How to Choose a Linux Distribution

have you ever wanted to know about Linux distributions but you're so confused because you pull up what is a Linux distributions and you're presented with a map like this now there's literally hundreds and hundreds of Linux distributions and it gets very very confusing very quickly and everyone knows what is the best distribution what are the top five distributions that everybody has to try all these titles that people have done on YouTube videos that have made articles about I mean honestly this is where the Linux community has completely and utterly failed everyone and this is because there's no marketing there's no brain behind Linux it's just run by a bunch of technical people and they don't understand how everyone is able to digest information when you're a sales person or a marketing person and you go to sell something to someone you don't show them twenty different computers you would show them two or three based on their needs and that's really what I'm doing in this video I'm throwing all this crap that everyone has done in the past out the window I think if you're a Linux person and you've done this tact and said hey this is the best distribution or everyone should try this and I'm guilty of that but I'm gonna just completely dispel this it's horrible I've thought about it I thought long and hard about it and this is how you should approach a new user to Linux understanding Linux distribution so let's get into it [Music] this video is brought to you by data packet they offer dedicated servers around the world where you can choose your internet speed up to 10 gigabits unshared check them out today by clicking the link in the description so first off hi everyone always asks hey I'm new to Linux what distributions should I try and I always say Linux Mint or op OS so I'm gonna go ahead and show you Linux Mint this runs on what's called a cinnamon desktop environment and it is Debian based and also a bun tube based but basically what I'm saying is when I say cinnamon or xfce or any of these desktop environments that's kind of like the look and feel in the menu system that is in the operating system and then when I say Debian based usually that means what package manager comes with it to break down that statement which many Linux people have done in the past and I have said many times hey I'm on a Debian system or Debian based system that means the package manager is gonna be apt and if you see any instructions online where it says sudo apt install and then the package or program you want it means those instructions are meant for a Debian based system now what distributions are in Debian almost all of a good large majority of them are in Debian but really the ones that most people recognize our Ubuntu Linux Mint pop os and there's a whole bunch of different spins of all these things meaning different versions of the same distribution with just a couple things tweaked or changed and really those are the ones I want you to know about so everything comes from the granddaddy the father the Debian is where everything comes from that's why I love Debian because well if everyone's making distributions on Debian obviously it is rock solid it's made very well you never have to worry about really bad updates or anything crazy happening a lot of people are contributing to the Debian project and that's pretty awesome and then the next one in the Debian based system that everyone knows is Ubuntu which I'm not gonna showcase in this video because I don't really like them they're run by canonical and I've done a whole video on that and I said hey they're the devil which is a little harsh but I just wanted to get my point across of why I don't like Ubuntu and why don't recommend it for pretty much anybody and then you have bun tube based distributions which are intern Debian based distributions they just have some extra features that who bunk'd who has added such as PPAs I wanted to explain that real fast because apt is a package manager and how it installs programs is from what's called repositories and those repositories download your programs but sometimes you needed a repository for an offshoot program that just is you know kind of hard in to add it directly through Debian it can be a little cumbersome however Ubuntu and the canonical team made something called ppas where it makes it a little easier to add a repository and install more programs now if you're running Debian you can't use PPAs and if you do you're gonna probably break your installation but as far as pop OS in linux mint you can use both Debian based in repositories and also the bun to PPAs so it kind of get the best of both worlds and also mint and pop OS out of the box come with a lot more system options configured so you don't have to do as much configuration when installing a distribution now having said all that no distributions perfect there is no silver bullet there is no distribution you're gonna just install and go whoa this is awesome it has everything I need everything works exactly how I want it to work yeah that doesn't exist so many Windows users are coming over chase that and it just doesn't exist remember this you take anything away from this video you need to customize whatever distribution you install to fit your needs all the distribution is is a starting place hence why I've always said distribution doesn't matter because I want to reinforce that point so if you take nothing from this video remember that so as far as Linux Mint goes here's a screenshot this runs by default the cinnamon desktop environment so it has all the package managers of both Debian and then also the PPA is from abun - like I said to install your programs but how it looks and feels is the cinnamon desktop environment in the Linux Mint team I recommend it because a lot of Windows users really like where everything's at it's a more familiar to them and not as foreign as let's say a different desktop environment which we're going to get into and let's switch over to pop OS now pop OS is a lot like Linux Mint in the background uses