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GamingPCLinux distribution

What are the best home Linux distributions?

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Jul 20, 2023

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Best home Linux distributions	Price	Package Manager	Release Schedule
-- Debian GNU/Linux	Free	dpkg (Debian Package Manager)	approximately every 24 months
-- Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition	0	-	Release Every 6 months.
-- Pop!_OS	FREE	-	-
-- Gentoo Linux	-	-	-
-- Endeavour OS	0	pacman	Rolling

Debian GNU/Linux

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Top Con

Outdated kernel of the live system

Since the LiveCD is based on Debian stable the kernel is old, outdated but stable. See More

Top Pro

The Debian Social Contract

Guaranteed commitment to adherence to values, principles, priorities, requirements and guidelines by the Debian project. See More

Specs

Top Con

No default support for unfree drivers

Debian does not official support unfree software so if you have a wifi card or anything elese that requires an unfree driver you will need to download the unofficial/non-advertised non-free iso image which contains all unfree driver packages. See More

Top Con

No choices

Debian basically doesn't give you any choices, even dpkg supports this feature with virtual packages: for example, it is very hard to use a different sound system than ALSA, like OSS4 or to use ALSA with pulse audio emulation, and the same goes for different init systems. See More

Top Con

Ridiculous package splitting

Even though it makes sense to split devel and the actual binary of an application, the splitting has become as mess in debian and its derivates: for example the nvidia driver is splitted into over 40 different packages: https://packages.debian.org/en/source/sid/nvidia-graphics-drivers See More

Top Con

Internal quarrels harm the project

Instead of working all together to provide the best Operating System, some maintainers are just ignorant and aggressive to new ideas or new maintainers. That led to many crises and controversy in Debian's history. See More

Top Con

Stable release contains extremely outdated packages

If you want the newest packages, you'll have to do a minimal installation of Debian stable then upgrade to testing or you need to install testing directly: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting. See More

Top Con

No good choices of fresh desktop environments

GNOME is quite outdated and buggy; KDE is too old, even in Sid it is at 5.14 branch (at Jun 13 2019 Plasma 5.16 is available in many rolling/fresh distros); XFCE behaves like crooked, visual artifacts at the taskbar and so on; Cinnamon as far as I know works better in Linux Mint compared to (almost) any other distro; For other desktop environments (e.g. MATE) can't say - these are too new (as projects) and possibly incomplete, thus might have many bugs. See More

Top Con

Hard to learn

Top Con

Buggy and non-user friendly

You need to know almost as much as Arch and deal with documentation not as good as the Arch wiki in order for Debian to work. See More

Top Con

Breaks if you suspend/resume

Breaks when you resume the activity on the system if you use nvidia cards. See More

Top Con

Not designed for general desktop usage

By default, Debian Stable is not that great of a distro for general desktop usage, since the packages are very outdated. You'll have to spend a while configuring the system in order to make it work. See More

Pop!_OS

Top Pro

A separate NVIDIA version

Most linux distros seem to hate Nvidia's graphics cards e.g. Fedora and OpenSUSE. System76 have decided to be kind. They have decided to form a good relationship with Nvidia fans and Nvidia itself. By creating a separate installation media that is dedicated for providing support to Nvidia's graphics cards. Even going as far as putting Nvidia's driver updates on Pop!_Shop for users to easily access and install. See More

Top Con

The Pop Store can't update some packages used by Flatpak

Can't update one Flatpak package. Related in https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/725. See More

LoyalErebus's Experience

Pop OS is my first linux distro. It doesn't have Ubutu's crap known as snaps. It makes Gnome look way better than any distros. It's icons are so elegant. It's even more eyecandy than Deepin in my opinion. See More

Top Pro

User-friendly installer

The visually appealing and easy to use installer makes dual booting as easy as it can be. See More

Top Con

64-bit only

Some older PCs still have 32 Bit processors. This limitation will be a major con for those who use an older PC since they will not be able to install, run it in a VM or live media. See More

