My go to back in The Day was just Ubuntu because I was lazy. We’re talking the 14.04/16.04 days. Ubuntu was simple and mostly just worked. I now find myself needing to de-spywareify as the coming administration is likely to force Microsoft into tracking “dissidents” so need to get back into weaning myself off the Windows teat.
I recently dualbooted my main desktop with Ubuntu 24.04 and have been… entirely underwhelmed. The whole separation between APT and snap packages doesn’t work well together and is really the big problem I have, as a lot of standard deb packages just refuse to install properly now. the UI is hard to use and doesn’t make me happy, and it’s not been playing nice with my Zen 4 desktop when it comes to ACPI power states (no sleep, doesn’t reliably turn the power off when i ask it to turn off, etc). So overall, I am just not terribly interested in using Ubuntu anymore.
What I primarily want is the sort of “mostly just works” like old 16.04 but still gave you the full ability to monkey under the hood- and is also something based on a normal distro that most people write guides for because I am a smoothbrain. Should I just head to using basic plain jane Debian or something?
My go to back in The Day was just Ubuntu because I was lazy.
So we have a bias towards Debian-based distros.
it’s not been playing nice with my Zen 4 desktop when it comes to ACPI power states (no sleep, doesn’t reliably turn the power off when i ask it to turn off, etc).
However, a newer kernel is definitely preferred.
is also something based on a normal distro that most people write guides for because I am a smoothbrain.
And finally, healthy access to documentation.
Based on the above, I would not pick:
- Debian Stable or any distro based on it. They ship with the 6.1 kernel, which launched only a couple months (January 2023) after the launch of Zen 4 (September 2022). I’m aware that access to newer kernels is possible. However, at that point, why even bother with Debian Stable to begin with?
- While both of Debian’s Testing and Sid/Unstable branches have access to newer kernels from the get-go, distros that ship the latest kernel by default (e.g. Arch, Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweed and their derivatives) are simply better for offering an end-user product.
- Arch, Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweed and their derivatives are primarily dismissed for not being based on Debian. Though, the fact that they’re more towards the rolling release side of things does play a minor role as well. By their very nature, they will change. Hence it’s less ideal for “set-and-forget” setups.
- Pop_OS!’ team seems to be primarily focused on delivering their upcoming COSMIC DE. For this reason, the distro has been in relative limbo. Therefore, I can’t recommend it.
- TUXEDO OS is dismissed for being relatively unpopular. Lots of other Debian(/Ubuntu) derivatives are dismissed for various reasons.
Let’s get to the actual recommendation, Linux Mint seems to be tailor-made for your use case:
- Based on Ubuntu, but without Snaps. While you can choose to use Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) instead, that one doesn’t come with the latest kernel. So the recommendation is for (standard/vanilla) Linux Mint.
- Their forums are full with up-to-date and (relatively) well-written guides; while the excellent ArchWiki is arguably better, Linux Mint isn’t a slouch either. Furthermore, as Linux Mint is very popular, you can simply expect to find solutions to most things that might come up.
👏👏👏
Great response. You didn’t just recommend your favourite but considered the requester’s input, explained why options were filtered out, and narrowed it down to an option with a great description.
I hope OP agrees, but this is what’d be considered stellar customer service if OP were a customer.
Thank you for the kind words 😊!
Though, in retrospect, I hope the recommendation for Linux Mint works out for their issues regarding ACPI power states. Perhaps a bigger departure from Ubuntu (if at all) would have been beneficial here.
I’ve heard good things about Fedora. It seems to be mostly set-it-and-forget-it while still being flexible enough for power users.
You should have a Linux experience before using it
Bazzite is the new Ubuntu without snaps etc, give it a try
The short rant:
- You don’t need to ask which distro, ask which mint version
- The answer to #1 is MATE or xfce.
The longer rant:
I’ve been using xubuntu a bit, for guest OS in desktop VM, but I don’t really know if I like it enough to recommend it. It’s less rough than Arch, but so is 24 grit sandpaper.
Like others have said, there are many contenders for your use case, but mint stands out. I’m probably gonna go with mint once windows 10 stops getting updates. Mint or parrot. But TBH I don’t want to daily drive parrot either.
Which version of mint then? That’s really the question to ask. And if you ask me then I don’t care for all the bells and whistles, I don’t need animations or semi transparent windows. And when Ubuntu went with unity back in the day I walked. So I guess I want my GUI to stay the same. So I’d go with MATE or xfce.
Tbh you’re probably right if you want something straight forward just stay with Debian. If your feeling adventurous and don’t do any gaming try FreeBSD
Sadly I can’t recommand pop-os. In 2 years, the updates broke twice on me.
