what is your current fav distro for linux and fav desktop ?

i know there are a milliion and one distros out there with a multitude of desktops either pre installed or that you can add on. ive been away from the linux side for a while and for the last few weeks was using mint / cinn.

but im looking to try out another 3-4 this week to see if i can find a current fav to replace windows on a few machines.

what are your current fav distro / desktop combos and why?? ill be testing out a few each week till i find the right one but id like to start with one that is widely used and has good support / developer support so once i set these up i can have my wife learn linux so i dont want slackware for the time being since she has no prior linux experience.

also if you would like to add some screenshots to see the desktops to your suggestion that is fine also.

thank you for the help!!

 

Although I'm always on again, off again with Linux, it's been the XFCE flavours Mint that I've liked, mainly because it offers the features I need mostly right out of the box, plus it is light, stable and easy to use.

 

i find the most trouble free experience is with Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

i tried a whole bunch of distros recently but i always come back to Mint.

if you are on a machine about 5 years old i'd recommend XFCE.
on a machine 3 years or newer i go with Cinnamon or KDE.
though i like the eye candy factor of KDE i'm not so crazy about the bloat.

Cinnamon uses about the same amount of RAM and CPU as XFCE but XFCE is lighter and faster.
KDE uses about the same resources as Windows 8 or even a little more:
about 800 megs of RAM and 4-5 % CPU.
Win 8 uses about the same amount of RAM but uses about 2% CPU on my i3 intel.

Cinnamon is a lot better these days than last time i tried it.
this is what i'm using atm.

 

My fav distro is: manjaro and xfce.

 

Xubuntu and Ubuntu.

 

Ubuntu, Elementary OS and Fedora

The Pantheon Shell and Cinnamon

 

PCLinuxOS

Take Care
TheQuest

 

Xubuntu and Ubuntu for me.

 

Right now I'm using Slackware with KDE.

 

slackware i like but for the wife and kids to learn it might be to much right now...

all my pc's are within 2 years old otherwise there might be one that is a bit older. all are dual core or quad with min 4gb ram some 8 some 16. i like mint, ubuntu, fedora, and a few others that i have been playing with but im torn between them and i dont want to start them on one and switch them out any time soon. maybe 6+ months down the line if i dont do a rolling release i think would be okay but i think they need some time with it.

another factor i forgot is i HAVE to be able to use wine and use it stably for some programs that have to be used like photoshop among others. i know it can be done and i know i can use wine across the board pretty much but where is it most stable like with kde, cinna, gnome, mate etc?? some say it works best in mate hands down but i dont have enough time with each to know for sure.

who has the best developer support? it looks like it might be ubuntu overall but im not sure. i def want to use a distro that will be supported for a while so i dont have to get people used to one and then switch them out.

so overall, most stable? best for wine? most windows like (if that can be asked of linux does not have to be just like windows but usability wise i would like it to be similar)? and a distro for a long term use does not have to be permanent but i would not like to switch every couple months on their systems.

 

I take Ubuntu (12.04.2 in my case), strip out the Unity stuff and slap in the Cinnamon DE. Throw in cairo-dock and I'm a happy dude. With Cinnamon I have to run Chrome instead of Firefox (my preferred browser) because of a conflict with an add-on named Hide Caption Title Bar (the minimize and maximize buttons don't function properly...works fine if I use Gnome Fallback with compiz).

Cinnarch is a good distro, too, but I've stopped using it.

But there's nothing like Ubuntu. .

Later...

 

Keep switching between distro X and distro Y.... I always end up coming back to the debian based distro, ubuntu. Specifically Xubuntu!

 

Slackware with KDE.

My signature shows others.

 

Lately it's been Linux Mint Cinnamon DE ubunto based. But yesterday wiped that & installed Linux Mint Debian Edition Cinnamon DE. Supposedly the Debian Edition is rolling so if I stick with it I won't have to reinstall for at least 2 years. I really can't surmise yet my LMDE experience yet. But LMUE worked flawlessly ootb.

 

Hi zfactor,

I was in a similar search 5-6 months ago for my sister's work pc.
After trying the most popular current distros, I settled to Ubuntu 12.4 (with unity). I only had to give her a simple demonstration and after a few times of using it she got very familiar with it.
The only thing that I modified, was to uninstall the libreoffice that came with it and to install the official version 4.x (and to update it when newer versions get released).

Now, she actually prefers using ubuntu than windows 7 (her laptop) and OSX mountain lion (her home imac) and asked me to install it on her laptop too.

Wine works fine on ubuntu unity, but maybe is better to add also vmplayer in the mix (in case wine cannot run well an application)

Panagiotis

 

my recommendation is look for stable long term support distro and desktop environment which suits you (xfce kde,cinnamon,unity,mate, gnome...etc)

since you are new to linux i recommend you try ubuntu LTS or linux mint Maya 13 or even xubuntu/Linux mint xfce

Fuduntu works great its setup need some learning but overall one of best linux easy light on resources

please also see these give you idea about them

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fuduntu-2013-1.html

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/xubuntu-quetzal.html

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-pangolin.html

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-mint-maya.html

Edit: i right now use Scientific Linux(default) and ubuntu(2nd Default) as my main desktop along with window vista

 

Debian Wheezy with XFCE 4.10 and kernel 3.8 from the experimental repo and multimedia support from deb-multimedia.

 

Latest Mint XFCE + VMware Player for windows stuff.

 

Mint Cinnamon for the wife (or perhaps just Ubuntu stripped of Unity and Cinnamon added but that's what Mint already does and it adds some very nice extras like a better filemanager).
Whether you choose Ubuntu long term support 12.04/Mint 13 or 6-months release cycle Ubuntu 12.10/Mint14 is up to you.
I'd make separate home partitions for easy updating anyway.
Desktop choice is very personal, f.i. I dislike KDE with a vengeance (childish or perhaps silly but it's fugly imo), Unity is considered meh and Gnome3, well, nevermind that abomination.
That leaves Cinnamon, XFCE, Gnome2 or it's Mint replacement Mate. Cinnamon requires a tad of GPU/3-d acceleration but offers a Windows-like start button gui making the switch to Linux perhaps more seamless.
Either go for the above for yourself or use semi-rolling-release Fuduntu 2013.2 with Gnome2.
See links posted above for test reviews.

 

OpenSUSE 12.3 KDE

I like Ubuntu too, but I recently I heard too much about spyware and how ubuntu does not contribute to the linux community etc. I wonder if it's true though.

 

Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon x64 here. Next would probably be Mint with Xfce. And if not any Mint edition, then probably Ubuntu.

 

Kubuntu and KDE
Love the looks and smoothness of KDE.

 

tried Mint Cinnamon for a few days and i went back to XFCE.

the display manager on XFCE seems crisper and faster than most others DM; KDE, Cinnamon, Win 7 & Win 8.

and it's just hard to ignore the overall speed boost you feel when using XFCE.
and with a few extra themes and icons sets it can look just as beautiful as other OSes, save perhaps KDE.

 

I like using Porteus x86(xfce)
its a nice little Slax distro that can be used on its entirety from an USB Pen drive and loads itself on RAM for Responsiveness

 

Arch Linux + awesome (window manager)

Good luck if you decide to try it!