What is the most customizable user friendly Linux distro?

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score 13 · Answer 2

NixOS

Top Pro

State of the art package manager

Atomic non-destructive upgrades / rollback of a system upgrade / declarative reproducible system configuration / unprivileged installation of packages / transparent source or binary deployment. See More

Top Con

Uses a text-based installer

Xernist's Experience

Even as a novice Linux user, it is very easy to set up a basic configuration. See More

Specs

Release Schedule:Point or Rolling

Package Manager:Nix Package Manager

Official Supported Architectures:amd64, i386

NixOS is configured using the Nix package manager, allowing your system to be replicated and kept in sync across multiple machines. Great for keeping a laptop and desktop in sync. See More

Top Pro

Reproducible System

Top Con

A configuration change might end up bricking your system

Top Pro

Robust

Packages don't break after a NixOS upgrade as they are prone to with other distros (especially Arch). See More

Top Con

Documentation is not good

Top Pro

Minimal

You can start with a minimal environment and add packages and software to suit your needs as you go along. See More

Top Pro

LiveCD

It's gentoo based and it includes emerge/portage so you can fully customize it after install. See More

score 7 · Answer 3

Calculate Linux

Top Pro

Gentoo based

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, LXQt, MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce

Based On:Gentoo

Init-System:OpenRC

Mint is highly recommended for both users coming from Windows, as well as users coming from Ubuntu, but unhappy with Ubuntu's recent, rather dramatic interface changes. Mint provides an updated interface with a look and feel similar to Gnome 2, with an application menu reminiscent of the Windows 7 Start Menu, with categorization and search. See More

score 38 · Answer 4

Mint

Top Con

Too many kernel crashes

Top Pro

Familiar user interface

Specs

Release Schedule:Point( 2 Year LTS / 6 Month)

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce

The default theme and wallpaper looks outdated and bland. Luckily that is easy to change in the settings. See More

Top Con

Looks ugly

Top Pro

Already functional out-of-the-box

Mint comes bundled with software for browsing the web, editing pictures, browsing files, watching videos and even a full office suite (LibreOffice). An average user can use Mint right away after a fresh install, using all the software that comes with the distribution to complete most of their daily tasks. See More

Top Con

The Update doesn't work sometimes

Sometimes the update failed to configure a package. See More

Top Pro

Complete and stable

Complete and stable. See More

Top Con

Mint 19 forces unwanted updates

Since version 19 Mint adopted Windows 10's policy to force the user to install unwanted updates and even if the user deselects them and marks them not to be installed, they're still being installed. See More

Top Pro

Good community support

There are several different ways to get support for this distribution, including the forums, their IRC channel, or their github repositories if you think their software isn't behaving as it should. See More

Top Con

Outdated software centers

Many of the offered options are older versions. See More

Top Pro

Provides LTS (long term support) versions

Long Term Support versions are versions of software that are continuously updated for an extended period of time, even after newer versions are launched. LTS versions will typically get feature additions and enhancements for an extended period of time, then security updates up until its End of Life. An LTS release should typically be considered good for at least 5 years. See More

Top Con

Security may be an issue

Linux Mint by default does not have auto updates turned on for things such as xorg or the kernel, thus leaving users with potentially insecure software. See More

Top Pro

Political

Clement Lefebvre, the lead developer of Linux Mint said “I don’t want any money or help coming from people who support the actions of the Israeli government.” See More

Top Pro

The start menu and task bar is a HUGE usability success

Albeit copied from windows, it is extremely useful feature. See More

Top Con

Nothing new

Just another fork of Ubuntu. Produces nothing that can't be found in another Debian-based distros. See More

Top Pro

Dedicated upgrade process

The Linux Mint team are very dedicated to upgrading and improving Mint, to the point where their releases are fairly predictable. They are also dedicated to their users, meaning that they are responsive to critiques, suggestions, etc. See More

Top Con

The Linux Mint website once provided spyware

The website for Linux Mint was hacked in 2016 and its download links led to a modified ISO, which contained spyware. See More

Top Pro

Easy installation and configuration

Linux Mint uses the same installer as Ubuntu. It is very easy to use for beginners, and also allows more advanced users to choose their own partitions. Linux Mint's Cinnamon desktop is highly customizable and can be made to look however preferred. See More

Top Con

System updates can lead the system to being unstable

While a new installed system is stable, after an update, there is a slight chance of something not working. See More

