It seems from time to time, people ask "What's the best distro?". And I like the answer usually given here.The best distro is the one that works for you. There are some distro's that don't work on some hardware I've had in the past.
But consider the following. A 3 year old might ride a tricycle. A five year old might ride a bicycle with training wheels. A 10 year old might be doing tricks, flips and jumps on a custom bike. A 16 year old might move up to a 26 inch frame and a 10-speed. An Olympic racer might have a custom carbon-fiber bike that costs over $300,000.
The point here is... sometimes it depends on your maturity. Not how old you are really, but rather, how much experience you have with Linux, operating systems, and computers in general.
For newbies, an easy to install, easy to use distro is often best. Good documentation is always a plus. For guys that have been doing this 10 years or more, they can use whatever distro they like. I think sometimes, those of us who have been doing this a long time, forget what it was like to start from scratch and learn something new from the start. For us "experienced guys", a lot of it has to do with familiarity. What we're used to. What we started out with.
Another thing that often determines what distro people use, is stability vs new features. It used to be that Linux in general was a long ways behind Windows when it came to new hardware, new CPUs, and new chipsets. Not so much anymore. In fact it does happen sometimes that Linux has it before Windows does.
I named this thread "rolling vs stability" and I haven't even gotten to that point yet. But what does that mean. For the most it means "thoroughly tested" vs "not very well tested yet". For example. Red-hat is notorious for testing everything about 2 years before they release it. Their systems are pretty stable, but the downside is... they are a couple of years behind the curve in new features and drivers.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Arch. Generally they are one of the first distro's to come out with the latest kernels and drivers. The term in Linux circles is "bleeding edge". ( A play on leading edge, because sometimes it's painful ).
It seems everyone else is somewhere in the middle, Fedora for example is usually a month or two behind Arch. It's more tested than the current Arch release, but it's still pretty new stuff.
Ubuntu does things a little differently, they have some releases that are considered "long term stable". But other also has other releases that are a little newer, but not considered quite as stable, and do not have support for an extended period of time.
Debian seem to be closer to the back of the pack. Many consider it to be more stable than other distros, but again it's typically a year or two behind the leading edge curve.
I don't know if there's a website that breaks down all the distro's by how far behind the "latest and greatest" stuff everyone is, but it would be interesting to see. It definitely has a lot to do, with which distro's people choose.
=========== Back on the soapbox for a moment ==========
I have to mention Kali here. It's a good distro, I've used it from time to time. I don't currently have a Kali installed anywhere. But back to my example about some kids still riding tricycles, if you don't know what a kernel trace is, what a packet capture is, if you don't have some familiarity with the OSI network stack, .. maybe this isn't the best distro for you to start off with. The screens look cool, and everyone wants to be a "hacker". (You can get just about all the tools that come with Kali in other distros) and I know, you're smarter than all those other guys who came before you... right? Trust me, just about everyone learns the hard way, you'll switch distro's before you get it all figured out.
==================================================
Learning to use Linux is like driving a car. Very few of us "old timers" have the same car we learned to drive on. I've had about 15 vehicles since then. I think very few of us are using the same distro we started out on.
But consider the following. A 3 year old might ride a tricycle. A five year old might ride a bicycle with training wheels. A 10 year old might be doing tricks, flips and jumps on a custom bike. A 16 year old might move up to a 26 inch frame and a 10-speed. An Olympic racer might have a custom carbon-fiber bike that costs over $300,000.
The point here is... sometimes it depends on your maturity. Not how old you are really, but rather, how much experience you have with Linux, operating systems, and computers in general.
For newbies, an easy to install, easy to use distro is often best. Good documentation is always a plus. For guys that have been doing this 10 years or more, they can use whatever distro they like. I think sometimes, those of us who have been doing this a long time, forget what it was like to start from scratch and learn something new from the start. For us "experienced guys", a lot of it has to do with familiarity. What we're used to. What we started out with.
Another thing that often determines what distro people use, is stability vs new features. It used to be that Linux in general was a long ways behind Windows when it came to new hardware, new CPUs, and new chipsets. Not so much anymore. In fact it does happen sometimes that Linux has it before Windows does.
I named this thread "rolling vs stability" and I haven't even gotten to that point yet. But what does that mean. For the most it means "thoroughly tested" vs "not very well tested yet". For example. Red-hat is notorious for testing everything about 2 years before they release it. Their systems are pretty stable, but the downside is... they are a couple of years behind the curve in new features and drivers.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Arch. Generally they are one of the first distro's to come out with the latest kernels and drivers. The term in Linux circles is "bleeding edge". ( A play on leading edge, because sometimes it's painful ).
It seems everyone else is somewhere in the middle, Fedora for example is usually a month or two behind Arch. It's more tested than the current Arch release, but it's still pretty new stuff.
Ubuntu does things a little differently, they have some releases that are considered "long term stable". But other also has other releases that are a little newer, but not considered quite as stable, and do not have support for an extended period of time.
Debian seem to be closer to the back of the pack. Many consider it to be more stable than other distros, but again it's typically a year or two behind the leading edge curve.
I don't know if there's a website that breaks down all the distro's by how far behind the "latest and greatest" stuff everyone is, but it would be interesting to see. It definitely has a lot to do, with which distro's people choose.
=========== Back on the soapbox for a moment ==========
I have to mention Kali here. It's a good distro, I've used it from time to time. I don't currently have a Kali installed anywhere. But back to my example about some kids still riding tricycles, if you don't know what a kernel trace is, what a packet capture is, if you don't have some familiarity with the OSI network stack, .. maybe this isn't the best distro for you to start off with. The screens look cool, and everyone wants to be a "hacker". (You can get just about all the tools that come with Kali in other distros) and I know, you're smarter than all those other guys who came before you... right? Trust me, just about everyone learns the hard way, you'll switch distro's before you get it all figured out.
==================================================
Learning to use Linux is like driving a car. Very few of us "old timers" have the same car we learned to drive on. I've had about 15 vehicles since then. I think very few of us are using the same distro we started out on.
Last edited: