When I first began researching Linux, for my needs, I found the number of different Distros to be overwhelming. So I made this flow chart, with the intent to help new users find a starting point for choosing a distribution.
I’m open to critique, as to making this chart as helpful as possible.
EDIT: Chart updated based on suggestions in the comments.
In my current and seemingly final jump from WIndows to Linux I had played a bit with Ubuntu, Mint, and Debian. Ubuntu “felt” more like something I could work with, and certainly when you look at installing things from terminal there’s usually Ubuntu or at least Debian, so it seemed a good fit. After running it a while and having no problems (not even with Nvidia which I keep seeing comments on) I noticed regularly things like this on “what distro to pick”, and it always seems from the suggestions that I’ve gone the wrong way. And yet… it’s working great. I’ve got far too much set up and running well to backtrack again and start over, so I guess either Ubuntu users are the silent group or I’m a lone wolf and everyone’s gone to Bazzite or some other offshoot.
Now I’m right here with you. I like it when my updates don’t break the machine right before a gaming session. I like it when I can just Google my problem with the word Ubuntu after it and get a result. I like having gui solutions. But what I like the most about Ubuntu is just telling other Linux nerds that I use Ubuntu and seeing what happens.
Updates never break the machine with Bazzite. It’s kind of impossible. And if you do manage to fuck something up you just rollback by choosing the previous ostree image on the boot menu.
Ubuntu is great. Lots of guides for things, great community support, and things usually just work. Plenty easy enough to do what you want to do without having to learn a bunch of stuff all the time.
I think this is why it is not the preferred choice for experts who want to configure everything themselves, or have strong opinions about the internals of how it works.
But I basically want to never have to think about the os if I don’t have to.