simply not use nVidia cards on Linux. There is no need to create artificial problems for yourself and then to solve them.
In my opinion the huge problem Ubuntu has is that so many other distros and system infrastructure (like servers) depend on it working and staying somewhat consistent. It is just not possible for them change any core element and not get a huge amount of hate for it.
They already changed a core element recently, that it removed any support for flatpak that comes by default to force their users to use "Snap". Just like how Microsoft forces users to use their Edge.
@@edwinpj7637 ... and they get a lot of hate for that move.
Maybe Canonical has a greater vision with snaps and they want to follow it. Why should anybody be allowed to tell Canonical what they can and can not do with their distro (that you can use free of charge).
After all it's Linux: If you don't like it you don't have to use it.
All I wanted to say is that Ubuntu is in a spot where changes can not be done without making some part of the community feel like Canonical deliberately stepped on their toes.
System infrastructure is not really a point for me as no reputable company would ever use a desktop version of Linux on a server and there would, at least in my opinion, not speak anything against going different routes on desktop and server versions of the distro.
Other distros okay, but also meh. As a company in their own interest they could also go the route of saying:
Well others completely relying on us is not stopping our own evolvement, so the would have to build around that. Not perfect and many would hate it but in my view absolutely possible.
@@Hardcore_Remixer to be fair, for most people, if you were able to have no browser on your computer by default, it would be considered a broken system. I know that people have this irrational hatred of having a browser they'll never use on their system, but the fact is it's kind of a necessity. That being said, they really should make it so that you can choose not to have it come back with updates, but that should be disabled by default because when you're designing products for the lowest common denominator, you have to design them for the assumption that people are absolute morons. You have to make a product that can save the users from themselves. That's why the steam deck uses an immutable desktop, so that you can't accidentally change system files by default.
@@KuruGDI the problem with snaps is that (to the best of my knowledge) the server is source-unavailable, let alone free or open source. So they clearly don't have a greater vision for snaps if they can't at least release the source code for people to view
If people are using snaps (which as we've established they've not only released to the public, but with stuff like this actively promote), it is one of their fundamental rights to be able to have the complete source needed to (in theory - disregarding monetary, expertise/competency, and legal issues) reproduce in fully-identical (with the sole exception of differing secret keys leading to slightly different but 100% identical in function) form and modify as wanted the product in question (snaps here). Canonical has failed to respect this basic right, and people are obliged to tell them what they can't do
I went from windows straight to arch. Was a difficult experience but I love it. Aswell the community around arch is amazing and really friendly for when you inevitably break something.
i want to game and develop software. not debug by os 😅
@@piecepaper2831 u r stroke boboboobobobobb STroke???
@@piecepaper2831 just get good
@@piecepaper2831 I hope the rude responses from some commenters doesn't ruin your opinion of Arch users. Reports of Arch being buggy or horribly unstable are greatly exaggerated. It's also really not that difficult to set up, and the whole process is documented so will in both text and video that it's basically a non-issue this point. It'll teach you a lot about how Linux works and how to customize your OS to be exactly how you want it.
@@brandoncouture-hachey1542 "Really friendly community" 😂
openSUSE is an amazing distro (especially Tumbleweed), and it's honestly kinda sad that it isn't talked about much
I have a video planned about it this month!
openSUSE Tumbleweed is my all around top choice for a Linux distribution.
Made the switch to Tumbleweed a bit over a year ago now, been fantastic so far. It does make me sad that openSUSE is basically never talked about, even in videos about companies in Linux.
I love openSuse. Really great.
totally agreed! It is the distro which made me stop the "distro hopping". proud openSUSE TW user since 2019
NixOs' single file config and their take on preventing dependency issues by making each dependency version a hash and using symlinks to let apps use different versions on the same system at the same time is cool!
I wish it was more mature, but it can easily cause issues with apps, like neovim lsp plugins dont work sometimes as they csnt find system libs
It would be very interesting to see his take on NixOS… I don’t know if he has the time to make a proper review lmao
@@alexstone691 NixOS is weird, some places feel super mature while others, well not so much
@@alexstone691 I switched to vim after I came to nix. I haven't had any issues. My plugins all allowed me to set the lsp executable by hand.
Edit: I'm setting up neovim with Homemanager.
@@leoschafer5172 I used nix-env on ubuntu and pylsp just wouldnt execute because of system libs, maybe its less stable than homemanager?
I'm stoked that you put Linux Mint at the top! It often gets a rap as being only a beginner distro for it's ease of use but honestly, I've been using Linux for almost 20 years and I while I continue to try different distros from time to time, Linux Mint is the one that I use the most as my daily driver.
No wonder, you are an old fart 😂😂😂
I too use Linux Mint, I am too old to spend time making my OS pretty or super up to date. Good enough is the way to go for me 😊
They do many things right and now they try to make it more prettier too, so i think they are in the right way.
Im An Advanced Linux User and i Stick with Mint...Because Their Community is Sophisticated.
Linux mint is boring because it don't have anything to ''Fix'' it works out of the box..
@@costascostas1760 LOL, same... Tinkering is no longer fun when I have work to do. I just want it to work , not interested in fixing anything.
I've always liked OpenSuse. It will be interesting to hear your opinion on it in 2023.
I was using Fedora dual boot with Windows 11. I tryed to use it with flatpaks, but it's visible more slow than .rpms or appimage. Then my Fedora just stopped working 3 times this years... The last one 5 days ago... I don't know a lot about OpenSuse, but after try CentOS, EndeavourOS and Kinoite(coudn't even install with dual boot....), I finally tryed OpenSUSE LEAP with flatpaks. It's impressive the performance with flatpaks, it works perfect in the same machine that I used Fedora with Flatpaks. I'm curious about Yast, it appears to be a very good solution for diagnosing a lot of infraestructure problems with an easy interface!
I'm not using zypper yet because all softwares I needed was downloaded via flatpak, and that was one reason I was afraid to chance to OpenSUSE some months ago. But the system looks very solid and I'm enjoying use it with almost standard KDE interface. I hope it will last longer than my Fedora installations...
0/10
No Minecraft
I started using Linux Mint in 2011, looked at many others over the years, but Mint always comes out on top for me.
This video couldn't have come out at a better time for me. I've been looking for an update on the state of Linux distros, haven't been able to keep in touch with the Linux world much lately since my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed install has been going strong for over 2 years.
Thanks for the tier list, Nick,
Keep the awesome Linux content coming!
So pleased to see Gentoo ranked as good. It's so versatile. But, indeed, it has a pretty daunting learning curve, and it only makes sense in the first place if you want to spend time to learn how to make use of it. One thing that is not mentioned, though probably it's out of scope, is that it is very good for very specific use cases. Niches. Like, running the latest Linux on a 486 from 30 (yes, thirty) years ago. Because it gives you so much power, it can also be extremely minimalistic.
Going forward, knowing that you focus on practical stuff in general, I'd say the top pick for what distro to check next has to be openSuse, by a large margin. It's the underdog of distros, seemingly always in the shadow of Fedora. Plus, you gotta show some more european love (if I'm not mistaken, they're from Germany).
I'm also personally interested in NixOS, but I don't think it's a good everyday distro, at least not yet. But their package manager is very interesting.
This is what I came here to say. Gentoo's approach to rolling release is refreshing when compared to Arch where everything is immediately pushed. Gentoo has a nice balance of stable packages on a rolling platform with the option to get more bleeding edge versions of anything by just setting a flag on the package. Once the initial install is done, the update times are pretty reasonable (assuming you don't have an update for nodejs or go...). Even a full KDE suite update only took a few minutes on my 5800X. It's somehow been more stable than Fedora on my desktop, and I haven't experienced any of the Arch memes like things randomly breaking following a software update (which only took about 2 weeks the last time I swapped back to Arch). I can't shill it hard enough, it's genuinely a great distro.
@@1Raptor85 what game engine do you use on gentoo?
@@tostadorafuriosa69 custom/in house, but stuff like godot/unreal/etc work just fine if that's what you're concerned about.
R crashes like ffs on Gentoo... can't use it
NixOS is a great distro if you love the concept and the fiddling that Linux requires. It’s like how when you first switch to Linux you gotta learn all the different things when compared to windows, but now you do it again, learning the changes from NixOS to normal Linux 😂
I would definitely put Pop OS higher. System76 has done a bad job communicating this, but the reason Pop OS hasn't gotten a point release in a while is because they are actually treating the distro as a rolling release built on top of Ubuntu 22.04. All of the packages related to desktop graphic performance like drivers and kernels and libraries are all up-to-date, unlike Ubuntu or Zorin OS.
Yeah I like POP!_OS too. My first Linux was Mint, but I have a lot of hardware driver trouble. Wlan and Nvidia graphic doesn't work well. Then I tried POP!_OS and I am super happy with it.
Pops out of the box driver support is at an industry leading level.
I use Debian as a daily desktop.
Softwares are not always up to date, but it's not really a problem.
Why would we really need it ?
The only flatpak I use is for Kicad 7, and Firefox from the official website instead of the Debian repo.
I don't use Arch, but their wiki and documentation is impressive and very useful, even with other distro.
Should consider EndeavourOS as Manjaro substitute for the next tier list video. Used it before I switched to Arch, been hearing good things about it ever since.
Same here.
As far as I've seen, its basically Arch with a few extra customizations. More or less a lot like a kit car with a reputable 3rd party assembly service
I understand the purpose of Manjaro as a distribution, it's snapshots of Arch aiming for more stability, now Endevour is just Archlinux with an installer, why not install Arch right?
@@joaopauloalbq Because the EndeavourOS community is _far_ better than the Arch community.
@@joaopauloalbq It's awesome for intermediate users which may not want to get into Arch yet but want to try something more advanced than, say, Linux Mint. EndeavourOS is basically Arch + great installer + a bunch of little utilities that make the experience more straightforward for new users
I found MX to be a complete experience. With easy access to common package downloads, flatpaks, testing branch, and back ports packages, makes this handy. Also, if you are running Intel graphics, you can choose the Intel graphics driver. I don't know if it works with Iris graphics. It also provides the option to install Nvidia drivers. .The kernel is a bit older, but a newer kernel version is available, for newer hardware, if needed. XFCE, isn't the prettiest desktop,but it can be themed. Appearance doesn't matter to me very much. I'm ok with an older look. MX is the best distro, if being used as a live USB, with persistence, bar none.
Did you experience upgrading from 19 to 21? The thing about evaluating a distro, is that its not limited to the "i just installed it" experience, but what comes later down the road. He just gave a lower rating to Pantheon for the same thing MX Linux did there... Distros that can't upgrade are an obstacle to the user.
Try Nobara - I installed it as a "gaming distro' initially but when nothing broke I never got around to changing it and after a few months I realised that I'd stopped thinking about what distro to try out next, which had been my default way of thinking about Desktop Linux for several years.
I'm a little uneasy that so much depends on GE, but he really does seem to be hitting it out of the park and with the rapid improvements the Fedora people are making Nobara has an exceptionally solid base that's also very current.
Importantly for me, I also know that I can always just pivot to mainstream Fedora should Nobara development tail off at some future date.
I'd be interested in comparing gaming-related distros like Nobara, HoloISO and ChimeraOS. It would be interesting to know whether they offer noticeable advantages in performance and how do they work for non-gamining daily desktop usage.
I’ve been very interested in ChimeraOS too, but there’s not a lot of videos out there about it. I’d be interested in a video on that also.
