LinuxQuestions.org Member IntroNew to LinuxQuestions.org? Been a long time member but never made a post? Introduce yourself here.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
In that case I can recommend that you go with one of the desktop focused distributions.
MoonOS or Ubuntu, Fedora or RedHat, and Mint come immediately to mind. They have excellent desktops and simple/fast install with excellent defaults.
Others like Gentoo or Debian make wonderful desktops (and/or servers), but you have to make the right choices, whereas with the ones I recommended the right choices are pretty much the defaults.
Minimal distributions such as DSL are always on option, and require less drive space and run faster. Minimal distributions, however, must compromise in their selections of kernel, libraries, and applications to meet that 'minimal' goal: as a result they do not provide a representative experience.
You may want to google for comparisons of distributions and/or desktops. For example the default for most will be GNOME or KDE, but there are versions of many that are based upon other desktop environments (or window managers) such as XFCE, FLUXBOX, OPENBOX, or other lighter options. KDE and GNOME are pretty standard, but tend to be larger and slower than the other options. I recommend that you start with the standard/default and only consider moving to a more efficient option later if that interests you.
The package managers used by these distributions make adding or updating packages easy, something that may be important to a new user. If you do not find the application you want on your system, the odds are excellent that it is available with only a few clicks and will be automatically loaded and configured by the package manager. This convenience may be critical to both your initial experience and reducing wasted time trying to 'find' applications you need/want to test.
Please, do not forget to bring any questions or problems back to the forums: someone will be glad to help and your experience may help and guide others. I would like to learn what choices you make, and how you view your experience as you progress.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.