Okay, so you have decided to try linux, but not sure which one to choose. Been there, done that. There are currently 354 linux distributions listed in distrowatch.com, not counting other distributions people made in their free time. I won’t be surprised if the number reaches tens of thousand, really. Not to mention a distribution me and my friends are building. It’s already messed up, after all.

Now, which linux distribution to choose is totally a matter of taste. Different distributions suits different people. So the best way to find it is by trial and error. I’m serious about this.

Yes, there are guidelines that will help you choose, but they are not 100% accurate, either. Take this list for example:

Ranking Distro H.P.D*
1 Ubuntu 2353
2 PCLinuxOS 1553
3 openSUSE 1419
4 Mint 1353
5 Fedora 1353
(taken from www.distrowatch.com at 10 May 2008, 19:33 GMT+7)

Now, most people would agree that, after looking at the above list, Ubuntu is a very good choice and should fit you. It’s not true, for me at least.

I don’t really like Ubuntu. Maybe I’m just not used to it, or maybe it’s because I don’t like brown-ish colour all over my monitor.

Instead, my favourite distribution is OpenSUSE, which is currently listed at number 3. I specially love the YAST control center In OpenSUSE, It lets me tweak anything I want without needing to touch the commandline. I prefer using a sleek-looking window and a mouse to typing the command on terminal using my keyboard. It’s not that I hate commandline, I have no problem if I have to use it to install graphics driver, or changing xorg settings, to name a few.
 
Anyway, like I said before, There is no surefire way of picking a linux distribution, your best bet is getting recommendations from more experienced linux users. Learn everything you need to know about a distibution. Is it easy to use? Is it heavy? How does it look like? How’s the support? And so on.

What about my recommendation, you ask?

Well, if you are a soon-to-be linux user, I’d reccomend Linux Mint to try. It’s a derivative of Ubuntu, but I quite like it. It’s easy to use, it’s pretty, it somehow comes with my favourite set of software. It is distributed as LiveCD, so you can try it first.

If you already tried Linux and want to try another distribution, then I heartily recommend OpenSUSE for the reason I mentioned above and the fact that it looks sleek, clean, yet beautiful to me. OpenSUSE comes as a DVD so you can pick which software you want to use, though the default set is acceptably nice.

If you already tried OpenSUSE and don’t like it, then by all means try something else, maybe Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo, or Dreamlinux, the last I just downloaded and about to try.

EDIT: to stop people from calling me hypocrite, I’ll say it: I’m currently running Windows, for gaming purposes, at least until I get my harddrive back from service.