I’ve been working and testing to switch my main PC (used for work like audio recording, music, and general multimedia) and have been playing with Ubuntu Studio on my laptop. Loving it so far but I keep seeing people talk about CachyOS, Bazzite, or the new Debian Trixie.

I’m having trouble finding what’s really different about all these distros aside from how they look or slight changes in how they do things (I know Ubuntu Studio has a low latency kernel which seems important for what I need to do). Is there a big difference? Like, if I go with Ubuntu Studio am I gonna end up wiping everything and installing CachyOS or Bazzite or something in a month because it’s better? Or are all these distros basically the same thing with a different look and feel and as long as I choose one that gets regular updates, it doesn’t matter fundamentally?

I’m trying to grasp the Linux concept but being a Windows user my whole life I’m struggling to ‘get it’. Instead of trying to understand in the contex of Windows or Mac, is a better comparison Apple/Android? Like iPhones would be similar to both Mac and Windows (you don’t get to choose much) and Android would be Linux (I know it’s built on it haha) and it’s really just a bunch of different options to do the same thing?

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    7 days ago

    You’re on the right track. Linux technically refers to the kernel, the low-level core of the operating system that everything else interacts with and is built on top of. Distros are just collections of components that have been standardized by some group or company.

    Linux Mint is heavily customized Ubuntu with a different DE and all of Connonical’s stuff removed. Nobara is a gaming-focused distro built on Fedora with a bunch of kernel modifications and pre-installed software to help games run better. CatchyOS is just Arch but with a really friendly installer that allows less advanced users to still enjoy many of the heavy customizations and cutting-edge software of Arch, etc etc.

    Think of it like an engine. You can use the same engine in a bunch of different vehicles. You can also make modifications to the engine itself, but it will still essentially be the same engine.

    The #1 rule for new Linux users, especially ones who aren’t interested in becoming power users or tinkering with their OS, is if you’re happy with your distro, stick with it.

    There’s no objective “correct” distro. The best distro for you is the distro that works and you feel comfortable with.

    Lots of new users become worried that they are missing out on some major improvement in their experience of Linux or feel like they picked the “wrong” distro because some random user dissed it. Don’t pay attention to that, if your distro does everything you need it to do and you enjoy using it, there’s no reason to go looking for something better.

    Now of course, there’s nothing wrong with checking out other distros, and if you are somebody who likes to tinker with your setup and doesn’t mind risking breaking things sometimes, then by all means, distro hop away. Almost all distros have a “live boot” option, which allows you to test the OS off of a flash drive without having to install it on your computer. It’s a great way to quickly get the look and feel for a new distro without having to commit.

    And of course, there are tons of Linux YouTubers who do reviews of distros, so you can watch those to also get an idea of the different options out there.

    Because of the nature of FOSS and the linux ecosystem, you can make most distros look and feel just like any other, so that’s always an option too.

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 days ago

      This helps a lot, thank you. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed about making sure I pick the best distro and there’s a lot of info bombardment. Additionally, I love this stuff so I know in a couple months there’s a good chance I’ll want to use another distro and I don’t want to wipe everything again haha.

      I use my PC for work, freelance audio production, voiceover, music, etc. I’ve been testing Ubuntu Studio on my laptop and it seems to be going ok so far (learning curve and lack of software aside) but I keep seeing people shoot down Ubuntu. Everyone seems to be talking about Bazzite and CachyOS but honestly I’m getting the impression they don’t use Linux for much more than just gaming.

      It all feels a little gate-keepy in ways and I got overwhelmed haha. Think I’ll just keep chipping away with Ubuntu Studio and see if it’ll do the trick for my main PC. Thanks again.

      • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        I used Ubuntu Studio many years ago when I was going through an electronica phase lol. It worked fine for me.