StrongIuchar's Experience

After two years with Pop!_OS, I have found it to be an ideal daily driver and a top-notch Linux gaming choice. Excellent package manager, tiling, and fast performance. See More

Top Pro

Ready to play games, out of the box

If you still miss how easy it was to just click-install and play games in Windows, Pop! will give you that similar expectation. See More

Top Pro

Nice gnome theme dy default

Has nice gnome theme looks really good. See More

Top Pro

Optimized for modern hardware

Whereas normally, to use a brand new computer with a Linux OS, you would typically try to use unstable and sometimes buggy drivers - or struggle without hardware support until a stable release comes along. See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

Pop developers are kind to newcomers compared to other distro's devs. Here is the forum: https://pop-planet.info/ See More

Top Pro

Faster boot compared to other distros

With systemd-boot, Pop OS boots faster than other distros using GRUB by default. See More

Top Pro

Pop! makes GNOME look really good

If you're a fan of flat desktop interfaces reminiscent of Material design on Android, you'll like the theme that comes as a default in Pop! OS. The desktop and title bars all use a bright turquoise theme that makes the interface feel happy and borderline retro-chic. I found it to be like something you'd find printed on a ringer t-shirt. See More

Top Pro

Made by a hardware seller

System76 is a hardware company. It configures machines to ship with Linux pre-installed. This means its entire business model centers around delivering a quality desktop Linux experience. As a result, the company pours more attention onto the desktop. It can fix visual issues and may be able to provide a smoother overall experience than you would have installing a different version of Linux on your machine yourself. Providing Pop!_OS also empowers System76 to make certain fixes for users directly rather than having to coordinate with Canonical or the broader Ubuntu community. See More

Top Pro

Tiled windows mode

With a click of the mouse you can switch between tiled and floating window mode. The tiled mode is well implemented. See More

Gentoo Linux

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Top Con

Not beginner-friendly

You have to read a lot of instructions to start, even if you are familiar with Linux. Furthermore, as you have to configure the kernel and init system, expect some boot failures at beginning. See More

Top Pro

Freedom

You are free to do whatever you want with it. As a result, its configuration reflects your unique taste and personality. See More

Top Con

Since everything must be compiled it takes a lot longer to update

And if you have to update the kernel or some heavy software like Chromium it can takes hours if not more on weaker hardware. See More

Top Pro

Fully customizable

The usage of advanced features like USE flags makes it more customizable than any binary distribution. See More

Top Con

Somewhat outdated solutions

While being outdated per se is virtually impossible for a rolling-release distro with a large community, a large portion of said community sticks to outdated solutions. For example, Gentoo's primary init system is OpenRC, which is cumbersome and awkward to use and provides little control over the system. While you can just choose systemd, it will require some tinkering. Other examples include stubbornly declaring an initramfs a last resort and an "oh my god 1337 H4XX0RZ surely have nothing better to do than trying for a month to exploit some vulnerability to steal my pony art, I have to fortify so hard my performance and ease of use will suffer" 90s security mentality. Because of just how much freedom Gentoo provides you with, this usually isn't a big deal though. See More

Top Pro

A very large collection of software is available

There are more than 19.000 packages available in the official repository. And even more with overlays. See More

Top Con

Has no live images with graphical interface

Full installation is hand-made with a CLI (Command-Line Interface). See More

Top Pro

Full control of the software

You build the package from a source you can see and read. You decide which features you want to build in and which aren't needed. You can choose build options, optimisation and whatever else fancy stuff you want modified. With a binary distribution this simply isn't possible. See More

Top Con

Customized package installation can take a long time and cause installation failures

The Gentoo package management system allows you to configure what compilation flags packages should support - i.e. specific processor flag support (SSE, SSE2, etc.), -O1, -O2, -O3 optimization, etc. If you accept one of the default flags, Gentoo downloads binaries from the server. However, if you decide to optimise, it can and will download all source packages and start compiling allthe programs and libraries on your system. If your chosen flags don't work with a particular library, installation will fail. See More

