Should Linux beginners use atomic or classic distros?

What’s the best Linux distribution for beginners ? Do you recommend the classic one or atomic ?

My opinion is that traditional distros are the marginally better choice for the next ~year or three for a beginner or less tech savvy user who will admin their own system, but atomic distros will likely be the better choice at some point in the future.

It’s still more or less the early adoption phase for atomic Linux distros. If you are a beginner I think its better to wait for the rough edges to be ground down, the documentation to improve, and for a larger number of experienced Linux users to make the switch first so there is greater mindshare and support resources.

With that said, the above is a generalization, and I think we are approaching the point where neither option is a bad choice for a beginner.

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Thank you for your answer.

The problem is that I’m an unexperienced Linux user.

I’ll soon get a new pc and I’d like to have Linux distribution (either on VM or on live OS, for example Fedora Writer) while keeping Windows 11 because I need Office Suite (Excel…).

I’d like to use Windows only for Office but use Fedora as my daily routine (since It’s recommended by PG, even if I’m not experimented at all on Linux distributions).

What would you recommend me to do ?

It’s hard to give a specific recommendation without knowing a little more about your situation. (Also somewhat off-topic in this thread, I’ll send you a direct message)

After daily driving Aeon since RC1 and secureblue for a few days, there is no way I would recommend a traditional distribution to a newcomer.

Even if there are things that are still easier on traditional distributions (of which I’m not aware), it still makes sense to learn to use a proper distribution that will be the future of Linux desktop.

Just my two cents.

To use an immutable desktop system, you absolutely need to know your way around the terminal and have some basic knowledge of containers. There’s simply no way around it. If that’s the case, you’re good to go; otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it.

terminal sure, but that’s true for any desktop linux system

containers I don’t know why you would need to understand. You can just use brew :slight_smile:

I was honestly not expecting to revive this thread haha.

I’ll throw my 5 cents and do what you like. Personally fo beginner I would want to recommend something that would be stable or otherwise “break- resistant” like for example Linux Mint, Bazzite etc. than anything else (outside of Fedora Atomic since bazzite and some other rebases like secureblue is based on it but still in general Fedora Atomic) but that’s just my 5 cents and would love to know more established options than this.

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Bazzite is based on Fedora Atomic… :thinking:

yeah you’re right I am scrambling to find an option find “than” for.
F**k it, I generalize and excluded fedora atomic. Nonetheless I do still stand that I am open to options

Not sure if worth the heads up but since we are in a privacy forum. If I’m not mistaken, Homebrew includes Analytics by default, and it is up to the user to deactivate it.

Not on secureblue :stuck_out_tongue: https://github.com/secureblue/secureblue/blob/560f0e215d78f6300a017f68428da0b0a281daa1/recipes/common/desktop-modules.yml#L31

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I wouldn’t say the terminal is a hard requirement for every Linux distro (although it’s extremely recommended).

As for containers, they’re a lot more flexible, and I really think it’s best to have a firm grasp of the underlying technology so you can, for example, have a better understanding of what’s really going on when you make the jump from Silverblue/Kinoite to Secureblue.

Ah sure, that’s fair. If you want to make a custom downstream image it’s certainly very helpful to know your way around a containerfile

To me, after ChromeOS was folded into Android, I think, Android Desktop will be it.

Daniel Micay at GrapheneOS already said they’ll begin working on it (presuming Google will launch Pixelbooks), and even enable select desktop mode features for Pixel phones.

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I’m not sure to understand. On PC/laptop, there will be some kind of Android Desktop virtualization ?

If they manage it the same way as Android on phones, I’m not optimistic… every laptop with its very own downstream kernel and no more upstreaming of drivers.

I know Google has been trying to improve this, but I haven’t heard that the situation has improved much in the intervening years.

(not a kernel hacker, just an occasional lwn reader)


I would really hope GNOME and KDE make it onto such an Android desktop in any case. Google’s interfaces are notoriously bad.

GrapheneOS Desktop is exciting, however. I wonder how well it will handle Linux desktop applications. When/if it becomes a thing, I’ll throw it on one of my devices.

I’ve never used ChromeOS.

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The reverse. Android Desktop mode running Linux apps in a VM, like ChromeOS did does with Crostini.

What can I say other than … it had potential to take over the world, but no one really bothered to use it. Clever on Google to merge it with Android, which is already, by far, the most widely used OS in the world.

LWN?! You’re a mere emacs/vim session away from being a Linux hacker (:

Jumping in, Linux beginners should use Linux Mint. It’s a really well-thought all-in-one experience. My favorite feature is that when you open a .deb file instead of treating it like an archive as debian does, it just opens the app installer !

Of course if you have the technical level, you can use a distro recommended by PG.

But as a team member said, pretty much all Linux distros have great privacy. (But varying security)

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Hmm, because Mint opens the app installer when you double click in a .deb file does it makes it more beginner friendly than the distros recommended by PG?

We probably need more reasons to make that call, no?

btw, double clicking a rpm file in Fedora Workstation prompts the app installer as well.