        Don’t sweat it, there will always be the hot new distros on the block. Right now it’s Bazzite, CatchyOS, and NixOS, back in the day there was Garuda, Arco Linux, Bunsen, MX Linux, and a ton of others. Some are still around, some are long gone. Doesn’t mean they are bad distros, many of them are/were great, but don’t choose a distro just because everybody is talking about it.

        Plus, as you get more experience with Linux, the differences matter less and less. There are only a handful of package managers, and unless you have some very specific technical requirements, they all do the same thing and work the same way.

        “apt install firefox” becomes “yum install firefox”, or “pacman -S firefox” it’s all pretty much the same under the hood.

        And if you use KDE Plasma on different distros, the Discover store works the same across distros, same with any other GUI package installer.

        If you keep getting better and get into home lab building or just have several different computers, you might end up using a bunch or distros at the same time on different machines.

        Right now across all my physical computers and virtual machines in my home lab, I currently have 9 different distros installed on various machines. Different distros for different purposes.

        My general #JustWorks laptops and VMs use Linux Mint, my hardcore gaming rig uses Nobara, my test junker laptops run Debian 13, Void Linux, and Arch for testing random software and messing around. For my Docker containers, I run Debian 12 as the base, for my Minecraft server, Ubuntu Server, my Steam Deck is SteamOS which is just Valve’s heavily modified spin of Arch, and my main lab’s Type-1 hypervisor is XCP-ng, which is basically Fedora under the hood.

  • JTskulk@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 days ago

    These days the things that really differentiate distros are: installer, default desktop environment, packaging, packages.

  • Green Wizard@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    7 days ago

    IMO distros are just “how little work do I need to do before I get this to work the way I like?” You can make any distro work practically the same if you want it to.

  • Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    6 days ago

    Been using Linux for 20+ years, and I’ve found it is the Desktop Environment that matters the most to me. It is the part with which I have daily contact. I have a PC running Debian, another running Fedora, a laptop with openSUSE, all with the same DE. My wife runs PCLOS with a different DE on her laptop, so I instantly revert to the CL rather than spend time searching for stuff.

    • Jason@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      I’m in the same boat as OP. I just don’t understand why one distro over another. I guess the next questions would be - what made you choose Debian for one PC and Fedora for the other? Do you find that openSUSE works better on a laptop than other distros? If the experience is the same, why not have them all the same distro? Do you just choose a distro on a whim? Roll a dice? Flip a coin?

      • Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        My Fedora PC was 8 years old so the wife bought me a new box for my birthday. I loaded Debian on a whim and now I’m too lazy to switch to Fedora. The laptop has always been my experimental machine where I try different distros. The wife first started her Linux journey with PCLOS/KDE and sees no reason to switch.

  • JamBandFan1996@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 days ago

    From a new users perspective, a lot of the main ones will probably feel very similar and the main difference you’d notice is stability and compatibility. Don’t overwhelm yourself with choices, just choose a easy to use, high user base, well supported distro to start on (Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint) and if you don’t like it move to something else later

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      6 days ago

      Appreciate it. I’ve decided to stick with Ubuntu Studio as long as I can duplicate my workflow before I make the switch. Think I got into my own head and indecision took over haha.

      • relativestranger@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        ‘decision anxiety’ is definitely real. there’s literally too many choices and different ways to deliver the same end result.

        ubuntu studio is an excellent choice for your use case. you just gotta jump in with both feet

  • j_anthemion@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 days ago

    IMO, coming from the systems administration side of Linux, the most significant difference was package management and availability.

    RedHat and clones were very conservative and focused on services like web, database, etc. With IBM purchasing RHEL, many switched to Ubuntu. Ubuntu is also favored by devs because the packages were more up to date.

    • biocoder.ronin@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      Hi, request for comment: how do you feel about GNU guix? Is this the future of package management we wanted?

      I’ve used RedHat and Ubuntu and Arch primarily because of the package ecosystem, and security is definitely major concern for most sysadmins (I am not one).

      Is guix going to be the future? Thanks

  • Squizzy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    As someone completely new and stupid it feels like the desktop environment is the only difference I will ever notice. I was just about to move to bazzite and poke around until I realised the example and what I was picturing were just gnome.