Top Pro

Portage's emerge is powerful

Portage is a package management system with a huge amount of options and features. See More

Top Con

No default installer

Installation must be done manually by following instructions in the handbook. See More

Top Pro

Can by optimized to any given CPU by using proper compile flags

Since everything is being built on your PC you can fine-tune the code to make use of your CPU. And all it requires is two lines of string variables in a global config. See More

Top Pro

Can be officially systemd-free

Gentoo's default init system is OpenRC. Gentoo also officially supports systemd-free Gnome and udev. Users are free to choose any init system they want. See More

Top Pro

Documentation and community are second to none

Provides a whole handbook to refer to during setup and usage. See More

Top Pro

Portability

There are many architectures available for Gentoo : i386, x86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC 64, sparc, DEC Alpha, ARM, MIPS, PA-RISC, S390, IA-64, sh, m68k. See More

Top Pro

Gentoo does not impose a standard look-and-feel

Top Pro

Great for anyone who is serious about learning the intricacies of Linux

It's useful for both beginners and professionals. For the installation, Gentoo offers various types, which are referred to as stages. Basically meaning how in depth you would want to go into the process of installation. For beginners it's useful to choose for a starting distro due to its various stages that can be very time consuming but beneficial as you learn the composition in general of Linux. See More

Endeavour OS

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Specs

Solus

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Top Pro

Rolling release

Specs

Top Pro

Modern desktop environment

The default desktop environment used by Solus is called Budgie and is quite nice and minimalistic. See More

Top Pro

Easy installation

The installation procedure for this distribution is quite simple. It's GUI based and all you have to do is to follow the instructions given by the installation window itself. See More

Top Pro

Great package management

The software center makes it really easy to install the latest software through Snappy and Flatpak. Including third party software. See More

Top Pro

Stable

The system itself is very stable. All packages in the repository seem to be carefully picked, well prepared and run stable. See More

Top Pro

Rock-solid Distro

Very stable and well curated. See More

Top Pro

Seamless Packages

It may not have the most obscure packages, but the packages it does have is a good number of everything a Linux user needs. Gamers, developers, desktop users, etc. all have the necessary packages and then some. The packages themselves are integrated perfectly and are very well updated. See More

Top Pro

Friendly towards proprietary codecs, firmware and drivers.

So you won't have to enable PPAs or extra repos for that. See More

Top Pro

Default experience is clean and easy

The default desktop experience on the Budgie version is very clean and streamlined. Although the Budgie DE isn't the most customisable, but it's customisable enough for me to recreate the desktop style of ElementaryOS with the dock and bar at the top. See More

Top Pro

Well curated software

The software is well curated in the repos, you have access to flatpaks and snaps, so virtually, all the software you'll ever need is there for you. See More

Ubuntu

Top Pro

Lots of support

As the most popular Linux distribution, there's a wide range of sources for support online if you ever need help, including the Ubuntu Wiki, Ubuntu Forums and the Ask Ubuntu Stack Exchange site. See More

Top Con

Splits the Debian community

The most packages are imported from Debian but Ubuntu uses own bug trackers and develops its own patches. See More

IngeniousDushara's Experience

it installs and works OOTB on most desktop computers and it's easy to learn how to use. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Just works out of the box

Lots of support for hardware, lots of pre-installed software, and a smooth install process means less time downloading drivers, less time digging through configuration files, and less time deciding on software to use just to get up and running. It also means less time digging through forums looking for support. See More

Top Con

No rolling release

New Ubuntu versions are released two times a year, during this period almost all software receives only security updates and minor bug fixes. See More

CreativeMamaragan's Experience

All drivers are detected out of the box, Huge software repository. Everything just works See More

Top Pro

Dedicated software center

The Ubuntu Software Center offers a GUI interface for installing new apps which is extremely easy and welcoming for beginners to Linux. But it should not be used by more advanced users since the method of installing through the terminal is much faster and easier after one is used to it. See More

Top Con

Doesn't have as much proprietary software written for it...

