I'm working on a distro recommendation flowchart/ list for newcomers and need your input please! (Post is not only this picture btw and is mainly text)

This is unreadable on a light background.

"Use anything" is unhelpful for people who are looking for specific recommendations.

Mentioning other nodes goes against the whole point of a flow chart. Use the arrows.

I feel like this should be more about DE choice than distro.

I'm sorry if that's harsh, but my feedback would be: drop that chart!

It's daunting, it's going to freak out many newbies. Too much choice kills the choice.

You have one "default" at the bottom, Mint, so stick to that. Tell the newbies they can switch anytime to something else once they're a bit more comfortable with the Linux-world. And if I'm not mistaken, you can install and try the main DEs with Mint also. Or you can recommend Ubuntu, or any other newbie friendly distro. Just pick one and don't lose them over what they could see as an important difficult decision before they even get started.

A few suggestions:

• Start with a question of the user's technical proficiency. This is probably the biggest deciding factor for picking a distro, since some lean heavily toward technically-adept audiences and some are designed for people who've never used a computer before.

• Include questions on device type, such as desktop/laptop. Using Linux on a laptop typically requires more research.

• Instead of asking about Windows specifically, maybe ask "which OS are you most comfortable with?" with arrows for different versions of Windows, macOS, iOS, Android (and even Linux?).

• Make every endpoint self-contained and unambiguous, with at least one concrete recommendation. Avoid vague statements like "use what you want", and avoid referring to other branches of the flowchart. If it makes sense to converge with other branches, use a labelled arrow to point to that branch instead (this will probably require curve support in your design tool to be legible).

• Write each box in the form of a question, and label the arrows with answers to that question. I honestly have no idea how to read the "gaming focused" box because it has two bullet points and no indication of what each arrow means. I also can't tell how to read the "general purpose/gaming" box without reading down both paths. And why does the Bazzite box point to popOS? What does this mean? Clearer labels would help.

• The red endpoints on the left could be in a single box, since they follow the same path. Alternatively, add more questions to that path to meaningfully differentiate each option. Same with the two clusters of blue endpoints on the right.

• Be more explicit in the terms for use cases, since "general purpose" is a bit vague (I would consider gaming to fall under "general purpose", myself). You could have paths for e.g. "web browsing and office work", "gaming", "media creation", "software development or scientific computing". Some of these paths might converge later, and that's okay.

• Move the "This is too complicated" box up top. It's funny and probably more useful there as a kind of "TL;DR". Since it's not related to Nvidia, its current placement is odd.

You need to seriously up the contrast on those colors. Pink text on a slightly lighter pink text block is virtually unreadable.

I think beginners spend too much time and effort on the "choose a distro" quest. Choosing a DE is far more important than that.

I can't read some text on there, you should make the image have a background since, at least my browser (firefox) seems to default to white for PNGs

I don’t have any specific beef with your chart but I do feel like we sometimes do a disservice to newbies by focusing on distros rather than the main desktop environments and what differentiates them. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend basically any of the Fedora spins or Debian-based distros to beginners.

The choice between KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon, etc. is much more consequential for a new user than DNF vs. Apt (especially in the Flatpak era).

People who think its too complicated won't make it to the bottom of the flow chart.

tl;Dr needs to go at the top, not the bottom. That's the point. They won't make it to the bottom.

while i find the colours you chose appealing, a bunch of the font colours are too close to stand out well over their backgrounds? there are a few that are genuinely hard to read-- some better contrast would help a lot also, the vertical column is a bit weird to follow? like, what's the process of going down after being asked about windows versions to get to gaming preference? it's a weird way to have the path work. even if you just put something like "i don't particularly care about windows" as the third option would help a little, i think?

sorry that's mostly about your graphic, and not the actual recommendations, lol

Debian and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed should be in there somewhere.

You forgot "I want those cool socks" for arch Linux :P.

I think it's also worth noting that not everyone's coming to Linux for an easy time. Or essentially sometimes people are looking for the full experience like I did when I was younger. So it might be worth including path ways for those who want to compile everything themselves or even run so minimalist they essentially just using a terminal.

