What is the most customizable user friendly Linux distro?

Here are the details of it. See More

Top Con

Can still be unstable

Top Pro

AUR support not enabled by default

User must enable this function through the pamac software preferences. See More

GloriousTepeyollotl's Experience

Easy to keep upto date with options for latest kernel & easy hardware manager. Just needs a software store interface to make it the best for new users & old pros See More

Top Con

Redundant

It's just Arch Linux with an easier installer so there is no reason to use it. See More

Top Pro

Pretty UI

Balanced colors, icons and wallpaper. See More

PracticalEunomia's Experience

Friendly, efficient and very stable See More

Top Con

It's Archbuntu

Top Pro

Improved stability due to a longer testing period for new packages

Packages from Arch's repositories are tested (about two weeks) longer for stability and compatibility issues. Patches are applied, when necessary, before being made available in the stable repositories. See More

Top Con

Slightly bloated

Top Pro

Support for multiple kernels

Manjaro has built-in support for multiple kernels as well as a way to easily install them. See More

Top Con

Calls itself "stable," but actually just holds Arch Linux repositories back for a week

Top Pro

A rolling-release distribution

Manjaro uses a rolling release method for all updates, so once a system is installed, as long as the user regularly updates there is no need to re-install. See More

Top Con

Nothing new

There is nothing new in Manjaro compared to any other Arch based distribution. See More

Top Pro

Arch User Repository access

Manjaro allows the user to access of the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives. See More

Top Con

Same cons that apply to Arch Linux

Since it is based on Arch Linux. See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

Top Con

You can't change the default theme in certain applications

Although it is possible to change the default dark theme, this has no effect on Firefox, which appears to have the dark theme "hard coded". Hardened Linux pros may find a way to change this, but for the rest, it renders an otherwise nice distro a no-go. See More

Top Pro

Different editions to select from + Manjaro community

You can choose between different Manjaro editions which have their own change in features, and there is also Manjaro community editions where the community can make their own changes. See More

Top Con

Weekly manual updates

Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every week, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users. See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

If you ask questions of users in their forums or on other platforms, they are willing to help you. Also according to the developers, they are open to new ideas in order to make the distro better. See More

Top Con

Very slow development for 32-bit hardwares

ArchLinux-32 community maintain their forums every day. They upload new ISO's every month. But Manjaro-32 community upload new ISO's in every 6 month. And provide only a DE-mate. See More

Top Pro

Installation is a breeze

Calamares installer and MHWD is the reason why this distribution is good for desktop user- friendliness! Audio codecs, latest packages,latest kernel and easy upgrade to the latest build makes it the best choice for new users. See More

Top Con

No gfvs pre-installed

So no Trash (and possibly smartphone file system access via USB) support. See More

Top Pro

Stable and consistently up to date

Manjaro receives regular updates, but more importantly these updates are stable. The updates are rolled out, which means you can easily update the software without needing to re-install. See More

Top Con

New packages and security updates are held for testing longer

Packages are usually about two weeks behind Arch's stable repository. While some urgent security updates are released as soon as they become available, other security updates are held for testing longer. See More

Top Pro

All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, Lumina, LXQT, Deepin, Enlightenment, etc. can be directly installed from official repositories

Also available as independent variants. See More

Top Con

Bad dependencies

This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank. See More

Top Pro

MHWD offers easy hardware management with free and non-free drivers

Decent GUI for selecting video drivers, and easily installing and switching between multiple kernel versions. See More

Top Con

Installation is extremely buggy

There's no easy way to switch from local keyboard layout if non-Latin installer language is selected. See More

Top Pro

Uses low memory

By using XFCE (or LXDE, Fluxbox, supported by community) as the default desktop on an install, Manjaro is able to have a low memory footprint. See More

Top Con

Imcompatible with Arch User Repository and archlinuxcn

Because Manjaro packages are not synced with Arch, using AUR or archlinuxcn could break dependencies. See More

Top Pro

Very good looking desktops

All desktops look good by default. See More

Top Con

Installing software with pamac takes more clicks than necessary

Mostly due to GTK3. See More

Top Pro

Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm).

Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include: The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary) Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus) Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own) See More

Top Con

A start job is running for LiveMedia MHWD Script

No timeout on a boot script that cant easily be diagnosed. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and forum

The Manjaro community is very helpful, and there are lots of tutorials. See More

Top Con

ARM version just got dropped

Top Pro

Based on Arch and user friendly

Manjaro is an Arch-based distribution with all the benefits of the Arch ecosystem and community but with the added benefit of being much more user-friendly than Arch. See More

Top Con

Security issues

Since packages are not updated as fast as in Arch, critical security updates may not come as fast as needed for packages that may have issues. See More

Top Pro

Deepin desktop environment is a worthy attraction

Top Con

A fair amount of the documentation is outdated or incomplete

Not a huge deal though, due to the similarity with Arch. See More

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

score 26 · Answer 2

NixOS

Top Pro

Robust

Top Con

Documentation is not good

A lot of the documentation of various functions is buried on the source code, their respective manuals, or non-existent. The documentation, the conventions, and the scattered toolchain really made searching for stuff easily missable. See More

Xernist's Experience

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

Specs

Package Manager:Nix Package Manager

Release Schedule:Point or Rolling

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

On NixOS, you're kinda stuck with what it gives you - Bash, gcc, libc and systemd are a given

You can try replace them, but that will only bring out a world of hurt. See More

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 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

The graphical installation ISO image contains NixOS installer as well as Desktop Environment and several applications. It’s a live CD, so it allows you to get an impression of NixOS (and the Nix package manager) without installing it. See More

Top Pro

Always be able to roll back to the version that you want, you'll never end up with a broken system

Nix never overwrites files, but just adds new versions in different paths. And since nothing is overwritten, the old versions are still there after an upgrade. This means that you can quickly roll back to the old version. See More

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 44 · Answer 3

Mint

Top Pro

Familiar user interface

Top Con

Too many kernel crashes

Specs

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu LTS

Default Desktop Environment:Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce

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 Pro

Good community support

Top Con

Looks ugly

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

The update doesn't work sometimes

Sometimes the update fails to configure a package. See More

Top Pro

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

The start menu and task bar is a HUGE usability success

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

Top Con

Outdated software centers

Many of the offered options are older versions. 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

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

Very easily customizable

Being used by too many people, it is very easy to customize with custom made tools and is over all pretty straight forward to use as an everyday OS See More

Top Con

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

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

Nothing new

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

Top Pro

Complete and stable

Complete and stable. 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

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

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

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

Cheap Windows substitute

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

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

XFCE Desktop (as an option)

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

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

Does not handle multiple languages well

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 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

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

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

score 10 · Answer 4

Calculate Linux

Top Pro

Gentoo based

Specs

Based On:Gentoo

Init-System:OpenRC

Package Manager:Portage

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, LXQt, MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce, NONE

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

score 13 · Answer 5

Gentoo Linux

Top Pro

Fully customizable

Specs

Based On:NONE

Init-System:OpenRC

Package Manager:Portage

Default Desktop Environment:NONE

Portage is Probably the only package management that will let you highly customize the kernel CONFIG and remember it for the next kernel update. Not seeing very many other distro that can let you build a kernel with custom CONFIG and still reuse that CONFIG setting for your next kernel upgrade. See More

Top Pro

Gentoo does not impose a standard look-and-feel

Top Pro

Highly-Customizable Kernel CONFIGs

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 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

Live USB

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

score 14 · Answer 6

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

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 well on low-end computers

Top Pro

The best looking Linux OS

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

Top Pro

Big customisation

Each and every pixel of display is customisable. See More

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

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

score 14 · Answer 7

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

CompassionateAjbit's Experience

Debian rulez! See More

Specs

Based On:NONE

Package Manager:dpkg with apt, aptitude or apt-build

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME

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

BrilliantMielikki's Experience

its good. 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 8 · Answer 8

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

Based On:Mandrake Linux

Init-System:SysVinit

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, MATE

Release Schedule:Rolling Release

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

The clean and declarative syntax makes it easy to define new packages by using an existing one as an example. See More

score 1 · Answer 9

GNU Guix

Top Pro

Easy to add your own packages

Specs

Price:None

Packages:>20,000

Requires root:No

Top Pro

Can build containers right-away, from docker to tarballs

See guix pack --help and here. See More

Top Pro

Can create independent packages

Guix pack creates packages which do not need Guix to be run. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require root privileges