If you HAVE to use a specific program like Adobe Photoshop (and can't use something free like GIMP) then use what you can for the job. For the average user, someone who browses the web, reads emails, creates word docs, edits photos - it shouldn't be a problem. In-fact, I would say, jump right in. See More

Top Pro

Wide range of software out of the box

The default apps available in Ubuntu cover the gamut of most anyone's needs. From music, video or office applications Ubuntu has an app that will cover the users needs. See More

Top Con

Canonical (author) is proprietary

Canonical is focused on making money so you can see many proprietary offers by them and the OS has built-in trackers (Amazon). See More

Top Pro

Simplicity

Ubuntu is designed to be used by everyday people. Because of that, Ubuntu has tried hard to make a user interface that's intuitive and looks pleasant and clean. See More

Top Con

Unstable

Some people pointed out that updating Arch is a high risk affair. And one should carefully read forums before doing it. The same is true about Ubuntu. Making system updates (like it was with 10.04 to 11.04) that screw so many things up became a routine. Even LTS releases should not give confidence that it will work. See More

Top Pro

Looks good

Ubuntu looks clean even when running from a LiveCD. See More

Top Con

Relatively high system requirements

The default GNOME desktop environment is a resource hog which requires hardware accelerated graphics rendering in order to run smoothly, making out of the box Ubuntu unsuitable for low end systems and older hardware. Even mildly aged hardware, you'll get far better performance out of a lighter desktop environment like LXDE or XFCE. See More

Top Pro

Flexible

The setup for personal use is simple enough for anyone to achieve, and can easily be modified to act as a server. Programs and all features are easy to find and use, and first-timers can easily pick up on how to use it. See More

Top Con

Canonical does not respect Ubuntu users' preferences

In 2012 it became impossible in Ubuntu to move the close-window-button back to the upper-right corner of the window, where it always was before. To the questions of their users Canonical replied that they know better than users where it would be convenient for users to have the close-window-button. See More

Top Pro

No viruses or spyware

Unless you are playing games or need to use specific Mac OS or Windows programs, Linux is the obvious OS to use. It's very secure and there aren't many, if any, viruses written for the platform. See More

Top Con

Custom PPAs required for most software

To get the most software available, user must add several PPAs to the system. That has major problems: 1) Terminal recommended for adding a PPA, which can scare away users 2) A PPA can potentially distribute malware by creating a "newer" version of a package than available in other PPAs, such as the Linux kernel. 3) PPAs must be recreated and re-added with every major system update See More

Top Pro

Company behind it

This means that the system must run well, otherwise they will lose money. There is no better incentive! See More

Top Con

Doesn't shutdown/standby properly on Lenovo laptops (b, e & g series) and desktops (Thinkcentre)

Ubuntu has some serious issue with some Lenovo laptops and desktops. Sometimes, it doesn't shutdown correctly. See More

Top Pro

Good PPA repositories available

PPA repositories allow you to install the latest version of your preferred software while keeping the rest of the operating system "stable". See More

Top Pro

Has a clean Gnome interface

Gnome has lot of extensions available and can be custmoized rather easily. See More

Top Pro

Stable

It‘s one of the most stable Linux Distros. See More

Top Pro

No marketing

Apart from the in-built Amazon app, there is no other visible marketing that I have seen. No candy crush or bloatware whatsoever. See More

Top Pro

Great long term support release schedule (2 years)

This allows for users to always have a new supported release available without long unkown wait times in between. See More

Top Pro

Use it on almost any device

Not just for laptops - Ubuntu was designed with tablets and touchscreen devices in mind, and with phone support on the way. Ubuntu also has Long Term Support releases, as well as a version oriented toward servers, so you can use the same OS at work or on mobile as you do on your desktop. See More

