 I've been thinking a lot about what makes a good Linux distro and I think that there are a lot of good Linux distributions out there and just because they don't all do the same thing the same way doesn't mean that they can't all be good. So you can be an arch guy or you can be an Ubuntu guy. It doesn't really matter because they're both doing Linux. They're just doing it in a different way than the other does it. So what I thought I'd do today is talk about a few key points that I think are necessary in order to make a really good Linux distribution because let's face it there are at least 300 different distributions. I think distro watch covers like 250 and there's a list on one of those Linux websites that keeps track of all the currently maintained Linux distributions and there's like 250 or 300 of them. So there are a lot of them and if we're going to be honest about it the vast majority of them are probably pretty bad. They're unmaintained or they have significant bugs and horrible setups and all this stuff. The vast majority of them are probably pretty bad because that's the way it is when there's a lot of something. The vast majority of it are middling at best and there's a few of them that just really stand out. So what I thought I'd do is just go ahead and throw out a few points of what I think makes a good Linux distribution. Now before I start in I will just say that this is not a comprehensive list. I think that there are several different points that I didn't put on here that definitely are important when you considering what makes a Linux distribution good. So just keep that in mind as we go through. So the first one on the list is easy access to an abundance of software and what I mean by this is that if you install your distribution you're able to install basically any program you want to install on it. There are several distributions out there that this just isn't true of that they don't have a very wide variety of software that you can install and especially things like third party proprietary software a lot of distributions just shun that completely. And while that is a choice I do believe that that significantly limits the audience of that distribution. So a good example of this is Solis. I think Solis is a fine distribution. They do a really good job with the budget desktop but because it doesn't have access to a lot of software because the repositories are relatively small it makes a lot harder to make that your daily driver unless they actually do have the small number of programs that you actually need. It becomes much harder when you find a piece of software that they don't have. Most distributions these days meet this requirement because they can either use snaps or flatpacks or whatever and that's actually true of Solis as well. So a third party software package management system like snaps or flatpacks can really solve the problem if your native repositories aren't as broad as you would like. So this day and age easy access to an abundance of software really isn't a huge problem but there are definitely some out there that don't have actually native access to that software and need those third party tools. The next one is that your distribution should run on a multitude of different hardware and this includes hardware that needs non-free drivers to work. So I'm doing a long term review of Debian and Debian out of the box does not support non-free hardware. Specifically Wi-Fi cards that aren't supported by free software don't work out of the box on Debian. You have to go find an ISO that has non-free binaries or whatever that will allow you to actually use the hardware and for a lot of people that's a big deal because almost every laptop I know would need that free non-free software in order to work. So most Linux distributions outside of the non-free stuff will actually run just fine on pretty much any hardware you have. So this isn't a huge deal for most distributions but there are certain desktop environments we won't name names that definitely do use more resources than other desktop environments. And while it's not as big a problem now as it was say two or three years ago you definitely know when your desktop environment or your Linux distribution struggles on lower and hardware. So I feel that if you're going to create a very good Linux distribution you really do need to make sure that it runs on a vast majority of hardware even that stuff that's really old and I think that's the case because Linux is often times put on two computers that aren't cutting edge now obviously we need Linux distributions that run on that kind of hardware as well but Linux's sweet spot is on machines that are four to say ten years old and I feel that that's the vast majority of the audience for you know Linux. The next one on the list is one that I consider probably the most important. I think that if you're going to have a Linux distribution you really need to have an enthusiastic and somewhat supportive community. Now I say somewhat supportive because we all know that the community surroundings some distributions aren't necessarily the most supportive and friendly out there arch gen to those communities tend to be a little bit prickly being nice about it but they have a community that for the most part like generally you could at least find help if you want it to as long as you've you know read the manual and have gone through the steps of getting help yourself chances are the community of every Linux distribution will actually be fine helping you it's when you use those very niche distros that have no support and no community where this becomes a problem because really the community is not only what keeps the development being developed because if you're just a dude doing a distribution and you have no one you know using it you're going to lose interest in that distribution you know probably pretty fast but also if you're a user of a very niche distribution and there's no one else using it it's really hard to find help and it also makes you feel kind of alone because who you're supposed to go bitch about when and something goes bad or who you're supposed to talk to when something goes great you know you know if without a community Linux is not as fun so and it's also not as useful or easy to use because the