One of the common complaints about Linux is that there are too many different editions (or “distributions”) to choose from, and only a hardcore nerd can tell them apart.

Well, it's true, but you can safely ignore 99 per cent of them. Welcome to The Register's guaranteed impartiality-free guide. Tomorrow, we'll tell you how to get them, burn them and set them up to dual-boot with Windows and on Wednesday there will be a guide to tweaking your new setup and getting it ready for use.

So, in order of popularity according to the DistroWatch chart:


Read the article here

Again the emphasis on "oldest", "old-fashioned". Maybe so, but it isn't once it's installed, and they work - so why change them?