the same package managers however by default it comes with gnome or how many Linux vets would call it gun gnome so that's why you see the different pronunciations and videos but this desktop environment I don't particularly care for it just because it's so foreign I don't like it's workflow but it may suit you so you need to try these out and kind of see how it is now I personally like pop OS a little bit more than Linux Mint just because the system settings out of the box are very good now when I say system settings I'm talking about like gaming settings like graphics drivers and things like that if you have an Nvidia proprietary card a lot of people have issues with Nvidia on Linux Mint because of how they design their drivers which again I've made videos about that so that applies to you definitely check those out but you should know out of the gate pop OS is more optimized for gaming's because it has what's called a sync and then it also has some of the caching and things like that already optimized in the system setting so you don't have to touch them just out of the gate they're ready to go they also include a lot of proprietary drivers that many other Linux distributions do not actually give you so watching movies and things like that you probably heard some people say well Linux can't play movies and this type of night they can they just require you to install these proprietary drivers and out of the gate Linux Mint and also pop OS do a very good job of adding these so it's very easy so if you're from Windows coming to Linux I always recommend these two distributions just to get your feet wet so you have a better understanding of Linux as a whole now this whole branch everything I've talked about in this video up to this point is about Debian or Debian based distributions now I'm only gonna touch three of the trees in the actual huge distribution map because really those are the three trees you need to focus on and understand before you do anything else with any other distributions there's gonna be people in the content comment section saying install gen to do void Linux do openSUSE do all these other ones and I'm saying forget all that you need to learn these three branches before you do anything else with any other distribution because if you can't grasp these distributions then there's no point in trying the other ones so now that I've explained Debian based distributions and really if you're a Windows user again linux mint or pop OS but my favorite one out of this branch is debian because it's the granddaddy it's the one that everything's based on so when you see hey my production machine is using debian that's my personal choice that's what i like to use for actually editing and rendering the video you're watching right now so moving on let's go ahead and go down to more of the business realm you've probably heard of the company Red Hat Red Hat is makes what's called Red Hat Enterprise Linux many people in the Linux circles refer to this as rel and it also has a subscription-based model it's meant for enterprise most people won't ever install a rail based system however if you're installing a server and you want that system never want to tinker around or learn it let's say you're an aspiring Linux system admin you're probably going to be working with CentOS because it's completely free out-of-the-box has everything that rel and it just kind of mirrors the Red Hat Enterprise Linux branch so very good to know and you might be asking a little if they're the same why would you choose rel and pay money for it and the reason for that is simply it has support you can call up a person they'll walk you through it and in a business environment that's pretty crucial especially when time is money but as far as desktop environments Red Hat basically has a testbed or or a desktop environment it spins up and it's called fedora fedora is great because it's all based on that stability and reliability of Red Hat and it is a fantastic operating system I run it on my laptop and have run it on my laptop for years now and basically this was an old laptop that I needed to repurpose and I think it has fedora 28 on it so it's like several revisions behind it I just hadn't bothered updating it because usually it's used for schoolwork and other things by the kids and I just don't see a need to really upgrade it and when it comes to Red Hat everything's just so darn stable and reliable it's the most reliable and stable of all systems however it can run a little bit behind the times now Fedora itself is pretty good with its packages like I said this is where Red Hat kind of tests everything out so as a desktop user you get a lot of the up-to-date packages that you come to expect out of you know Debian based systems so there's not too much different but the package manager is drastically different by default the door comes with gnome like pop OS does so you can change that out to different desktop environments if gnome isn't your thing and also the package manager is usually yum or DNF and this was where you see instructions online that say hey sudo yum install or sudo DNF install to install certain packages this is the package manager this branch uses so Red Hat branch usually most people are using Fodor out of this but there's other obscure distributions I'm only going to talk about Fedora in this video and that's kind of its thing so I use this on my laptop I really enjoy this distribution just because it's stable and reliable and then the third desktop environment in this one I really love but it has such a bad stigma around it so many bad things from you know people getting elitist attitudes and other things like that come from this specific branch of distributions and their arch based distributions or arch linux distributions now you've probably seen shirts and people say hey by the way I use arch it mainly comes from its install process of the vanilla arch distribution is a little more cumbersome it's a little more difficult it mainly uses all command line and that's difficult especially for new users so that's where that