Handle With Linux

Which is the best Linux Distro? How to choose between the 550+ linux distributions available?

The best Linux distribution is: The one you like best.
And how are you gone find out which one you like best?

I've been thinking a while of creating a tool or website to help people choose the best Linux distro, because many people ask me: Which is the best Linux distro?

This is of course an unanswerable question, still many people ask themselves this question. Of course they do! They definitely have to. There's nothing as difficult as a world full of choice, especially if you don't happen to have a lot of knowledge about the subject. And when it comes to Linux it will well make a difference you'll carry with you for the rest of your life as a Linux user. Big chance it will make a difference for your life as a computer user in general. If you choose right you may become a convert or a positive experience first time user. Choose wrong and you'll probably never try it again, because you'll think it's an unusable system, with a dreadful command-line based configuration.

The problem is such tool would be flawed by concept, choosing the best Linux distro is very personal and depends a great deal on hardware and purpose of the installation. I've experienced many times ubuntu not running out of the box on a laptop, while Linux Mint did (which is a linux distro based on ubuntu).

If you want to you can try the Linux distribution chooser, you'll find the link on the bottom of this page.
Maybe you find it useful. But remember you wont now which distro fits you best if you haven't tried.
If you can spare a few bucks for the Cd's, burn a few popular live linux distributions to cd and just have it a go.

To really get anywhere near the answer to this question we'll have to restate it completely:

Which is the best Linux Distro for what particular purpose, user experience level and user type?

For instance if you are a starting Linux user with no Linux administration knowledge, not technically interested and don't like to fiddle around to find the right settings you should not be trying to build Linux from scratch (where "not be trying" is a definite understatement). There are many Linux distributions and they all serve a particular purpose. So there are just as many "the best Linux distro" as there are distributions of Linux.

Still it's a very important question for users and for Linux adoption alike. Many people have heard about Ubuntu as it's aimed at starting users and it's getting a fair share of the market by doing so. Myself I'm not to fond of Ubuntu but that's because I'm used to the command line and I'm used to Debian which is very equal to Ubuntu but not completely and that's my (completely personal) problem with it. I'd rather have a completely different system than a little bit different one. As a matter of fact I actually run many different distro's for many purposes and they are different but you don't expect anything and when I'm using Ubuntu often I expect it to act in a certain way because Debian would do that and it does differently because of the minimal differences it has. But for many people Ubuntu is a great distro, and it is probably one of the best linux distro's around. It's the most popular linux distro for starting users that's for sure!

Many times when people ask me what the best choice is for a Linux Distro it are starting users and I give them a few Cd's with live runnable Linux distro's. A few because some systems run better with original Ubuntu, some run better with for instance Linux Mint and some people prefer KDE so if they see Kubuntu they are more pleased.

Myself I use Debian on webservers for ease of administration and stability, OpenBSD for firewalls (I know that's not Linux, but close enough), Sidux (Debian testing) on my laptops (yes I do like Debian a lot that's a personal preference), mini slax for ophcrack on usb stick to crack windows passwords, pyramid Linux on my wireless device and even some ubuntu at work for colleagues who like ubuntu. I know most of these are Debian
derivates but I'm also comfortable with any other Linux it's just that system administration is pretty easy on a Debian webserver.

When I started becoming the Linux user I am today, I started configuring linux based routers with a very small special linux distro on it. If you want to become a system administrator it would be best if you try a rpm based distro and an apt based distro. The best linux distro to install if you want to become a specialist is one that forces you to use the command line. In modern linux distro's this is far less usual then it used to be. If you want to learn, use a linux distro as dificult as possible;-)
If you want to use it on your laptop, search the internet for the distro that runs best on your specific laptop. Or browse my site for some of the best performing linux distro installations on laptops.

The first thing you need to learn about Linux is there's no such thing as the best linux distro, there are many applications for linux distro's. Some people install a distro on a usb stick and others on a computer cluster.

Still there are many circumstances where it would be nice to know more about the experiences other people have with the different Linux distributions. Therefore I've created a list on my site where everybody can submit his/her favorite distro(s) and comment on it about how and why they use this specific Linux distro.
I hope this will create a list of distro's where people can find which distribution fits there purpose best. So go here:

http://www.handlewithlinux.com/submit

and submit a story or a Link to a story so we can start building this list.
or go here:

http://www.handlewithlinux.com/LinuxDistributions

and comment or vote on the distributions others submitted before you.

Is ubuntu the best linux distro?

Is slackware the best linux distro?

Want to learn? Maybe linux from scratch is the best linux distro?

links:

Comparison of Linux distributions
Linux distribution info
Linux distribution list of live cd's
List of 550+ linux distro's
Linux distribution chooser