Impartiality Of Distro Choices Advocated At This Site

[MikeWalsh]

Whilst I'm all for freedom of speech - and certainly don't wish to sound as though I'm taking a pop at anyone here - I can't help noticing that a subset of the membership have a tendency to "push" a particular distro over & above all others. I'm not naming any names; I reckon y'all know who you are.

I might have been guilty of this with Puppy nearly a decade ago, when it was still in the "shiny new toy" stage & was solving a few of my hardware issues for me, but I like to think I'm now old enough, ugly enough AND wise enough to recognise that Linux is all about choice.....and that the ONLY recommendation that should in all conscience be made be that the individual user try out a bunch of distros in 'Live' mode, and make their own minds up.

(I'm more than happy to talk about, discuss issues and to give advice & help problem-solve where Puppy's concerned, but I don't believe it's my place to 'push' Puppy onto anyone. Better that individuals should come to Puppy in their own good time, as & when they're interested (or curious) enough to want to take a look at it. No self-respecting person needs somebody else to make their minds up for them).

The same goes for Windows, believe it or not. An even smaller subset of those mentioned above seem to go out of their way to dissuade anyone & everyone from using Windows for anything at all. Be under no illusions; even Windows has its place.....for better or worse!

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Is it just me, or do the staff also think this points to a need to clarify things in the forum rules? I don't mean to sound funny, but it's hardly conducive to maintaining the friendly, 'impartial advice' for which this forum has become well-known...

(shrug...)


Mike.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Just a note that I have moved the above Post from @MikeWalsh from another Thread to here, as being more appropriate.

@Rob , @KGIII and @JasKinasis may have thoughts on the matter.

Longer term Members may also contribute.

Keep it civil, please.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[bob466]

I've been guilty sometimes of recommending Mint Cinnamon only because it's an excellent Distro and I use it every day but at the end of the day it's the beginner who makes the choice.

 

[truckerDave]

I'm not a "Longer term member", but I'll give my 2 cents.

It's my belief that the OP is referring to the many posts/replies recommending Mint. As a newer Linux user, after decades of windows, switching to Mint was a fairly easy transition. I even switched my 75 year old computer illiterate mother over to Mint.

So, for someone asking what distro they should choose, if they are looking to just replace windows, I don't know that there is a better distro. I've looked at a few that are nearly just as good. However, they don't seem to have the community support that Mint does.

Other distros are better suited as servers, and the like, if someone states a need for such things. And the folks here generally point those folks to a more proper choice.

Mint is kind of the shallow end of the pool for folks like me that haven't learned to swim yet.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Lol, I haven't seen "frequently" spelled "sometimes", very often, Bob

But you are certainly not alone.

No-one would likely expect me to favour one over another, as I run (currently) 85 distros and I see something good in all of them.

Of those, there are maybe 6 - 8 - 10 I use frequently as daily drivers, or I may just go with whatever is on top of my Grub Menu for the week.

This week that is Calculate Linux, a Gentoo-based distro.

That being said, I do not recommend Gentoo and its related distros as a starting point for those new to Linux.

Cheers

Wizard

 

[f33dm3bits]

I tend to generally recommend Mint or Ubuntu to Linux new comers(and sometimes others, ones I have experience with and ones I don't experience have with depending on the the the topic), because I have experience with those and most people use either Debian based distribution or Arch based distribution so their will be more forums where people can get help with those. I don't recommend an Arch-based distribution to a new comer for obvious reasons. Even though I do say every now and then that I don't use Windows, I am one of the the few here advocating against Windows bashing replies because I believe it doesn't do anything good for the Linux community but instead does the opposite.

 

[Brickwizard]

Unless pushed, I do not like to recommend distributions [as i said at the end of the which is the best thread I posted last year ""
What is best for me or any other member, Is not necessarily the best for you,
ONLY YOU CAN CHOOSE""

That being said you will note I usually clarify my response with "I don't recommend but suggest" and depending on how the poster asks then will name around 6 distributions, If they ask for something light weight, there is no point on suggesting mint21 or Ubuntu, likewise if they ask for easy to use, then some Arch and SUSE based distros defiantly would not work for them, occasionally we get request for "specialist" Linux distributions for say, CAD or CNC work, there is no point in recommending/suggesting what I term as everyday desktop builds,
Perhaps the answer is first read the question and other replies and if you think you can contribute a suitable distribution, then clarify it, not with XXXXX is the best, but XXXX is the one I use or my suggestion/s is/are XXX,ZZZ

 

[f33dm3bits]

Also I personally don't treat every single topic as a special use because generally x, y or z will do, unless the poster comes with some new information when they are a new comer. And I'm not going to treat this forum like a customer interview for each topic because that would take the fun out of it being something I do in my free time when I have time.

 

[bob466]

Linux Mint is number two on Distrowatch...https://distrowatch.com/

does that mean everybody has to use it...No.

Distrowatch is also pushing clonezilla...does it mean people have to use that...no because it sucks (my opinion).

Linux Lite is a good Distro and some other light Distros...I will recommend Distros that are easy to use because we don't want beginners running back to windoze crying "it's too hard" do we.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Linux Mint is number two on Distrowatch...https://distrowatch.com/

does that mean everybody has to use it...No.

The way Distrowatch counts which is most popular does not equal to the numbers users, so that's irrelevant but also off topic for this.

 

[wizardfromoz]

I would not say it was irrelevant.

They have this on their Page Hit Ranking Page

The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics have attracted plenty of attention and feedback over the years. Originally, each distribution-specific page was pure HTML with a third-party counter at the bottom to monitor interest of visitors. In May 2004 the site switched from publicly viewable third-party counters to internal counters. This was prompted by a continuous abuse of the counters by a handful of undisciplined individuals who had confused DistroWatch with a poll station. The counters are no longer displayed on the individual distributions pages, but all visits are logged. Only one hit per IP address per day is counted.