Yes, please.
I would like that comparison too.
Absolutely. I'm still holding out on the full SteamOS release for my laptop and haven't wanted to bother myself with HoloISO's process yet.
Garuda
Very good video !
I personally really like Pop OS for its simplicity (mainly NVDIA drivers and all), it was the only distro to work out of the box with my NVIDIA card and my 144hz monitor
120 Hz might have better compatibility.
Interesting. Never had any issues with my triple 144hz monitors and an nvidia card on Mint. Well, not issues related to the monitors anyway...
@@vezquex Maybe ! I remember with Ubuntu having issues for everything > 60Hz, and things not properly displaying.
Try 432Hz next time
I'm using Zorin os lite so there's hardly any difference, since Xfce has hardly changed much❤. (Zorin os is still a good distro for windows to linux, it's very intuitive to use) if a distro works for you you should keep using it❤
Of course! These are just my opinions, and it’s highly subjective!
Zorin Lite has a great take on Xfce. I was using that for a bit a year and a half ago. Then I found MX Linux.
I personally abandoned ZorinOS because of their payware 'Pro' variant which only includes some additional freely available packages and the inclusion of a macOS like dock. Things like this should be in a single free variant.
Mint XFCE and MX linux are way better than ZorinOS lite. Xubuntu too.
Love this rundown, and shows I made the right choice with Mint after trying many many Distros and coming back to it everytime!
I've been using Linux for about six months now, and while I am sometimes tempted to go and rice Arch (my friend has this *gorgeous* hyprland install,) I find myself sticking to pop because it consistently works, it has some awesome features, and I've only had a major break once! And that was day one trying to connect Airpods. Love Pop! Sticking with it for the forseeable future.
Crazy enough, I've been using Manjaro on three different PC's, my work laptop, work desktop, and gaming PC for about 3 years now and have never had a single issue with it. I love the rolling release, even with the slight package delay updates. Provides stability for me and still close to the latest packages.
Same here.
True
Same for me. It's fast and stable. Faulty driver on several pc and laptops since long time. Ligger mein is number two for me but while Manjaro always work stable life Neon have few hiccups and required reinstalling
Same. Like the dev group is derpy, but the distro has been by DD for months now with no issues.
@@hardbrocklife yup that's how I feel, but the business side doesn't really matter to me as long as everything else is running as expected, which it has.
I still run and like Manjaro. It adds some stuff like extra window switchers, nice theme tweaks or a nice default terminal configuration. I know these can be added to other distros, but when I first installed Manjaro it felt like a really polished experience. The only thing I'm not so happy about is that it takes quite a long time sometimes to get new versions of some packages. It took over 3 months since I saw the review of KDE 5.25 on this channel until it arrived in Manjaro. I have no idea how long it takes in other distros, but if it's called rolling release then I'd like to try new things before I forget about them 😀
The reason Manjaro delays Plasma so much is because they ship it on their computers. They don't want to risk shipping a broken system. Other updates get out a lot faster, but they messed up keeping 5.25 for so long. Going from Manjaro>Fedora KDE led to an objectively superior experience.
What I think would really help Manjaro is a "housekeeping event" or something. A lot of their editions ship with old/broken themes, some Manjaro-specific apps are GTK, some are QT so require a bunch of extra packages on Gnome and have inconsistent visuals. You'll see there are inconsistent teal shades used, etc. If you install Zorin or Elementary, you see this super-consistent visual polish, whereas Manjaro IMO has THE BEST branding, but little bits of jankyness that make it feel more unstable than it is.
I've slowly gained more and more problems running Manjaro, to the point i think it has no good reason existing. It is arch based, and i love pacman as a package manager. However, because they keep their own repos for the main but also allow you to access the AUR over time a you'll get a significant amount of desync, after running it for a year updating the system became a gamble on when the star aligned on dependencies or not. All in all, it is Arch made easy, but at the same time takes away most of what is good of arch. It makes more sense forking a different distro to run it like this.
@Guitarzen I'm sorry, but this comment does upset me a little. Even though i personally often am the cause for many of my own computer problems, if you have read my original comment, you aught reconsider if this is a picnic case or not.
I am glad Manjaro is working out for your choices, but I don't think your experience invalidates my competency. I wouldn't consider the user the problem when that which fails the updates literally, as reported by pamac itself, is out-of-date dependencies. Using the AUR on Manjaro is very hit-or-miss, which they themselves obviously usually acknowledge. However at the same time the facilitate this use by providing the options with pamac. After having moved away i have realized Manjaro itself offered little but annoyance over other distros about. As a more experienced linux user, an easier experience installing has not been worth it if over a system that runs and updates more reliable. The same combinations of software is not giving me any problems on Arch now thankfully.
@@OssWiX Ever tried GarudaLinux? ArchBased and actively developed. I like it, it is my daily driver.
Imo it's hard to justify choosing Manjaro when there is OpenSUSE. Sure the look and feel might be different and the package managers are different, but both OS' are for more advanced users who customize everything to begin with, so you can make both distros look and feel identical. In the end you get one on the bleeding edge full of instability and another on the cutting edge which might cut you from time to time, but you're not likely to bleed from these cuts. This gives an all around far better experience once setup. I will say though that Manjaro has less out of the box necessary configuration to do than OpenSUSE so at first it does seem better.
I moved from Debian (stable) to LMDE a couple of years ago. Recently, to get some newness, I went to Mint 21 and haven't been this happy with a distro for a long time! So glad to see it ranked well here.
As for others, Where's Lite? I can't believe it got left out! And Endeavour? I'd like to see your take on DistroWatches' #2.