whole elitist attitude or whatnot comes from but as it's become more and more popular and more and more people have used it it's kind of a joke now nobody really thinks Oh arch is really that difficult many people will use like acro Linux or Manjari Linux and just get it installed with a GUI yeah it's you know just a different distribution based on arch buttons at the end of the day they're pretty much the same thing they have their own differences on these sub distributions like Manjaro or acro linux but at the end of the day they're pretty much the same Manjaro runs a little bit more behind the official arch repositories just because they like to test out there are things a little more and some people say it's more stable I'm not one of those people I think honestly Manjaro is not as stable as vanilla arch because again I'm more of a purist I like to actually get what all these other distributions are based on I like to get the the granddaddy or the the thing that is used the most but it's usually extremely on user friendly like Debian super on user friendly that's why I never recommend a new user use it arch again vanilla arch is not user friendly not something I'd recommend a new user to use if you're a new user and you want to try an arch based system I always recommend usually Manjaro and if you're like hey I don't like Manjaro acro Linux would probably be my next choice but that is the arch based distributions and how arch works is it has its package manager which is called pacman kind of like the old-school video game and it has a little bit of a weird syntax but I've grown to like it it's bully fine and then they also have something called the aur now this is extremely powerful because it builds programs for you sometimes your programs not gonna be in a repository and you want to build it from source you've probably heard this term and what the aur does is it basically takes an instruction set or a script and builds the whole thing for you and installs it on your system so it becomes a one line command like installing from a repository and that's super powerful it's extremely awesome I'll absolutely love Arch Linux specifically for this because it's such a time-saver so that's Arch Linux I'm gonna show a bunch of screenshots real fast here is kind of what people think of when you say Arch Linux kind of a joke right well this is a joke that's not what Arch Linux looks like what it really looks like is something like this you can you can constantly kind of flip through these and go to the UNIX porn subreddit on and actually kind of look at all these now just because porns in the title doesn't mean that it's got any naked girls or anything like that on there this is mainly and I'll scroll through this real fast this is mainly all the different types of configurations you can do between Debbie and base arch base all the all the distributions out there this is just how versatile Linux looks it is amazing how you can make it look and feel like anything you want it to make it look and feel like Windows 98 here you go it doesn't matter you can do that that's how powerful Linux is that's why I'm always so pumped up about it but it's a hard thing to explain it's extremely complex subject matter and trying to break it down so everyone can absorb it and use it is something that's difficult because there's so many technical minds in the space there's just not very many good marketing Minds or people to actually go in and break it down so every person can digest this information so I'm gonna keep making these videos because that's kind of what I'm aiming for and albeit I am more of a technical mindset than a marketing mindset I'm just not very good on the marketing front but it's something that I am cognizant of it's something that I work to achieve with this video and I'm gonna make more of this video just so you understand more of the distributions and when it comes to arch linux here that we just covered I use this on my studio PC now because I like to have a little bit of everything and if I'm gonna tell you distribution doesn't matter it's just a starting point I want to showcase that in my videos I want to showcase that in my life I want to practice what I preach and that's why I run all these different branches of distributions and package managers because I think it's important to stay up to date on all of it and kind of be able to inform you which one would might suit you so let's break down the type of person which what would use what I already told you that my actual production machine is running Fenella Debian this is very good it's very stable I've been running it for over six months now and have never had a crash I've never had it randomly reboot I've never had it update on me I've never had to do anything other than what I needed it to do so very stable however the setup process was a bit of a nightmare if you look at my live streams that I have on recording it was like five hours of live streaming the actual setup process which I had a bad USB Drive I had pretty much everything bad that you could happen during a Linux install happened during that time and while it might be humorous I wouldn't recommend watching that video for installation purposes I did go back and make an install video Debbie and Buster install video which I will link up here in the card just so you can actually install Debian if you want to go down that path just know there's a lot of system settings you need to change to like do gaming and other things that it's not for your new user but if you're experienced and you want to start branching into the Debian one I highly recommend you do that and this is where I'd start now having said that there's also the rel base branch and I already said this is the most stable and reliable and that's because it's built for security and reliability that's it it usually has a little bit more older repositories and a little more stable as far as the system itself I don't really have any problems that laptop that's been running that Fedora has been running it for two and a half years or something