the-real-distros.md (1746B)
1 +++ 2 title = "The Real Distros" 3 datePublished = 2026-07-19 4 template = "blog-page.html" 5 +++ 6 7 Distros are fake. Thank you for your attention to this matter! 8 9 Seriously though, most "distro choices" are pointless. For 99% of people, there are 3 (4) real distros. Debian, Ubuntu, Arch (and Fedora). 10 11 If you are going to use Ubuntu, you'll pick whichever re-skin contains your preferred desktop environment. For MATE, Linux Mint, for GNOME, Ubuntu, for Xfce, Xubuntu, for KDE, Kubuntu etc. 12 13 If you are using Debian, you're probably just using the plain Debian image for whichever is the latest release. 14 15 Arch is simple, it's just Arch. 16 17 And for Fedora I don't know as I've never used it (apart from Uni PCs). 18 19 When people talk about "distros" they are often just arguing over how much fluff they want to be preinstalled on-top of the actual OS. Arguably Ubuntu is also a case of this, a you can just use Debian and install whatever DE you want, without the annoyance of snap packages being pre-installed. 20 21 There are more niche distros, like Void, Alpine, Puppy etc, but if you are using one of those you've probably come to the conclusion that distros are a meme already. 22 23 ## For Beginners 24 25 For super-beginners I'd recommend just using a version of Ubuntu, that matches whatever you were on previously: 26 * Windows -> Kubuntu (KDE) 27 * Old Windows/you have a slow computer -> Xubuntu (Xfce) 28 * MacOS -> Ubuntu (GNOME) 29 30 For advanced users, unless you need some of the unique feature of niche distros like Alpine or Void, either use Arch, or plain Debian. 31 32 I use Arch on my laptop, as its much newer hardware so up to date firmware etc is more important. Otherwise I use Debian (Trixie). I'd like to switch to Alpine but that's a project for another day...