Me too. Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon for the past few months has been working pretty good. However, LMDE left a bad taste in my mouth many many years ago, so I won't ever try it again. Lite was okay when I also used it old school. However, when it broke, another bad taste. No need to go Lite ever again. I will only stay with the best track records since if they broke in the past there is too large of a chance to break again. Linux Mint for the win!
I've been using EndeavourOS for several months and - as someone who worked with Windows for 15+ years - it's a great fork of Arch that doesn't throw me in a tumble dryer immediately, and lets me get my sea legs as I adjust, adapt, and adopt Linux.
Any problems I have at this point I logic out as "Every computer has problems" and do my best to fix it
I completely agree with your ranking. I'm also a linux enthusiast and really enjoy my highly customized version of mint.
Manjaro has been legendary for me. Incredibly flexible, yet rock solid and easy to fix if I break anything. Been running 3 systems on it for 4 years now.
Same, though I essentially use it because it packages pamac in its repos, as supposed to getting it from AUR, I love that GUI package manager
Same. All the fluff about them being a bad distro is just reddit innuendo
I have been using manjaro for four years (after using antergos), but I grew tired of fixing my system after regular system updates and I disliked their Gnome desktop Implementation.
I haven't had any issues I didn't cause, and it was related to display/nvidia nonsense I created. Been using it on my laptop and desktop for months as my DD. The most rece t update fixed the multi display issues I was having. Work, play, and run a small business on the side with it. Its all I've used on my laptop for a year. Proton allowed me to transition my desktop over to manjaro too. The company has def been derpy lately, but the distro itself with KDE has been a wonderful experience.
@@hardbrocklife I can't even have issues I try to cause haha, I mean, a year or two ago I've done a full copy of my OS drive (symlinks and all) to a new ssd and to a new filesystem (from ext4 to btrfs), I was fully prepared to have to reinstall, but its just kept going. Even got AMDs ROCm working in manjaro before I could get it to work in ubuntu (which its supposed to officially support). I did have a period of time where updates only showed in terminal and not in pamac, which could be related to their certificate shenanigans, but that's about it.
I would love a video comparing the newly official Ubuntu Cinnamon with Linux Mint.
Merci beaucoup!
can you please make this a yearly serie .. like every year do tier list of the distros you ve tested that year im sure it will something special i imagine like the mkbhd phone awards XD
That’s the plan!
true, Pop-OS is now 'older', but it remains a very good o/s and is dependable. Could you review Vanilla?
I have tried all of these distros and while mint was ok for a bit I finally settled for Zorin OS and to this date it's my daily driver. I get updates almost every 2 weeks and its blazing fast and I get everything done in a jiffy. Im a photographer so video and photo manipulation softwares which are resource hogs run seamlessly for me. No issues at all
I'd like to suggest a deeper dive into the Arch (Garuda, EndeavourOS, ArcoLinux) and Fedora (Nobara, Regata, Ultramarine (You already mentioned openSUSE)) areas, as well as Vanilla and Blend OS.
Honestly, I would compare Fedora to Linux Mint. They both are great for beginners and advanced users alike. The thing I love about Fedora is that it lets me customise things I care about to my heart content, while also providing sensible defaults for the rest. Other than the Flathub issue the rest are just minor pain points in the beginning, but after you get past those it's a very nice experience.
fedora works for me. All the sane configs
I still dont know, what do usually customs?
I have been using Mint for 2 weeks. It's my first time Linux experience, only one thing I'm missing is that lack of Photoshop, rest is far better than windows
I think Photopea is a good, free alternative.
you could just run a windows vm for anything that you want to do that you can only do on windows
@@user-ks1oh2wx6o my PC isn't that powerful
@@stabokboseThat's fair because mine isn't either
I was surprised to see Gentoo come up, I thought I was the only one still interested in it. I adopted it in 2006 because it was the only one I could get to run well on the old and outdated hardware I had at the time and I just stayed with it, it's the one for me. Thank you for an interesting video.
I run it as well as the main desktop, won't change it for anything, rock solid + updated, you just can't have that with binary distros. Everything i hated from Arch updates just works pleasantly with Gentoo updates, oh and the flexibility of picking the things you want in the compiles, plus the fact that compiling things just work and you don't end solving a gazillion issues like when you want to compile in a binary distro. Its just another world, its so good, Mint is bloat, old and unstable at the same time in comparison. But sure, Gentoo is not for newbies. Of the binary distros its decent, i guess with the others being even worse; except maybe Void, which is like Netbsd. Of course Gentoo was originally inspired by Freebsd which is also a source distro, it is a thing of pure beauty, things work, things don't break, etc. But you need to remove habits from using other distros, for sure, and learn new things in the process, things you didn't even knew you could do but the other distros just didn't let you do... Long live Gentoo!
@@freeculture FreeBSD is not a distro per se to be precise. And it supports both binary packages as well as source based package management (ports)
A few distros I love that never got mentioned:
- Mageia, the continuation of Mandrake since 2011. It's just generally competent and the fact it has a getting started screen is a very good touch.
- Slackware, one of the OGs and it shows. It's a fun breather from all the high tech of a more modern OS, with just what you need for a desktop. Plus, there are some cli tools it has that I miss when using other OSes.
- Honorable mention: OpenBSD. I have it installed on a tiny little Mebius PC and it just works. I can install it on a PowerBook if I want, and in fact for some of them (especially the ones with nViia graphics), it's the best OS for them.
I mean this is a list especially for new-comers to the linux world and a intuitive workflow and style. Of course slackware just like some others will take more space on our hearts older linux users (just like i love Gentoo).
@@draftofspasiba2 > older linux users
Oh yeah. In 1996 I got Slackware with a "Learn Linux" book and it led to my first Unix job (transitioning from PC networking).
Isn't OpenBSD something different than Linux 🤔
@@jan-lukas Yes, but I'm listing it here since it's similar here and is a "distribution" of some sort.
