Alma/Rocky - I wouldn’t particularly push fresh converts to RHEL/CentOS based distros, but maybe that’s just me…
Debian - sure… given they can figure out the slightly less intuitive installer and non-free stuff
Ubuntu - Canonical has been making some weird decisions lately. With them dropping Unity, then Mir… I wouldn’t bet on snaps while the rest of the world settled on flatpak

[–] casual_turtle_stew_enjoyer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just give em Fedora. Seems to get people good mileage from newb to netadmin

[–] folkrav@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Would you wish SELinux on a beginner tho

Jesting apart, it’s admittedly a solid option. Sticking to a mainstream distro is typically what I recommend, regardless of which one. Most of the debates surrounding distros are pretty silly to begin with, IMHO, considering most differences boil down to which package manager and init system they use, and their set of default software and configurations.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Debian is just old unless you go into the unstable branches, and I don't use that as an insult because Debian is obviously supposed to be stable. I have literally never heard of Alma or Rocky, and Ubuntu is just shit and has Snap as well as a very unfamiliar desktop layout. Cinnamon or KDE will be much better entries for people coming from Windows.

Arch is of course just a stupid suggestion for Linux newbies and I honestly can't take people like you serious for doing so unironically.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I agree that arch is stupid for newbies. I was taking a poke at mint. I would never suggest that.

Alma/Rocky is what CentOS used to be.

You can install KDE on Ubuntu, but point taken on KDE (I’m not familiar with cinnamon).

I suggested basically RHEL and Debian because, like you said they are stable and relatively easy to install.

Snap is rather new to me as well. I have a recent LTS install of Ubuntu and I don’t use it. I doubt someone who’s new into Linux will touch it.

My other big concern is systemd. If you’re not familiar with Linux, systemd is a nightmare when things go wrong. But, I suppose a newbie won’t care

[–] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You think you don't use it. Have firefox installed? All that apt install did was grab a wrapper for snap :( same for some other software.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

Instead of downvoting, here’s how I feel about that: =<

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

GRUB was a nightmare for me when things went wrong (EndeavourOS / Arch). I think you can say that to a lot of critical Linux system components though. Mint is generally one of the more stable distros out there though and generally considered to be the better Ubuntu.

[–] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 1 points 10 months ago

The cinnamon desktop is super nice, but mint didn't play well with my gpu for some reason, but you can install the desktop environment on Ubuntu.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago

Personally I would pick Mint over Alma/Rocky as I am less familiar with RPM based distros than DEB based distros, I would recommend Mint over Debian as it is easier to get working with gaming, Ubuntu is great, but I won't recommend snaps to a new user.

[–] Krafting@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Linux is linux, no matter the distro! It's not by arguing which distro is better that the year of the linux desktop will happen!!!

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Dunno. I’m not convinced the “year of Linux desktop” will ever happen. Granted, I now mostly use it for work, so I’m not up to date on the latest, but…..

Common distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, etc have extremely clunky upgrade system
Microsoft Office. I’m sorry, libreoffice will not be a replacement.
I heard this has improved, but Wayland used to be terrible.

[–] ahriboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago

Neither of Microsoft Office competitors will be replacement, even WPS.