community surrounding our distributions is the thing that makes Linux different than Windows you don't think of Windows having a community that actually you know comes together and supports each other when you want to support for Windows you go to Microsoft you don't go to the community it's different in Linux when you need support you go to the community you go to the forums you go to the telegram group of the favorite your favorite distro whatever that's not the way it is with Windows that's what makes Linux so great and if your distribution doesn't have a community then all that is missing so the next one I have on it is going to be a little bit controversial and I'm going to say this knowing farewell that I'm going to get some flak in the comments in order to be a good distribution you have to provide some stability now I know what you're thinking Matt you use arch arch is it known as the most stable distribution I know but I think on the arch front I think that the its instability is vastly overblown for the most part I think that if you run arch and you maintain your your updates and all that stuff arch is going to be fairly stable for almost everybody it is going to have more problems than what Ubuntu would have but it's fairly stable when I'm talking about stability in this case I'm more talking about that update exist so every distribution has to be developed and it has to have continuing developments so like Debian is one of the oldest Linux distributions that is still around and they're still working on it they're still developing it they're still coming up with updates they're still providing security updates all this stuff and just because it's been around a long time it doesn't mean it's been you know abandoned but because there are so many Linux distributions we know that there are vast majority out there that get made and then either abandoned or only get updated once every four or five years that is not a good stable support for a distribution because things break over time and things specific pieces of software need support from newer pieces of the kernel and other underlying technologies that you know are only put into Linux by the distro maintainer so Linux only stays stable because of the development work behind it and if your distribution is lacking in terms of updates and fixes and bug testing all that stuff it can't be a good distro it's just going to flop basically is what I'm saying the next one is one that I complain about a lot and I actually put it in a video where I was talking about five things Linux could do better and that is a good website now I really do think that most of my problems with the websites that exist for Linux is that they're not very well designed I'm very aesthetically minded even if I'm not very good at creating aesthetic things and most of the websites that you look at are just old and ugly and stuff like that but in this case I'm not really talking about how website looks I'm more talking about the ease of access to your website the ease of access of navigating through your website finding ISOs that are you know if you bury your ISOs or you have ISOs all over the website and they're not easily very if they're not very well labeled that's a problem because the number one thing someone does when they come to a Linux distribution website is they download your Linux distribution and if you make that harder than necessary it's not a good experience and it doesn't bode well for your Linux distribution so you have to have a very good and well laid out website otherwise it makes it hard to trust that you can actually do a Linux distribution well now there are some exceptions to this Debian's website is horrible and I will continue to say it's horrible forever and ever but the distribution is really good okay so despite my problems installing it I've had really good experiences with it so far but their website is horrible it took me forever to find the right ISO so there can be exceptions to this rule but for the most part if your website is horrible your distribution is probably also going to be fairly horrible not especially if you don't have a website at all if you just use source fords for your downloads and your website and that's all you provide that's not a good sign that not only is your distribution good but also that it's going to stay maintained now I understand websites cost money and a lot of people who are just getting started and making a distribution probably don't have a ton of cash or tough support in order to actually create a website and have web hosting but github has get pages you can use one of those they're free so I don't really buy the whole why I could afford it thing go make one of those it's really easy the next one on the list is also going to be a little bit wishy-washy and that is the good Linux distribution has to have an installer that is easy for its intended user base and it's that's last part that's important arch Linux is not as easy to install as Ubuntu that isn't even arguable gentoo is not as easy to install as arches there are levels of difficulty but for their intended audiences those installers are just fine so if you are technical enough to install gentoo by the way I'm not don't at me I'm not technical enough to do it then gentoo's installer was made for you same thing with arch if you are technical enough to get through the arch installer then the installer is just fine it meets your level of skill if you don't have those levels of skill you're going to be much happier with gooey installers like Ubuntu provides like manjaro or arco provide and that's fine because that level of installer matches your skill set and that's great part about Linux is that we have many different levels of Linux distribution for people who are more proficient with Linux and also for people who are more of a noob when it comes to Linux so that's a great thing as long as you know what your level your skill set is or are you at least willing to try new things then those installers are just fine however there are a ton of distributions out there I don't know about a ton but there are quite a few distributions out there where their install process is lacking and this doesn't even really mean that their install process is too hard maybe their install process is