Agreed.


Article on Linux Mint security:

http://www.ocsmag.com/2016/04/09/lin...28-days-later/

99% OF LINUX distros are debian forks; ubuntu, kubuntu, mint, and many others. Exceptions are usually worthy of note. Slackware does a good job. OpenSuSE is probably the easiest. But it is unlike any other distro, except that it uses rpm packages like Red Hat and Fedora do also. Debian itself is pretty good, but its cryptic. Newbs probably can't do much with it. But the installer is pretty foolproof, so you get a working GUI pretty much no matter what.

If you try debian, use the testing flavor. Stable is stale. I use unstable, or sid, which is pretty usable. But I wouldn't start with sid. Ubuntu is popular. I've used it. It's a debian fork.

Sabayon is a gentoo fork. It's easy and it works. It's also attractive. Thanks for reminding me. I'm going to grab the latest version and stick it in a virtual machine to try it out.

I hope this helps.

I am surrounded by awesome ingenuous Noobs. Only sign of bottomless dumbness is, they don't see the difference.

Run the GNU version. :D

With 8G RAM I only run VMs, unless battery life is in mind.

E.g:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/22064...ts_You_Do.html
https://www.linux.com/learn/why-when...irtual-machine

Try them all, have fun! :)

However, their website was hacked and ISO images were compromised. They do cross roads...eventually. I'm sure the Mint devs have lived and learnt, but since that happened to begin with I'd be hesitant to recommend it.

I've stuck to Ubuntu since 14.04 and haven't had any major problems. As for security, Ubuntu hasn't had anything on that scale, and the last major security issue was a year ago. I use it because it's really the only distro going somewhere and innovating. (You know what I mean...)

Another thing to keep in mind is popularity often affects support. If a distro is popular, especially with :newbie:s, then that's the support you'll get. So distros like Gentoo, Linux From Scratch, and Slackware likely will not have the same newbie support as Mint, Ubuntu, or a half dozen others.

Mint and Ubuntu are spin offs of Debian. They do not offer any more or less regarding usability. Each distribution of Linux has it's positives and negatives. Strictly recommending one distribution over another because of your own opinion, shouldn't be enough. You really should provide facts about design and usability. That is what I think the OP is looking for in the replies.

As someone who has ran Linux for 15 years, I disagree. Popularity is for fan boys who run Mint, Ubuntu, or OS X. Furthermore, if you base your opinions on popularity contests, go install Windows.

I cannot speak for Gentoo or Linux From Scratch. My personal experience with the two is very limited.

Slackware has a very active and helpful community on LQ. Found here. The Slackware forum has a very broad range of people helping each and every person, of all skill ranges. There is also very good documentation for Slackware on the Slackware wiki. Found here. Slackware does not change like other distributions do so quickly either. If you learn to do something with Slackware, it will likely remain useful for years to come. Another thing that may be helpful not just for the OP, but for most other people, is the Slackbook.

My experience with Linux has lead me to believe that all distributions have people willing to help you learn Linux. The decision about which distribution to use is more about deciding which philosophy, design and usability you prefer.

Sure they do they have Unity..

Ubuntu is about convergence because they know the desktop and laptop are being replaced and are reacting.

Popularity means a lot because questions will have been asked and answered and are googleable. There's also the small fact that Linux SW development is started and released first on Ubuntu because it's popular. These are reasons to run whats popular. I have better things to do than tar -xvf ./configure (check for depends) make make install then do it all again when the SW is updated.

What is the Brand/Model of your laptop? There are some Intel wireless cards that only work with newer kernels.

For example, a lenovo thinkpad laptop I just set up for work has a "Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265" that only works with kernel version 4.1 and newer. See below link.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...000005511.html

I used Debian Jessie Linux for the laptop, but it comes with an older 3.xx Linux Kernel. So I had to install a newer kernel and add .ucode files to /lib/firmware folder for it to recognize the wireless card.

So depending on the hardware you have, and what distribution of Linux you use, some stuff will just work, others you will have to make work.

So please let us know the make/model of the laptop.

Thanks.

http://linuxnewbieguide.org/?page_id=15

Quick newbie guide to "what is linux" I found using google search, decent for getting some basics and introduction.

The good thing with Linux is your not stuck with just one Distro. There are many out there, and no one but you will know whats best for you. Sure you can try a Live distro, but not all Distro's offer live versions. Better yet you can try them virtually, ex. using Virtualbox.

Before I came back to slackware, I used THIS LINK, answered the questions then researched the distros to see which one fit what I wanted.

Goralla:

As beachboy2 mentioned in post #2; it would be helpful if you could post your pc's specifications.

Once we know that we could make a recommendation on which distribution would be more fitting for your computer.

I am a new comer too. :hattip:

I think, the different distros of Linux is more or less the same to the newbies. It is new and you don't know much about it.

First I was stunned by the SlackEx USB Live. Its look and speed makes me decide to go for it. Of course, being tired of Windows is another reason I wanted to make a change.

I (as a newbie too) would suggest you to run a USB live version first. Just try and feel it first. Browse some of your flavorite websites. Do something you would do with Windows... etc.

I am now running Slackware. It does take a little bit time to learn how to install it. Its installation is not very user-friendly, but fun though.