Instead of "use anything" you could put in "Debian."

Is your computer weird or old (<x86-64v1, arm, etc) branch.

You’d be amazed how many 32 bit systems or core systems are out there. People have tons of arm shit now too…

sorry if this is harsh but this seems like kind of a waste of time when distrochooser.de exists? I think it'd make a ton of sense to link that in the sidebar but a wall of text (or a huge flow chart) is just gonna be skipped by the type of people who are asking what distro to use first instead of researching it themselves anyway. if someone's asking in a forum like Lemmy or even in discord servers, they usually just want quick answers. if we're gonna link them something instead of just saying "mint" or whatever, it should at least be something easily digestible like distrochooser.de

My prefered OS is missing. Must be a bug. Plz add NixOS kthx

Here's a revised flowchart for you:

• You need professional software like MS Word, Autodesk, Adobe, NI Circuit Design for collaboration with others > Stick with windows;
• Any other case > Install Debian + GNOME + Software as Flatpaks. You'll get a rock solid system with the latest software;

Done.

BTW you got a bunch of weird distros no one has heard of and you don't have the champion of distros. "Do you know how to read and follow directions and do you like the stack overflow answers that are the shortest -> arch"

What do you think about something like this? It's more of a "build your own sandwich" approach.

ZorinOS

I think, for people who don't like change, it's great, but it can be very outdated. What's your opinion on that distro? It looks very modern on the surface and is very noob friendly, but under the hood, very very old.

It's great for people who have simple requirements and older hardware. Basically for folks who just want to use a PC for basic computing tasks like Web browsing, emails, document editing, printing/scanning etc. The thing about Zorin is that it uses a traditional UI/UX which is easily to navigate for non-technical people, and it's stable enough that you almost never run into any issues (assuming you're sticking with standard distro packages and config).

My elderly parents have been using Zorin for several years now and they've never had a issue. The only time they called me was to help install their new printer last year (which was reasonably easy to install), and that was it.

So I'd recommend Zorin for anyone who has very basic computing needs, and they are not using a brand new/high-end PC.

I use Zorin OS for my laptop that's gotta be at least 15+ years but still kicking it. Outlasted the newer laptop I bought that was only 5 years old.

As someone who is only mildly into tech, Zorin is certainly familiar and I would probably recommend it to people.

I downloaded Gallium OS for my mom on her Chromebook, that's perhaps another important consideration to make...what laptop someone has.

As long as Mint is at the top I don't care what's underneath 😁

You need to limit the options.

Linux systems

• Debian (stable, almost no bloatware, user unfriendly, apt)

• ArchLinux (unstable, bleeding edge software, user unfriendly, pacman)

• RHEL/ Fedora (semi-stable, newer software, relatively user friendly, dnf)

Then at max list 3 Systems that derive from each main OS.

Like

Debian: Ubuntu, Mint, PoP!OS ArchLinux: manjaro... Fedora: Nobara...

Where each should be user friendly to use. Also explain what stable means, like that unstable doesn't mean shit breaks on a regular basis but rather it can sometimes happen. Normal desktop users don't need the stability of Debian. But it is nice to have if you can live with outdated software (if it isn't already on flatpak).

What about recommending something like MX Linux if someone has an old laptop lying around and wants to revive it, and get into Linux this way?

And the question "Win 7 was the last good version" made me laugh. I remember the old times. All the viruses on XP... but it used to crash way less that it's predecessors. Vista which was super slow and annoying. Feels like they're making some progress since 7. (Okay, now they're adding more and more data collection and annoyances to it.) But if I look back to Windows 7... I'm not feeling nostalgia 😆

Do you hate yourself, if yes then Solaris is the OS you've been looking for.

Something I don't see mentioned often is what OS they are coming from. Linux mint is often recommend and assumes they are coming from Windows. MacOS users will probably feel more at home with a Gnome DE.

