Beginner Distro recommendations - eviltoast

Long overdue, I know, but looking to start at least partially migrating and working with Dual boot, coming from Windows 10 (putting off 11 as much as possible)…

I have limited Linux experience, mostly in college several years back.

I work remotely with Windows software development, including Winforms, Asp.net, .net core, etc. Not sure what I need to best work with these, particularly Winforms. That may not even be possible, I know.

Looking for any general guidance/recommendations.

Long term, I’m interested in migrating as much as possible, outside of whatever I have to keep up for work… starting with dual boot options then moving towards linux as a primary driver. I have an old media server (also win10, not win11 compatable) not really doing much but running plex when I need it… would love to also eventually poke around with Home Assistant or similar, maybe some LLM tinkering etc.

If this isn’t a good community for this, I apologize, and please point me to a better one if you know of one.

  • tengkuizdihar@programming.dev
    31·
    5 months ago

    I’m going to chime in and make bullet points, to not torture you with wall of text.

    Recommend (especially for new comers):

    • Ubuntu
      • easy to use
      • many choice to install literally everything ever
      • used by EVERYONE so plenty of hands on tutorial & troubleshooting
      • used both in servers and desktop

    Not Recommended (especially for new comers):

    • Manjaro/Arch
      • Difficult learning curve
      • Sometime breaks when upgrading (looking at you manjaro)
    • NixOS
      • Very difficult learning curve
      • Need to get used with a whole new language to operate
      • Perfect for making a reproducible OS, especially if you like experimenting