just dated so I'm talking like Fedora Fedora's installer is not great there's been a bug with the drive selection mechanism and Fedora's installer for years they've never fixed it it's driven me crazy every time I've installed Fedora and I know I'm not the only one because I've seen some YouTubers who've had problems with the drive selection and partition manager thing in Fedora as well as me so that's been run for ages so if your installer has bugs and it's not great you need to fix it because that your installer is your front door it's the first impression you're going to give of your distribution and if it has flaws then it's not great for your distribution the next one is good documentation now this kind of goes along with a good website and it's something that a lot of distributions are actually very lacking on there are very few distributions out there they actually have very good documentation for their intended audience so you can probably name them Ubuntu has good documentation arch has the arch wiki which is phenomenal Fedora has some good documentation though the main length distributions for the most part have good documentation it's when you get to the kind of the offshoots of the main distributions that have tweaked quite a bit of stuff but are based on other things that don't have fantastic documentation and that can be a problem because yes say you have a distribution that's based on arch but your distro has tweaked a whole bunch of stuff and if you haven't documented that great then people aren't going to be able to find the information they need in order to actually use your distro and because you're probably a very small distro you probably don't have a very big community so if your documentation isn't good and you don't have a very good community finding support is actually a lot harder the last one is a very important one for me I like using arch because it allows me to be involved with my system in a deep and meaningful way it requires me to manage my system I have to go through and do the updates I have to go through and make sure that some of the updates aren't worked I have to do all this stuff and you know it's the same thing for people who use gentoo they want to be very involved with their system they want to go through and build the software they want to go through and recompile the kernel when there's an update all the stuff they want to be very very deeply involved with the running of their system if you're on a boon to or something like that you don't want to be as involved with this system it doesn't mean you can't be but a boon to and Debbie in and all their offshoots are meant to be said it and forget it you're supposed to get in there and get your work done and not really worry about how the gears are working underneath the surface and that's the point of this last one a good Linux distribution should allow you to be involved with your install as much as possible or as much as you want to be possible either it gets out of the way or involves you in every little way and that's the great thing about Linux is that most distributions will be able to be used in either way you want to use them you can either be you can either just install it and just use it not worry about fiddling with it or you can be as involved as you want to be and that's the case for most Linux distributions some Linux distributions are more suited for one way or the other so boon to Debbie and those kind of things are very much more said it and forget it whereas arch gen 2 things like that are much more suited for people who like to tinker and be very involved with the running of their systems so the opposite or the bad part of this is when a distribution becomes naggy when it becomes something that requires you to act in a certain way in order to for your system to function so so imagine distribution comes out and requires you to do updates like you have to do an update and otherwise your computer will not work that's not a great experience and it's kind of against the next way another example of this is frankly what I call the genome syndrome where they were where they make it very very hard for you to use your computer in ways other than the way genome wants you to use your computer so if you want to customize it or you want to move the the bar around or whatever you have to actually hack the system in order to get that to be done and that's not user-friendly and now there's not anything necessarily wrong with the way genome goes about doing their stuff but if you're not really interested in that way of doing things if you're more interested in tinkering and stuff like that genome then is not for you and it can be very restricting so you can see that there is definitely ways where a distribution or desktop environment can go through and be either pushy or very restrictive and that means that it's going to restrict the audience of that desktop environment or that this draw so those are the few points I have on what makes a good Linux distribution this video was definitely longer than I thought it was going to be but I think that these are really important points and I know that I haven't covered everything that makes a good Linux distribution so in the comments below make sure you get in there and tell me what you think a good Linux distribution should be and I know there's going to be at least two people down there that says that are going to say gentoo is the only good Linux distribution okay use whatever you like I'm gonna continue to use arco I'm just gonna put that out there okay anyways so that is it for me this time if you want to follow me you can follow me on Twitter at the Linux cast you can follow me on Facebook at the Linux cast you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Chris East Coast web gentoo is fun too thanks both of you guys for upping your contribution I do really do appreciate that Marcus Megalyn Donnie Sven Mitchell Mr. Fox Arts Center American Camp it's gonna take me a while to get used to this new layout so I'm assuming that I'm going to have to reshoot this patreon part several times in every new video I make for the next thing but thanks everybody for your support no matter what level you're on I really do appreciate it thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time