Best Linux Distro For Beginners/Coding

Hello lainons, I've recently decided to switch to Linux full time for my front-end coding. I've dabbled before with a few distros on some vms (mainly being linux mint, ubuntu, garuda etc...) but I found that almost all of them didn't suit me for multiple reasons such as being too bloated or being too intensive for my windows-7 era laptop. So, to resume what's a good minimalist distro with a focus on coding ?

this question has been asked in some variation a lot. I assume you don't mean really truly minimal, just not terribly bloated. Try arch, or debian. Use XFCE or LXDE if you don't want to use a plain window manager. Debian has helpful install wizards.

>>60076 this. also want to point out that "distro with a focus on coding" doesn't make sense. a distro is just a distro. the focus it has depends on how you set it up

>>60076 >Try arch, or debian. Use XFCE I would pick Arch (systemd) or Artix (no systemd). I think Xfce4 is the best DE (KDE is also decent). Gentoo is also pretty nice distro. Arch/Artix and Gentoo have up-to-date packages. If you decide to use Debian (which might be a good choice, since Ubuntu is a popular distro), you need to install Debian testing to get up-to-date packages. >>60077 > also want to point out that "distro with a focus on coding" doesn't make sense. This. Those kind of distros are meme distros that are desperate for new users.

>>60076 Alright I'll try installing arch as it seems to be a pretty popular distro

Before you continue, you need to understand the risks of using Linux. Linux is not a secure operating system and is much harder to maintain than one might presume. For these reasons, only programmers like you, server administrators, and IT professionals should use Linux. https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html Choose one of the recommended Linux distros, preferably Fedora since it's good for beginners and adopts new technologies like Wayland, Pipewire, and fs-verity. Once you install Fedora, you need to follow Madaidan's Linux hardening guide in order to make your system reasonably secure. https://www.privacyguides.org/linux-desktop/ https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/guides/linux-hardening.html

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

>>60075 This should go in the tech questions thread. >>53307

>>60080 You might want to do the partitioning using gparted (use SytemRescueCD). Arch/Artix is easy to set up (just go through the official installation guide). Some post-installation tips: # sudo pacman -S artix-archlinux-support # if on Artix # check the right GPU driver: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#Driver_installation sudo pacman -S wget xfce4 thunar xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin xfce4-notifyd xorg-server xorg-xinit xf86-video-vesa xf86-input-libinput ttf-dejavu lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa pavucontrol sudo systemctl start lightdm # to enable at boot: sudo systemctl enable lightdm sudo localectl set-keymap xx sudo localectl set-x11-keymap xx # time sync: sudo pacman -S openntpd systemctl start openntpd.service systemctl enable openntpd.service # install an AUR helper: pacman -S rust base-devel wget 'https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/rua.tar.gz' tar -xzf rua.tar.gz cd rua less PKGBUILD make -si

Some tips for securing your Linux distro: - use full-disk encryption, LVM on LUKS - only use Wayland and desktop environments that support it (GNOME and KDE). Xorg lacks GUI isolation. - always use AppArmor or SELinux + Bubblewrap to sandbox apps

>>60124 >>60126 Alright thanks for the reccomendations, I'll try to follow them! Thanks a lot!

>>60126 >make -si It should be makepkg -si

>>60075 Dont use arch unless you know what you're doing. Debian is suited for server usage rather than desktop usage. The best beginner distro imo is OpenSUSE tumblweed, followed by Fedora.

>>60128 >being too bloated >GNOME and KDE Pick two, retard.

>>60505 >Dont use arch unless you know what you're doing. Arch and Artix (and even Gentoo) are good choices for anyone who is willing to learn and RTFM and look up things on the Arch/Gentoo wiki. >Debian is suited for server usage rather than desktop usage. Debian testing and Debian unstable (aka sid) can be used on a desktop/laptop. >Fedora It is like kicking dead whales down the beach. Release upgrades at least used to be a total nightmare (even though Xubuntu/Debian/Arch/Gentoo worked/works fine!) and SElinux is a major pain to use.