Top Pro

Both FOSS and proprietary software are supoprted

Linux Mint does maintain a free software environment. However, full support is offered to propertiary software such as Google Chrome, Skype, Teamviewer. See More

Top Con

Cheap Windows substitute

Mint tries to be like Windows when it can be different and provide options to users. See More

Top Pro

XFCE Desktop (as an option)

XFCE allows for easy customization while not having big impact on system resources. See More

Top Con

Linux Mint tries to force people to use less powerful custom package management system

The custom package management system is slow, frustrating, and forces you to select and install one package at a time. Can't select a whole load of packages and then run the installations in one go. See More

Top Pro

Compatibility with Debian and Ubuntu software builds and repositories

Mint and gains the very strong package ecosystem and software manager of Debian, including more than 30,000 packages available from the Debian repositories. See More

Top Con

Many proprietary (Closed-source) packages

By default, Linux Mint includes almost all the proprietary packages just to improve the user experience. See More

Top Pro

There is a "system restore" tool to restore the OS if something breaks

This tool backs up the core OS files to an external drive with an option for full encryption. See More

Top Con

Does not handle multiple languages well

Top Pro

MATE desktop (as an option)

MATE is a classic desktop as opposed to the newer "Unity" desktop. For people who prefer the classic style this is one of only few modern distributions with still active MATE desktop development. See More

Top Pro

The OS is great for both beginners and advanced users

The OS has different update settings for different users and has easy manual within the OS. See More

Top Pro

Not from a big company

Linux Mint is not Canonical, while based upon Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

Supports proprietary software

Linux Mint does maintain a free software environment, however, it does offer full support to proprietary software (Chrome, Skype, Teamviewer). See More

Top Pro

The easiest option ever

The distro is the easiest operating system to run ever. See More

Top Pro

Has more desktop options

You can choose between Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE. See More

Top Pro

Pretty desktop

Linux Mint has a quite pretty default desktop. Cinnamon is adopted by other distros also. See More

Unlike other distributions that just extract their Live image, Debian offers a real traditional and modular installer to customize the installation. See More

score 12 · Answer 5

Debian

Top Pro

A real installer

Top Con

Ridiculous package splitting

Even though it makes sense to split devel and the actual binary of an application, the splitting has become a mess in debian and its derivates: for example the NVIDIA driver is split into over 40 different packages. See More

BrilliantMielikki's Experience

its good. See More

Specs

Release Schedule:approximately every 24 months

Package Manager:dpkg (Debian Package Manager)

Official Supported Architectures:amd64 (x86_64), arm64 (aarch64), armel, armhf, i386, mipsel, mips64el, ppc64el, s390x

Main Usage:Universal

Debian is one of the few distros that let the user choose if he wants a free system or not. See More

Top Pro

Strict seperation of non-free software

Top Con

Old software is not useful, but is stable

Certainly for the stable and old stable versions. But the testing version has quite up to date software. See More

CompassionateAjbit's Experience

Debian rulez! See More

Top Pro

Wide choice in desktop environments

Debian offers stable and testing CD images specifically built for GNOME (the default), KDE Plasma Workspaces, Xfce and LXDE. Less common window managers such as Enlightenment, Openbox, Fluxbox, GNUstep, IceWM, Window Maker and others can also be installed. 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 Pro

Standard vanilla Linux desktop

Debian runs standard Gnome, XFCE, KDE - it doesn't use its own special desktop environment, which means that users benefit from the work of the whole Linux community, Debian developers can focus on the distribution itself, and any support for your desktop environment on other distributions should work on Debian as well. See More

Top Con

No choices

Debian basically doesn't give you any choices: for example it is very hard to use a different Sound system than ALSA like OSS4, and the same goes for different init systems. See More

Top Pro

Comes with over 37500 packages

Because of its popularity, Debian has a lot of applications available which range from productivity programs to business software, games and development tools. It comes with over 37500 packages (software that is precompiled and ready to be installed on a local machine) -- all of them for free. See More

Top Con

Hard to configure

After the initial installation, which is quite simple, it may be hard to configure Debian. Things like printers for example, are notoriously hard to set up on Debian for some computers. See More

Top Pro

Widest hardware support

Runs on any platform. See More

Top Con

No default support for nonfree hardware

Non-free hardware will not work upon install of Debian and the user will need to search out the correct nonfree software to install in order to make them work. This can be difficult if one of the things not working is the wifi connection. See More

