My favorite Linux distros for home use
One man’s thoughts on which Linux flavor is best suited for your personal computer
The first time I tried Linux was when I was still in high school, circa ~2004. I had used Windows my entire life up until then but as someone who was passionate about technology, network security, coding, and general computer tinkering, the word “Linux” came up enough times in my tech exploration to get me curious about it. Eventually, I downloaded 6 CDs worth of SUSE Linux and set off to try it on an old PC. To see something on the monitor that didn’t have a Windows logo, with a UI that looked completely alien to me, immediately got me hooked as teen. I felt like I was part of some cool club of computer enthusiasts when I hadn’t even finished the installation steps. Since then, I’ve went through numerous Linux distributions and have grown a lot more experienced with Linux over the almost two decades of Linux use, on and off. In this article, I’d like to tell you my personal thoughts and opinions on some of the popular distributions out there from the perspective of using them for a home computer.
Depending on what you’re using your computer for, your mileage may vary between the various flavors of Linux. For this reason, it may behoove you to know a little bit about me and what I use my computer for. I am a software developer, focusing on web development and I am also somewhat of a “gamer” though I really just play DotA 2 and Counter-Strike Go (both of which are just coincidentally natively supported on Linux).
Before we get into my thoughts on specific distributions, I want to talk about what criteria I find most important in a Linux distribution in the context of home computer use.
Important Factor #1: Popularity
Popularity of a distribution, or at the very least being based on a popular distribution is a critical factor for a Linux distribution if you’re planning to get some actual work done on it. The fact of the matter is that unless you are an absolute Linux guru (in which case you probably shouldn’t be looking to me for advice 😅) you’re going to need help solving issues that may arise during your use of the system: new things you want to try but don’t know how to install, configuration changes you may want to make but do not know where to find, or even just dealing with updates that happen to break stuff unintentionally. Turning to the internet for help is a lot easier for more popular distros as they are more likely to have other users posting online about the same issue as you and the solutions are often quite specific to a certain distribution or are easier to follow if you use the same distribution due to the tooling and set up.
Another benefit of popular distributions is that they tend to have more readily available packages for them for proprietary software, especially for software that is not available through the official repositories. If you take a look at some popular proprietary software that has native Linux support you’ll see a pattern…
- Steam: Available in deb
- Zoom Video Conferencing: Available in deb, rpm, arch
- Google Chrome: Available in deb, rpm
- Minecraft: Available in deb, arch
I’m not going to list all the proprietary software available for Linux, but you can see there’s a clear pattern here: if you’re not using a distro that is based on Red Hat (*.rpm) or Debian (*.deb) then you’re probably going to be out of luck or have to deal with additional complexity when trying to install some popular proprietary software. Note that the list above is only the official packages from the official source. There are often community builds for these packages using flatpak & snap or even just people who have re-packaged them into different formats, but my point stands: It’s still at least marginally more difficult to install each piece of software and for some packages it can be impossible on a non-supported distribution.
One counterpoint to what I said above about packages that’s worth mentioning is that with flatpak and snap becoming more pervasive, this limitation may find itself fading away sooner rather than later. I personally prefer to use packages without these containers because of limitations I’ve encountered with them, but as they are developed further I think there’s a reasonable chance we may see the majority of user-facing applications be available through them.
Important Factor #2: Corporate Backing
While it may be all the rage to hate on “evil corporations,” I think it’s hard to dispute that in general big corporations have lots of money to throw around for better or for worse. If a company chooses to put that money behind developing a Linux distribution then they’re likely putting in a lot more resources to get a polished product that they can sell in some way. Open-source developers that are programming during their spare time are generally limited in how much of their time they spend on projects as they still need to do work that makes money to pay the bills. Having a company pay for development generally means more time and effort spent on developing that distribution, usually resulting in a better experience for the user — especially if you happen to fit the profile of the type of consumer they’re targeting. My favorite distributions tend to be ones that have some real money behind them for that extra level of polish.
By the way, I’m not saying distros that are entirely made by unpaid or donation-based open source developers are inferior; those kinds of distros actually tend to make the best highly specialized or unique flavors that can be really good for some specific purposes. An example would be something like Knoppix which is meant to be entirely run off of live media. That being said, for a general-use home machine I find that in general they are lacking in their user experience.
Important Factor #3: Stability
While bleeding edge technology may be fun to play with, let’s not forget the “bleed” part of it — when you just want to browse the net in peace or play your favorite game, you’re probably not looking for the excitement of dealing with sudden breaks in your graphics drivers or figuring out why your UI is bugging out. For this reason, choosing some of the less tested and “cooler” distributions is probably going to bite you in the butt more often than not. Everything may seem great on initial install, until two weeks later you start running into some random issue with something you didn’t test initially and then the whole thing starts to unravel.
