I seem to be noticing a little bit of a trend lately that the out-of-box experience and overall quality of “mostly should just work” desktop-focused Linux distributions has declined. Usually, you could grab an .iso of distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro etc, install it and have a decent enough platform out of the box to tweak how you liked it. There might be some hardware you need to mess with to get working, or some small configuration changes to do, but these were mostly about personal preference as opposed to having to do them just to have a basically functioning system.
I recently built a new computer for work and naturally wanted to install a Linux distribution on it. I thought I’d try out a few desktop-focused ones to reduce the need to manually configure stuff like you’d do with an Arch install. The more curated and heavily moderated package systems are exactly what I wanted on this PC as stability/reliability was more important than bleeding edge for me. However, instead of just getting something usable and smooth like I was expecting, each distro I tried out had a bunch of basic issues:
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Fedora: issues with Flatpak (that somehow got missed by 2 separate maintainers and released), the fonts look like crap again without a lot of tweaking (AA used to just work properly out of the box) and the XFCE spin is completely broken. To even get XFCE I had to install the Gnome version then manually install the XFCE desktop and LightDM the latter of which didn’t even pull in all its dependencies to function.
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Manjaro: I can’t even update this out of the box without manual intervention because of a conflict between packages on a fresh installation. The problem has existed for a while apparently. Such a basic problem in the core package management of a distribution out of the box is unacceptable.
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Ubuntu: I tried Kubuntu (used to be my favorite) and the KDE desktop experience by default completely sucks now. Even with graphics drivers installed and tweaking the settings a bit it screen tears on my Nvidia 3080 and performs like trash. I don’t know how we even got to this point when Linux desktop environments used to be the slickest thing since butter was invented.
I’m a long time Linux user (since the 90s), former Linux sysadmin and a programmer so I know my way around a Linux system. All of the above problems can mostly be fixed. However, by now in 2023 I’m expecting all of these major distributions to at least nail down the basics and I’m finding it’s just not the case, in fact it feels like things have sadly gone backwards.
Avoid Manjaro and use something like Endeavour OS if you want an Arch based distro.
I’ve used Manjaro in the past and had tons of issues with it. The distro itself is Arch based but does not follow the same update philosophy.
Updates are stalled to apparently test for any potential conflicts, except it seems that they do not do any testing at all and just hold back on updates and cause more issues by doing that (ie package dependancy lagging behind)
Not to mention all the drama and shady stuff that was and is going on with Manjaro, I would not recommend that distro to anyone.
I’ve also used Mint, Kubunutu, Pop… and even Garuda on various desktops and laptops and never run into any game braking issues upon initial installation.
If you want to try Ubuntu, just try the plain Ubuntu. Has been my rock solid working distro since forever. I have no real complaints and it just let’s me do my work.
Linux Mint gets about $10,000 USD in donations a month on average, develops the Cinnamon DE, and is based on Ubuntu LTS. It’s stable, it’s slick, and it gets regular updates. If you’re looking for a “Major Distro”, I suggest including Linux Mint in your list.
I agree that the most popular distro should work better out of the box, having said that, there are other distros that are more user focused and mostly noob friendly like VanillaOS, Nitrux and PopOS.
As for the Kubuntu+Nvidia issue we all know how hostile Nvidia is with Linux; I’m not sure we can blame the distro for that.
Being Nvidia, I know the issue probably lies there, but I’m sure the experience used to be a lot better than it currently is.
On the other hand if you grab the Pop OS nvidia iso, I bet it’ll just work. Had no issues with Mint either, other than having to install the driver. Based on recent installs I’ve done with a 3080.
There’s no reason a desktop environment shouldn’t be a smooth experience on Nvidia anyway. It isn’t the most graphically resource intensive thing ever.
FWIW, my usual go-to for a daily driver is Xubuntu (yes, I’m odd and like Xfce). Mint is also good in my experience for “just works”.
I mean, you use Linux with Nvidia, some trouble is basically guaranteed. I’ve heard it has gotten better, but there used to be tons of problems and now there are just fewer tons.
As for quality Desktop experiences: There are a lot, but Kubuntu I’ve also tried and found to be a buggy mess and Manjaro is kinda controversial in the Arch bubble - because it’s an attempt to make Arch less Arch (and buggy as well).
I’ll just list some distros you might want to try:
- Endeavor OS
- Basically preconfigured, but quite vanilla Arch
- Garuda OS
- Depending on your choice of ISO, more or less heavily customized Arch
- Providing useful tools as well as fallback options in case some update goes wrong
- Depending on the ISO quite lightweight, but might be gamery themed
- Sparky Linux
- Choice between Debian Testing and Stable for more or less frequent updates
- Debian, but more friendly toward new users
- simple, lightweight
- Peppermint OS
- Debian based
- Actually good looking XFCE
- Unique selling point: Open websites respectively web apps in dedicated browser instances, linked on the desktop like regular apps
- openSUSE
- A classic; Standalone with the chocie between a rolling and a versioned release
- Maybe a bit more stable rolling than Arch
- Solid support by corporate software, less community support than on Arch (due to the community being smaller)
- Endeavor OS
I just did a full wipe of my system to try out Fedora KDE, XFCE & Budgie spins (I finally got fed up with Gnome not being what I wanted anymore after like 15 years of using it as my preferred DE) and didn’t really have the same experience at all - even Fedora XFCE which you say was completely broken was working fine for me. I haven’t run anything other than Fedora in a long time though so I can’t really speak to the out of the box experience on other distros.
My wife finally decided to ditch Windows, so we put Xubuntu on her PC since I’ve used it in the past and it just worked near flawlessly. Several times during the first week she had to ask me to help her fix some strange issue… The only one I remember off the top of my head is that xfce4-screensaver is broken, and crashes (and restarts) when you want to unlock your computer. Had the same issue on our HTPC and the wife’s netbook which I switched to Xubuntu at the same time. Felt like constantly apologizing to her, since I’ve been nagging her to switch to Linux for a year, and promising that it would be great
I really found XFCE not beginners friendly (or maybe if your comming from Windows 98).
Linux Mint or Ubuntu/Debian Gnome is easiest desktop linux solution. Maybe Elementary OS could be a good fit too.
I meant it was 100% things that didn’t work as they shouldn’t, not that she didn’t know how to use it. I was surprised how poorly Xubuntu 23.04 worked out of the box, compared to how well it worked for me over the years. But now that I fixed the issues for her she’s happy with it.
Though both my wife and myself are old enough to have used Windows 98 :) And she used Ubuntu in university so she isn’t a complete Linux noob either
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Linux Mint is also good, but it does feel a little outdated.
Just aesthetics or do you mean from the technical side?
Mostly aesthetically, but also since Linux Mint is a very stable distro updates are usually slow and the packages it uses are often a little outdated. If you’re the type of person to want to update to the newest thing as soon as it’s out, then it’s probably not for you.