and I don't really even touch it I just let the kids go to town on it for schooling and other things that I never have had to worry about anything happening to it because it just works occasionally they'll be like hey I need to install something new I think the last program I installed on it was VLC to play some movies through its DVD player on my laptop that I think that laptops actually twelve years old so just to give you an idea of how awesome fedora is as far as stability and reliability it it's pretty awesome and then you have Arch Linux which is really meant for the person that needs the most bleeding-edge like if you're looking for a package that just got released last week arch is gonna be your game I mean that's gonna be your spot it's not that reliable though I will say you it takes a mindset when you start installing a whole bunch of stuff through the a you are you're constantly updating just blindly everyday it's probably gonna break on you I'm not gonna lie it's something that if I'm running Arch Linux I'm doing backups using time shift which I've done a video on that that will be able to revert back let's say you have a bad update or you install a bad program that happens to crash your system because it installed something it probably shouldn't have when it comes to an old repository or a dependency that conflicts with something else in the system and it might crash your system that's why I would use time shift if you're you're really installing a bunch of stuff in an arch linux that sounds really scary but it's really not just be checking to see hey is this an updated package if you're installing from the aur but if you're just using pac-man it's pretty darn stable in that regard if you're just sticking to its package manager and not using the aur it's really stable so it just depends on the user but if I want everything bleeding edge I want everything to be the absolute newest thing that's out I'm gonna be using an arch based system so a lot of people that don't a real heavy technical skill set don't like using vanilla arch and I totally understand that because the install process isn't the greatest I've made an install video about using like a script to help guide you along however I understand that's not for everybody so that's why I'd recommend like I meant Jarl Linux that has a really polished launcher their team has done a very good job just know they do do a little more vetting on a lot of their updates so it can be okay but if you blindly update through the graphic user interface I have had men Jarl brake on me so I at the end of the day I'd break it down into these three categories that you need to learn before branching off and trying to hang other distributions learn your Debian based distributions learn your rail based distribution which is really fedora and then learn your arch based distributions which would be pretty much vanilla arch and Manjaro would be my main recommendations for starting out and what you learn these debian is the most popular so all the guides and help guides out there are typically Debian based and then a lot of people move to an arch based system because they want the newest packages out they want to see the newest hotness as soon as it's released and that's where arch comes in handy you get the latest kernels you get the latest packages through their repositories everything is just really really nice and bleeding-edge but at the same time there is some growing pains with that if you just upgrade all willy-nilly that's just a quick breakdown of all the distributions I absolutely love all these there's not any distribution that I consider bad I just like to refrain from stepping down too much into the distribution tree and seeing all the different kinds of distributions in going too far in a lot of people are like why didn't you try this distribution or this distribution and I'm like man it's a spin of a spin of a spin meaning instead of debian-based it becomes a bun to baste and then instead of a bun to baste it becomes like a spin of pop OS which by using this tree you can see that pop OS is based on a bun - and a bun - based on debian and you can kind of see how this can be a little cumbersome and why I don't do any of these other little tiny distributions that I just don't think they're make much of a splash at all and there's some outliers that I didn't talk about in this video like solace which is not based on any distribution it's its own kernel build it's everything in its own right you have clear Linux which is based on Intel Intel also didn't base this on anything else it has its own package manager you have void Linux you have Gen 2 you have a whole bunch of other distributions but these are more for advanced users nothing that I would recommend anybody new trying I want you to understand these big three before doing anything so remember Debian remember Fedora remember arch because these are the three that everyone usually falls into and a lot of people actually run as their daily driver and then there's all these other distributions around it understand these three understand how the package manager works understanding how the desktop environments work and how things look in Linux and how many things you can change that is really what is key in learning so I'm gonna I'm gonna in the video here but a big shout out to my patrons without you I couldn't do videos like this one and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Chris Titus Tech

Views: 687,013

Keywords: chris titus tech, linux, linux distribution, best linux distro, distribution, linux distro, linux mint, linux distros, top linux distro, how to choose linux distro, top linux distributions, how to choose your linux distro, how to choose best linux disto, best linux distros, linux distributions, how to choose linux, how to pick a linux distro, how to choose the best linux distro for your needs, linux tutorial for beginners, switched to linux, elementary os, how to install linux

Id: iox7fr7p5Hc

Length: 25min 14sec (1514 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 29 2019