So how do the distributions I’ve tried over the years stack up to those criteria?
Ubuntu
Based on: Debian
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
I’ll say right off the bat that Ubuntu is the best general purpose Linux distribution. Period. The main advantage you get with Ubuntu is that it is so popular and so widely adopted for home use that you will almost certainly find the answer to any question you have without a lot of digging. Any issue you run into will probably have been encountered by many others and have a much higher chance of getting fixed without you needing to do anything. Any package you need to install will probably exist for Ubuntu in a convenient format.
I’m not going to say Ubuntu is without problems — as with any Linux distribution, you’re exposing yourself to the need to potentially tinker here and there to get certain things working unless you’re literally just using the built-in packages like a web browser and an office suite. That being said, Ubuntu is probably the easiest Linux distribution on which to solve those problems given the huge amount of Ubuntu users out there. One major hurdle I’ve faced with Ubuntu personally is the major version releases. Unlike some other distributions like Manjaro which use rolling releases, Ubuntu does major releases. The upgrade process for those can often lead to frustrating issues when things don’t go perfectly.
If you don’t have some specific need that the other Linux distributions fit and Ubuntu doesn’t, or if your intended use matches very heavily with some more specialized distro, I would just recommend Ubuntu hands down.
Linux Mint
Based on: Ubuntu (Debian)
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
I tried Mint some years ago and found that it did not add a lot on top of Ubuntu. The key differentiators come down to having a sleeker default look that you’ll probably customize anyway, and a set of codecs come pre-installed that you can simply install yourself with a few clicks after installing Ubuntu. Everything Mint has to offer is very easy to add to Ubuntu without a lot of hassle so the gains are minute. The cost on the other hand is you’re going to be behind in new version releases from the official Ubuntu distribution since Mint devs have to play catch-up. Moreover, there have been some very concerning security incidents in the past with Mint, the likes of which I would expect official Ubuntu to be a lot more careful about.
Official Ubuntu Variants
Based on: Ubuntu (Debian)
Official homepage: Ubuntu Official Variants Page
Here I’m talking about Xubuntu, Kubuntu, etc. Since these distributions are recognized officially by Ubuntu, I’d trust them and recommend them over Mint if you’re looking for something that GNOME3 just can’t offer such as lower system requirements with Xubuntu or more a customizable UI via KDE in Kubuntu. Generally, I’d still err towards using Ubuntu as you’re more likely to find support online for issues you encounter if you use it. I’ve experienced issues in KDE on Kubuntu (not necessarily related to Kubuntu itself) that I found fairly difficult to troubleshoot whereas all issues on “stock” Ubuntu with GNOME were fairly easy to address.
Debian
Based on: Independent
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
I want to also briefly touch on Debian itself; the base upon which Ubuntu is developed. Admittedly I’ve never used it for home use, but I have used it at University as that was what was installed in all the computer labs. My impression of Debian is that it is, for all intents and purposes, just a more conservative and stable version of Ubuntu. I realize that’s backwards from the reality since Ubuntu is based on Debian and not the other way around but given Ubuntu’s prominence and popularity it can make sense to think of this way. If you’re not looking for “modern” and instead just want something stable that works, Debian may be for you.
Fedora
Based on: Independent, but compatible with Red Hat RPM packages
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
First, to explain Fedora a bit for the uninitiated, I would simplify like this: Fedora is to Red Hat what Chromium is to Google Chrome. It’s the open-source base upon which the latter (a branded product) is built but where the brand invests heavily in developing the open-source base.
My reasoning for picking Ubuntu as the go-to distro hinges strongly on how popular it is, but Fedora definitely fits that category as well. If you look back at my list above of proprietary software supported on Linux you’ll see RPM is definitely up there in terms of having official support from companies which is telling in that they see Fedora and related distributions like Red-Hat as being worth supporting. Some of them even call out Fedora by name in their RPM packages (not so much for other distros that use rpm packages like SUSE). A lot of that may be due to Red Hat’s prominence in the enterprise world, but if it means support for your home machine as a byproduct, why not take that benefit?
