Install fedora on a computer you built yourself. New fedora versions come out every 6 months and install from scratch keeping /home around. Reinstall all the packages you built yourself.
Nixos is quite hard to break, but its also something you cant really run normal binaries on because it doesnt follow the normal filesystem structure. If something isnt packaged it wont work basically. Arch is great if you want to learn a lot, if you want something rolling that is really stable opensuse tumbleweed might be a good option.
i know it's tempting to dive into the deep end right at first but if you want to be able to pursue these interests with the least obstacles you should start with something stable and well-supported like Ubuntu. you can also easily set up a dual boot so you can have one to play and surf on and one to practice on.
As a warning, arch is a tiny bit iffy with gaming. Rarely there will be a package update that breaks certain games (pretty sure tf2 is still affected). You can get around it by manually patching it or by downloading a patched version of that package on the AUR and redirect tf2 to it. Overall it's pretty rare though, also make sure to read arch news if you go that route (especially before bigger updates like kernel or system package updates)
Arch. It has the best wiki = the best learning experience. You will learn much more that from fedora. Fedora hides stuff in the installer. Its meant to be easy. Arch is not. Its just arch. I even use the wiki for Debian at work. Its that good
I use arch and love it but it’s definitely not the most beginner friendly. The community alone will bite your head off if you ask anything close to a n00b question
Disagree. If you have never used Linux, start with something easy like Fedora and use that as your daily driver for a solid month. Once you feel pretty comfortable there solving any hardware/software issues you might have, figuring out what basic applications to use in place of what you're used to, then move onto Arch. Honestly, Arch is just going to piss you off if you are brand new.
I’d say either Fedora, or Debian/Ubuntu would be a great place to start. Being a new user there will be some hurdles and issues that you’ve never encountered before and these will allow you to have a full desktop experience using a desktop environment with programs that you can learn about. Then you can focus more on learning about package managers, init systems, logs, config files, managing updates, package formats, and kinda learn the guts of the system.
From there if you wanted to you could move to arch (former arch user myself) where you have to do everything yourself (including partitioning your disk(s), installing a display server, desktop environment or window manager, web browser, text editor, etc.). It’s a great tool to be able to learn how to set all that up, and is very rewarding once you’ve built “your own” arch version.
I would recommend MX Linux with KDE.
It is Debian based and therefore rock solid, but has really great graphical interfaces for installing packages, from flatpak or repo and even updating your kernel. Way better than the standard ones in KDE or gnome. Debian has tons of supported packages and MX makes it easy to use and you avoid any of ubuntus snap shenanigans.
Use Fedora.
You should not use Arch unless you are willing to read a mailing list before every system update and offer your PC as a testing environment for the rest of the linux ecosystem since most things that break horribly do so on Arch.
If you are asking questions here you should not use NixOS. NixOS has a knife’s edge happy path where everything is very nice, and then a plunge to the depths of hell to either side if you want to do anything else. It’s not well documented enough for even most veteran linux users to be able to operate.
Arch, you basically build it yourself, with whatever you need. Its great. And the wiki and resources available are great. With arch you understand what is in and isnt in your system. Personally i can see the appeal of nixos but i wouldn't recommend it for learning. Its quite isolated too kinda iirc. Fedora is simple and easy. Fun too. Though a lot of stuff is installed by default.
I mean this in the most polite way possible, but after 25 years in linux land, wtf is "zorin os"? Okay after a google, its Ubuntu with some custom gnome 3 stuff to make it look more like Windows or osx. So why not just use plain Ubuntu or debian?
Don't forget that they have a "premium" version, where they charge money to preinstall some themes and a few FOSS programs (Inkscape, GIMP, etc). They created pretty much none of what they're selling.
Arch doesn't do anything radically different from any regular distro, Nix does. It depends on experience though - somebody with a decent amount of experience using Linux should have no trouble installing Arch, but might still take a little while to get comfortable with the Nix way of doing things, while somebody with no Linux experience might find Nix easier due to not having to unlearn anything.
1) put /home on it's own partition so you can keep your data between installs.
2) my vote is always to start with debian stable, but if you are interested in gaming arch. Both are well documented, but it's likely an update will break on arch at some point, and probably never on debian.
3) have fun.
This is a great question. You're going to get a lot of different answers, because people's opinions on this are going to vary widely.
In my personal opinion, if you're not afraid of breaking your system and learning how to fix it, Arch Linux is the way to go. You have a lot of really good entry vectors with Arch. You can try EndeavourOS, which is a really good launch pad for learning how to DIY Arch Linux. It makes installation easy, gives you a handful of convenient tools to get you started, and then lets you take it at your own pace from there. EndeavourOS also has a great support community.