Careful not to fall into memes, people in this thread are suggesting fuarrrking Gentoo when you said your laptop is old, good luck not being able to browse the internet for the whole day as your machine struggle to compile the monster that is modern browsers. It seems like you want to use Arch, I'd suggest EndeavourOS, it's based on Arch, won't be bloated (albeit, bloat is on eyes of the beholder) and have a very helpful forum in case you need help. It'll also give a quicker head start. For DE, as people have suggested, XFCE and LXDE are good choices, you could use a window manager (such as i3wm) to try to squeeze even more out of your laptop as they will use even less resources than XFCE or LXDE. As others said, there is no such thing as a coding distro, just remember to install the packages you need and you're good to go.

>>60517 >no meme distros >proceeds to recommend EndeavourOS Most distributions (excluding Arch Linux ARM and Artix Linux) that are based on Arch are cancer. If you want Arch, install real Arch. I tried Archinstall (the official Arch Linux installer) and I found it to be more confusing than the old installation method: > https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide 0) Download the installation iso. Create installation medium: either use dd or Rufus (if on windows) and boot it. 1) Figure out what hardware you have (use dmesg, lscpu, lspci and hwinfo). What disk you want to install the distro? Use ext4 file system for everything if you have to ask. You can also use F2FS for SSDs. 2) Partition the disk (gdisk or cgdisk) and create file systems (mkfs.ext4 ... etc) You need to have ~550M EFI ESP partition that is formatted as FAT32 and create at least the root partition. You need swap partition only if you want to suspend to disk. 3) Mount the newly created file systems (mount the new / partition to /mnt, make new dirs for /boot etc) 4) (you can edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist to select the mirror) pacstrap /mnt base base-devel sudo linux linux-firmware amd-ucode intel-ucode nano man-pages man-db texinfo 5) Then arch-chroot /mnt and set the locale/keymap again: loadkeys xx or localecetl set-keymap xx /) You are now chrooted into the new system (i.e. everything you install/edit now is going to affect the new system). Now you should install important packages and configure the system so that it boots. Remember to do network configuration (install dhcpcd and enable it. use NetworkManager/Connman for wifi) and a bootloader (grub). To enable dhcpcd run ip link and: systemctl enable dhcpcd@eth0.serivce (replaced eth0 with the actual inerface). Remember to also enable NTP. 6) Once you are done, you can reboot into the newly installed system. Then continue with: >>60126 Make sure to read the official guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide >you could use a window manager (such as i3wm) to try to squeeze even more out of your laptop as they will use even less resources than XFCE or LXDE. >As others said, there is no such thing as a coding distro, just remember to install the packages you need and you're good to go. These. I recommend trying out multiple WMs (Stacking ones: IceWM and Tiling WMs: i3/i3-gaps, Bspwm and Ratpoison).

>>60517 >good luck not being able to browse the internet for the whole day as your machine struggle to compile the monster that is modern browsers. emerge firefox-bin Bloat is mainly an environment thing, not a distro one. Use a distro providing bare ISOs without any preinstalled GUI software and build your comfy low fat OS by using a WM (IceWM/WindowMaker/i3wm for beginners, cwm/bspwm/dwm/stumpwm/etc... otherwise) and try to avoid freedesktopware like flatpak, systemd or pulseaudio (pipewire is replacing it, anyway), unless you need them. About Wayland, I'd ignore it for now since the noob documentation (Gentoo and Arch wiki) is still very X11 focused, using X11 before considering WL allows noobs to actually experience some X11 features they'll lose and the Wayland ecosystem (as in: the other protocols) still is a big WIP. Some autists talked about this in the desktop thread: >>58654 >>58662

>>60536 sway is a lot less bloated, and pleasurable to use. Although some soykafware like Zoom doesn't support any other wayland implementations besides KDE and Gnome.

ChromeOS is the most secure Linux distro since all apps are sandboxed, it supports verified boot, modern exploit mitigations, and no root access without dev.

>>60128 >full disk encryption Unless you're worried about someone getting physical access to your computer (in which case you should assume your data to be lost anyway), there is nothing wrong with having /boot unencrypted

>>60558 /boot/ can't be encrypted. I mean, there is a GRUB feature for encryption, but it's always going to be weak because someoen could just modify GRUB source code and the checksums it uses to make sure it looks right. Instead typical best practice for those truly worried about physical intrusion or those spooky tools that modify the boot sector is to have your boot sector on a USB drive that you wear on a lanyard.