Which Linux Distro Should I Choose?

>KDE still has awful defaults and will always have awful defaults.
such as?

This may seem trivial, but can I move the task bar away from the left side of the screen in this Distro? That's one thing that irritated me when I tried Linux once in the past. I just wanted it to be on the bottom.

>1) ease of use
You should stay away from Debian, Gentoo, and Arch for now, unless you're super comfortable with the install process.
>2) an asthetically pleasing interface that I can customize if I want
Elementary is out. Manjaro Deepin is a little more flexible, but definitely beautiful. For an unlimited amount of customization capabilities, choose a distro with Plasma, such as Kubuntu or KDE Neon. XFCE is nearly as flexible as Plasma, but XFCE kinda looks... old. And simple. Runs on minimal hardware, though.
>3) privacy and lack of bot net
Only Deepin and some now defunct distros have been accused of this, and every *smart* person I've spoken to doesn't believe Deepin really is botnet. Ubuntu 16.04 can include web results (including Amazon, Wikiepedia, etc) when you search in the HUD, but it can be disabled. Dipshits who browse the internet all day somehow thought this was botnet.
>4) minimal maintenance to keep the OS running
Pick an LTS version of Ubuntu. Each LTS is supported for five years (for free), possibly longer for a price.

So choose Kubuntu 18.04 and be done with it.

Unironically linux mint. Its the easiest to install and use

/thread

Debian just werks and super easy to maintain since theres only security patch on stabile release.

Thanks m8, sounds like great advice

>Mint
Pointless. If you needed real help, you'd have to lean on the 'buntu community anyway, and they'd just tell you it would be easier to help you if you were running the OS of the community you're reaching out to. The Mint community is deceptively small, and they lean heavily on the fact that you're really just running Ubuntu with a green theme. Mint has nothing that cannot be installed on Ubuntu Mate. Those teams need to just join each other and double their efforts. Mint served a purpose before Canonical officially supported using Mate. Now that they do, Mint's job is finished.

It's not on the left unless you use GNOME.

Mint is significantly more polished by default and much more welcoming towards new users.

>more polished
*Citation needed

>more welcoming
*Citation needed

Unquantifiable nonsense.

Compare Xubuntu 18 to Mint Xfce.

Yes you can move the taskbar to any side of the screen and have multiple taskbars if you want. Linux mint has it on the bottom of the screen by default.

void or mx

From windows, get an ubuntu/xubuntu/kubuntu

Nothing wrong with it and botnet shit is overhyped. Any linux is better than windows by orders of magnitude, And it just werks.

The only thing I can say is that they've done complex setups to get things to just werk for newbies that can be hard to understand for intermediate users. Then when/if you start to care enough about that, you move to another distro.

If you want a GUI for everything, consider Opensuse Tumbleweed. You can configure pretty much everything with Yast, has KDE Plasma as default desktop, always up to date

The *buntus are what windows should be and would be if it wasn't actually a hostile force to it's users. Where it makes sacrifices for the benefit of the new users those sacrifices are the result of honest effort to do make a good tradeoff. They're honest deficiencies not done with evil intent.

With windows you're using an operating system that's trying to kill you.

If you are dipping your toes then Mint is fine as an intro but like other anons have said, if you are going to seriously start using Linux then Ubuntu is one of the best starters because 90% of the shit you find online is going to be based on Ubuntu. I prefer Ubuntu Mate myself for general-use distro but that's what's great about Linux, you can always tailor it to your needs or find a distro that's set up for what you want to do out of the box.
Learn to walk before you try to run, learn about the environment of Linux before you really get too worried about privacy and maintenance, that comes with experience.

OP, this is a troll post. Try OpenSuse Leap, sure, but for the love of God, new users should not install Tumbleweed. Your installation will be broken by the next morning if you do so much as allow the system to update itself when it asks. I am not exaggerating.

There's only cinnamon or mate packages in mint's repos, as far as DE stuff goes. Any other is just pulled from ubuntu repos.

Attached: Screenshot_20190218_132313.png (703x181, 25K)

I've tried like 7 flavours and I've been on my latest install of Lubuntu for six months or so. Has been working well. I use it mostly for light duty (internet, file transfer and simple programming), but I also find it great for making apps.

>OP, this is a troll post. Try OpenSuse Leap, sure, but for the love of God, new users should not install Tumbleweed. Your installation will be broken by the next morning if you do so much as allow the system to update itself when it asks. I am not exaggerating.

I've been using tumbleweed for 6 or 8 months now, no issues. I do a distribution upgrade every week, sometimes skip and wait a month. Always werks. BtrFS has also saved my ass once with snapshots. Never have to reinstall since it's a rolling release.

How long have you been using Linux? How did you know about using BtrFS for snapshots? How did you know not to install updates from Discover? These things are not obvious to new users.

I was watching a video on terminal commands last night, and I was left with the impression that there's almost no reason to use the terminal over the GUI if you are a typical PC user. Is that accurate or is the terminal actually important?

>How long have you been using Linux?
A few years, full time started early 2015
>How did you know about using BtrFS for snapshots?
I didn't, I had to look up the commands on my phone as I restored the botched fstab. Used the live CD to do it
>How did you know not to install updates from Discover?
Huh? I literally do zypper dup, no update filtering at all. Maybe I'm lucky.

In terms of support Ubuntu is better for a newer user, I was just combating your claim that tumbleweed is unstable

>restored the botched fstab.
That sounds super stable and beginner friendly.
>zypper dup
Yet when your Plasma System Tray tells you that updates are available, if you click the notification, it opens Discover, correct? How is a new user supposed to know that the tool that presents itself to you is the wrong one? Maybe you and I are using different criteria to define "stable," but to me, following on-screen prompts should not cause botches systems. Stable systems ensure the end-user isn't misled.

>That sounds super stable and beginner friendly.
I was playing with partitions in yast, and didn't pay attention to a couple things when preparing to move from HDD to SSD.
>Yet when your Plasma System Tray tells you that updates are available, if you click the notification, it opens Discover, correct?
I never use GUI update tools, I always disable update notifications even when using Ubuntu, etc

>I never use GUI update tools, I always disable update notifications even when using Ubuntu, etc
What would motivate someone new to Linux to do something like that?

>What would motivate someone new to Linux to do something like that?
Even in Ubuntu, it was faster to use CLI for everything, and it also made me more comfortable with the interface in general. The UI is shit and only good if you don't know how to apt-search

Unironically Fedora Workstation

OP is asking for an easy, new-user-friendly distro that doesn't require lots of updates, and they're hoping to stay out of the CLI. I'm not knocking you for your choice of distro, user, I just don't think it's a good suggestion for new users.

>OP is asking for an easy, new-user-friendly distro that doesn't require lots of updates, and they're hoping to stay out of the CLI
Did you not read a couple posts up where I said
>In terms of support Ubuntu is better for a newer user, I was just combating your claim that tumbleweed is unstable

You know Debian has a GUI installer, right ? I may not recommend Debian for other reasons, but the install process isn't one of them.

Different/better default software and a working compositor. Timeshift, compositor switcher, Qt compatibility, better theming, superkey to open the app menu, better update manager and a kernel switcher.

Sheeit. I thought meta key opening app menu was basically universal now.

Solus budgie

Ideally "doubling their efforts" also means getting that polished and welcoming experience into Ubuntu. It goes both ways -- better support through Ubuntu, and better polished MATE/Cinnamon spins through the current Mint devs.