Would love to see Garuda in the next tier list if possible to rep as an Arch based distro. Would be interesting to hear your experience Nick especially since it uses the zen kernel by default.
I second that. I had to install Garuda after upgrading to a RX 7900 XTX because it wouldn't work on Mint. Just love it.
@@BNBPhotofr Yeah, its got to be one of the better ones out there, nice and pretty stable. Except the 2 times when Dr460nized KDE broke my activity switcher setup😅. Other than that, very performant, super pretty plus a slightly spicy community forum(depending on the issue), whats not to love about that🤷♂.
I installed Garuda one year ago. It's fast, stable with good design. Have tried many other distros but found Garuda to be the best.
i love garuda's sway config
Yes, the dragonized version of course
I tried MX Linux for the simple reason that it was on the top position of the list of distrowatch. I've been using it for years and the experience has been great. It would be nice of you to review it.
Same. I became aware of it because it was #1 and has been my main distro since 17.3 iirc.
Perhaps a MX Linux vs Linux Mint???
I ran Solus for two years but the lack of updates and minor bugs taking weeks to fix I switched to MX Linux, very happy with it.
I am a Zorin 16 Pro user. The first month was a little disappointing, but after that it has been a pretty good stable experience. Zorin does deliver on their promise of a user friendly experience. I love the idea of Elementary OS, but hate their execution of the idea. Not having an office suite and the better browsers available early on is a terrible idea. I think I am going to wait a cycle on POP OS the Cosmic version, so they can get the early bugs out of the way.
I'm liking Zorin as well, but I also don't have much linux experience. I've only ever tried Ubuntu/Xubuntu, and Linux Mint XFCE. I did try out Debian via Live CD, but that was ages ago and even back then the version was outdated.
I'd love to see a comparison of immutable distros like openSuSe MicroOS, Fedora CoreOS/Silverblue/(their KDE variant), nixOS, Ubuntu Core(?), SteamOS(?!) ...
This seems to be the next great paradigm shift for Linux - especially for the Desktop.
SteamOS is just Arch with the fancy SteamOS UI. That's what the deck uses anyway.
I would suggest trying out Void Linux. A custom package manager and the runit init system are the loudest standouts imo. The documentation is sufficient and the void-packages helps out with the rest too. It is on the deeper end but worth a try.
I saw you like a openSUSE comment. I want to try it as well.
Void lover over here and I'm also interested in a test of tumbleweed
I daily Void because it's such a problem free distro. It's so incredibly stable, yet rolling so you aren't left in the dust. I've never had an update related breakage in the year or so I've been using it.
Another great standout yet nobody seemed to cared or mentioned is that they offer musl variant. When you can't run glibc on your machine, or tired about GNU, it's such a breeze to have it. Right now I can see only Void and Gentoo are offering this flavour.
I almost forgot that Alpine uses musl too. Sorry. If you read this, OP, please also try out Void Linux and Alpine Linux, both offering similar minimalistic user experience yet feature rich and super stable.
I used MX Linux 21 Wildflower with the xfce environment for 10 months last year. I think it is a very good distribution. It has a lot of what you need. Good for beginners and advanced users alike.
I thought MX users were only bots pinging distrowatch to increase rank
Yep. I tried it and stuck with it. I have it on 3 laptops now that, one or the other, gets daily use. XFCE seems to not get much love but it's perfect for me and I love it.
I came back to Mint this year and was very impressed. Currently my favorite.
I can definitely vouch for mint. It was the only OS where I could fix literally anything without pulling my hair out. My dad runs it by default. I had to help him set it up and he does music production and gaming. All of the other operating systems seemed to insist on themselves too much. Mint is low key and since it is based on Ubuntu you can run very up to date stuff as well as keep some of the more stable stuff. I myself am looking to fully transition to mint once they have HDR support as a few things I do still require it (like video editing). Anyways I think it's a good tier list. I started with Red Hat 7 that I got in a book from a computer store. Ever since then, I've seen it gradually grow from something only really nerdy people used to actually being a solid choice for most users who just want a simple and easy desktop experience. The greatest thing about Linux though is that it challenges you to take on a growth mindset and actually learn more about your computer as you use it.
Initially, I thought it's just another tier list but you explained and gave context to to your choices. So I feel like this is a video all beginners should watch before switching over from Windows or MacOS.
Zorin was I think the 2nd distro I tried when I finally came back to Linux. And honestly the built in tools and out of the box customization It had, is why I still use Linux as my preferred daily driver. Enough hand holding to keep you from doing anything to stupid, and enough tools to make it feel usable out of the box when compared feature to feature with Windows or Mac OS.
the best Ui/UX user of ALL. unfortunatelly, its sems 'scamm', and privacy problems.
Hi Nick, I use MX Linux for web development and it works like a charm.
I use both MX and Mint as my goto distros.
Sometimes my choice is driven by whichever works best on the target PC. Other times the choice is driven by which USB stick I find first and whether or not the distro on it works OK.
As a mint user, I love it, the only thing I didn't like was the cursor and so I just installed kde desktop on it and called it a day with a better cursor and a tad bit better animations.
If you have a little knowledge how to use linux, the best option is still to create your own distro by taking a stable core version and use programs like cubic to add/remove stuff from the ISO you feed it. Violla..you got a slick fast distro with just the stuff you need preinstalled.
After a VAST distrohopping adventure I can say that I prefer company-made distros like Ubuntu, SuSE, RHEL. 🙏😊
Same here but I also like Slackware. Used SuSE for years long time ago. Now I settled for Fedora on my main PC with backup RHEL installation, Ubuntu on servers and Kali on my laptop. Couldn’t be happier.
Am I the only one who thinks Garuda should snag the seat at the table Manjaro had?
Yes!
Great list! I like Endeavour OS myself.
