this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2026
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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start with debian if you want a stable release update style or arch if you want a rolling release update style
the vast majority of other distros are just nonsense stacked on top of one of those two
most of the big distros that isn't true for are corporate (open suse, fedora, etc.) and should be avoided unless you have a pressing and specific reason
save yourself a headache and just start with debian or arch. what you learn with one of those two will be the most transferrable and they both have huge (comparatively) communities with well developed resources for learning and troubleshooting.
if you are from windows i would suggest using kde as your desktop environment, at least to start, regardless of which distro you pick
people like to joke about arch being hard but that's mostly just a holdover from installing it being a chore that required a lot of careful manual reading - just use the built in archinstall and it's straightforward while also being a breeze to customize how you want
once you run archinstall and have arch installed it isn't any different than any other rolling release distro in difficulty - just use timeshift (or an equivalent, if you know enough already to pick one) in case you need to roll back an update in the future easily
the advantage is having easy access to the most recent versions of all your software all the time - just, if you use the aur for the additional community managed packages outside the official packages you admittedly need to learn to read the package files to make sure they aren't doing anything funny but otherwise you can just get software you trust the way that the developers recommend
if that all sounds overwhelming instead of exciting, just use debian