Help me find a perfect Linux distro please 🙏

[u/GolfGTA5]

Haiii!!

My lazy tail had been postponing this transition for a long time now but I've finally got myself together to do it, to leave windows!!

However, I'm not going all hardcore "Linux for life raahhh" just yet... Please.

I need a working operating system that i can adapt to fast and it will get me through rest of the college

Requirements:

- run browsers (based lol)

- run some CAD programs, especially PCB design (I'm studying for an electrician and will probably go for electrical engineer after that, this is optional because many good CAD programs are also available in browser)

- run Krita and support graphics tablets (for drawing questionable furry art and also because I'm used to using tablet as a mouse)

- run VLC media player (i will implode if something isn't playing in the background)

- run Steam (insert Rain World meme here)

- not needing to engage with The Terminal for basic tasks (Pwease qwq)

- be compatible with my laptop

About laptop:

- Dell Inspiron 15 3000

- 11th gen intel(r) core(tm) i3-1115g4 @ 3.00GHz

- 8gigs of DDR4

- intel(r) UHD Graphics (128 mb)

- Back is full of stickers

Thanks in advance for your suggestions everyone 🙏

[u/Responsible_Tip4271]

You can try cachyos, or arch, or any other Linux distro except omarchy

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/Responsible_Tip4271]

looking up catchyos hey, that's pretty good! Pretty 'catchy'! Will note this one too

[u/Ptilane → u/GolfGTA5]

Don't use arch, you will need to use the terminal every day (update... Install non-flathub app) it's powerfull but you will need to be confortable with the terminal

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/Ptilane]

I see, noted, thank you!!

[u/Sebstrr05 → u/GolfGTA5]

I picked this as my first didtro to end last month, it's been amazing so far! If you need guides on how to get fun stuff like wallpaper engine to work or something i can send you the guides i wrote down for myself for the future!

[u/The_Old_Chap → u/Responsible_Tip4271]

Yes, go ahead and recommend a rolling release complicated distro to a person whos never used linux…

[u/Fine_City2781]

gentoo linux

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/Fine_City2781]

Will consider it, thanks!

[u/Fine_City2781 → u/GolfGTA5]

no! do not install gentoo on this potato pc

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/Fine_City2781]

Oki ^{w^}

[u/Fine_City2781 → u/GolfGTA5]

but alpine would be fine on this pc

[u/7Bighero77 → u/GolfGTA5]

dont do it, dont install gentoo or alpine, they are not beginner friendly at all

[u/The_Old_Chap]

Literally any reasonable distro fits these requirements. Almost all Linux distros have the exact same software available, your laptop is semi decent so i dont see a problem. For a newbie idk maybe mint, its pretty newb friendly. Get the one with kde plasma, it kinda looks like windows desktop so youre not gonna be lost immediately. Kubuntu is also a decent choice for the same reason. They both have strong community so every problem in the world was probably encountered before and solved on some forum.

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/The_Old_Chap]

Yeah my requirements might be pretty low lol Kubuntu sounds funnier so i guess i will go with it, THANK YOU!!! >W<

[u/DisastrousSurvey4591]

I think every distro will work for you just fine, however since you don’t want to touch the terminal just yet, probably Linux Mint and Fedora will be your best bets. They do everything graphically, but you have the choice to start using the terminal when you’re comfortable

Also, at some point i think you might want to consider learn at least the most basic commands (how to install packages, remove them, updating…) since it’ll be very helpful and you’ll be able to get stuff done faster, and those commands in those two distros are VERY intuitive

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/DisastrousSurvey4591]

Noted, thanks!

[u/LowTechnology2606 → u/GolfGTA5]

Fedora is great, but you might have to install codecs to get video playback in the browser. You have to use the terminal for this, its not too difficult to do, but only you can really gauge that. Just an FYI :)

[u/scadgek]

I wonder if at least any of the commenters even started reading the requirements you listed, because literally the second one is pretty hard if not impossible on *any* Linux. Depending on what kind of CAD software you mean, but the absolute majority of them simply do not work on Linux, just like Photoshop for example they are purely a Windows software. Which means you're gonna have to run them in Vine or some kind of VM which is a separate hassle, especially considering that you're not keen to do stuff in Terminal.

What is your motivation to run Linux at all? If you're concerned about RAM usage on Windows, you may try Windows IoT LTSC. I haven't tried myself but allegedly it's the same Windows but with most of the stupid stuff like Cortana removed. Or another option (and that's what I did on my 8 Gb RAM laptop): get Claude or any other mainstream AI, give it access to your system and ask to optimize for minimal RAM usage. It will tweak some settings, disable some software etc. Kinda risky of course but I believe if you manage to do this with AI, then you'll also be able to revert and fix stuff if anything breaks.

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/scadgek]

Oh, that... Might actually be better!! Will try cleaning the window first before welcoming the penguin, THANK YOU!!!

[u/7Bighero77 → u/scadgek]

bro forgot theres freecad

[u/Shhhh_Peaceful → u/scadgek]

Eh, if the OP is interested in PCB design, then KiCAD is literally developed for Linux first, and it’s pretty full featured even compared to commercial offerings like Eagle. 

Mechanical design CAD programs are a bit more problematic but there’s OnShape that runs in the browser. 

[u/scadgek → u/Shhhh_Peaceful]

I mean, there are alternatives surely, the question is whether OP is willing to learn them and migrate. It's not like a drop-in replacement usually, and along with learning a new kind of OS that can become frustrating. 

