Distro Watch: The Best Linux Distributions For 2014

Ubuntu - Can't go wrong
Mint - For those who want that Windows start button
Elementary OS - For those that want the Mac OSX look
Arch - For when you hate yourself and want bleeding edge linux
 
Ashbringer said:
Ubuntu - Can't go wrong
Mint - For those who want that Windows start button
Elementary OS - For those that want the Mac OSX look
Arch - For when you hate yourself and want bleeding edge linux
Click to expand...


LOL...Arch works pretty damn well most of the time. Bleeding edge software compiled for bleeding edge OS works damn well. Better than Debian in some cases, such as when Arch had KDE 4.3 and 4.4 but Debian had "stable" KDE 4.0 patched to hell in a hand basked and still ran like shit.
 
Fedora 20 is pretty nice. Once you sport the RPM Fusion repo it's pretty much full-featured. I prefer it over Ubuntu and its derivatives.
 
Not a bad list overall, especially from a desktop perspective.

Ubuntu - I'm willing to give it another shot, if they have removed some of the less privacy-friendly defaults (ie unity search lens that proxies everything through canonical, adds Amazon referral links, default searches both online and local systems and provides unlabeled items from both sources.). I hope they aren't focusing on the wrong areas, Wayland/MIR etc... doing things differently for the sake of it. For better or worse, Ubuntu is the "face" of expanding Linux (especially on desktop) to many, and I expect them to live up to it.

Linux Mint - I've always had a greater affinity for Mint than Ubuntu, given the privacy issues and other things in the past. Plus, the Linux Mint dev team is responsible for both MATE and Cinnamon, two absolutely excellent GTK-based desktop environments. I do wish they'd put a lot more emphasis on Linux Mint Debian Edition, the rolling release Debian based version instead. Last I checked, LMDE didn't support full disk encryption for some reason.

Elementary OS - Another good option for desktop users. If you want the most "OSX/Mac" like experience out of the box, with custom programs made for simplicity and elegance. Of course, being Linux you an also expand it to whatever programs you need, as always. It is partially Ubuntu/Debian derived and isn't bleeding edge, but it does fill an important niche.

Arch Linux - This is one of those distros that causes a lot of controversy and tends to become love or hate, depending on your experience. Its "almost" a source based distro like gentoo/slackware, but has the excellent "pacman" package management and upgrade system, as well as the "ABS" Arch Build System for pulling down user-added install scripts and builds. The documentation is great so as the article says, a user interested in customizing Linux and learning more about the OS will have a good guide for the process. However, its bleeding edge nature sometimes means things break in catastrophic ways and require a significant amount of time to fix if you do something thoughtless like run a "pacman -Syu" full package upgrade without reading up on any changes/incompatibilities. For what it is worth, my NAS/file server has been running on Arch for quite a few years now. Oh, there are also distros like Chakra and perhaps best know, Manjaro, which are based on Arch but are more user friendly and have sane defaults (ie a graphical install). Arch (and Manjaro) are certainly worth being given a spot.
Tails - I find this a little specialized for the rest of the list. It is important, and has a great set of privacy-related features and defaults, but it is an ultra-specialist distro as opposed to general desktop use. Kind of like how Kali Linux (formerly BackTrack) is designed for cracking/pen testing. Tails is an important piece of software and unlike many similar projects is relatively easy to use (ie boots to a sane, Debian based desktop with the defaults all being set for privacy yet general usability). I have to admit I'd like to see Liberte Linux updated again; sadly it is out of date since 2012, but at one time it included all of Tails benefits, plus much more.

Overall, not a bad little list though.
 
Tried Ubuntu again for the 1086th time and they can't even get the lock screen to work. I hit lock and it doesn't even hide the desktop, I can still see everything there.
 
Desktop Linux is still a joke.

Other than that Ubuntu is still #1.
 
shade91 said:
Desktop Linux is still a joke.

Other than that Ubuntu is still #1.
Click to expand...

It's come a hell of a long way compared to the popular distros available 15+ years ago. Think about the state of the dominant commercial OS 20-25 years ago...DOS and Win3.xx, and now compare that with all the subsequent releases that were developed with million and millions of R&D dollars.

Just about every Linux disto (and almost all software), being open source, is developed by groups of enthusiasts that make money from donations, if they make any money at all...to them it's a hobby in which the result is shared with the world, for free. I'd say that Linux is rather amazing today.
 
