2. Elementary OS
Elementary OS Linux
This distro is probably the first, or at least, the most popular of its kind starting a new genre of distros which I like to call “new-age” distros.
eOS (and its alike) is a distro being led by first and foremost principles of design which sets the UI (without compromising usability of course) at the highest priority, and only then comes the rest of considerations.
In turn, these principles upon which eOS is based on yields a delicious looking, user-friendly, high-preforming desktop oriented OS which not by coincidence climbed rapidly into the top charts of many Linux proponents. (including yours truly)
One of eOS main points of attraction is its unique desktop shell called Pantheon along with its self developed application repository, which covers most of the user basic computing needs. (the rest of the apps comes from Ubuntu repository upon which eOS is based off of)
On the other hand though, what eOS still lacks, in my honest opinion, is its own complete app-base to make it even more coherent than what it is today, and more stable over time.
Another type of “new-age” distro that is being heavily worked upon at the present time is – Ozon, by Numix & Nitrux.
Also, you might be interested to see the latest progress on eOS next release.
1. Mint
Ah yes, Linux Mint, the cherry at the top of the cream. There’s much to say about Mint, albeit this is not the time nor place to cover it all.
Suffice it to say that Mint leads the most popular Linux distros charts* for over a year now being ranked first with a margin of more than ~1200 points over the second place.
Just for the sake of the ability to appreciate this gap, the margin between the second and third places is ~400 Pts and so does between the third and forth.
Mint is also a derivative of Ubuntu but it’s older than eOS and also has its own unique desktop shell called “Cinnamon”.
Mint is user friendly and stable and one of its main focuses is to supply the user with a full multimedia support out of the box, which isn’t so trivial on many other Linux distros.
There’s not much drawbacks you can mention when it comes to Mint, albeit ‘your mileage may vary’ as they say.
For more information about Mint, check out: Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” Review!
Honorable Mentions:
These are the distros which got pretty close to being included on the list, for they are unique and has a lot to offer, yet they didn’t quite made it for mostly technical reasons.
Fedora
Fedora is a great distro for intermediate users, especially for those who like Gnome as a desktop environment.
When plenty of Gnome developers come from the Red-Hat project (which sponsors Fedora), there’s no wonder why it’s also showing up as one of the best Gnome 3 distros!
Although being closely integrated with Gnome D.E. and often quick to embrace new technologies, sometimes its fast pace might work against it, especially in the cases where it compromise stability for modernity.
There’s a reason why its a custom to say – “Fedora is Red Hat’s test bed”, Fedora is often considered as a testing platform for Red-Hat to test new technologies before implemented in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
More about Fedora – Fedora 20 Review.
* Measured by hits per day on distrowatch