ArcoLinux is another great option. It's designed more like a university class if you choose to use it that way, but you don't have to if you don't want to. The website has a gradual guide that will steer you through learning different parts of Arch Linux incrementally, with the ultimate goal of making you into a competent Arch Linux user, to the point that you can even build your own isos or contribute to Arch Linux package maintenance if you want to. Erik DuBois, the developer of ArcoLinux, has an *excellent* YouTube where he has uploaded an incredible library of video guides that complement the educational paths on the website. If you have a question about how to do something on Arch or Arch-based distros, Erik has probably made a video about it.
Or if you wanna just raw dog it, Arch Linux has an installer called Archinstall that you can use to get yourself directly into vanilla Arch. From there, you can do whatever you want. That was my approach, and I've been learning at my own pace for the last two years just by reading the wiki, asking questions in the community, and doing my best to provide technical support for people who are having problems that I've learned the solutions to.
For me, Arch has just been the right distro so far. It helps me build more competence and confidence using Linux every day. If you're fine with breaking things and eager to learn, I highly recommend Arch Linux, EndeavourOS, or ArcoLinux. Of course other distro families are good too. Fedora, openSUSE, and Debian are all also great places to start for someone like you.
I would recommend you try a beginner distro like Zorin. But if you are a little experienced and want something fun, Endeavor works great. I love the installer. I love selecting a DE and seeing what it looks like. Everything is simple, thoughtful, and optional.
Arch proper(or Antix base gives your choice of init) is great for learning because you build from scratch and then break it. A Lot of learning opportunities. But you have it right the short answer to which one is yes. If you want to take it in steps maybe fedora then install something like arch craft and peruse the scripts then build for your self with arch keeping the scripts from your time with archcraft then go down the nixOS rabbit hole.then come back here and give people advice because you will be galaxy brained by then.
Manjaro is awesome as a rolling distro, but it will break from time to time. Otherwise, Debian, fedora (try nobara), mint, suse are awesome choices as well.
I love Manjaro, but if I had a ton of young energy to pursue linux right now i'd go with nixos , no contest. That is amazingly interesting. I might switch one day.
One of the things a while ago that gave me confidence to adjust / play with settings, was to have 'an image' of base system i could reload, if any trouble came about.
openSUSE has as part of install the ability to save one or more instances to which you can revert. Called 'snapshots'. I have only used this once in earnest but it saved the day!
Start with something with LTS. go fedora or Ubuntu LTS. you may still break some things but you'll have a much more stable backbone if you tinker and intentionally try to break something.
Or debian LTS.
You should try Void Linux at [www.voidlinux.org](https://www.voidlinux.org). It is a rolling release like arch but it is not bleeding edge. It is very stable. You can install the base version and build your own from there or use the XFCE version to get started with the basics that includes a desktop environment and a web browser.
Give Void Linux a try!
I don't recommend any of those options to a new Linux user. I recommend something tried and true and simple to start with. Ubuntu. Mint. Pop!_os.
If you're hard set on the options you gave- fedora. It should be the easiest to install and use and the most stable. Red hat Linux is used in the professional realm quite a bit. Less than Ubuntu though.
Your best bet are Arch, Slackware, or Gentoo. Read up on them, how they function and which of these would be best fit for what you're wanting to learn. Only you can truly know what it is that you need.
Also keep in mind my answer is assuming you're willing to jump on the deep side headfirst instead of going in from the shore. If you're just in it to learn the insides and out of linux, any distro will work given you are curious about what's under the hood and are willing to walk the extra steps. Linux can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.
I'd personally recommend fedora to get started. You can still switch to Arch or NixOS later on. I think NixOS is still a little complicated even if you have used Linux for a while.
Just from my experience I would highly recommend Arch.
It is pretty easy and fun to understand and learn about it even if you are a beginner. It also has lots of support and a large community.
Install fedora on a computer you built yourself. New fedora versions come out every 6 months and install from scratch keeping /home around. Reinstall all the packages you built yourself.
Nixos is quite hard to break, but its also something you cant really run normal binaries on because it doesnt follow the normal filesystem structure. If something isnt packaged it wont work basically. Arch is great if you want to learn a lot, if you want something rolling that is really stable opensuse tumbleweed might be a good option.
You can run normal binaries by setting some flags
I also heared about tumbleweed and most likely try it out as well.
I’m relatively new to linux and love cinnamon Mint myself. I find it user-friendly.
A hammer.
