7 Of The Best Linux Distros For Beginners

Ubuntu is, for lack of a better term, the "Windows" of the Linux world. It's far and away the most well-known of the pack and has the financial backing of Canonical to ensure long-term support. It takes a bit to get used to the GNOME 3.x interface, but Ubuntu is a very beginner-friendly distro where you can do just about anything without the terminal. Unlike any operating system out there, Ubuntu's big releases receive support for 12 years. The distro ships out of the box with open-source alternatives to all your necessary apps like LibreOffice for documents and Firefox for web browsing. If the app you need isn't there, you can probably get it straight from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Ubuntu is a fully-featured operating system that can do anything Windows can (minus the caveats we mentioned) and it has much lower system requirements. Any computer with a 2GHz dual-core processor and 4 GB of RAM can run it; You'd be lucky to run Windows 11 on a device made just five years ago with double the specs, thanks to Windows 11 system requirements. Ubuntu provides multiple flavors so you can choose from other desktop environments like Budgie and Cinnamon, or go for lightweight options like Kubuntu and Lubuntu. Perhaps the biggest upside to Ubuntu is that since it's so popular, you'll find unparalleled community support and online fixes for your issues. The only downside is that Canonical collects some data.

Linux Mint is very similar to Zorin OS in a lot of ways. It's intended to work "out of the box" and adheres to the age-old KISS philosophy — which means, "keep it simple, stupid." Similar to Zorin, Mint has an Ubuntu (and Debian) base, a big plus for technical support, compatibility, and long-term software support. Mint's Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce desktop layouts are close enough to Windows that you won't feel too lost starting out. Linux Mint has an easy-to-use wizard that lets you automatically find and install hardware drivers for things like your NVIDIA graphics card. It tries as hard as possible to avoid inflicting you with Windows headaches by adhering to "conservative software updates" and requiring very little maintenance. Each release gets five years of concurrent support, so like others on this list, big updates can be ignored for a time without compromising security.

Gaming on Linux Mint isn't as comprehensive as Zorin OS, since the devs just recommend using Steam OS' Proton layer. Compatibility for everything else is high, though, since Mint supports Ubuntu's Snap in addition to the more universal Flatpaks. Mint also has a handful of unique, nifty apps like Hypnotix, which lets you stream live TV, movies, and even YouTube to your device. We recommend Mint for those who aren't sold on Ubuntu and just want a simple, straightforward Linux experience without software hiccups.

Arch Linux is one of the most customizable and powerful Linux distros, letting you quite literally build it from the ground up and giving access to one of the largest Linux software libraries out there. It's so good that Valve chose it as the basis for Steam OS. Problem is, Arch is not new-user-friendly in the slightest. Manjaro solves that. It gives you all the benefits of Arch without needing to be a tech guru. Your bootable USB image works straight out of the box and automatically pre-installs all necessary drivers and codecs, a long-standing pain point on Linux. Like Arch, this distro follows the rolling release development model, which means there are none of those annoying, constant updates that require a system restart.

Manjaro's access to the Arch User Repository (AUR) means you can use hundreds of community-made apps that may not be available elsewhere in common Linux repositories. Manjaro is one of few distros out there that lets you swap kernels on the fly, letting you try Linus' bleeding edge developments if you please. Like others on this list, its system requirements are low. A dual-core processor and 4GB of memory is the minimum, but despite this, you won't be compromising on speed and digital horsepower. Manjaro supports x86 and ARM, and comes with a ton of desktop flavors. The only thing we don't like is the less-than-stellar stability, a quirk of the rolling release model. We recommend daily system backups on Manjaro.

Linux can be daunting even for the tech-savvy, so imagine how insurmountable it might appear for an elderly individual who'd get cold sweats at the prospect of converting a Word doc to PDF. Puppy Linux caters to the crowd that needs the simplest interface possible — with tons of help along the way — to tackle rudimentary computer needs. It works on decades-old hardware, with its minimum recommended spec being a Pentium 900 MHz CPU with 300 MB of RAM. Most distros on this list require about 20GB of hard drive space, but Puppy fits into less than 500MB. It's so small, in fact, that it can copy itself directly into RAM and give you blazing-fast SSD-like loading speeds on aging hardware. It hand-holds you through the process of configuring everything about your system — perfect for anyone who gets nervous making changes.

The only downside of Puppy Linux is that getting it up and running can be a bit confusing. Puppy isn't a distro, technically speaking, so you'll need to figure out for yourself which "puplet" (the term for "flavors" of Puppy Linux) best suits your needs. Despite this confusing methodology, Puppy assures users that regardless of which puplet they choose, they'll get "consistent behaviors and features." We'd recommend it for, say, a grandpa who's unwilling to part with a computer they bought in the early 2000s running the old, unsupported Windows XP. Puppy can keep them secure and safe without a harsh adjustment.