I'm recommending #Linux distros to my students.

[steamworkgroup@glammr.us]

@josh After a fair bit of research, Debian with Cinnamon has treated me well the last year on this HP AMD laptop from 23. Gaming has been good, but I'm not playing any resource intensive titles. A/V processing, a bit of data analysis, and office stuff has been simple.

Probably many paths, just check the hardware against the distro for support since the occasional hiccup can happen (sound, fingerprint readers, etc.)

[20000lbs_of_cheese@freeradical.zone]

@josh MxLinux, Debian based, has a lot of really nice, thoughtful utilities packaged with it in a way that I have not seen before.

I would caution most against Arch Linux and its derivatives unless they're fine with a bit more of a time-consuming challenge (The ArchWiki remains a fantastic resource, but isn't accurate for all distros).

Fedora is fantastic, perhaps better to get an idea of corpo-adjacent Linux, Ubuntu, I don't care for but remains extremely common and default.

[20000lbs_of_cheese@freeradical.zone]

@josh The best option forever remains whatever the student can work with, I have my own feelings about what's best or what's important, but quite a bit of what you'll learn on one distro will transfer well to another

[traecer@techhub.social]

@josh Linux Mint

[drakakis@mstdn.ca]

@josh

LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) w. Cinnamon desktop

[lemgandi@mastodon.social]

@rodneyenke @josh 2 for this.

[elaterite@mastoart.social]

@josh Mint.

[jpummil@genomic.social]

@josh Mint w/Cinnamon.

[cmdrmoto@hachyderm.io]

@josh @Binder Debian. If you’re teaching them to learn, teach them starting from the root of the skills tree.

[terminaltilt@climatejustice.social]

@josh

Between in-terminal ads and Snap, no one should be recommending Ubuntu. Instead, Debian should be in that conversation.

[hawke@dillyofapickle.com]

@josh Most important in what sense? Job experience? Ability to tinker/learn? Ability to just drop it on a system and use it without messing around?

[josh@fediscience.org]

@hawke
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[p357@mastodon.com.pl]

@josh Debian. It's stable and very plastics.

[nixsloth@floss.social]

@josh Zorin OS

[steko@scholar.social]

@josh Elementary. Based on Ubuntu but with a new and nice interface

[leah@macaw.social]

@josh Debian

[hawke@dillyofapickle.com]

@josh - “Just use it”: Bazzite for gaming, Linux Mint for normal basic use.
- “Tinker / learn”: NixOS, Arch
- “Job experience”: Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu

[desinterets@mastodon.top]

@josh debian or mint

[tionisla@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@josh

maybe give them also the hint to explore for themselves at distrosea.com

[ftranschel@norden.social]

@josh What major?

In STEM, I'd argue the only correct answer is #arch/#gentoo/#nix, because you really want them to understand how the system actually works.

Outside of that bracket, I'd prefer #Mint (Debian Edition) or #pop_OS, because they are not tainted like #Ubuntu.

But then again if the idea is to have a conversation about alternatives *at all*, then #Ubuntu is probably fine ‍️