Gentoo
Based on: Independent
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
I absolutely loved Gentoo when I tried it years ago. I think it shines in two regards: One is its ability as a learning tool for how Linux works — you have to do a lot of the set up process manually (though I believe nowadays there are shortcuts for a lot of things). However, despite being manually executed by you, the guides are fantastic and do a great job at explaining what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and a bit about how it works. You end up learning a lot of nitty-gritty Linux stuff this way that can help troubleshoot issues on other distributions even if you don’t plan to stay with Gentoo long term. When I used it I did the “from-scratch” install and it taught me various inner workings of Linux such as configuring and compiling a kernel, using chroot, mounting filesystems, and installing bootloaders. That experience on its own taught me a huge chunk of what I know today about Linux.
The other major strength of this distribution is the fact that by doing all these things manually and setting up and configuring everything, you end up with a stable, responsive, and lean system that’s perfect for your hardware and your needs. I don’t think any other distribution can ever do this the way Gentoo does because every other distribution attempts to make it easier for you by doing these things for you — therefore more likely getting it wrong and making the build too generic. If you really want to customize everything about your Linux experience and are willing to put the time in to do it, Gentoo is definitely a great choice though you’ll probably be lacking a lot of the proprietary software support.
Manjaro
Based on: Arch
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
I’m going to blur the lines between Manjaro and the distribution that it’s based on, Arch, because I never tried Arch on it’s own but all the troubleshooting and configuration I did with Manjaro I did through the Arch wiki and it worked exactly the same.
The thing that stands out to me most about Manjaro and the Arch ecosystem in general is that the documentation is fantastic. Nine times out of ten if I had any questions or issues I was able to find a full write-up on the Arch wiki detailing every aspect of what I was trying to do. Even with Ubuntu being as popular as it is, you’re most likely looking for answers on StackOverflow or bulletin boards. The documentation for Arch was probably the best I’ve seen out of any distributions and really makes it easy to get things done.
A big disadvantage, for me anyway, of using Arch was how it does rolling releases which makes it incredibly difficult or even downright impossible to downgrade packages if you experience issues. When I had a bug with my NVIDIA drivers in a new version that was released, I had to jump through a lot of hoops to try to downgrade to an old version that did not have the issue. In Ubuntu for example, you can just specify the version of a piece of software you want to install and you’ll get that specific version. That experience left me frustrated and wanting to move away from Arch because the solution was so simple but the OS literally would not let me do it.
KaOS
Based on: Independent
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
I discovered KaOS fairly recently and I have to say I really enjoy the idea of “if you use KDE, this is a stable desktop for you focused on Qt applications where everything is integrated well for that environment.” I tried running KaOS live off a flash drive and it was seamless. I had a great experience with trying it out — everything worked well and it did a great job at being stable. The fact that it uses the same package manager as Arch (pacman) makes it familiar and easy to use which is another plus. The thing that kept me from adopting it though was that issue with lack of popularity and corporate backing. With the limited resources this relatively small distro has, it will never have as much work put it into it as some of the bigger competitors and since it is not based on deb or rpm packages it is hard to find a lot of common software for it. Moreover, if things do go wrong as they usually eventually do, it will be harder to find support as there’s not as many users of KaOS compared to the more popular distributions.
Clear Linux
Based on: Independent
Distrowatch Link: Here
Official homepage: Here
Not to be confused with ClearOS. When I read that Intel is developing their own Linux distribution I got really excited. Intel has a lot of money to invest into doing things right, and the fact that they’re trying to make radical changes to Linux on really fundamental levels (some of which haven’t changed much in decades) was doubly exciting. Clear Linux is intended to be used more as a server than a desktop, but they do support a desktop version as well. I installed it on my home machine and I thought it was really interesting how Clear Linux’s developers changed things like how mounting works: there’s no fstab file in Clear Linux by default and instead they developed their own system. It’s really fascinating and intriguing to see what kinds of changes they’re making and to see these kinds of activities happening in the “reimagining” of how Linux works. Even if the changes don’t get adopted widely, it inspires innovation and of course there’s going to be at least some things that take off just because they are sizable improvements. Hopefully those improvements make their way back into the rest of the Linux ecosystem.
In terms of usability, I’d definitely say Clear Linux is not quite there yet with making a good replacement for a desktop environment as it is still relatively new and there’s a lot not figured out or developed yet. The documentation for what they do have is great, second only to maybe the Arch wiki. I am incredibly hopeful for what Clear Linux is going to shape into over the next few years and I think out of all distributions that I’d be interested in returning to to try again, Clear Linux is at the top of the list. However, it is not quite ready in my opinion to be adopted as the main distribution on your workstation.
So there you have it — my personal take on a good handful of Linux varieties currently out in the wild. I hope you found the list useful in deciding on what to install on your machine. Good luck!