Top Pro

Cares about stable drivers

Top Pro

Good UI for small monitors

Because the menu usually is in the title bar and the launcher auto-hides, the whole screen can be used by an application. See More

Top Pro

Unified search

Type any query into the Dash Home, and search will look through files, stores and web-pages to find what you are looking for. See More

Top Pro

Has all the software a PC user needs, preinstalled

Has Firefox, Thunderbird, Libreoffice and more already installed. Any other software you need can be installed using the software centre, app store. You can even install Ubuntu as a minimal install if you don't want all the preinstalled software. See More

Top Pro

UTF-8 is the default character encoding

Beginning with Ubuntu 5.04, UTF-8 became the default character encoding, which allows for support of a variety of non-Roman scripts. See More

Top Pro

Steam Supported

Steam includes min Ubuntu specs for each game that is Linux compatible, plus they are actively developing Proton to enable non-Linux games to run without Wine or WindowsOS virtualization. See More

Top Pro

It's fast and doesn't slow down

It doesn't become really slow like Windows or Mac OS X. It's set and forget. There is almost no maintenance on it. And it won't feel slow in 6-months time. See More

Top Pro

Runs 95% out of the box

Top Pro

Perfect for collaboration on open source projects

This is probably the best option when collaborating on open source projects in hardware. This is mostly because packages and tools are readily available via software center. See More

Top Pro

You can get the Xubuntu Kbuntu etc XFCE KDE all versions

Top Pro

Runs at low resources

Runs far faster than Windows on Dell laptop. See More

Deepin OS

Top Pro

Based on Debian

It is based on Debian which is the best Linux distribution for desktops. See More

Top Con

Team doesn't know what to do

Deepin has changed the base 4 times, and the name 3 times. The Desktop Environment also has been changed 4 times. See More

ImaginativeEndursaga's Experience

beautyfull and easy to use See More

Specs

Top Pro

Blur and transparent design

Deepin has a blur and transparent design throughout the OS, which makes it one of the most beautiful Linux distros. See More

Top Con

Slow default repos

Download speed for packages from the default repos, is abnormally slow if you don't choose the correct sever. See More

Top Pro

Includes both Windows and macOS style interface.

Top Con

Deepin store apps not up to date

Top Pro

Company behind it

The Wuhan Deepin Technology is behind this Linux distribution. See More

Top Con

Customization is a bit hidden

GUI is not straight forward for changing GTK+ or QT themes. See More

Top Pro

Includes a lot of packages in the official repository

The official repository of deepin OS includes over 73,000 packages. See More

Top Con

Slow on some computers

Very slow - launching apps takes more time than other distros. On the other hand - booting and shutting down is very fast on SSD. See More

Top Pro

Has its own toolkit

It has its own toolkit called "Deepin Tool Kit". And the maintainers themselves use it. See More

Top Pro

Well-designed in every detail, developers have a professional aproach to the system

Deepin has a sane default set of apps including custom apps of their own design that gives the distro a very consistent look and feel. By working with the community on these tools as well as custom translations there is a great sense of polish when using it that is not often seen when using such a new desktop environment. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install

Installing Deepin OS is very easy. Even easier than installing Ubuntu! See More

Top Pro

Launches programs faster

Programs load and launch faster in Deepin than other Linux distributions. It takes only about 3 seconds to launch Chrome. See More

Top Pro

PRO Network Managment

Deepin has the facilities to create VLAN and other configuration like Wifi Hostpot on their GUI. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

It's very easy to use. You can easily uninstall a program by going to the menu then right-clicking on the preferred app and selecting "Uninstall" option. See More

Top Pro

Rolling release

It is a rolling release Linux distribution which is quite popular these days. See More

Top Pro

Excellent apps

Having Deepin installed also means you have thousands of quality apps to choose from. The apps which come with installation will suit your needs to browse the Internet, listen to music, watch videos, talk with friends, editing documents or simply any task you want to do at home or in your office. See More

