Table of Linux Distros by Difficulty for Beginners

The outcome of discussion in the forum topic

was a table representing collective experience of forum members regarding Linux distros which are easy or difficult for beginners.
@Tech_JA suggested that we place the final table in a fresh topic where it is not buried among 130 replies. Thanks Jorge.
In future our table will be updated here.

Last revision 17/5/25

Difficulty Systemd distros Non-systemd distros
Beginner Mint
LMDE
MX/Systemd MX/sysVinit
Peppermint/Debian Peppermint/Devuan
Easy Solus
Lite
Pop!OS
Elementary
Good second try Ubuntu & variants Antix
Zorin
Ubuntu with PPA
Some experience Debian Devuan
Fedora Alpine
OpenSUSE leap Artix
OpenSUSE tumbleweed
Difficult or experimental NixOS Void
Arch without AUR Chimera
Manjaro Hyperbola
Garuda GUIX
Arch with AUR
OpenSUSE slowroll
More difficult Slackware
Requires dedication Gentoo/Systemd Gentoo/OpenRC
Pro LFS

The scale from Beginner to Pro is an attempt to group distros in a way that may help users choose their next Linux distro appropriately.
The non-systemd distros are listed separately so that difficulty of the init system does not enter into the rankings.
The markdown file that generates this table is available here
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nevillejackson/Unix/refs/heads/main/distros/hardtable.md
There may be a case to rank the BSD distros in a similar way.

8 Likes

Perhaps add hyperlinks to the web sites of each distribution ?

Get our leader to put a page up on the main site to aid others to find the info ?

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List of contributors

The following Forum members have contributed opinion or experience directly to our table

@callpaul.eu , @daniel.m.tripp , @ihasama , @Tech_JA , @xahodo , @Rosika , @ernie , @Jim2 , @Sheila_Flanagan , @Daniel_Phillips ,

Not in any particular order.
If I missed anyone , apologies , and please correct me.

5 Likes

An interesting metric might be some measure of Terminal usage.

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Going from not needed to use exclusively?
Know where I stand on that, give me a mouse or trackpad anytime

There may be some app that will log terminal usage vs mouse ?
Can anyone find such an app?

1 Like

What I mean is, a lot of beginners are used to Windows and have never, or seldom used a terminal, and some distributions are more likely to require terminal activity. Advanced users are very comfortable with terminal work. So I would think looking at a certain distribution, one might say "This one is pretty advanced because for installation, or setup, or operation, it expects the user to be well accustomed to operating from the terminal, and some familiarity with Linux configuration files, etc. whereas this other one is OK for beginners because you can install it, customize it, and connect your peripherals, and so on, and do that all with a GUI interface. Forgive me if I have a misconception, because I have never used an “advanced” distribution.

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OK , I get it.
I think the way we have ranked distros largely reflects that… the ones that are easy tend to provide GUI tools for common admin operations so the user can avoid CLI. Mint and MX are obvious examples of distros loaded with tools. Void and Gentoo are the opposite… no GUI tools at all.

CLI is not the only aspect of difficulty… some package systems are more diffucult than apt, and some distro communities are more helpful than others. Install procedures also vary in difficulty..

There is a challenge.
If you take it up, try a moderate one like Antix first.
That is what the table is about… choosing a next step up.( or down depending on your viewpoint)

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I’d suggest Pop! OS with Gnome in the second tier, alongside Ubuntu with Gnome

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Hi Cliff,
Thanks.
I had PopOS in an old list

Mint
LMDE
MX/Systemd
Peppermint/Debian
.....
Solus
Pop!_OS
Elementary
......
Ubuntu (and variants)
Ubuntu with PPA
......
Fedora 
Debian
OpenSUSE (tumbleweed or leap)
.....
NixOS
Arch without AUR
Manjaro
Arch with AUR
.......
Gentoo/Systemd

and it seems to have been lost. Will fix. … all updates are in first reply.
Seem to have lost Elementary too.
I am keeping DE’s out of it for now.
Regards
Neville
Update: its done… look at reply#1. I moved Solus too…not quite beginner grade.

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I thought someone had mentioned Sparky, but do not see it on the list. There are others not listed here. Are we going for all Linux or just mainstream?

What about Bodhi & Q4OS? I know those are rare in general online community forums, but I have both installed on multi-boot machines. They are nice and great for old hardware.

I just installed Nitrux on a learning machine. Haven’t really gotten into it yet, but I would put it up there with NixOS as far as difficulty; it is an immutable distro with a different package manager (sudo nuts update) so not sure how those play into difficulty. VanillaOS 2, another immutable one?

Just throwing out some I see missing. There are others, but they have not been mentioned, as far as I know.

Sheila

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I had a go at Nitrux in a VM. Have not done anything with it yet.

We cant do everything.
One limitation is I wanted distros that members have had experience with…it is supposed to be our collective assessment.
Will include something if someone says they have used it and can rate it.

Thanks
Neville

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Decent list. I have tried Mint about 8 years ago and currently use POP-os since 2021. It has been good to me and I have no reason to change or explore anything else. I can use the terminal if I have to and have been able to overcome any problems. Thanks.

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Almost a week ago, I noticed a link to this thread has been created by a member on the linux.org forum.

Quite a few replies and it’s ongoing, just thought others here may want to view it.

https://www.linux.org/threads/table-of-linux-distros-by-difficulty-for-beginners.56818/

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Thanks, I had a look.
Quite a range of opinions were expressed… that is OK, we cant expect everyone to concur because people’s experiences vary.
At least we documented our consensus.

I was surprised at the standard of comment on Linux.org. I think our standard is better but that may be a biased view.

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Referring to OLD hardware ,I have LM22.1 installed on a AD2009 ASUS -F3E laptop , having replaced the spinning HD by a SSD.
System is running well.

Frank in county Wicklow -Ireland

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I think OLD hardware suitability is a different question to difficulty for beginners.
What matters is

  • having the drivers for old hardware
  • size, especially memory usage
  • speed , ie remove unneeded services, use efficient apps, prune the kernel
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