Top Pro

Install and forget

Once installed you can almost forget about it and start to use your desktop for your daily tasks. See More

Top Pro

A lot of ways to install software

You can either use aptitude, apt or apt-build to install software from the Debian package archives. See More

Top Pro

Well-working team

The developer works very well so the the code is one of the best written out there. See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Top Pro

Wide choice of hardware platforms

Debian has the widest choice of hardware platforms, including: amd64, armel, armhf, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-i386, kfreebsd-amd64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, sparc, s390, s390x, source, multi-arch. See More

Top Pro

Extremely easy to find help with any problem

Debian is one of the oldest and most popular distros out there. Debian's popularity means that you will always be able to find a solution for your problem just by searching on Google, or if by chance nobody has had the problem you are having it's very easy to ask the community and quickly get a solution. See More

Top Pro

Highly secure system

Known for being consistent in maintaining a highly secure system. Several other popular distros use Debian as a base or core for their own Linux OS, the security being one of the main factors why its so commonly used. See More

Top Pro

Live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives

Debian releases live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives, for the i386 and amd64 architectures, and with a choice of desktop environments. These Debian Live images allow the user to boot from a removable media and run Debian without affecting the contents of their computer. See More

PCLinuxOS will not install or boot on an alienware 13 R3 laptop. See More

score 5 · Answer 6

PCLinuxOS

Top Pro

Change kernels versions the same way, and the old kernel remains on disk in case the change doesn't work out.

Top Con

Not compatible with Alienware

Specs

Release Schedule:Rolling Release

Based On:Mandrake Linux

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, MATE

Init-System:SysVinit

Uses the RPM packaging system with APT, rather than the more popular DEB packages. See More

Top Pro

Changing DEs is as simple as installing it through Synaptic

Top Con

Uses RPM packaging system

Top Pro

Default KDE desktop allows users to customize their UX almost any way they want

Top Pro

Excellent hardware compatibility

Comes with nVidia drivers out of the box. Important if the PC has an nVidia chipset. Most Debian based distros don't have nVidia drivers available at install time. LXDE version works well with older hardware. See More

Top Pro

Synaptic RPM package management

Rolling release using Synaptic for RPM makes keeping distro as easy as clicking 1-2-3. See More

Top Pro

Can remaster the boot DVD

PCLinuxOS has built in tools for remastering bootable DVD into a copy of current install. See More

Top Pro

Stable

Extremely stable, the original rolling release since 2003. See More

KDE Neon uses KDE as its desktop environment, which is highly configurable, but also has great defaults. See More

score 8 · Answer 7

KDE Neon

Top Pro

Very configurable

Top Con

Steep learning curve for beginners

It's a really sparse, bare-bones system, no automatic driver install for example. It can be quite hard for someone not used to Linux. See More

Specs

Release Schedule:Semi-Rolling

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:KDE

KDE Neon uses KDE as its desktop environment, which is highly configurable, but also has great defaults. See More

Top Pro

Configurability

Top Pro

Works out of the box

Since it's built on the strong Ubuntu base, KDE Neon works seamlessly with a huge variety of hardware. See More

Top Pro

The best looking Linux OS

It really is a great and stunning looking OS. See More

Top Pro

Works well on low-end computers

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

score 5 · Answer 8

Gentoo Linux

Top Pro

Fully customizable

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 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, and m68k. 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

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

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

Portage's emerge is powerful

Top Pro

Full control of the software

Top Pro

Gentoo does not impose a standard look-and-feel

Top Pro

Live USB

Good interface on Budgie and a great approach on Ubuntu. See More

score 2 · Answer 9

Ubuntu Budgie

Top Pro

User-friendly interface

Specs

Release Schedule:Point (follows ubuntu releases)

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie

Package Manager:Debian Package Manager

Official distro of XFCE, one of the most customizable desktop environments. In XFCE you can create as many tasks bars as you need and configure every one of their elements and behaviours. You can also change any icon, font, colours, etc. Literally there's nothing you can't change in the GUI. See More

score 10 · Answer 10

Xubuntu

Top Pro

Customizable

Top Con

Poor quality control

Multiverse and universe packages have almost no quality control before a release. See More

Specs

Release Schedule:Point follows UBuntu)