I've been all linuxmint at home for a few years now, with Windurrs relegated to VMs when I absolutely need it. Good call on having it at the top of the list!
Nobara OS fixes alot of of base Fedora's issues. It's what I started using Linux on about half a year ago and it's been a very seamless and user-friendly experience so far!
This was honestly a great way to make a tier list. Not the generic "lets just drag icons around", but actually explaining the reasoning.
My recommendations would be MX Linux and Slackware
Still slackware... 👍👍👍 And yes he should test Suse a direct child of slackware and there since the 1990s and still there
I am mostly using Garuda Linux KDE dragonized edition. In my opinion it’s a good one, brings arch power without need of terminal, a lot of customization and good looking with all animations and neon effects. Also, stable with zen kernel and doesn’t let users break it easily. Besides has performance tweaks and power saver tweaks that users can choose based on PC or laptop for example. Also has strong build on chaotic-AUR which offers pre-compiled packages 📦
Garuda KDE Dragonized is SO HEAVY. uses so much system resources
The arch's power is minimalism, you kind of lose that if you bring the kitchen sink and everything because arch packages are never optimised to work together
They are simple and close to source as possible to keep them stable
@@mrmoomoo3373 On my 8 years laptop works faster than Manjaro and Deepin that I tried in the past. It is using some more RAM but for own performance goods like cache.
I use Debian with xfce since forever i think, i really really value stability over anything else.
I use Debian (with wmaker first, since enough RAM with KDE) and i don't care about stability...
Excellent breakdown and analysis of these popular distros.
I installed Arch only once, to get the arch experience. Even after a successful install I ran into problems with nvidia drivers. I've been using Manjaro ever since. I'd recommend Manjaro over Mint to newbies simply because of the AUR which gives you access to every package out there and it has KDE Isos which gives an almost completely setup system (for my preferences) in just a few clicks and it is a rolling distro, so no reinstall with the update cycle (which mint usually recommends on new releases) and you get much newer packages way quicker than ubuntu/mint. Its like debian Sid with a minty twist. I was in love the first time I tried it. The only thing I hated about it was lack of remastersys type system to iso backup but penguins-eggs fixed that recently.
Using Nobara here. It's based on Fedora, but includes a lot of things you'll install anyway if you plan to game on it. It does some tweaks and fixes to Fedora and feels like it would be a better experience for a newbie, than Fedora
I agree that it has a better first time experience for than Fedora Workstation. It uses the Calamares installer and enables the RPM Fusion repo by default. The Nobara welcome app guides the user for steps I’ve seen recommended as post-install for Fedora. I personally had issues with Fedora recovering from suspend which does not occur in Nobara.
Ubuntu is my distro of choice largely because, like you, it's the first Linux distro I ever used and it's generally very stable and runs great on anything I throw it at. Recently though I've been toying with Linux Mint and it's really growing on me.
Over the past 15 years or so, I've had a look at some different distro's and have recently downloaded their iso on to dvd's and have even tried them out (without a full install) and wondered whether you have already looked at them:
1. Peppermint (32 bit)
2. MX-Linux (32 bit)
3. AntiX Linux (for older PC's) (32 bit)
4. Void Linux (32 bit)
5. Qimo 2.0 (for younger users) (32 bit)
6. Bionic_Pup 8.0 (32 bit) or Puppy Linux (32 bit)
7. Twister OS (32 bit - ARM) for Raspberry Pi 400
8. Google Chromium OS (64 bit - ARM) for Raspberry Pi 400 (like other Chromebooks Linux apps can be installed inside it like in a sandbox).
Great video as usual and I look forward to your review of the above.
I generally use Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Mint for my main computers and Google Chromium OS, MX Linux, Twister OS and Raspbian OS on my Raspberry Pi 400.
I'm considering switching from Manjaro to Endeavour OS. It seems to follow Arch more closely and looks quite cool from what I can tell.
In addition, Pamac hasn't been able to install or update AUR packages for a while now, which was one of my reasons for going with it in the first place.
I use AUR with Manjaro. Occasionally there is an error on update saying it can't sync with AUR. But that has always gone away if I wait and try again later.
@@me_fault honestly, 'try again later' should not really be a/the way to fix a problem. For me these kept stacking up, and eventually i got sick of it. I moved away to proper arch, and the same combination of software has had significantly fewer problems. If you just use the linux to toy around and don't really depend on it, why not try out arch either way. If your system is more important to be stable to you, i am not sure if any arch based distro is a good call.
True, a 'try again later' fix isn't ideal. At the moment Manjaro works well enough that just sticking with it is easier than trying Arch. Although, I would like try it out at some point.
Id highly recommend looking at the testing and unstable versions of Debian, i think you’d like testing and unstable is a lot of fun too
All the server machines for my current clients run Debian Stable. That gives us high confidence that things will work.
I think a good idea for a video would be to compare (not rank as it would bring war in the comments) the different immutable linux distros and their approaches to it, what advantages they have over normal distros, over the others immutable distros as well as their drawbacks due to the way they implement immutability.
I'm glad that you added super stable Debian, and I use it on my laptop and servers. The issue with somewhat 'not the latest' desktop version is not a huge concern for me. For the apps, the back ports application repository is usually not that far behind. I also had the love/hate relationship with Ubuntu., but once Debian eliminated most driver/hardware tweaks, I never look backed to Ubuntu - and that was a decade ago. Cheers.
Longtime Debian user here. Perhaps because I don’t game on it is why Debian stable has never been an issue for me. It does everything that I need. For me I will trade a bit of cutting edge for super stable environment. Perhaps if I used a cutting edge linux distributor my opinion might change.
Seeing that older Ubuntu 8.04 default desktop wallpaper hit me with a wave of nostalgia.
I feel like you can never go wrong with Arch based distros such as Garuda and EndeavourOS. They're definitely the superior Arch experience.