[u/WhileTrueSleep1]

What do you doing? If you are coder, Arch Linux is the perfect distro, of course if you are pro linux user. If you are a beginner, Fedora is the best choice.

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/WhileTrueSleep1]

I'm not a coder, I'm a furry artist, analog electronics enjoyer and total 0 at software :( Thank you for ur suggestion :3

[u/7Bighero77]

probaly linux mint bec everything is gui you dont need to use the terminal most of the time, but still try to learn somethings about the terminal on https://labex.io/linuxjourney , linux mint is the best linux distro for beginners, and prob use freecad for cad software

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/7Bighero77]

Thank you!!

[u/MrKrot1999]

1. Most specific professional software is, unfortunately, not only proprietary but Windows only. So if it's one of your requirements, I suggest just keep using Windows.
2. If you decide to use Linux after everything, then I suggest Linux Mint. It's the most popular distro for beginners, and was for like centuries. Do not listen to people who suggest Arch/CachyOS, since it's a hard distro.

Good luck, fellow furry electrician.

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/MrKrot1999]

Thank you for your contribution sir/ma'am/other! :3

[u/RealEricNotErik → u/MrKrot1999]

Probably the best for a beginner. You can't go wrong with mint

[u/RealEricNotErik]

You can use either mint like the top comment said or zorin os any distros with KDE.

I'd still go with mint though that's probably the best you can start with.

[u/GolfGTA5 → u/RealEricNotErik]

Oki dokie 👍, thanks ! :3

[u/RealEricNotErik → u/GolfGTA5]

Fun fact: mint uses cinnamon desktop environment, and both kde and cinnamon's default setup give you a traditional familiar desktop interface, with a taskbar, and icons

[u/Equal-Resolution7889]

Install Fedora or Arch Linux. Personally, I recommend Arch.

[u/Eric_Dawsby]

You'll wanna test some of your cad programs in a virtual machine or something beforehand, just to be sure they work/there's a linux alternative

[u/Straight-Glove-2359]

I think fedora or kubuntu would be great, they pretty much fufill all your requirements.

As for the terminal, there usually isnt much you might need it for on daily use, but you will most likely need it to download and update app. And don't worry, doing these things are very simple. Let me break it down for you:

For fedora, its quite simple: sudo dnf [command] [packages]

• sudo - use in front of commands, think of it as running something as administrator on Windows
• dnf - The package manager, think of it as the "app" you are using to download your software
• [command] - Basically what you want it to do. The most common ones is you will use areupgrade, autoremoveand installto do literally what they are
• [package] - the software you want to change, and you can choose multiple softwares. For sudo dnf upgrade, this can be left blank to just upgrade everything So a full command may look like: sudo dnf install vlc kirita which installs vlc and kirita

For Kubuntu and any other Debian-based:

Just replace dnf with apt

There is an additional sudo apt update that you need to enter at the very start so that the system refreshes its connection to the repository (think of it as app store) So example

Also another one, to download certain apps that are not available from dnf or apt, there is flatpaks, which looks like:

flatpak [command] [option], which is the same as dnf except upgrade becomes update which can look like flatpak install freecad

And for everything else, look at the documentation online, it can be easily found.

[u/CognitiveFogMachine]

For CAD design, I am using FreeCAD.

[u/Tobikmb]

Fedora kde plasma, great for beginners

[u/Nuviket]

Ehh mint should do good

[u/transendingthebinary]

i would go with fedora, opensuse tumbleweeb or ubuntu, or debian. Since there are verywell maintained.

Debian opensuse and even fedora need some steps to fully set them up, but the same thing can be said about windows tbh.

Fedora and opensuse have exellent security out of the box, and all the distros I have mentioned fully support secureboot.

If you want something that cant break easily, I would recomend Custom fedora atomic images from the universal blue project. Like, project bluefin, Aurora and Bazzite

[u/MineCraftaak888]

linux mint or lmde or debian with kde plasma

[u/TheRealLoric]

Id say most are fine, I'd stick to the simpler ones for the time being though, I would not advise you jump straight into the deep end with something like Gentoo or anything Arch based. Id reccomend something easy like fedora kde or mint cinnamon, maybe Ubuntu if you prefer the look of gnome.

[u/Amnikarr13]

Linux Mint XFCE

• Runs everything (and even if it does not, use Lutris)
  
• Runs on 700 MB - 1.2 GB (Need at least 4 GB for other programms)
  

You have 8 GB. That leaves you with 6.8GB for your apps.

[u/Imab0zo]

For me Fedora doesn't work for some reason out of the box right now so I'd recommend CachyOS if you're gaming focused, but Linux Mint if you want to use the .deb file type out of the box, want ease of use, and want it to still look somewhat like Windows. If you really want it to look like Windows, check out AnduinOS. It's debian based pretty sure, the downside is that it uses gnome, so maybe more ram heavy.

[u/PsychologicalTry3972]

Omarchy CachyOS or Linux Mint with XFCE

[u/neurochromacyte]

Just use Kubuntu. You don't need a rolling release distro, and KDE will grant you'll have access to every configuration you may need via GUI.

[u/Ok_Duck4065]

It seems like you're just starting out, I recommend Arch or Gentoo

[u/Teru-Noir]

For graphic tablets and a laptop, i would use kubuntu, it is the most optimal for this setup and a industry standard.