Every time I see these posts about which distro of linux is best I look at them and just think about how annoying desktop linux still is. I started using linux back in early 2000s and remember having to manually configure kernels for just about everything. The fact that the back end has come so far and yet the GUI is still terrible for most non-technical users is just sad. Gnome is probably the most user-friendly, and yet I have to loathe what it has become over the last five years. When I compare a GUI and find it was more user friendly five years ago than now, it isn't working. Even Windows 8 is more user-friendly than pretty much every linux distro, and that says a lot about the state of linux in general.
 
When I see these posts I read them all as. "I want Linux to be like Windows." Why? Go install Windows.
 
Skillz said:
When I see these posts I read them all as. "I want Linux to be like Windows." Why? Go install Windows.
Click to expand...

It's not that exactly. It's that people what the same level of 3rd party support on desktop Linux that Windows currently enjoys. Ultimately that's the problem with Linux. That and the fact that if people find 4 versions of Windows confusing then it's hard to see how 50 Linux distros clears up that kind of confusion.
 
I really don't see why people are saying desktop Linux today is not "user friendly". There are plenty of distros that generally have a great out of the box desktop experience that is overall easier to understand and use than say, Windows 8 with its "Metro/Desktop" dichotomy. Most desktop environments are pretty easy to use and understand for those familiar with Windows or OSX, for instance - you really have to go out of your way to get something either incredibly minimalist or a tiling window manager. Yes, rarely will you have to go to the command line or whatever, but that sort of troubleshooting either falls into some sort of incompatibility, or the kind of thing that "Joe User" couldn't do on Windows/OSX either without the knowledge, intent, and patience.

The problems that affect most desktop users trying to decide if Linux is right for them are often not even Linux's "fault" - its about compatibility. For instance, if your hardware isn't supported under Linux and requires some proprietary driver, that is because whomever developed said hardware halfassed it and chose that methodology. Likewise, if software X doesn't have a Linux version. Its pretty amazing that Linux devs have been able to reverse engineer and provide support for so much hardware and software that isn't made for Linux!

Now, I know most people don't care why it doesn't work, but it is important to realize that the more people petition for Linux support, the better things become. Thanks to Humble, Steam, and indie developers, we're seeing more games with Linux support than ever before. We're also seeing better than ever 3D drivers for GPU - Intel's GPUs are even completely open source/spec'd, and while Nvidia and AMD both have proprietary 3D driver packages for Linux that work well, while AMD especially is contributing to the FOSS AMD GPU driver. Hell, thanks to Valve with Steam for Linux and SteamOS, lots of companies (including AMD/Nvidia) are going out of their way to provide Linux support for drivers and whatnot. This will only continue if we show there is a growing market!

Overall, desktop Linux has a significant and growing market share and the experience has only gotten better and better.
 
Skripka said:
LOL...Arch works pretty damn well most of the time. Bleeding edge software compiled for bleeding edge OS works damn well. Better than Debian in some cases, such as when Arch had KDE 4.3 and 4.4 but Debian had "stable" KDE 4.0 patched to hell in a hand basked and still ran like shit.
Click to expand...

Wasn't meant to say it's buggy or broke, but it is a pain to use.
 
Xaeos said:
Overall, desktop Linux has a significant and growing market share and the experience has only gotten better and better.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is particularly accurate. For all of the backlash against Windows 8 and Gabe Newell coming about two years ago and calling 8 a disaster and Steam on Linux and SteamOS and SteamBoxes, Windows 8.x completely trounces Linux for Steam gaming, like 20 to 1. Just Windows 8.x.
 
Skillz said:
When I see these posts I read them all as. "I want Linux to be like Windows." Why? Go install Windows.
Click to expand...

Cause

A. It costs monies.

B. And still asks for antivirus software to be secure.

That's like me buying a car and the car demands that I get AAA. Cause one way or another, it's gonna happen. You know and the car knows it.
 
Within two years the most-used consumer, non-mobile Linux OS will be ChromeOS. And #2 will be SteamOS.
 
Ashbringer said:
A. It costs monies.
Click to expand...

Except that the vast majority of people that run Windows never acatually bought it. It came on the device they purchased.

Ashbringer said:
B. And still asks for antivirus software to be secure.
Click to expand...

If desktop Linux had 90% of the desktop market, it's hard to see how it wouldn't become the primary focus of desktop malware writers and that it would do any better than Windows.
 
heatlesssun said:
I don't think this is particularly accurate. For all of the backlash against Windows 8 and Gabe Newell coming about two years ago and calling 8 a disaster and Steam on Linux and SteamOS and SteamBoxes, Windows 8.x completely trounces Linux for Steam gaming, like 20 to 1. Just Windows 8.x.
Click to expand...

