Hello, I'm a fairly new user and I haven't installed a distribution yet. On DistroWatch, I see there's "origins" for certain distros. (Canada for Arch, Isle of Man for Ubuntu, etc.) Does the origin affect my download at all? Does that mean a distro from an origin has limited languages or keyboard inputs?


A week or so ago my friend introduced me to DistroWatch and told me I could find linux distros there and taught me how to install them with my USB. He said that I should choose distros that are closer to me like Ubuntu since I'm in the european area(Turkey), but if I download, Bluestar (USA) for example, will that cause any issues? I'm not so familiar with this since all my devices were just preinstalled Windows systems.

Thank you very much \o/

It doesn't affect your download as most major distros have mirrors all over the world.

It might affect decisions made in the creation of the distro based on local and/or regional culture but here again most distros try to be as global as possible because they want users all over the world to use them. (There are some that are targeted for specific countries and/or languages or alphabets etc... but really most allow you to use different locales for those kind of things.)

Some of the decisions are based on the culture of the distro itself. For example on RHEL you could always install Motif but on Fedora which is in the same family as RHEL they required you to install Lesstif instead because of Motif's licensing/logo requirements. Some distros won't install Firefox but will install a forked derivative called Iceweasel.

My earlier time in UNIX and now my time in Linux shows me that most people will say whatever they originally learned on is far superior to everything else but the arguments are always a bit like comparing why your version of religion is better than someone else's.

Another reason to choose a distro might be whether you like to roll your own or have someone else do much of it for you. Yet another might be if you intend to work as a professional system admin.

A good idea would be to connect with your local LUG (Linux Users Group) and see what most of them are doing if for no other reason than because it might be easier to get help when you run into issues.

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Hello and welcome to the forum

It can, yes. As an extreme example, North Korea's "Red Star OS" is only available in the North Korean "version" of the Korean language. From the article I just linked to...

What distribution are you interested in using?

Regards...

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You would do well to turn a deaf ear to your friend's unusual advice and completely ignore the geographical origin of any distro. We live in a global world and the country of origin of the lead developer(s) of a distro is irrelevant.

Thank you all very much for your replies.

I'm interested in using Ubuntu because it seems to have a large community, I think it would be easier to find solutions to issues I might encounter in Ubuntu. Aside from that reason it looks quite smooth. What would you recommend? I'm thinking of installing Linux, for reason one, I'd like to see what kind of OS it is and see new stuff, And second, I've been told it's an OS that actually gives you admin privileges when you're admin.

Haha, I guess I'll do that, he's not an expert in computer things himself

You're welcome

What are your hardware specs (processor, amount of memory and video card) along with the brand and model (and model number) of your computer? Ubuntu should be fine as long as you have the system resources to run it. Also, Ubuntu should be the same wherever you download it but if it's easier, you can download it from the Turkish site here.

Regards...

I'd suggest Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, but over the years it's been better at getting the bugs out. It also has a good manual to start you off:
https://linuxmint.com/documentation.php
Of the two versions, Cinnamon has a fancier user interface but Mate is lighter in it's demands on the computer. You see that the Mate manual is available in Turkish!

distrowatch's origin field can be meaningful in some cases (e.g. legal stuff that enables linux mint to integrate proprietary software).

however, it can be misleading in many cases:

- i use archlinux and NEVER give a thought to canada. sorry canadians. and that holds true for the archlinux wiki/forums, too. it's just global, with an emphasis on english language.
- bunsenlabs has been categorized as japanese, which is a funny coincidence because two of the current devs have expatriated to japan. again, bunsenlabs is global with an emphasis on english language.

turkey, you said?
i think there's at least one independent (= not based on another) distro with turkish origins. maybe look at that?