Default Desktop Environment:Xfce

Official distro of XFCE, one of the most customizable desktop environments. In XFCE you can create as many tasks bars as you need and configure every one of their elements and behaviors. You can also change any icon, font, color... etc. Literally there's nothing you can't change in GUI. See More

Top Pro

Very customizable

Top Con

Redundant

There is absolutely no reason to install it, since it uses the same package repositories as Ubuntu and you can transform any Ubuntu install into a Xubuntu install. See More

Top Pro

Comes with lightweight applications

Xubuntu is designed as a lightweight operating system and Linux distro. It uses XFCE by default and comes packed with XFCE applications which are generally pretty lightweight. See More

Top Con

UI is pretty generic without customization

The default XFCE UI is pretty generic and sometimes ugly unless customized to suit the user's needs and liking. Customization in XFCE is easier than on Unity, but still hard for beginners. See More

Top Pro

Quick boot time

Boots at about half the speed of most distributions. See More

Top Con

XFCE development is slow

The desktop environment used in Xubuntu has not been update in over two years and is developed at a snail's pace. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

Xubuntu is very fast and makes good use of resources. See More

Top Con

Incompatible with Debian

Like all Ubuntu based forks, packages are not binary compatible with Debian, so you can't install Debian packages on it. See More

Top Pro

Conservative, yet modern

It comes with all Ubuntu goodness but without bloat. See More

It is a full stage 4 build that is fully compatible with Gentoo. See More

score 4 · Answer 11

Redcore Linux

Top Pro

Stage 4 build of Gentoo

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, LXQt

Based On:Gentoo

Init-System:OpenRC

You can change any setting you want. It also has a very nice looking plasma desktop that makes it feel similar to MacOSX. See More

score 7 · Answer 12

Deepin

Top Pro

Customizable

Top Con

The team is confused and not stable with choices

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

dancoolidge's Experience

While I think that Deepin has the potential to be very powerful and a very modern distro, I can't get around the fact that I have not been able to install it on any hard drive that has another partition on it. I'm sure this i something that will get fixed eventually, but in the meantime, I think Deepin still needs a lot of development. See More

Specs

Package Manager:Debian Package Manager

Official Supported Architectures:amd64

Origin:China

Main Usage:Desktop, Showcase for the Deepin Desktop

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

Easy to use

Top Con

Customization is a bit hidden

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

John Lee's Experience

unstable, limited functionality compared to Gnome and KDE See More

Top Pro

Great design to the app store

The app store is gorgeous. See More

Top Con

Installer lacks features

Ahmed Almeleh (Advanro Systems)'s Experience

It is very good at media and office tools 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 Con

Only has a few languages

The dictionaries that come with this distro are a little lacking, the Spanish dictionary is especially bad. See More

SupportiveArensnuphis's Experience

muy facil de trabajar y instalar y desintalar sus programas. 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 Con

Based in China

CredibleHozanek's Experience

/* TLDR starts: Deepin outperformed both Mint and Ubuntu in my testing. Outperformed in stability, speed and desktop completeness out of the box. Plus installation was by far the easiest I've encountered. I was unable to break it or make it so laggy and buggy that a re-format is required. 1 Catch - it's a developed in China - Privacy concerns perhaps? TLDR ends */ <-- Warning tweaker like rant begins --> You can see though that A LOT of work and TLC has been 'invested' or was required to get an operating system to this level of stability and polish - it honestly feels almost polished as windows 10. Which begs the question...would a small development team on open source funding really be able to devote this much time? or is there really a 'annonymous national funding source' with it's own agenda at play? Puts on Tin foil hat & removes 3rd eye patch - more on this below. So....I guess there's still the elephant in the room, which leads me to question whether this Distro is generally frowned upon due to the fact that it draws development origin from 'The people's republic of China' (self named) Which is fine, and if stated so is not automatically racist either, depending how you approach it imo. The US and China are both big boys with (naturally) their own best interests to plan and perform. But as I said earlier - Rock solid Linux Distro based on Debian - not very customizable, but was enough for my usage (everything MacOS clone lulz). But to be fair it should be "innocent until proven guilty" yeah? at time of writing there's been no proven data collection/manipulation/ID anymore than your microsofts, googles have done. <-- End Tweaker rant --> See More

Top Pro

Has its own tool kit

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

Top Con

Deepin store apps not up to date

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 Con

Slow default repos

Download speed for packages from the default repos is abnormally slow. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install