Top Pro

Enjoy the simplicity of Deepin's desktop

The desktop interface and apps feature an intuitive and elegant design. Moving around, sharing and searching, etc. has become simply a joyful experience. See More

Top Pro

Exciting applications

It has some exciting applications, such as Deepin Graphics Driver Manager which can easily change between free and proprietary drivers without any issue. See More

Top Pro

Great support for graphics cards

Deepin OS includes a program called "Deepin Graphics Driver Manager" which can easily install a good driver for the graphics card. See More

Top Pro

Gives warning messages when upgrading packages using apt

Deepin uses there own modified version of apt. When there is a distribution upgrade available and if we try to upgrade by running "sudo apt upgrade", then this modified version of apt gives this warning message, "DDE programs will work abnormally if run this command. Run sudo apt dist-upgrade or sudo apt full-upgrade instead." See More

Top Pro

Quite lightweight

Deepin 15.7 is lighter than Windows 10 and Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

VLC media player works without any issue

In some cases, VLC media player has some problems with Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based Linux distros. That isn't the case with Deepin. See More

Top Pro

Supports Flatpak

Deepin OS supports Flatpak. It also has some Flatpak programs installed by default. See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Even though it is based on Debian unstable, it is still pretty stable and you will hardly ever get a dependency issue. See More

Top Pro

Can be made to look like Windows easily

By default, Deepin looks kinda like macOS but it can be made to look like Windows by right-clicking on the dock and changing the mode from "Fashion Mode" to "Efficient Mode". See More

Top Pro

Great design to the app store

The app store is gorgeous. See More

Top Pro

Automatically cleans package cache

Deepin automatically cleans package cache. Cleaning package cache is a good thing as it will make the OS much faster and lighter. See More

Top Pro

Best for daily use

Top Pro

Includes both Windows and macOS style interface

Top Pro

Not based on Ubuntu

Some people don't like Ubuntu nor its derivatives. See More

Top Pro

Seemless transition form Windows to Linux

Easy to install, comes with default packages to typical needs e.g. Chrome, WPS office, System Monitor and a bunch of multimedia utilities. Its easy to install and uninstall applications, it has a great app store and is fast. On same laptop run much faster than Windows 10 did. See More

Windows 10

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Top Con

Collects a lot of user data and sends it Microsoft by default

By default Windows 10 gathers information related to contacts, location, calendar and input (text and touch). The process for opting out of all data collection efforts is both time consuming and requires a reasonable amount of technical know-how. See More

Top Pro

Latest version of Windows.

Specs

Top Con

Includes ads by default

Even in the Pro version. See More

Top Pro

Good compatibility with Windows 7 software

Both applications and drivers created for Windows 7 work well on Windows 10. See More

Top Con

No guest accounts

Windows 10 lacks the ability to set up Guest accounts. See More

Top Con

Installs bloatware

It installs many Windows Store apps by default. Moreover, it updates them automatically even after you uninstalled them, then they come back when you install a bigger update or service pack, eg: the creator's update. See More

Top Con

Horrible stock performance on old hardware

Would recommend windows 7 (or even 8.1) on older (older than 5-6 years) hardware. See More

Top Con

No built-in way to play DVDs

Third-party software is required to play DVDs. See More

Top Con

Start menu lacks expected customization options

It's not possible to cascade menus, pin files, locations or apps to the list (it's possible to pin apps to the live tile section) or add custom menus. See More

Top Con

Forced updates to Home and Pro versions

Since Microsoft has a checkered past in regard to Windows updates, many people worry that a bad patch might break applications, drivers, peripherals or even brick their computers. See More

Top Con

Lacks polish

Many interface and functionality changes have not been finalized yet, creating an inconsistent user experience. For example, there are both simplified Windows 10 style settings menus as well as Windows 7 style settings menus that can easily create confusion. Similarly, many of the bundled applications (People, Photos, Groove, Mail, Calendar, etc) lack functionality compared to their counterparts in previous Windows versions. See More

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