Top 5 Distro Picks YouTube video from InfinitelyGalactic

[Jason]

Happened on this 14 minute video where the presenter gives what I thought were some surprising picks for 2018. Has some great distro previews in it.

What do you think? Which ones have you tried? And what are your picks for 2018?

[ssfc72]

Yep, an excellent video.

The young presenter sounds like a Brit and does a super job with his presentation. An excellent speaker, he should be working in the television/news industry, if he isn't already doing so.

I will probably try some of his recommendations.

[Jason]

I didn't know Deepin was so polished and was surprised to see a thumbs-up to Fedora - had no idea it has such great hardware support.

[fox]

Most of his choices were based on good design and aesthetics. Deepin especially looks very polished. Like Jason, I was surprised about the hardware support in Fedora. I may try it to see if it will support deep sleep on my laptop. That is if MX doesn't.

[buster]

Tried Fedora again because of his recommendation. My observations:

1. Fedora Cinnamon is lacking in downloadable programs. Very attractive.Worked hard to get ExtemeTuxRacer and Kpat for my usual tests, but failed. Even used (shudder) the command line, and typed and stuff.  I think it's just the Cinnamon spin which isn't as developed as some others.

2. Fedora Gnome (the default) I find unpleasant because I find no comfort in the Gnome desktop environment. Someone who uses it daily would have to test it. Not that I didn't try it, but it didn't visit my house for long.

3. Fedora KDE is a winner. The setup is not for beginners, and involves chasing around with the command line to get codecs and freer repositories. I could live with this one, and in fact do some of the time.

In general the install is very nice. Quite pretty for those who care about these things. But the work needed to set up some of the functions that I need after the install  because it's in virtual was tedious.

Summary: Seems like a stable, attractive system, but in my opinion, it's for seasoned Linux users, at least during the setup.

[buster]

Here is my Fedora KDE, simple and clean. Pretty nice as a virtual actually.

[Jason]

I love that you put a shortcut to Konsole on the desktop to impress us ;-)

I like Plasma (KDE is the company that makes it) because of its look. I'm not so impressed with the applications that come with it but Konsole and Kate are good And Plasma has a notification that works with Chrome. I also think Dolphin is a much more complete file manager than you find with Gnome Shell.

Regarding Fedora's mention in the video, I don't think he was suggesting these distros as best for beginners just the notable ones for Linux users and Fedora specifically because of it's hardware support and vanilla Gnome Shell. I don't think a distro that requires you having to figure out how to get codecs to even play mp3s is for beginners either.

[fox]

....
I'm not so impressed with the applications that come with it but Konsole and Kate are good
....

I agree with Jason. Konsole and Kate are both as functional as Terminal and Gedit in Gnome, but I don't care for most of the other "K" apps.

[buster]

I assumed that most of us only used default software if we liked it. I spend the first while after an install getting what I'm used to. Dolphin I like, and Clementine, but I always have to download qBittorent, and sometimes Firefox and Thunderbird with some distros. And other programs as needed.

And a comment on codecs. With OpenSUSE you find the maintained web page, click a button and it gets done. With some the button is on the welcome screen. With one it's in the menu. BUT... the way to get the codecs with Fedora involves a search to get the correct page on the web, which isn't as easy as it sounds, and then to use the command line, and then to find the software which actually works with the codecs and film you wish to view. You might be lucky first time. But when i said it's not for beginners, I meant (though I managed) it's not meant for me either. It's for puzzle solvers who like jigsaw puzzles with thousands of pieces, which when put together, produce an abstract painting.

[Jason]

I assumed that most of us only used default software if we liked it. I spend the first while after an install getting what I'm used to. Dolphin I like, and Clementine, but I always have to download qBittorent, and sometimes Firefox and Thunderbird with some distros. And other programs as needed.

Sure, but it's nice if a desktop comes with mostly apps that you actually like otherwise you spend time removing them, or at least I do. I don't keep an software on my system that doesn't serve a purpose.

Keep in mind that I like Plasma - I'm using Kubuntu 18.10 on a daily basis. And back in the day when it was known as KDE and version 2s and 3, I used to use almost all the KDE apps - I actually browsed the web using Konqueror and even used its FTP features to transfer files as well as having it as a file manager. I used to use KMail too and loved it. Now I find KMail and a bit unstable at least with handling Google Mail which other email clients have handled fine.

[buster]

I like KDE and Plasma over the years too Jason, though I like Xfce more than I use to.

Anyway, I put Deepin into virtual because it was one of the recommendations. Easy but long install. Very attractive. Easy to use. And one of its best features in my opinion is the access to all the apps you need for fixing, enhancing, modifying your Deepin that shows up on the right when you click the icon . This shows on the right of the picture included.

It's well worth installing just to see a different, but pleasant, approach to designing a desktop environment. Nothing much to do after the install. Even drag and drop works between guest and host with no tweaking.

[buster]

Another picture of Deepin showing the care they take with such little things as desktop art. I remember one of my SUSE installs gave me one, as in "1"' wallpaper, and it was a drawing of a light bulb. (But Suse does take care of the big issue items!)

[Jason]

Lovely desktop.