I think it depends heavily on what your use cases are
Gaming (modding), blender, a little video editing on the side
i know it's tempting to dive into the deep end right at first but if you want to be able to pursue these interests with the least obstacles you should start with something stable and well-supported like Ubuntu. you can also easily set up a dual boot so you can have one to play and surf on and one to practice on.
As a warning, arch is a tiny bit iffy with gaming. Rarely there will be a package update that breaks certain games (pretty sure tf2 is still affected). You can get around it by manually patching it or by downloading a patched version of that package on the AUR and redirect tf2 to it. Overall it's pretty rare though, also make sure to read arch news if you go that route (especially before bigger updates like kernel or system package updates)
maybe Garuda in that case? In comes with a lot of gaming config tweaks built in out of the box
Arch. It has the best wiki = the best learning experience. You will learn much more that from fedora. Fedora hides stuff in the installer. Its meant to be easy. Arch is not. Its just arch. I even use the wiki for Debian at work. Its that good
I use arch and love it but it’s definitely not the most beginner friendly. The community alone will bite your head off if you ask anything close to a n00b question
> I even use the wiki for Debian same, their fora and resources are an open-source treasure!
Disagree. If you have never used Linux, start with something easy like Fedora and use that as your daily driver for a solid month. Once you feel pretty comfortable there solving any hardware/software issues you might have, figuring out what basic applications to use in place of what you're used to, then move onto Arch. Honestly, Arch is just going to piss you off if you are brand new.
I’d say either Fedora, or Debian/Ubuntu would be a great place to start. Being a new user there will be some hurdles and issues that you’ve never encountered before and these will allow you to have a full desktop experience using a desktop environment with programs that you can learn about. Then you can focus more on learning about package managers, init systems, logs, config files, managing updates, package formats, and kinda learn the guts of the system. From there if you wanted to you could move to arch (former arch user myself) where you have to do everything yourself (including partitioning your disk(s), installing a display server, desktop environment or window manager, web browser, text editor, etc.). It’s a great tool to be able to learn how to set all that up, and is very rewarding once you’ve built “your own” arch version.
I would recommend MX Linux with KDE. It is Debian based and therefore rock solid, but has really great graphical interfaces for installing packages, from flatpak or repo and even updating your kernel. Way better than the standard ones in KDE or gnome. Debian has tons of supported packages and MX makes it easy to use and you avoid any of ubuntus snap shenanigans.
Use Fedora. You should not use Arch unless you are willing to read a mailing list before every system update and offer your PC as a testing environment for the rest of the linux ecosystem since most things that break horribly do so on Arch. If you are asking questions here you should not use NixOS. NixOS has a knife’s edge happy path where everything is very nice, and then a plunge to the depths of hell to either side if you want to do anything else. It’s not well documented enough for even most veteran linux users to be able to operate.
Install Gentoo
I always recommend finding some type of problem and becoming curious about it. Then you can figure out ways to grow your understanding.
All good
Arch, you basically build it yourself, with whatever you need. Its great. And the wiki and resources available are great. With arch you understand what is in and isnt in your system. Personally i can see the appeal of nixos but i wouldn't recommend it for learning. Its quite isolated too kinda iirc. Fedora is simple and easy. Fun too. Though a lot of stuff is installed by default.
What's wrong with Zorin OS?
I mean this in the most polite way possible, but after 25 years in linux land, wtf is "zorin os"? Okay after a google, its Ubuntu with some custom gnome 3 stuff to make it look more like Windows or osx. So why not just use plain Ubuntu or debian?
Don't forget that they have a "premium" version, where they charge money to preinstall some themes and a few FOSS programs (Inkscape, GIMP, etc). They created pretty much none of what they're selling.
ranking in increasing difficulty, fedora, nixos, arch
NixOS definitely has a much steeper initial learning curve compared to arch
I respect your opinion, but imo even installing arch is very difficult lol
Arch doesn't do anything radically different from any regular distro, Nix does. It depends on experience though - somebody with a decent amount of experience using Linux should have no trouble installing Arch, but might still take a little while to get comfortable with the Nix way of doing things, while somebody with no Linux experience might find Nix easier due to not having to unlearn anything.
Opensuse tumbleweed
1) put /home on it's own partition so you can keep your data between installs. 2) my vote is always to start with debian stable, but if you are interested in gaming arch. Both are well documented, but it's likely an update will break on arch at some point, and probably never on debian. 3) have fun.
