Trying Linux?

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If you have Tried linux Any recomendations on what I should try after ubuntu. Obviously ubuntu seems natural. If not or Wanted to try out you can ask how or something I guess.

I don't get it. Are you just going to try different distributions for a while and see which one you like better? You don't want to stick with one and explore the different desktop environments and the shell and all that?

Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is the most popular Linux in use. I've used it for several years now as my preferred operating system after abandoning Windows. It is based upon Ubuntu giving it a better user interface, more reminiscent of Windows 7. I like the fact that it comes with all my favourite software pre-installed such as Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC media player and LibreOffice, though lots more is easy to install. It isn't as cutting edge, flashy or experimental as perhaps some of the other Linux distributions, but I like Mint Cinnamon as it is comfortable to use and stable and gives me everything I need from a computer on a daily basis.

I'm asking Which one I should try first. Perhaps, I was misunderstood. I'm Saying since Ubuntu is the most know, I assumed I should try it first.

Go for a character-cell Linux installation, like Slackware. Better yet, try installing FreeBSD, and manually install and configure your favorite GUI.

No, actually. If you're a Linux Beginner, go with LinuxMint. It's Ubuntu, but has all of the Multimedia Codecs already installed and configured. When you have LinuxMint figured out, move on to Debian Stable, or one of it's spinoffs.

Only after getting to know a Linux system, and how to configure it via editing text files, as well as knowing how to manually install precompiled programs from a .tar file, and how to resolve program dependancies, and dependancy conflicts should you move to something less user freindly like Slackware.

When you know how to do all of the above, plus compile software from sourcecode, should you move to something more difficult such as Gentoo, or for contrast, BSD Unix.

BSD uses the same DE's and WM's that Linux has, but is significantly differant from Linux. Linux is made to essentially run on anything, and do many things. BSD is much differant in the fact that it has a much tighter focus as far as what it should be used for.

Okay. I'll look into it, sometime.

Use Linux Mint if you would like a computer for productive work or general use. Mint is clean, no nonsense and easy to configure. The technical Operating System stuff is best learnt when you are fiddling with embedded systems and servers.

Problem is, when I first looking at Linux, Slackware was the only thing available. Of the distros I have tried, Slackware is the only distro that doesn't screw me over on the install.

My first was Slackware. I highly recommend it.

Manjaro. I highly recommend it, since it's basically a more newbie-friendly version of Arch. Antergos is good too once you pick up some of the basics of using an Arch-based distro.

Also, if you want a crash course on learning Linux inside and out, consider giving Gentoo a whirl. I highly recommend having a working install of another distribution in place before you try it however, since you need a Linux environment to build it from. Unlike most distros, you can't just burn it to a CD and install it; you build it from the ground up instead. It's definitely not for beginners, but installing it is a great learning experience.

I don't like recent Ubuntu versions. Mint seems to be the best IMO.

At the moment I'm not running Linux on my PC, but I've Raspian on my Pi so I can use it as personal cloud storage.

I really wish more people would consider using Arch-based distros. Once you try Arch's package management, you'll never want to go back to using apt-get.

It depends on what you want to learn. You don't have to install distro after distro to learn Linux.

You can do millions of things with the Ubu that you have - like try installing Nginx and making a web server, even locally. Configure it and put different sites up. Try making sites with it with Jekyll and Markdown. Try editors - like vim or emacs, though vim is obviously better . Try different window managers, like i3. Dump Unity, the piggy graphical shell for Ubuntu and put something else in there. Learn to get around on the command line, learn to write little Python programs. Find out what's in /etc. When something breaks, like a corrupt external drive, learn how to fix it. Figure out systemd, and why people who tell you to edit init.rc are now full of crap. All of this can take years. Keep notes.

All of these things are mostly the same on all the distros. That's where you'll learn how it works, not by downloading ISOs and re-partitioning your hard drive over and over, or running the GUI programs on Linux. The power is under the hood and it's all remarkably similar.

And if you really want to change distros, Arch is a good choice - because it forces you to do lots of this stuff. But really you can do all of the above in Ubuntu.

I've experimented with Linux several times since the early 2000s, but I was never able to get completely away from Windows, so I would rarely boot it up. Earlier this year, I got fed up with Windows 10 doing certain things without warning (shutting down to update, resetting my default applications, etc.), so I switched one of my work machines over to Mint, and kept the Windows partition around for when necessary. Long story short, that Windows partition hasn't been booted in years, and being a machine for work (most of the software I need is available for Linix), I don't have to worry about running games. Some things I had to get proficient with, such as running Git from the command line (instead of a UI, since the one I used in Windows wasn't available), bit for work, I don't have a need to go back.

My home machine is a different story - still running Windows 10 on that, as I have a lot of software that will not work on Linux (even with Wine)

The last time I used Windows was weeks ago when I decided to upgrade the WiFi card in my laptop. In order to flash a non-whitelisted BIOS that would support it, I had to make a Windows PE disk using WAIK, just so I could run the flasher. The upgrade went alright, but I ended up digging out one of my old ethernet cables and hooking my laptop up through that instead. Much faster.