    At least I know im stupid.

    • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      There are some major differences starting to stir. I.E atomic distros Nixos and guix. But beyond that it’s all package manager differences. Some less popular OSs will have different init systems but that’s really about it

    • Pika@rekabu.ru
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      Nah, it’s a mature take. Desktop environment means more for everyday user experience than the distro choice.

      I have OpenSUSE Slowroll on one machine and EndeavourOS on the other. Both have KDE installed with exactly the same configuration. Aside from package management and other technicalities, the experience is 100% identical.

  • Pika@rekabu.ru
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    6 days ago

    Fundamentally, they’re all the same and they all are Linux. As long as you use the same desktop environment (KDE, GNOME, you name it) across different distros, you may not notice a single difference in your experience.

    That’s not to say there are no differences, but for someone just dipping their toes into the Linux world, the main piece of advice is not to stress that too much.

    Ubuntu is a fine distro choice - there are controversies, and it is arguably not the best at X, Y or Z, but it’s well-rounded, stable, and user-friendly, which is all that novice user needs.

    Of course, if you want, you can always explore other options and see what’s absolute best for you - this kind of thing is called distro-hopping. Start with something Ubuntu-based for familiar experience (Linux Mint is a common recommendation, if you don’t mind Cinnamon desktop), check out Debian as this is what Ubuntu is based on, and then try Fedora, OpenSUSE and stuff. After gaining experience with these, you can explore Arch and derivatives, such as CachyOS, EndeavourOS etc.

    But again, if what you have works for you - you’re not missing out on anything special. What you have is true, real, actual Linux experience, and there’s no best way to approach it.

  • Xatolos@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    7 days ago

    It’s the difference between Windows 11, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 for Enterprise, and Windows Server 2025.

    There are differences, but not dramatic differences. Some are just better tuned to certain users than others.

  • Wren@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    6 days ago

    Really they all work the same as long as they’re based on the same OS. I’ve done a lot of distro hopping and the only real difference I’ve seen is the desktop environment, package managers(sometimes), and pre-installed applications.

    Even then, all of these can be changed. I would suggest picking a distro that best suits your needs by default and then add what you need from there.

    I personally have been really happy with Linux Mint.

  • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    7 days ago

    The better comparison is that distros are the operating systems (like “windows”, “macos”, and “android”), while “linux” is the kernel under the hood that end users likely never interact with (like “NT”, “XNU”, and…“linux”).

    A distro represents an intended user experience. If you want a distro that has an intended user experience that is similar to windows, go with Mint or OpenSUSE. If your desired experience is like the SteamDeck, install bazzite (with an AMD GPU ideally). If that’s all you care to know, then that’s all you need to know; go use your new system how you would any other.

    But if you want to dig deeper, yeah, the fact that all the distros are based on linux (and more importantly, are posix compatible) means that a lot of the software is portable across distros. But that doesn’t mean your experience on all distros will be the same. Different distros organize their filesystems differently, they might ship with different versions of core utilities based on the stability testing they’ve done, and they likely offer varying means of installing and managing new packages.

    The tl;dr is, go use one distro, and then later try doing the same stuff in a different distro, and inevitably at some point you’ll go “oh, this didn’t work exactly how I expected because the other distro I’m used to handles this differently”. That’s the difference.

  • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    7 days ago

    First thing to consider is they all use the same Desktop Environments.

    Unlike Windows, in Linux the “graphic” is completely separated from the operating system, any DE can be uses on any distro, so trying different distros that come with the same DE, might make you think there’s very little difference (at first look).

    Second, almost all distros are derivatives, that contributes to make them feel similar. The original ones are just a bunch: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, SuSe, Arch, Gentoo, everything else is based either on one of those or on another derivative, if your curious you can have a look at this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg.
    So for example, if you take Ubuntu and Mint, they might look similar because Mint is based on Ubuntu.

