this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Just mint or fedora, you'll be fine.
This
Fedora is life.
For me it replaced every other distro, since the minimal install of its fedora Server flavour is just aß minimal as debian
Yeah, I switched my desktop and laptop for work and never looked back. As time goes on I'm learning more and more how to fix any oddities or bugs and find myself less and less familiar with Windows bullshit. I have one windows install in a VM to adjust my camera because it just refuses to work with Linux, but I set it and forget it. It's so so so much nicer and runs nice and snappy on my cheep work laptop that barely booted the windows 11 it came with.
I would second this. They key as a beginner I think is to choose a distro with a reasonable release cycle, give yourself some room to breathe.
Debian is too slow, their release cycle is basically 2 years. You could use Testing or Unstable instead of Stable but they're not officially meant for public consumption and come with no guarantees. It's great as a minimalist, rock-solid foundation for a server where stability is paramount but not great for any purpose with a faster pace of technology.
Arch-based distros on the other hand are extremely fast ("rolling distro"). Most of them sit in the range between "drinking from the firehose" (release packages as fast as they come in) to something like 2 weeks for a "slow" distro like Manjaro.
Distros like Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, PopOS have ~6 month release cycles so you end up with reasonably recent packages but not too recent to catch all the new bugs.