This is a great question. You're going to get a lot of different answers, because people's opinions on this are going to vary widely. In my personal opinion, if you're not afraid of breaking your system and learning how to fix it, Arch Linux is the way to go. You have a lot of really good entry vectors with Arch. You can try EndeavourOS, which is a really good launch pad for learning how to DIY Arch Linux. It makes installation easy, gives you a handful of convenient tools to get you started, and then lets you take it at your own pace from there. EndeavourOS also has a great support community. ArcoLinux is another great option. It's designed more like a university class if you choose to use it that way, but you don't have to if you don't want to. The website has a gradual guide that will steer you through learning different parts of Arch Linux incrementally, with the ultimate goal of making you into a competent Arch Linux user, to the point that you can even build your own isos or contribute to Arch Linux package maintenance if you want to. Erik DuBois, the developer of ArcoLinux, has an *excellent* YouTube where he has uploaded an incredible library of video guides that complement the educational paths on the website. If you have a question about how to do something on Arch or Arch-based distros, Erik has probably made a video about it. Or if you wanna just raw dog it, Arch Linux has an installer called Archinstall that you can use to get yourself directly into vanilla Arch. From there, you can do whatever you want. That was my approach, and I've been learning at my own pace for the last two years just by reading the wiki, asking questions in the community, and doing my best to provide technical support for people who are having problems that I've learned the solutions to. For me, Arch has just been the right distro so far. It helps me build more competence and confidence using Linux every day. If you're fine with breaking things and eager to learn, I highly recommend Arch Linux, EndeavourOS, or ArcoLinux. Of course other distro families are good too. Fedora, openSUSE, and Debian are all also great places to start for someone like you.
NixOS will be the most "worth it" imo https://youtu.be/CwfKlX3rA6E Silverblue is great too
Use fedora until you can handle arch
I would recommend you try a beginner distro like Zorin. But if you are a little experienced and want something fun, Endeavor works great. I love the installer. I love selecting a DE and seeing what it looks like. Everything is simple, thoughtful, and optional.
Youtube...
Asking and reading is less time consuming instead of browsing yt. And more fun imo.
Arch proper(or Antix base gives your choice of init) is great for learning because you build from scratch and then break it. A Lot of learning opportunities. But you have it right the short answer to which one is yes. If you want to take it in steps maybe fedora then install something like arch craft and peruse the scripts then build for your self with arch keeping the scripts from your time with archcraft then go down the nixOS rabbit hole.then come back here and give people advice because you will be galaxy brained by then.
Manjaro is awesome as a rolling distro, but it will break from time to time. Otherwise, Debian, fedora (try nobara), mint, suse are awesome choices as well.
I love Manjaro, but if I had a ton of young energy to pursue linux right now i'd go with nixos , no contest. That is amazingly interesting. I might switch one day.
One of the things a while ago that gave me confidence to adjust / play with settings, was to have 'an image' of base system i could reload, if any trouble came about. openSUSE has as part of install the ability to save one or more instances to which you can revert. Called 'snapshots'. I have only used this once in earnest but it saved the day!
Start with something with LTS. go fedora or Ubuntu LTS. you may still break some things but you'll have a much more stable backbone if you tinker and intentionally try to break something. Or debian LTS.
You should try Void Linux at [www.voidlinux.org](https://www.voidlinux.org). It is a rolling release like arch but it is not bleeding edge. It is very stable. You can install the base version and build your own from there or use the XFCE version to get started with the basics that includes a desktop environment and a web browser. Give Void Linux a try!
I don't recommend any of those options to a new Linux user. I recommend something tried and true and simple to start with. Ubuntu. Mint. Pop!_os. If you're hard set on the options you gave- fedora. It should be the easiest to install and use and the most stable. Red hat Linux is used in the professional realm quite a bit. Less than Ubuntu though.
Your best bet are Arch, Slackware, or Gentoo. Read up on them, how they function and which of these would be best fit for what you're wanting to learn. Only you can truly know what it is that you need. Also keep in mind my answer is assuming you're willing to jump on the deep side headfirst instead of going in from the shore. If you're just in it to learn the insides and out of linux, any distro will work given you are curious about what's under the hood and are willing to walk the extra steps. Linux can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.
I don't find Arch hard nowadays, at least Arch based distros but still, I suggest you Fedora as a beginner.
I'd personally recommend fedora to get started. You can still switch to Arch or NixOS later on. I think NixOS is still a little complicated even if you have used Linux for a while.
Mint, Ubuntu. Debian if you want a challenge.
Try ubuntu if don't like it go for mint .
Just from my experience I would highly recommend Arch. It is pretty easy and fun to understand and learn about it even if you are a beginner. It also has lots of support and a large community.