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

Top Con

Very slow installer

Because the servers are in China. 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 Con

Bad implementation of the dark theme

Top Pro

Based on Debian

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

Top Pro

Best for daily use

Top Pro

Quite lightweight

Deepin 15.7 is lighter than Windows 10 and Ubuntu. 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. It's easy to install and uninstall applications, it has a great app store and is fast. On the same laptop runs much faster than Windows 10. See More

Top Pro

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

Deepin has a same 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

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

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

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

Includes a lot of packages in the official repository

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

Top Pro

Gives warning messages when upgrading packages using apt

Deepin uses their 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

Includes both Windows and macOS style interface

Top Pro

Rolling release

It's a rolling release. Meaning that the packages will receive updates quite frequently. See More

Top Pro

Not based on Ubuntu

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

Top Pro

Company behind it

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

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 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

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

Maybe because it's a relatively new project still in its infancy and this may be fixed in the future, but Budgie is not very customizable. You can only change the theme and wallpaper. See More

score 7 · Answer 13

Solus

Top Con

The default desktop environment is not very customizable

Top Pro

Friendly towards proprietary codecs, firmware and drivers.

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

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie, GNOME, MATE, KDE Plasma

Based On:Scratch

Init-System:systemd

Since it is not based on Debian/Ubuntu or an RPM Distro it's package manager is not RPM or DPKG so it makes it not that good to install online software e.g. Dropbox, Teamviewer via GUI See More

Top Con

Hard to install software from the internet

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 Con

Forums are not very friendly

Top Pro

Responsive

System boots quickly and stays responsive. Does what operating system should do, and does it really well. See More

Top Con

An upgrade breaks the system quite often

Top Pro

Rolling release

Top Con

Software a bit slower to launch than for other distributions

Top Pro

Great package management

The software center makes really easy to install the latest software. Including thid party software. See More

Top Con

Slow development

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 Con

There is often a black screen after update

Top Pro

Modern desktop environment

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

Top Con

No USB Image writer

Unlike some abandoned, unfinished distros, Kubuntu is up to date and offers a fully functional desktop environment that targets workstation users. See More

score 8 · Answer 14

Kubuntu

Top Pro

Full featured desktop environment that is actively developed

RodJLinux's Experience

This has been my everyday desktop since 2011. I like the customisation options where just about everything you see on the desktop can be tweaked. Plasma 5 is finally stable enough for me after three years of development (I like stability much more than 'bleeding edge'). It was very buggy in 15.04 but has improved heaps since then. I stayed with KDE4 (14.04 LTS) until 18.04 came out. I only use the LTS versions. I'm running 18.04 currently and it is a joy to use. Highly recommended! See More

Specs

Release Schedule:Point (follows ubuntu releases)

Default Desktop Environment:KDE

You can easily adjust the workspace to your needs. See More

Top Pro

Customizable

Top Pro

Not as heavy as you'd think

The bare desktop uses much less ram than Gnome and is very responsive. See More

Top Pro

Supports all the latest hardware

Mint in comparison is based on outdated Ubuntu and lacks latest hardware support, even Manjaro has hardware problems with hardware auto detection, essp. multiple video cards. See More

it uses the BSD ports system as package manager See More

score 1 · Answer 15

CRUX

Top Pro

Ports

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:N/A

Based On:N/A

Init-System:BSD-style initscripts

Nice if you want to learn some stuff about Linux See More

Top Pro

Learning

Top Pro

Very BSD-like

I should rephrase: it takes A TON of work to customize your UI. You're bound to run into hours upon hours of work because it's really unsupported and not very user-friendly at all. The ubuntu software manager is straightforward, though it has a pretty limited selection. See More

score 3 · Answer 16

Ubuntu

Top Con

Almost no customizability

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

John Lee's Experience

16.04 LTS is a really ugly distro - purple/orange was 'new and fresh' when unity first came out, but is very dated looking now. 17 has Gnome, so that is an improvement. See More

Specs

Release Schedule:Point (5 Year LTS / 6 Month Releases)

Based On:Debian Stable(core) Testing/Unstable(universe/multiverse)

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME

If you try to download "unpopular" software, so you may find you're downloading a version that's several years old. See More

Top Con

Software can be outdated, if not severely outdated

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

Unity offers very limited customizability

The Unity desktop environment is practically non customizable with the user only being able to change certain themes and icons and adding a dock. 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