That's not because Windows 8 is awesome. That's because other Windows OSes were awesome, and Win8 is just along for the ride. Also, go find a laptop that doesn't come with Windows 8. Good luck finding one with Windows 7.

It's good to have the market by the balls. You can make a failed OS and still profit from it. That's like GM made a car that looks like anus and requires you to drive the car without a brake pedal. AND THEY STILL SOLD MILLIONS OF THEM.

NOBODY
DOES
THAT

And the fact is that Windows 8 wasn't the first major failure. There was ME and Vista, but somehow Microsoft just rolls around in cash. If GM did anything like this then consumers would jump onto Toyota, Ford, Honda, or whatever. But you don't, because if you do then you can't play Call of Duty or run your favorite app.
 
heatlesssun said:
Except that the vast majority of people that run Windows never acatually bought it. It came on the device they purchased.
Click to expand...
Technically they do, because the cost is rolled into the device. It's not like they're going to tell you $300 plus $50 for the OS.


If desktop Linux had 90% of the desktop market, it's hard to see how it wouldn't become the primary focus of desktop malware writers and that it would do any better than Windows.
Click to expand...

That's bull cause Mac OS X is the second largest consumer OS and it doesn't need antivirus software. It has far fewer viruses for Mac than Windows. Primarily cause Windows doesn't handle updates for 3rd party software. If your flash or java is out of date then you might as well bend over. Apple is extremely anal about Oracle Java on Mac so they tend to disable it often and they have their own Java plugins.

But Linux does a better job because of repositories. Oracle has one and you can get updates for it just like you do for the rest of the OS. Updates for Java, Flash, and Firefox are all done within the OS update program. Not like on Windows where each program has their own start up software to monitor and remind you when to update. Eating up resources and usually causing problems.

That update system in Windows is the reason why so many vulnerabilities pop up and people get infected. It needs to work with 3rd party software.
 
shade91 said:
Desktop Linux is still a joke.
Click to expand...
Windows on smartphones is a joke.
Windows on tablets is a joke.
Windows on main frames is a joke.
Windows on embedded devices is a joke.
Windows on servers is a joke.
Windows on supercomputers is a joke.

Chromebooks made up 40% of commcercial laptop sales last month. So it's gaining on laptops.

The desktop is the only platform that Linux isn't winning, yet.
 
Ashbringer said:
Technically they do, because the cost is rolled into the device. It's not like they're going to tell you $300 plus $50 for the OS.
Click to expand...

The point still stands. Most people don't buy Windows, they buy a device. If indeed for $50 less a Linux distro were 100% compatible with all Windows hardware and software then more people would be outraged over the $50 difference.

Ashbringer said:
That's bull cause Mac OS X is the second largest consumer OS and it doesn't need antivirus software. It has far fewer viruses for Mac than Windows. Primarily cause Windows doesn't handle updates for 3rd party software. If your flash or java is out of date then you might as well bend over.
Click to expand...

OS X is the second largest consumer OS yes. But my point is market share.

Ashbringer said:
Apple is extremely anal about Oracle Java on Mac so they tend to disable it often and they have their own Java plugins.
Click to expand...

Apple is extremely anal about Adobe Flash on Windows 8 and the only way to get is Flash on Windows 8 is from Windows Update. I've never disagreed with you on the single source of updates. It's just that Microsoft being the broker of every single updated for everything that runs on Windows is at best impractical. Looks at all of the problems people have with Microsoft being the single distributor of Windows software, vis-à-vis the Windows Store. So Microsoft shouldn't manage all software distribution but all software updates.

Ashbringer said:
But Linux does a better job because of repositories. Oracle has one and you can get updates for it just like you do for the rest of the OS. Updates for Java, Flash, and Firefox are all done within the OS update program. Not like on Windows where each program has their own start up software to monitor and remind you when to update. Eating up resources and usually causing problems.


That update system in Windows is the reason why so many vulnerabilities pop up and people get infected. It needs to work with 3rd party software.
Click to expand...

I don't think you appreciate the idea of one broker handling updates for all software and drivers for 90% of the world's PC. Of course Windows Update could be better. But comparing it to an update system that runs 1/70th as many machines isn't a useful comparison. Windows suffers from issue of scale that other desktop OSes don't face. And failure to scale is a classic issue in IT.
 
BladeVenom said:
Windows on embedded devices is a joke.
Windows on servers is a joke.
Click to expand...

On these platforms, Windows is far from a joke.