Not to discourage, love the idea, but it can be hard to choose an OS based on yes/no questions. Debian an Ubuntu have a lot of similarities for instance and maybe there are things you really like about Ubuntu (e.g. newer packages) and also things you hate about it (e.g. proprietary packaging with Snap).

You're missing the whole security community. Kali, QubesOS, TAILS

I really like that you want to spend time and effort into exploring this problem formulation.

At first you need to formulate the problem and the current setting and goal.

1. A user searches a distro and has a minimum requirement demand.
2. What are the necessary tools a distro must have in order to fit the demand of the user?
3. The goal is to find a distro that fits the demand, at least the minimum.

• Does the user start with a computer or will he buy a new one?
• what are all requirements?
• which distro fits those requirements, which doesn't, and why? Is it a out of the box problem or is just a package missing?

it's very difficult

If a user does not like CLI or is not comfortable fixing anything, then suggest OpenSUSE. Built in snapper rollback for problems and YAST2-GTK GUI apps to configure anything, no CLI skills needed.

I know people will disagree, but the correct answer to "I'm new, what distro would you recommend" is Mint. No list required.
It's a capable, easy to start with, general purpose distro that works like Debian, one of the Linux gold standards, under the hood.

It has its flaws, but it gives you a fully functional system with everything an average user can expect from Linux, by clicking "Next" a couple of times. And it's never really the wrong option no matter what you want in a desktop system, freeing newcomers from the overwhelming options that are out there.

So use Mint until you know which distro fits you better.

Okay, nice so far

• TuxedoOS has nvidia drivers
• Budgie, XFCE, Mate, LxQt in the "old but traditional" desktops; all will switch to wayland and no longer really fit

I would also add the category

• "I want a stable experience without many changes and accept old bugs that are not fixed for an eternity" (Debian stable, Almalinux, Rockylinux, Opensuse Leap, *Ubuntu LTS & derivatives)
• "I want new updates with the latest and greatest but breakages" (Arch, Gentoo, Fedora rawhide, opensuse tumbleweed, Debian testing?)
• "I want something in between" (Fedora, Opensuse slowroll, Ubuntu)

Do you think that there are any distros missing

Yes, my easy to setup and use Debian-based daily driver, Q4OS.

I would stick to basic recommendations and go from easiest to more and more advanced distribution, to avoid scaring beginners :

• graphical installation + easy to setup (nvidia + codec )+stable : basically Ubuntu based distribution (but not Ubuntu, some snaps, i.e. steams, are more bugged than the flatpak and the .deb . I wouldn't recommand a distribution that force bugged app for beginners ) + others

• graphical installation : user will have to install nvidia drivers, codec or other useful things manually. The distribution can have several update a week with more risk to break, but is still considered solid and has a preconfigured way to roll back (snapshot) or more lightweigth and stable depending of the choice : fedora, opensuse tumbleweed, Debian+ others...

• do it yourself distributions : for advanced users or motivated people that want to learn it the hard way. Distributions are up to date and have either a risk to break or user has to manually configure about everything (or both ) : arch, void Linux, gentoo, ...

"Gaming" distributions could be placed between the 2 first categories as they are a kind of out of the box distribution but more up to date than the stable distributions.

Low ram/CPU consumption could be a side option at every step (easy, mid, hard)

I didn't tried immutable distributions in a while, so I don't know how to place them. My experience one year ago (kinoite, silver blue, blend os), was that it was more complicated than a regular distribution to do what I needed, but it was 1 year ago, so I wouldn't know where to place it.

I'm quite a beginner in Linux, I love to test distributions to see how far I can go without using the terminal, and without breaking the distribution. So my vision can be quite narrow comparing to more experienced users.

Are you kidding me with the pink font on pink boxes? Or is that a sync glitch? Cant read most of the text

Kubuntu. Unless you come from osx(then gnome), or have a really old computer.

If 1=1, EndeavourOS.

Canonical bad etc. but IMHO any distro recommendation chart for new users that lacks Ubuntu LTS is not credible. Downvote away.