Binary incompatible to Debian

Ubuntu releases are based on Debian testing/unstable, however, unlike other Debian-based distributions they are not binary compatible due to different libc versions, so you can't install Debian packages in Ubuntu and vice versa. 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 Con

Redundant

With the removal of Unity, there is no point in choosing Ubuntu over Debian anymore because everything else is imported from Debian to Ubuntu. 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 Con

Unity interface might be confusing for new users

Unity does not align itself with the normal desktop paradigm and thus has a bit of a confusing UI in comparison to the norm of a Windows user. 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

Not so strong at all

The upper panel in Elementary OS requires more space. This can be a problem for computers with small monitors. See More

score 3 · Answer 17

elementary OS

Top Con

Upper panel requires extra spaces

Top Pro

Extremely user-friendly

This distribution promises you a very tailored user experience and it does deliver on that promise. The developers provide you with a custom desktop environment and a set of neat programs. And the whole desktop looks simply gorgeous. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Pantheon

Official Supported Architectures:amd64

Excellent uniformity between all the stock application and an overall extremely clean design with simple animations. See More

Top Con

Not very configurable

Top Pro

UI design consistency

Top Con

Very slow development cycle

Elementary OS does not offer any release date for their stable releases going more with an "it's done when it's done" attitude. Making depending on newer apps a difficulty as well as a poor choice for those that need consistent release schedules for their OS. See More

Top Con

UI doesn't let you change anything

Every installation of elementaryOS looks exactly like the same. See More

Top Con

Poor Linux community reputation

The devs of elementary OS feel anyone not paying for their Ubuntu respin are not worthy of using it. Which upset a good bit of people. Obviously the core dev team have issues with their community outreach and PR. See More

Top Con

The desktop doesn't let you to put icons by default

Top Con

Heavy animations

It has some animations that don‘t run good on older hardware. See More

Top Con

No proprietary driver installer

Elementary OS removed the driver installer of Ubuntu. See More

Top Con

Window control button placement may be unintuitive to some

Elementary OS has window controls on the left side of the window. It may be less intuitive to users coming from other operating systems that put window controls on the right. See More

Top Con

Doesn't support 32-bit hardwares anymore

One can install pantheon DE from new ubuntu's repo but Elementry OS is not making new ISO's nor is it supporting them. It makes confuzzled to new users. See More

Top Con

Quite buggy

Top Con

Emacs doesn't work

Emacs crashes due to a partial gnome library update. See More

Top Con

Outdated or bad default applications

Top Con

Old base and applications

The slow release schedule makes the applications outdated. It drags behind Ubuntu LTS (on which it's based) which itself drags behind Ubuntu which is often still quite far behind Arch for example. See More

You cannot really customize gnome to look like other things, and gnome nautilus is still too simple, it does not have enough features. Also, there is no icon by default on Desktop, that bothers some people. See More

score 3 · Answer 18

Fedora

Top Con

Gnome maybe too simplistic for some people

Top Pro

Lots of packages available

Fedora repos + REMI + RPMFusion, and now Microsoft is developing software for RedHat, which is available for Fedora as well. You can also add repos for CentOS, OpenSuse ; and somehow Arch people like Fedora people, so aur repo also works perfect. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install a new window manager

You can just dnf a window manager, like KDE, Bhodi, Pantheon etc., and then switch between them in Gnome Login. If you don't like gnome login, you can dnf another login manager... literally plug and play. See More

Top Pro

Stable under Gnome and KDE

Top Pro

Bleeding edge

Now it has Wayland by default, you have basically the latest of everything in Linux. See More

There is absolutely no reason to install it, since it uses the same package repositories as Ubuntu and you can transform any Ubuntu install into a Ubuntu MATE install. See More

score 1 · Answer 19

Ubuntu MATE

Top Con

Redundant

Specs

Release Schedule:Point (follows ubuntu releases)

Default Desktop Environment:MATE

Ubuntu releases are incompatible to debian so you cant install debian packages on it. See More

Top Con

Incompatible to debian

Top Con

Not a very good software center by default

The Software Boutique is not good. You can install Gnome Software from it. See More

Top Con

Not bleeding edge

Users who want the latest and greatest software would be happier using Arch Linux, Antergos or another rolling release distro. However, because Ubuntu MATE is based on Ubuntu, users still have access to a large repository of recent software. See More