When I first began researching Linux, for my needs, I found the number of different Distros to be overwhelming. So I made this flow chart, with the intent to help new users find a starting point for choosing a distribution.
I’m open to critique, as to making this chart as helpful as possible.
EDIT: Chart updated based on suggestions in the comments.
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Seems good to my use cases.
Hmmm didn’t even realize OpenSUSE Slowroll was a thing. Kind of an intriguing idea. I looked into and read somewhere it’s in the experimental stage. Is that still true or is that outdated information?
I’d say NixOS is as minimal as arch
I guess it can go both ways, but I’d probably put nixos under minimal and experienced branch
This is amazing! Great work!(InstallGentoo)
I noticed Bassite is repeated on there a lot. They’ve been having a lot of marketing lately.
Is that some fishing supply shop?
Speech to text. I meant bazzite.
I am not too fond of this chart, because EndeavourOS (yes it is 99 % Arch, but beginner friendly) is missing and I think it overcomplicates things. This creates the impression that you need a specialist distribution fox task x, while you can, in reality user most distributions for nearly every task.
Still, this is a cool effort and a contribution to the fediverse, so still an upvote.
It is there: No, No, Bleeding Edge, No
Pretty decent, but there’s a few things I think should be improved:
- Logos !!!
- Instead of having a chain of distros as an answer, make a nice group and don’t point towards any one of them. I’m still trying to figure out if you have some sort of ranking going on.
- The split after “Windows or Mac? -> Mac -> <similar> or <similar and user friendly>” is weird and should probably be a question and differently phrased.
- Immutability is misspelled and not explained. The gradient also makes it looks more special than the others (while it’s just a difference). Maybe an asterisk with an explanation at the bottom would be better for this.
- At one point you use “Please” instead of “Yes”. I understand the joke, but people who could actually use this flowchart might not.
- SteamOS is not a viable distro choice. (For now at least) I would suggest removing it until it actually becomes one.
- “Are you a developer” has 4 answers but could be split into “Yes” and “No” with their own GPU questions.
- White on yellow/orange is hard to read.
- White on pink is readable but could be made easier to read.
- Maybe a better font would great too
- You could also add some Lemmy/Reddit/forum URLs where users could get Linux help.
- You could also add some information like “Just looking for a Linux laptop? Buy System76” or something (I’m not up to date with decent Linux laptop vendors)
You are open to critique so I hope you don’t mind this many points.
One addition: On the right, “A computer from this decade?” — I think this can easily be widened to “A computer older than 15 years?” (swapping “yes” & “no”, of course). The laptop on my lap is exactly 10 years old, wasn’t high end back then, and runs OpenSUSE with KDE easily. Well, in all fairness, it’s now got 12 GB RAM, but that’s mostly for development purposes. Perhaps one could ask directly: “At least 8 GB RAM?”
My 10 year old laptop runs Ubuntu well. Except for sound which I don’t need anyways.
Good point. I’ll add a note about RAM.
Thank you.
I’ve made changes based on your input and will update the chart soon.
No Guix
@nephew@lemmy.ca what is your license for this image? I would like to use it in my university.
Linux Distribution Flowchart For Beginners © 2025 by Nephew is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
This is actually really thoughtful.
Phew! Made it to my distro.
I like your approach in that they don’t all just flow to the same 2 distros and there are multiple options at the end of most lines. It’s also quite readable. I do think there’s even more room to just try stuff out though, distros are not particularly rigid, certainly not when you’re first trying them out and you don’t know the differences.
I happily use MXLinux to game on new(not so new now I suppose) hardware, run a media box, and on a couple work/school laptops for example. It’s just what I tried and felt cozy with after I got angry with windows and mint. I’m sure other distros are technically better for my uses but nothing I’ve tried has really been so much better to justify the switch.
You shall not advice to indulge in NixOS nor Gentoo. These take root in forbidden scripts, one must walk these depths of their own volition completely, clean of else’s influence. Us tell such atrocities exist and share the way we use them, but never condemn one to do so as well.
nix, I understand. But gentoo is superb for learning and those looking to learn. Wait were you just trying to entice people with the ‘don’t eat of the forbidden fruit’ stuff? I really don’t even know what the last line means though–surely there was a typo
There is no typo. I’m not telling not to use them, I’m telling not to recommend them. Especially on a chart that mostly targets beginners. The audience that wants to learn the ways of Linux to such an extent will find LFS eventually. Having distros that solve clearly non-beginner problems in a chart like this is harmful in my opinion.
A nice idea, but the whole image could be replaced with “Just use Mint”.
Whats the difference between Mint and Mint XFCE?
My understanding is XFCE is a lighter-weight desktop environment than the Cinnamon desktop environment used in the standard Mint distribution. That makes XFCE better suited for older or lower-resource hardware.
XFCE stands for “extra fresh” mint.
The different desktop environments. Really basically described as the interface, XFCE is a very lightweight one, whereas mint is MATE, and mint cinnamon is… cinnamon which are each different from each other (I don’t know I’ve never used them for long enough to find out)
Mate, the great thing about Linux is it isn’t just one thing. I love Mint, but I think it’s great that people who like different things can get what they like, too. In fact I want those folks not to use it. If everyone used Mint, it would just become another Windows (or maybe RedHat would be a better parallel).
Having options means everyone is pushed to improve. Consolidation means ossification.
That said, Mint rocks and people should use it—if they want.
Another Windows (XP) would a strong positive if we could get to that level of market dominance. It means OEMs and hardware makers will target that OS for compatibility. It means software devs will write software targeting that OS and tell people that they’re doing so. And it’s not about just writing for “Linux”, not even “Debian Linux”, but for “Mint” specifically. That way we have less stuff like Waydroid that’s definitely written for Linux, but not for Mint. Centralization and accessibility are incredibly important.
If I want my GPU supported without having to use level not parameters to boot and without manually installed drivers, Mint isn’t going to work
(I know because I couldn’t tolerate the restrictions of bazzite which was the default for my machine, so I installed Mint 22.1, it wouldn’t boot successfully. I added the nomodeset (noModeSet) kernel parameter at the boot menu to get the computer booted, then had to download and install the drivers)
People on new high performance hardware might find that all difficult