My daily driver laptop runs a minimal install of debian + i3wm. Sure, it's not the flashiest, but I enjoy it for what it is; simple, direct, no bs.
About debian, I use it a lot on my desktops (this and fedora) but not the iso they first expose on their website, a few more clicks lead you to a much lighter (less packages) version which allows me to pretty much create my custom distro
@@0xKrem this was for my work computer so I didn't need much more than neovim and a web browser
The main things I installed were bspwm with polybar, picom, nix and kitty
But I then switched to NixOS last week
A great tier list. I find myself agreeing with a lot of your arguments as to why you're placing things in certain places.
The only one I disagree on is Pop, I'm of the opinion it should be a place higher. It might be based on 22.04 LTS, but the Pop devs are doing a lot of work to keep things up to date. They're compiling their own kernel, so that's pretty up to date (in fact, it updated for me today and I'm on 6.2.6 now) The software shipped in the app store is a bit older, but that's the LTS base right there.
Looking forward to seeing you try out immutable systems. Stuff like Fedora Silverblue is super fascinating to me and I can see them being the future one day.
I agree! Pop is my preferred Gnome distro. I also really enjoyed Linux Mint when I was using it.
Agreed
I'm using Mint at home and Pop at work. The Pop Shop is just a train wreck but I'm really looking forward to their next release, there is SO much work going on there.
We have Pop at the office and although I'd personally rank it the same category (gave me a lot of work to do) I can see its appeal and I thougth he was going to rank it higher too.
Debian has backports for newer applications / kernels. Also, they are in Freeze for Debian 12, so will have a nice bump in everything soon for users who wish to have a stable operating system.
Writing this from a laptop with Debian and Nick doesn't take into account that the more secure things you need like banking, the better it looks.
@wikingagresor Also, I think yhe GNOME 43 (not 44, but still a HUGE improvement over 3.38) and KDE Plasma 5.27 (the latest and last Plasma 5 release) inclusions are important! I'm especially glad they put in 5.27 in, given its an LTS release and it really does bring some nice changes over 5.24 and ESPECIALLY 5.20, which was on Debian 11!
@@cameronbosch1213 Right, Debian 11 was released in August of 2021. By the time 12 comes out, it'll be 2 years old. But there is this weird thing where people think latest is always greatest, and that's not always the case, especially if you want some stability. Look at something like RedHat, if they were releasing new versions all the time like Ubuntu, no one would use them in the mission critical situations where they do. Granted Ubuntu has the LTS release for this purpose, but they release at about the same rate as Debian does, every two years or so. Though Debian only does a release 'when they're damn well ready to!' instead of going off a strict schedule like Ubuntu does, which is why even the LTS releases of Ubuntu are best to wait about another 6-8 months before utilizing it.
@@slaapliedje I used to think like that about a decade or two ago. Until i seriously went with Gentoo. that's true stability right there. I can now say its more stable than Debian Stable (yes, i had experience with .deb packages in the stable repository that somehow passed testing but had major bugs). You think that there is no other choice, either old stable or new unstable... Well think again, there is. But it takes time to adapt, once you do; you won't believe how your distro was holding you back so much. Its incredible. I wish more people put effort to learn Gentoo rather than Arch, that was a pure waste of my time, like 3 years wasted there, not looking back.
@freeculture arch is definitely worth learning, if for no other reason than they have some of the best documentation for everything. I have used Sabayon in the past, and my biggest complaint about anything Gentoo based is the need to compile most things, and quite frankly, I don't have the patience for it anymore.
I built a new desktop computer about a year ago (my first build) and wasn't in the mood to spend $100+ on a new Windows license, so I decided to install Linux "for the time being." I knew Mint has a good reputation, is easy to install, and is an easy transition for Windows users, so I went with it. A year later, I'm still happy using Mint and plan to keep using it for the foreseeable future. I've been pleasantly surprised by its quality, so I'm not at all surprised to see it at the top of this list. The only thing I miss from the MS ecosystem is Excel, which Libreoffice Calc does a mostly good job replacing, but it isn't as good as I'd like. I certainly can't blame that on Mint, so it still gets my enthusiastic support!
I use Mint on my secondary laptop. Mostly use it for writing and movies and overall I think it's a great OS
Would you be up to try out MX Linux? Has good hardware support, Debian base, flathub support, great updates. Mepis was my first Linux OS that I ran back in the 00's, moved to ub, then Elementary. Mepis merged with anti X. I find MX Linux' customizable interface and hardware support so fantastic for every type of device. Living room, office, laptop, even as a server if needed, wish I had it for my phone too.
Being the top in Distrowatch one would thing he would at least try it, but yeah we all know Distrowatch stats are a bit, shady. Its a fine distro, and i like antiX for old pcs as well. Basically Debian with some extras.
Brother, your pronunciation is clearer than water. Your videos are currently my benchmark to know about Linux. Thanks a lot.
You should make the next episode as the continuation to this one, rather than as a separate one, as I'd like to see how you'd score the ones not already covered against the ones you already have. Oh, and by the way, please rank MX Linux as well - preferably the XFCE edition, as none what you've reviewed so far had the XFCE DE.
I switched from Linux Mint to Ubuntu at some point and I am loving it so far. At the end, it really does not matter: All debian / ubuntu based distros seem to be a great choice if you want a stable experience.
I prefer mint because cinnamon is much light, does not use snaps and is very stable and polished. Huge huge difference IMHO!
@@level-zero999 Understandable! Snaps are not a big deal for me though as they work fine for me and I can still install flatpak or from the apt repository.
Please test OpenSuse and MX. Then remake this list. It would be interesting to see where you put them. But one thing is certain, Mint is almost irreplaceable from the top! 🙌
SUSA!
Hi,
I think you should also cover Garuda Linux.
