Tech Smartly

During spare time, when I’m bored and trying to put off writing my next blog post, I often stumble. Sometimes I get a few gems like this insulting source code, or several other many things. One of these such gems, is a Linux distribution chooser. One of the things that I often hear people talk about when they’re trying out Linux is what distro to choose. This is actually quite a big problem for many new Linux users. Some go to Ubuntu, a good OS for Linux newbies. After all, it is considered one of the most user friendly Linux distributions and the most widely used. However, for those who choose to be a little different, or don’t like Ubuntu, there are hundreds of different distros to choose from. Perhaps you would prefer Mandriva? Or maybe OpenSuse? If you’re up for a little challenge, try Gentoo. Or try all the Ubuntu flavors like Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Gobuntu, Ubuntu studio, Fluxbuntu, UbuntuME, Mythbuntu…Ok, you know what I mean. There are just so many different distros to choose from, and it can be really hard for someone with little technical skills, or even with quite a bit of technical skills to choose the “right” distribution. Here comes Polishlinux.org with it’s Linux Distribution Chooser.

The distribution chooser requires only several simple questions. It simple and easy. Due to the simplicity however, it does not say exactly why a distribution better, or what it has over other distributions. It shows several distros that fit best the criteria, with links explaining each on in depth. However, it can be a bit hard to compare them like that. Here comes in another tool to compare them. From the same website, you can easily compare two distros, comparing them in different categories and each distro is given a rank in each category.

With these two tools, I hope it will be easier for other people to choose a distro, especially those new to Linux. If the quiz is too hard for you, there is also another one which is easier to answer, and gives help if you don’t know what it means. Made by zegenie Studies, you can find it here.

If this has helped you jump the ship and start using Linux, then good luck to you. You won’t need it though, it should be pretty easy since you will have found a newbie friendly distro.