MX Linux which is number 1 on Distrowatch for a reason. Much easier than installing Debian itself which needs some tweaking, and really just Debian with some extra tools, latest Firefox… The Debian 12 based version is ready and I don’t have any issues. I also run Debian set to Trixie/Sid, which is fun if you want Debian to be like a rolling release distro, but you need to enable some bug reports and know how to manage updates to not have things break on you.

Syncthing. I rotate different Linux operating systems daily, but all my data is synced with Syncthing between all my machines, smartphone and a server. Kind of like Chrome OS in that I can wipe or reinstall the OS and be instantly back up and running, or even install a new version of Linux to try out.

Depends on your use case, but there is Tails OS if you’re a whistleblower or reporter and afraid of state actors, and Parrot Security OS has a lot of security, privacy features as well being a pentest distro. I ran Parrot OS for a while and it was pretty good. Good things for privacy, use a VPN to mask your IP as well as using privacy proxy search engines. I tend to not trust many of the VPN companies that were being gobbled up with one linked to Israeli intelligence, so I run my own Wireguard server, Pi-Hole/Unbound DNS servers on everything with lots of block lists, and my own Searxng and Whoogle search proxies. And some things I do behind Tor. A state actor can pin me down with my own VPN server which lacks a lot of users, but that’s not my worry and I use it to just mask my home IP and protect me from ISP snooping for normal internet use.

Too many to list, but Voyager OS has a lot installed by default and is a quite pleasant to use with GNOME. And I don’t like GNOME and prefer KDE. You might fire up Voyager Live in a VM and see which ones you prefer, or load all of them.

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=voyager

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is built upon the work of a lot of other people outside of Red Hat because they could access the source code, so let’s not lose sight of that. And their business is supporting customers that use their product, which means a lot of the coding is in solving problems for their customers for which they’re compensated and send fixes upstream which also benefits them in pulling and compiling later. And lets not confuse past support for free software from a gobbled up megacorp that they are today that is operating in their own self interest. Personally, I think they’re acting in a short sighted manor because they’re afraid that new entries will be able to do as well or better a job at support than they can and take away business or beat their price points. And by exposing themselves in cutting off source code and violating the GPL with their customer license agreements, they’re actually going to force the competition they’re afraid of to ramp up their abilities more quickly. Short term they might sell more licenses, but they’re also irritating a lot of people to go elsewhere and not use their product, and it will cost them in the long run from stronger competition and reduced market share. But then that’s the way of megacorps, short sighted focus on revenue and stock price over positioning for long term success. Just look at how their parent IBM has fared over the years, scroll down to the graphs on revenue.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ibm/ibm/revenue

I reject Flatpak and Snap, but do use a couple Appimages (Electrum and Trezor Suite). I was playing with Snap and Flatpak, and noticed right away how terrible Flatpak was when I downloaded Cointop, small simple CLI application and it was an enormous download. There are also a lot of security issues though they’ve probably mitigated some of them. Also remember that Red Hat is the one pushing Flatpak which has some value for enterprise customers, but they could also tailor a package to a particular distribution. Snap is pretty much dead except for Ubuntu’s immutable OS which will probably go nowhere as they’ve lost to Red Hat. But this write up is a great overview from 2021:

https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future

A major goal of most of these technologies is to support an “app store” experience: Docker Hub, Flathub, the Steam Store, Snapcraft, and AppImageHub (but not AppImageHub?) These technologies are all designed around this model because the owners want a cut of sales revenue or fees for enterprise distribution. (Flathub only says they don’t process payments at present. It’s coming.)

Linus has a great mind for creating and managing a Linux kernel, but like actors and others he has no qualifications for his other opinions that nobody asked for. And instead of making a lucid argument, he name calls and is rude and actually makes a fool of himself. And guns are just a tool that any law abiding citizen should be able to purchase, and I’ve used one to defend myself when my front door was kicked in at 4:30am. With our wicked drug addicted society becoming more and more lawless, the need for personal firearms has never been greater. And we already have a ton of gun regulations, background checks…

X11 is the old standard, and Wayland is the newer, simpler and more secure standard though still being developed. But desktop environment support is still being perfected as well as applications needing to be written for it. There is an X11 to Wayland driver for things that don’t support it directly. Eventually, Wayland will be what we all use and distributions will move to support it by default as some do now. I’ve ran a couple Wayland distros in VMWare Player that worked pretty well, Fedora and OpenSUSE. But for now, I’d say stick with X11 and wait for Wayland to mature unless you want to submit bug reports and help with development.

Good overview even though a little dated: https://linuxiac.com/xorg-x11-wayland-linux-display-servers-and-protocols-explained/

I have an XFCE VM of Manjaro I regularly use and it’s a great distribution. I converted mine to unstable, which just means it pulls down Arch packages right away so closer to Endeavor OS or ArcoLinux (there is also stable and testing). They have some nice tools and very easy to change kernels. I think some people have had it break something and get butt hurt, but that’s part of bleeding edge Arch and being on a rolling release. Either watch the forum for issues, or be prepared to fix it, roll back… Some of us think life is too short to do a manual Arch install, so these Arch based distros that are easy to install are great, and add some extra value and tools on top of Arch.

It seemed to be a clear cut business move to hurt Alma and Rocky Linux from gaining anymore traction after pulling CentOS. Do you want to use a development distribution from a company that acts this way? I personally don’t care for their push for Flatpak either (bloated security mess). RHEL does allow for 16 free installs (guys learning or testing usually run the open and free versions). But it looks like they’re at least better than Ubuntu about telemetry. Just seems like a douche move for a free software company which points to the character of the people running the megacorp. And the threat to cut customers off that release the source code is also in poor taste. Seems to me that Red Hat is scared that Alma and Rocky will cut into their business and might be able to do a better job with support than a large and usually dysfunctional megacorp.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/28/rocky_linux_rhel_ripples/

Great Geerling recap on Youtube: https://youtu.be/kF5pyVUQBH8

I’ve used both, but though not an open project like VirtualBox, VMWare Player (free) has better 3D support. I run three Arch based distros under VMWare Player, Endeavor OS, ArcoLinux and Manjaro, and it works great with KDE and visual effects turned on, video playback… It picks up my keyboard quick keys fine, but to get my mouse back and forward buttons working I have to add these to the .vmx file on new installs (might save you a little time).

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"
usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

I’d recommend MX Linux, which is a Debian based distribution that has dominated distrowatch.com for a long time for good reason. They have a bunch of management tools, newest Firefox… You might try just using it in VMWare Player (free) virtualization first, which has better 3D support than Virtualbox. I’m currently using MX Linux KDE Beta and it’s solid as they’re only tweaking some of their tools after the latest Debian release. And they have a good forum community for help. And Debian is the base from which Ubuntu and other distributions are built, and kind of the foundational Linux version which makes it a good place to learn Linux.