It is really cool Arch based distro, with many features enabled by default. I would definitely like to see Garuda Linux up there.
As a seasoned software developer of +30 years experience, I have used Linux desktops for many year. Sure, Debian, Mint - all were great over the years, things moved on, and I've being using MacOs for a decade plus since then - the confusion and disjoint opinions in the Linux eco system is not a good thing. Personally, I just want my hardware and software to work sensibly, reliably and prudently. I just want to get my work done without all the faff. This is why MacOS is a slow moving boat, it just works, the eco system works. If you want the new shiny thing then MacOS is not for you. If you want driver conflicts, or kernel upgrades, then use Linux. I'm currently 40 / 60 in the debate of Linux / MacOS, I would love to use Linux but it's not looking good with all these endless options - at the end of the day we need to get work done!
The reason you knocked Debian down to good (understandable, not arguing as it is a valid reason) is the exact reason why I will be switching back when 12 is released. Stability is king in my setup and I don't mind being a couple versions behind if the packages I'm using are "recent enough". The only reason I'm currently on Fedora is because Debian 11 doesn't support my wifi and has a few issues with my AMD chipset, but with 12 having kernel 6.1 I will be off to the races.
I have a 2010 iMac running Linux mint for years now, it’s simply the best distro for me
Please include Slackware. First released in f 1993, Slackware aims to be the most "UNIX-like" Linux distribution, complying with standards such as the Linux File System Standard.
Opensuse and Fedora are the clear choices if you want something modern.
Whenever I see a tierlist of this, at first I can't avoid thinking that the more hostile the distro is to the inexperienced user, the higher it will be XD
EndeavourOS is amazing for me. It sometimes broke but that made me more experienced in linux. Also the fact that AUR has so many more packages than any distro is amazing.
Debian hands down!
It's super slim and efficient and the stability is remarkable.
Stable mostly means, that nothing will bother you. You don't need the latest release of the system calculator.
But if you need the latest and greatest, just add another repo and you're good to go.
Do you ever try the latest Debian 12?
@@NekzLvL using it right now
@@arokan327 does it good? 👍🏻
@@NekzLvL it runs perfectly
Exactly. Even tough I'm using Arch right, if I were to crap out my system I would use Debian stable + flatpak and backports for the software I need to be bleeding edge.
I use Arch, but in the form of EndeavourOS with the KDE Plasma DE. I used it's predecessor Antergos too, and so have been using Arch Linux for over a decade, and yes, in a production environment and run my business with and on it. It's rock solid and I haven't had any problems with it; Sure, it allows you to hose your system, but I don't see how you can say it's easy to do so, because that requires one to not read the documentation and seek help from the Linux community before trying things without making sure it's what you really want, and know what you're getting into. You can hose any Linux distro and even Windows for being ignorant.
EndeavourOS is very close to plain Arch, but with an easy and fast installer and a few additional system utilities. You have a choice of many DE's on install, and they come as released by the DE's maker with no other additions than a little bit of theming so you can tell it's Endeavour in looking at it, and all that can of course be changed if you like. It may not be beginner friendly as so many distros are, but with simplicity you often loose great features and the ability to customize things to your hearts content, and for all of the good you think you have, it's the better you may miss out on. I have found EndeavourOS with KDE plasma to be the ultimate Swiss army knife of computing!
It's also not true anymore that Arch being a rolling release is plagued with bugs, as Arch developers now pay much more attention to detail, and make sure things are stable before rolling out new features.
In the Arch Based Distro world, Manjaro is more for beginners, but it is way more buggy than EndeavourOS, because they are trying to simplify it by adding all kinds of stuff, and that stuff is buggy where Arch itself cannot be blamed.
Wow. Was surprised with Manjaro section...
I used Zorin for a year or so and I have to say it is a great distro. Yes, it does not have the newest packages, but I think this is the whole point of this distro. You get incerdibly user-friendly, easy adjustable, awesome looking and super-stable/reliable distro (better than Mint in this category, in my opinion). For someone switching from Win/Mac, this would be my go-to distro. But in the end, Fedora is the best :)
Gotta say , Manjaro Community is the most friendly one out of all these distros . And I believe Manjaro will be back will some great changes and updates again in the future .
The Manjaro Community is made up of dumb high school kids.
:) THANKS MUCH and WELL DONE! Mint is a go to a LONG TIME! BUT I stumbled on Spiral and have switched all my machines over, seems to do all that I want and KDE ROCKS on it! ALL the BEST and Cheers! :)
3 secs to detect a french guy. What I heard conviced me than linux is still a weird goat: "no nvidia drivers", "reverse clock for certificates", prompt to install, repo offline for 3 months, etc, etc, etc
Thank you friend. I recently purchased a Lenova T430, which I plan to upgrade and convert from Windows 10 to Linux. It’s an uphill journey, but I am eager to get into. Your advice is valuable to me.
Peace from Texas.
Gentoo is not just about compiling everything from source.
It is mostly about offering users every possible choice and letting them configure it in an easy way. It doesn’t tell users how to do things but it will aid users in the more popular choices. On gentoo you can switch out your kernel, C compiler, C library from glibc to musl and back and even the init system. All that without reinstalling.
All that while keeping a basis for the users to operate on. Gentoo is not like LFS (or windows) that is just a random bunch of software that is scrambled together. Gentoo offers railings to users that want them.
I agree that Linux Mint is better than Ubuntu.
Personally, I'm not a fan, I've had a lot of issues with it but if they were solved and it's more in line with Ubuntu in terms of stability, I can see it being a very good entry point as it's more Windows-like in terms of UI, and the rest kinda works the same way on modern distros.
Fedora ftw, I'm very satisfied with where it was put in the tier list with the mentioned reasons.
Would love to see Endeavour on your list next time ;)