I see often people say that the distro you are using doesn’t matter. One can turn any distro into another. And I do not agree with that. If that was true, why do we even have so many distributions? I always said, if distros don’t matter…
- … why distro hop?
- … why don’t you use Ubuntu then?
- … why don’t you recommend Archlinux to a newcomer?
- … why don’t you use Kali Linux as a server?
- … why don’t you use Batocera or SteamOS as your daily driver?
- … why do you trust a community distro more than a corporate distro? (or vice versa)
I don’t think that distros only matter to newcomers. Maybe it matters for experienced users even more.
It all comes down to the repositories after all. Different distros have different update cycles and policies.
Oh, also some distros apply a little bit different graphics and customisation on the default setup.
After that, it is all the same. Distro choice does matter, but to the common user/newcomer is basically irrelevant.
Fun waste of time, good way to learn how to setup a Linux system by doing that repeatedly.
It’s a good system, go ahead with it. I don’t like very much their customisations, but it is cool system after all.
He will have to read through a few guides and webpages in order to get a working system, compared to reading a single webpage which explains how to flash any other distro on a usb and be done with it.
The advantage of Kali is that it is designed to live in ram and everything you do is destroyed when you switch off the computer, this is a bit of a pain in the ass if you want to run a server.
Don’t even know what those are, but pretty much because I don’t care: the system I have is good and I know there’s little difference between distros.
They’re for different purposes (mainly). Redhat provides tech support. Canonical, well I don’t know what canonical does. If you want good support for maybe a large installation with many computers, paying for red hat may very well be worth it.
I think this kind of supports his argument though, kali would make a bad server by its design. Whereas you followed that point by saying there isnt much difference in distros.
I think its just that they are designed to take some of the leg work out of set up in most instances and in others they are designed for specific uses that conflict with other uses.
Anything else that should be pointed out?
A new user will be fine with basically anything that isn’t Gentoo or with some very very specific applications.
People who have specific needs will choose a distro which makes the things they need easier. In most cases a newcomer won’t have such specific needs as to have to choose a specific distribution.
Don’t see much conflict between uses. You can use any distribution to do anything you’d do with any other.
Do you want a very stable system but rolling release with the latest updates? Not possible. Do you want a system that is flashed on ram but that will be stable with 100% uptime without ever touching it? Not possible. Do you want a super light system with the best DE animations and graphics? Not possible.
Sure those are conflicting uses, but just because you’re choosing among two opposite things.