BladeVenom said:
Chromebooks made up 40% of commcercial laptop sales last month. So it's gaining on laptops.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but if we look at the same metrics being used to measure Windows 8's market share, usually NetMarketShare and StatCounter, Chromebooks haved move the needle between nothing and nowhere.
 
I really like Mint myself, and it's easy to use and it's suitable for those who want to use their old laptop for browsing and have no previous Linux experience. Ubuntu Unity is too confusing for the non tech-savy who want an Windows alternative.

Fedora is by far the best desktop in enterprise use, I'm a little bit surprised it didn't make the list.
 
The GUI on Ubuntu has just gotten more and more offensive to me.
I'd have to give up gaming or build another machine to go back to Arch.
Outside of Arch, my favorite distros are Fedora and OpenSUSE.
 
Ubuntu - when I want a distro that "just works"

Arch - when I feel like tinkering and learning something
 
I came looking for heatlesssun trying to discuss Windows in a thread about Linux. I'm happy to point out that he's here and the post contents make it obvious he feels personally threatened by people making an OS choice that doesn't match his. :)
 
Ashbringer said:
That's bull cause Mac OS X is the second largest consumer OS and it doesn't need antivirus software. It has far fewer viruses for Mac than Windows.
That update system in Windows is the reason why so many vulnerabilities pop up and people get infected. It needs to work with 3rd party software.
Click to expand...

Hmm. No.

There are viruses being written for the Mac OS. It is the law of supply and demand which is preventing the Mac OS from being hammered...

What is more economically friendly to your limited time, and / or skill sets for the average virus writer? Going after the OS with the Largest percentage of users, or one with a Low percentage? They will write for the Largest, as this will give them the most return. And their virus can be sold with a higher price tag, due to it being effective for the Largest % of computers out there... So, they are doing the math of limited supply (time and ability) vs. demand (the want of those using viruses to get the biggest pay off from the purchase of the virus...)

Yes, there ARE viruses out there, which CAN impact the Mac OS. (And, there are virus writers / virus users out there taking notice of the fact a lot of Mac OS users do not install anti-virus software... because they believe, incorrectly, Mac OS cannot be virused...)
 
I like CrunchBang on my old laptop. I'm sure it would scream on a newer one. I have Ubuntu on a desktop, but I'm not fond of the Unity interface or the integration with Amazon. I'm downloading Elementary right now.

I linux for certain things, but I have not been able to use it as my main computer. I need to run some commercials apps and not thrilled with wine.
 
I try Linux once a year. I want to like it, I want to have a computer that runs it all the time. But there is always something that doesn't work quite right, one device or peripheral that lacks drivers, or one networed device that won't see it.
And at the end of the day, not one single distro has a thing it can point to and say, LOOK, this makes me different AND better.

Just different is not enough.
 
I also like Linux for certain things (I run it Mint in a VM), but it's not a viable alternative to Windows for me. I can see how many people could be happy with it though.
 
Linux is a great OS. I love Linux. But, like Mac OSX, it's just not something I can use daily as my desktop.

Server OS? For AD. Windows. For web/mail - Linux all the way.

Linux Mint is a very refined and polished Linux distro. I recommend that to people over Ubuntu.
 
I'm going with Mint which is really mostly Ubuntu under the hood without all the Microsoft-ish we know better canonical crap.
 
Quoted from the article on makeuseof.com:

"Everything is SUDO this, sudo that…… Why not make a GUI that asks the questions and have it edit the files?"

This kind of statement is why people like this person shouldn't even bother trying to learn ANY distro. After the first few months I became very comfortable using Terminal mode for installations and manually updating. It's a matter of learning and not just hitting a magical button.

I've only been working with various flavors of Linux for about two years now. My workstation is dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Linux suites me for my every day wants/needs. Crypot mining, we browsing, watching videos and research. Windows get's used when I want to play Steam games. My game server runs Debian as a back up OS and Windows for the space engineer server. It's simply what your comfortable with.
 
Bottom line, unless you are a sysadmin, if you have to use the command line, the OS has failed. It's 2014, people. The average user should be able to use the OS without knowing what sudo is.
 
Well I guess Window's has failed since I still use the command line frequently in Windows 7.

Also I am not a sysadmin.
 
Skillz said:
Well I guess Window's has failed since I still use the command line frequently in Windows 7.

Also I am not a sysadmin.
Click to expand...

I find that hard to believe. I've not touched the command line in Windows since my install of vista, and that was to look up the IP address for some random app that wasn't installing right. Vista, 7, and 8 all command line free.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top