    If you want to see the real differences, you need to look at the original ones, the core differences are: the way software is packaged and managed, and the “philosophy” behind the way the system is overall administered, maintained and released.

    Derivatives add differences to the user experience, they main reason they’re created is someone is not completely happy with the way a distro does things and they create one the meets their needs, for example, Debian is improved dramatically on the user experience lately, but many years ago was quite arduous to setup and use for non-experts, so Ubuntu was born.

    Now to answer you question

    as long as I choose one that gets regular updates, it doesn’t matter fundamentally?

    It does matter, tho it’s not as much world-changing as some people seem to think (especially when it comes to gaming).

    The most important things are support for your hardware and easy of administration/use. Most distros will recognize and setup your hardware out of the box, but some might require tinkering or extra steps. Some distros automate almost everything so the user doesn’t need to think about it, others require more knowledge and more manual intervention, you have a much finer control of your system this way at the expense of some user friendliness, it’s up to you to decide what you prefer.

    Then it comes the Desktop Environment, different DEs do things differently, which one to choose is totally personal preference.

    As for software, unless you go after some niche obscure distro, you shouldn’t have problems finding it in the distro repositories. For edge cases you can always use Flatpaks or AppImages.

  • pineapple@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    7 days ago

    I don’t think there is really too much difference either. Mainly the package manager is the main difference I guess. There are a lot of other differences but if you don’t really care about it then it doesn’t really matter.

    The desktop environment makes a much bigger difference than the distro.

  • daggermoon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 days ago

    Just pick something with KDE Plasma and you’ll be fine. Cachy, Debian, and Bazzite are all good.

    • Pika@rekabu.ru
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      I would actually recommend against Cachy, as it is not very friendly out of the box.

      Decent choice, but not for a novice user. Still, can be turned into same thing as everything else.

  • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    68
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 days ago

    I’ve said it here before and I’ll continue to say it. All the Linux nerds (myself included) have strong opinions when it comes to distros or x vs Wayland, or flatpak vs repositories, blah blah blah.

    But in the end - none of it matters. You could randomly eliminate all options except for one distro - and we’d happily pick that over windows. The trick is that you could make any distro like any other - it’s just that the distro did all the work for you. So pick the one that matches how you want to use your pc.

    Maybe the only thing that’s not changeable is the philosophy behind the distro. Debian - older stuff for stability. Arch - bleeding edge rolling release. Fedora somewhere in the middle. You get the idea.

    • edel@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      8 days ago

      “Debian - older stuff for stability. Arch - bleeding edge rolling release. Fedora somewhere in the middle.” Very true. I would add that then there are a bunch of others that fill the gaps in between. For instance, Ubuntu makes Debian easier and Mint makes Ubuntu more open and TuxedoOS makes Debian/Ubuntu far more up-to-date. Then, CachyOS makes Arch more easy and gamable while Manjaro tries to make Arch more stable. Fedora is a perfect blend but those those that have a beef against Redhat/IBM (USA), OpenSUSE is a perfect blend too of the philosophies of Debian and Arch.

      • seralth@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 days ago

        Arch is also just becoming the standard gaming option.

        A lot of gaming communities that are migrating over are flowing to the aur for their community tools.

        • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          7 days ago

          A lot of gaming communities that are migrating over are flowing to the aur for their community tools.

          Wasn’t there malware found in the AUR just last week?

          For Linux newbs, AUR is the Arch User Repository where anyone can post packages and scripts. It’s highly recommended to NOT trust anything on there due to the risk of malware. If you don’t use Arch and stick to your distro’s application manager you don’t have to worry about it

    • tyler@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 days ago

      For me it mattered. The majority of distros I tested have had audio or graphical issues (or both). Only bazzite and cachyos have worked straight out of the box.

    • sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 days ago

      I think Fedora KDE is very refined but I stick to Ubuntu bases as there are some little known programs that I use that only have .deb packages unfortunately