Post #590660

2026-03-09 00:43 UTC

We need to agree on a better way to get new users to easily chose a new Distro without having horrible choice paralysis. Asking AI doesn’t work, asking reddit or lemmy just starts a massive debate and gets the person asking nowhere. Perhaps just refer everyone to nicks latest tier list although that is really for his use case, I mean he doesn’t even have bazzite on the list when it’s a good choice for a lot of people. Maybe there is a website that asks questions and recommends a distro based on that, or maybe I saw a cool flow chart photo that seamed good, but it’s an image so it won’t update itself when people come back to it later and the recomendations change.

Replies (5)

@PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 2026-03-09 08:11

I wish that wasn’t a video, but a website with everything explained on one page. We used to host things damnit! /end rant

Open ##595775
@FreddiesLantern__dup_14335@leminal.space 2026-03-09 08:33

This gives me an idea. Sort of a questionnaire that kinda walks you through the kind of things you’ll use your machine for, what kinda hardware you have,… and then eventually gives you say 3 to four choices at the end. (So the average user can look at a few screenshots and make a choice based on that. Because let’s be honest we all choose our Linux partially with our eyes just like we listen to music). Well fuck, another project my adhd wants to tackle but probably can’t.

Open ##596160
@kittykillinit@lemy.lol 2026-03-09 14:13

Manjaro was the go-to distro for laymen, but manchildren got upset it wasn’t “their” distro being recommended by parties like Valve so they berated anyone who suggested it.

Open ##600140
@CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 2026-03-09 15:54

I feel like Ubuntu used to be the sort of default “new user” distro, but they keep going off on these weird tangents so that doesn’t really work anymore. Then it felt like PopOS might have been the new one, but now they’re mid-way between transitioning to COSMIC so that’s not really a good fit either. I think maybe Mint is the default one now, but also Cinnamon is kind of it’s own thing so it doesn’t set a new user up well for becoming familiar with the more universally used DE’s like Gnome or Plasma. I think Fedora and Debian are also a decent fit for new users, but that’s also not a very exciting answer so that’s probably why it doesn’t come up as much lol.

Open ##601596
@Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 2026-03-09 23:00

Unfortunately there isn’t a silver-bullet for picking a distro. It’s a hurdle to get over for sure, and one that is likely to hinder general purpose adoption of Linux for a long time to come, but it is also part of what is awesome about Linux if people are willing to understand it. Trying a bunch of different distros is really the only way to find out what is going to work for “you”. Scrounge up 4 or 10 flash drives at least 4GB each. Flash them with the ISOs for every distro that remotely tickles your fancy, and boot them up and see how it goes. Figure out your top couple of choices, and install one. If things go well, great, enjoy your new OS. If something is broken or breaks right away, then go install choice number 2 and see if it is still broken. Reasonable chance it isn’t and then you can enjoy your new OS.

Open ##606394