How to Choose a Linux Distro

Steps

1. Think about whether you are looking for an easy to use distro, paid support, community support, pre-installed codecs, a fast distro or a distro for older hardware.
2. Consider using a tool to help you choose - or take all of these tests, as they all give a different perspective: zegenie Studios (most thorough, and multilingual), (:^tuxs.org) (simple), or polishlinux.org (moderate). These only give a very rough guide - so get LiveCDs and try the top few recommendations, and see which one recognizes the most of your hardware (especially networking/wireless) and which of those you like using.
3. Download, burn and use a LiveDistro (i.e. a Live CD, which can run without installing to your hard disk) to test hardware compatibility such as if you can connect to the internet and display your graphics correctly
4. If you want community support, look for a distribution with active forums or popular on Distrowatch.
5. Optionally look for an errata page or release notes, and check that there's no conflicts with programs you want to run, or with your hardware. If this is difficult or confusing, just try on Live CD before installing. Important note: just because a distro worked for you doesn't mean the newer version of that distro will also work. Try it out on Live CD before you install.
6. If you want distros for older hardware two popular ones are Damn Small Linux (hard for new users) and Puppy Linux (which "runs as root" generally cosidered not good practice for security). Other options are Fluxbox (also hard for newbies) and any of the XFCE distros (such as Xubuntu - not quite as light, but easier to use).
7. If you want eye candy try a distro with Compiz (offered by many mainstream distros). Be aware this will slow your computer down (which may be noticeable, depending on your machine and how you use it) and will increase power consumption.
8. If you want paid support you can consider Red Hat, SuSE, Xandros and Mandriva.
9. Assume that you'll have to try more than one distro before you find one that works and works the way you want.
10. When you install to hard disk, partition the hard disk. Make at least two partitions, plus swap. Keeping the operating system separate makes things much easier if you want to try a different distro, as well as when it's time to upgrade to a newer version. Mandriva has a very easy automated partition manager - once you run this, it will be easier to install any distro using the partitions you have already created.
11. Keep the old Live CDs, especially for the distro that you install - they can be handy if you have a problem with your hardware, or if you need to reinstall.
12. If you want to help others set up Linux, the LiveDistros will come in handy - use them to demonstrate and give people choices, and see what works on their systems.

Tips

• Visit your local Linux User Group. (Do a web search for (your town or city name) "Linux User Group" - they exist worldwide.) You will probably find helpful people who can help you get started, and solve any problems you have.

Warnings

• Laptops often have hardware/driver problems with Linux, especially with the wireless card.
  • Thinkpads are often regarded as the most compatible laptop for Linux, but this is not always so. A laptop that is sold with Linux pre-installed is the most likely to be compatible, as the seller/producer will have had to resolve the problems to a degree before selling it.
  • Find out the name of the wireless card before buying your machine. Do a web search for the name and linux (or use a Linux web search). This can give you some idea of whether there are major compatibility issues. The search results may be clear (e.g. if there are hundreds of hits with people complaining of problems with that card), or you need assistance from an experienced Linux person to make sense of the results.

Related wikiHows

• How to Learn to Use Linux
• How to Arrange Linux Install Party
• How to Install Ubuntu Linux
• How to Install Knoppix Linux
• How to Install Damn Small Linux On a USB Card

Sources and Citations

• Linux distros for older hardware
• How to choose a Linux distro on Appropedia (the basis for this article)

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