Normal users can install packages on a Guix-enabled system, or even run their own Guix instance if the system isn't Guix-enabled. See More

Top Pro

No side effects when building packages

Guix is a purely functional package management system. This means that the act of building a package does not have side effects, such as destructively updating or deleting files that may be used by other packages. See More

Top Pro

Can always roll back to a safe state

Guix creates new profile generations for each operation. If anything goes wrong, a simple --roll-back gets you immediately back to the previous, working, generation. Because it is a purely functional package management system, generations don't affect each other, so you're back to the exact same state as before : still working. See More

Top Pro

Can setup a shell which has exactly the defined libraries available

A method which works across languages and provides a reproducible programming environment. See More

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

score 4 · Answer 10

Redcore Linux

Top Pro

Stage 4 build of Gentoo

Specs

Based On:Gentoo

Init-System:OpenRC

Package Manager:Portage

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, LXQt

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 11

Xubuntu

Top Pro

Customizable

Top Con

Poor quality control

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

Specs

Based On:Debian>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

Easy to install software from snapstore, built-in software manager and console. See More

score 3 · Answer 12

Ubuntu Budgie

Top Pro

Lots of software

Specs

Based On:Ubuntu

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie

Release Schedule:Point (follows ubuntu releases)

Easy to change the look to suit your needs and preference. See More

Top Pro

Customizable look

Top Pro

User-friendly interface

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

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 13

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

Based On:Debian

Official Supported Architectures:amd64

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

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

score 12 · 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

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu

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

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 15

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

Based On:Scratch

Init-System:systemd

Package Manager:eopkg package manager (PiSi fork)

Release Schedule:Rolling

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

Lack of software in repositories

There is a lack of software in the repositories. This is the only OS where you may have to build some applications from source or install from the app's site within the first month of usage. Though this is most likely because the distro is still relatively new. See More

Top Pro

Responsive

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

Top Con

Systemd

Top Pro

Rolling release

Top Con

Forums are not very friendly

Top Pro

Great package management

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

Top Con

An upgrade breaks the system quite often

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

Software a bit slower to launch than for other distributions

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

Slow development

Top Con

There is often a black screen after update

Top Con

No USB Image writer

it uses the BSD ports system as package manager See More

score 1 · Answer 16

CRUX

Top Pro

Ports

Specs

Based On:NONE

Init-System:BSD-style initscripts

Package Manager:pkgutils, ports(prt-get)

Default Desktop Environment:NONE

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

Top Pro

Learning

Top Pro

Very BSD-like

Easy to follow guides for newbies or those who want a little guidance. See More

score 4 · Answer 17

Archcraft

Top Pro

User friendly install guides on site

IngeniousLluddLlawEraint's Experience

Easily customizable, based on arch, many pre-installed themes (which are nice), made by the creator of many known window managers, like dwm See More

Specs

Based On:Arch Linux (Rolling)

Package Manager:yay, pacman

Price:FREE

Top Pro

Minimal & beautiful

One of the prettiest distros out there. See More

Top Pro

Active & responsive dev

The dev is very active & is constantly improving the distro. New ISOs released regularly. See More

Top Pro

Based on Arch

Can use Arch documentation. See More

Top Pro

Active development

The dev and community are always building new variants in a similar set of r/unixporn hipster styles that are agreeable to the eye and the configurations themselves are great starting points for your own. See More

Top Pro

Worth the donation

The effort and work put in is evident, doesn't look finished half way. See More

Top Pro

Not just a website with some ghostfiles

The site is informative and gives a nice insight into what you can expect from this beautiful distro. For the first time ever for me no customization needed everything is perfect. See More

Top Pro

Pacman more stable

In my opinion, Pacman is a better choice than apt. Perhaps Linux Distros should consider migrating. See More

Top Pro

Lovely UI design with an attractive menu

The developers made sure this distro was crafted well. Really nothing to change, and the default ensures you won't be installing malware. See More

Top Pro

Well organized

The dev made this one of the best Distros and easy to add/remove desktops or wm without breaking the system. See More

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 4 · Answer 18

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

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

Package Manager:Debian Package Manager, Snap Store

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 4 · Answer 19

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

Based On:Debian>Ubuntu

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