Which Linux
should you install?
We make a Linux distribution. This guide is going to recommend a different one to almost everybody reading it, because that is the true answer today and pretending otherwise would waste your weekend.
| If this is you | Install this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Coming from Windows, want it to feel familiar | Zorin OS | The layout, the settings and the app store are all shaped for someone who has used Windows for twenty years. |
| Your PC can't run Windows 11 | Linux Mint | Light, stable, enormous community, and it runs well on the exact hardware Microsoft abandoned. |
| First Linux ever, no strong opinions | Linux Mint | The most forgiving first install. Nothing surprises you and every problem is already answered somewhere. |
| Coming from macOS | Fedora Workstation | GNOME is the closest thing Linux has to macOS's coherence, and Fedora ships it clean and current. |
| You want a system that can't be broken by an update | Fedora Silverblue (and watch Golem) |
Atomic updates with rollback, available and stable today. This is the promise Golem is built around, but Golem is not ready and Silverblue is. |
| Gaming is the main event | Bazzite | Built for it: drivers, Proton, controllers and Steam handled out of the box. CachyOS and Nobara are strong alternatives. |
| Old or very weak hardware | Linux Mint XFCE | Runs comfortably where modern desktops crawl. For truly ancient machines, antiX or Lubuntu go lighter still. |
| Developer workstation | Fedora | Current toolchains without the maintenance tax. Choose Arch instead if you want control and enjoy the upkeep. |
| Reproducible, declarative machines | NixOS | Nothing else does this properly. Expect to learn the Nix language — that cost is real and it is the gap Golem exists to close. |
| Privacy above convenience | Debian | Conservative, transparent, no corporate telemetry. For threat-model-level anonymity you want Tails, which is a different kind of tool. |
| A server, not a desktop | Debian | Boring in the best sense. Ubuntu LTS if you need commercial support contracts. |
| You want to learn how Linux really works | Arch | The wiki is the best documentation in the ecosystem, and installing it teaches you the whole stack. |
Why a distribution would recommend its competitors
Because the alternative is lying to you, and because a recommendation is only worth something if the person giving it is willing to give a different one. Golem is pre-alpha: there is no installable ISO, some tasks still need a terminal, and there is no screen reader support. Putting it at the top of a "best Linux" list today would be false, and you would find out within an hour of installing it.
We would rather be the page you trusted when you installed Mint than the page that wasted your Saturday.
The one row where Golem is the answer — eventually
Golem is not trying to be the best Linux distribution in general. It is built for one specific person: someone who wants a computer that cannot be broken by an update, that never requires a terminal, and that offers the right tool at the right moment instead of burying it in menus.
Today, the honest version of that recommendation is Fedora Silverblue, because it exists and works. What Silverblue does not do is put the rollback in front of you as a feature you can see and use, or supply a shell designed as one organism, or fuse your Android phone into the same system. That is the gap Golem is being built into. The detailed comparison is here, including the rows where Golem currently loses.
If you want to follow along instead
Install one of the recommendations above so you have a working computer, and build the Golem VM alongside it if you want to watch an operating system grow up in public. When the ISO ships and Golem can honestly compete for a row in this table on its own merits, we will change this page — not before.
Recommendations age. This page was last reviewed on 31 August 2026 — if something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.