[PLUG] Distro suggestions

[Ali Corbin]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 9:21 AM David Fleck <dcfleck at protonmail.ch> wrote:

> For reasons not necessary to go into here, this long-time FreeBSD/OpenSUSE
> user needs to move to a new laptop* Linux distribution, and I have the
> following choices:
> CentOS
> Fedora
> Mint
> Ubuntu


Of these, CentOS is the most stable.  Which means that each release will
get security updates for years.   The downside is that your kernel and
libraries can fall behind the curve after a while.

Fedora is more bleeding edge.  It's got all the newest drivers for all the
newest hardware.  And possibly all the newest bugs.  As I recall, each
release is only supported for 6 months, so you have to do regular major
upgrades.

Both CentOS and Fedora only provide pure open source packages.  You can
install proprietary packages (like codecs) but you have to jump through
some hoops to do it.

I've never used Ubuntu, except for an unfortunate experience with Unity.

Mint is based on Ubuntu, but unhooks their unfortunate choice of window
managers and provides a choice of different ones.  You can install a long
term release, which will be supported for years.  And they make it easy to
install proprietary packages.

I used to use CentOS at work, and now use Linux Mint at home.