The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring interest in Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch was accessed each day, nothing more.

The tables below display the average number of page hits for each distribution over a given period of time. To see information on page hit trends over a set period of time, please see our Page Hit Ranking Trends page. To see how our readers rank distributions based on visitor-submitted ratings, please see our Ranking page.

The figures in the third column of each table represent the average number of hits per day (HPD) for the specified period. The tables are updated daily at around 30 minutes past midnight GMT.

If you take that on board, and use something like a 32 GB or 64 GB USB stick and install Ventoy on it, away you go, trying out to see what you like from Distrowatch's Top 20 or Top 50.

I have 3 Kingston sticks - 1x64 GB and 2x32GB for just that purpose.

Cheers and

Avagudweegend

 

[f33dm3bits]

I would not say it was irrelevant.

Maybe not irrelevant but not accurate as to how many users use a distribution, but I didn't want to get into it further because that's offtopic for the original intent of this topic.

 

[wizardfromoz]

...but not accurate as to how many users use a distribution

Let's face it, none of the Devs have that information * , unless they put in their distro telemetry that calls Home, like the Zorin brothers tried a couple of years ago, and didn't that cause a stink?

...offtopic for the original intent of this topic.

Best judged by Staff, I believe, although Members may report to us what they think to be off topic, and we will consider that and respond or act.

*With the exception of commercial options such as RHEL, SLES, some Ubuntu and so on.

Let's continue in peace, lol.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Is it just me, or do the staff also think this points to a need to clarify things in the forum rules?

You are welcome to submit something, Mike, which we can consider.

Wiz

 

[f33dm3bits]

Best judged by Staff, I believe, although Members may report to us what they think to be off topic, and we will consider that and respond or act.

I was trying to be civil by trying to keep the topic on topic lol

 

[bob466]

The way Distrowatch counts which is most popular does not equal to the numbers users, so that's irrelevant but also off topic for this.

It was a joke...I don't care if Distrowatch had Mint at 10 but it's handy for beginners to find and try a few Distros.

 

[darry1966]

I'd like to pick up on the saying in the world of Puppy namely "do-ocracy" with emphasis on the word do. A newcomer can really find their distro(s) of choice by trying different ones to see what suits their machine. You can make mistakes and learn from them and grow in your knowledge. You will find your answer taking your own journey by trying the many different choices.

 

[Terminal Velocity]

When a new user try a live cd of a distribution has no way to know if with the first update his system will be broken or not, as well as many other hassles that come with the long usage. So I think is better the old users to direct the new people to stable distributions, tested and proven trouble free solutions as the first impression of the new user determines if he's gonna stay with Linux or not. Don't expect a new user to tinker a broken system and make it work, it is not the case 99 out of 100

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I think when somebody (newcomers to Linux) asks "what distro should I install?" it should be responded with what do you expect or want to do on Linux rather that use this one or that one.

Depending on their wants it should be easier to suggest appropriate distro.
But before that even more important than distro is which DE will they like, you might suggest a good distro but they won't like it because of DE and declare entire Linux not good.

I like Debian, but if I'm new and somebody recommended me Debian with GNOME, I might as well look for something else even though I like it.

 

[MikeWalsh]

Believe it or not, guys - although I usually prefer to suggest trying out a bunch and let an OP make their own minds up - I will frequently recommend Mint to beginners over and above Puppy.......because "our Pup" is something of an acquired taste, and as it comes, OOTB, CAN seem rather plain and uninteresting to many.

Although enthusiastic, ours is a small community, and Puppy doesn't tend to get the sheer amount of 'publicity' that a popular, easy-to-use, mainstream distro like Mint has. Mint has global support, and Clem Lefèbvre has gone out of his way to make Mint as inviting & easy-to-use as he possibly can, with a huge amount of OOTB support. That's important to noobs.

(Having said as much, I'm nearly 100% certain there's a lot more folks that either use, or at the very least keep a 'Puppy-on-a-stick' handy than would care to admit it!)

It's my belief that the OP is referring to the many posts/replies recommending Mint. As a newer Linux user, after decades of windows, switching to Mint was a fairly easy transition. I even switched my 75 year old computer illiterate mother over to Mint.

So, for someone asking what distro they should choose, if they are looking to just replace windows, I don't know that there is a better distro. I've looked at a few that are nearly just as good. However, they don't seem to have the community support that Mint does.

Don't get the idea I'm anti-Mint. See above. I definitely recognise the need for the "transition" to be as smooth and easy as possible. Hell, I used Mint for a few months myself, a decade back.....but by that stage of my personal Linux journey, having tried many mainstream distros, I was looking for something that worked better with the elderly, low-resource hardware I was using at the time.

I've always been attracted to the "quirky" & "off-beat" side of the tech world.....and to me, Puppy fitted the bill. Having persevered with her, and become more knowledgeable about her inner workings, I now know what a gem she really is.....but her 'ethos' will not appeal to most. She's all about the technical stuff, and what others will see as "bodging", "hacking" and/or "messing around with things that really should be left alone" are everyday, common-place occurrences for us.

And as a community, we love proving everybody wrong and getting stuff to run which many would think never could!

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Knowing what I do now, and realising that Puppy's unusual method of operation often confuses even Linux veterans, my recommendation has for long enough been that folks should come to Puppy in their own good time.....as and when they're curious enough to want to do so.

I like the atmosphere this community has; the level of knowledge, and willingness to help others out are second to none.....and above all else, it's impartial AND friendly. I'd hate to see that go down the pan.


Mike.