The resolutions where simple enough if you can use the command line to run
sudo apt update,sudo apt upgrade. But the GUI shop updater just crashed on me without the apt error message visible.It is a nice distro overall with which you can even try tiled windows without commiting to it.
-> pop-os is nice but it may break from times to times. So if (like me or most dev) you are ok with the CLI and just a bit of fixes from times to times then go for it. But if you are affraid of the CLI or never want to fix anything, then some other distro may be a better choice.
Any major distro should do it imo. Personally I run Fedora because I tried it out years ago and I’m past the distro hopping phase. It just works™ (most of the time, as every distro).
PopOS is getting traction, and I think it’s deserved. I only use it on my gaming rig and never had major problems. Based on Ubuntu if I recall so the majority of Ubuntu tutos should be compatible.
I tried ZorinOS as well. It’s paid (10 bucks per major version if I recall), but it’s surprisingly stable and well fleshed out. It aims to mimic Windows or MacOS design out of the box, for people that migrate to Linux. They have a free lite version. Based on Ubuntu as well. The only reason it’s not my main OS is because Fedora is already installed on my main rig and I’m lazy.
As suggested, Debian is still its old self, and it’s a good thing. The stability thing although means that you won’t get the latest bells and whistles. On the other end of the spectrum there’s Arch but it’s far less “set and forget” than the other distros. At least it’s longer to set, harder to forget. I would rather go with Manjaro, with which I had a really good experience years ago, never any major struggle. But It still needs a bit of minimal maintaining.
Years ago, when Ubuntu started their Unity and Amazon partnering bullshit, I switched to Linux Mint. I don’t know how it is today, but at the time it was the go-to replacement for Ubuntu: all the advantages without any of the inconvenient.
Honestly, just pick one of the major ones, try it in a live environment to be sure the defaults suit you, and you should be good to go for years.
There was another post on here about Manjaro taking about going opt out on some things that to me is a deal breaker. EndeavorOS has been mentioned a decent amount for a more user friendly Arch based distro. I can’t personally speak about it, but just a little extra but for others going through here.
The Manjaro maintainers are a bunch of clowns. Constantly letting TLS certificates expire, enabling an indev, broken driver on Macs without asking the asahi devs why it was disabled in the first place… literally clowns
Manjaro might have been my first step into Linux last year, but it was brief and I switched to Arch. It was brief enough that I didn’t remember if that’s what it was. Glad I made the switch, but a non GUI installation is not for most people.
Edit: Nvm, I used Garuda. I was reminded in another comment. A good stepping stone to experience Arch and KDE.
Linux Mint, Debian and Fedora
Fedora is debatable but it solid if you use Silverblue
The whole separation between APT and snap packages doesn’t work well together and is really the big problem I have, as a lot of standard deb packages just refuse to install properly now.
since you are mention deb packages, I would consider these
- Linux Mint
- PopOS
- Rhino Linux (somekind of rolling release distro based on ubuntu)
- LMDE
Should I just head to using basic plain jane Debian or something?
Every time I try a new distro I end up back on Debian. It just works.
Same. I can barely even tell what “good” Ubuntu brings to the table other than the task bar icons, which I just add in with am extension.
Linux Mint and PopOS are usually listed as friendly distros and are derivatives of Ubuntu without Ubuntu controversies like Snap. Mint even has an alternative direct Debian base skipping some Ubuntu packages, so might be ironically closer to old Ubuntu in that flavor.
If you’re open to going non-debian, Manjaro is often sold as the more user friendly Arch. (Edit - a recent Manjaro controversy has people recommending EndeavorOS instead for an Arch wrapper. I’ve not tried that one myself).
Debian or Arch aren’t bad to use directly either and are far more newbie friendly than they were a decade ago even if not as out of the box opinionated as their derivatives.
I would say OpenSUSE Leap. I tried many distros on my sister’s PC (Mint, PopOS, Manjaro) and all of them got borked at one point by normal updates. The last one I installed was Leap and she still uses it without any problems.
I use EndeavourOS and really enjoy it. It’s effectively Arch but without the fuss. You get a GUI with just a few steps to set it up and you’re good to go. I tend to upgrade once a week, while checking the forums to see nothing too bad broke. That’s basically the maintenance I have.
When I do a new install on a new device, I just clone a repo I keep with the most important config files. Then I copy them to where they belong. There’s really not much more to it.
Considering your previous experience with Ubuntu, I would recommend Debian. Just make sure to get the right ISO for what you want.
Since you’re complaining about Ubuntu not working with ACPI power states, my next recommendation would be Endeavour to be more up to date and get fixes and stuff sooner. It’s pre-configured Arch.
