this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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List of European Linux Distributions (inspired by blaze's post) (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
75 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A note! the desktop field is completely optional! You can install any other desktop you like, but the listed are the "main" ones, usually recommended by the distro.

Linux Mint

  • Country: Ireland ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ช
  • Experience: Simple
  • Desktop: Cinnamon

Best distro for beginners. has two versions: One based off of ubuntu (default), and another one debian (recommended, LMDE)

https://www.linuxmint.com/

Ubuntu

  • Country: Britain ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง
  • Experience: Simple
  • Desktop: GNOME

Good distro, but has some controversies. Though it's the most popular beginners distro by far.

https://ubuntu.com/

EndeavourOS

  • Country: Netherlands ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ
  • Experience: Intermediate
  • Desktop: KDE/GNOME/XFCE

My second favorite :) Arch based, easy installer and updater, friendly community and beautiful themes. I recommend this distro if you are into arch based distros without wanting the painful part of it.

https://endeavouros.com/

OpenSUSE

  • Country: Germany ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช
  • Experience: Intermediate
  • Desktop: KDE

It's mainly built around using the GUI, with tools like yast. Uses KDE.

https://www.opensuse.org/

Manjaro

  • Country: Germany ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช / Austria ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡น / France๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท
  • Experience: Intermediate
  • Desktop: KDE/GNOME/XFCE

Added because of popular recommendation. I recommend EndeavourOS more, since manjaro has a... history.

https://manjaro.org/

NixOS

  • Country: Netherlands ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ
  • Experience: Advanced
  • Desktop: KDE/GNOME

My personal favorite <3 Great for servers. It's not for the faint of heart, though hah. It's an immutable distro, where there is no package manager, or manually modifying config files; your entire system is created with .nix files, not commands. Reproducable.

https://nixos.org/

Arch

  • Country: Canada ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ (Yes yes, it's not european but how can you not mention arch???)
  • Experience: Advanced
  • Desktop: None

Most popular distro for dedicated users, and for good reason; bleeding edge, full power over your system. Though you have to manually set up everything, from internet to your deskop environment.

Void

  • Country: Spain ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ
  • Experience: Advanced
  • Desktop: XFCE

Great distro if you want something like arch, but without systemd or slightly more stable (Also, musl support). Obscure but amazing.

https://voidlinux.org/

Debian [Honorary mention]

  • Country: Global ๐ŸŒ
  • Experience: Intermediate
  • Desktop: KDE/GNOME/XFCE

An honorary mention. Isn't suited for everyone, but is the golden standard for servers, and the grandfather of a huge family tree of distros.

https://www.debian.org/

VanillaOS [Honorary mention]

  • Country: Global ๐ŸŒ๏ธ
  • Experience: Advanced
  • Desktop: GNOME

VanillaOS is a debian-based immutable operating system, which can install packages from any other distro and is very hard to brick.

https://vanillaos.org/

That should cover a lot. Please heed the desktop warning, and please correct me/comment suggestions. This is not perfect, so please do criticize where possible c:

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[โ€“] RambaZamba@feddit.org 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I'm currently wondering whether this is going in the right direction. I understand that we are boycotting commercial products from the US, which makes perfect sense to me. But as someone who works on FOSS software myself, I wonder if we are hurting the right people by not using FOSS software that comes from the US. I think these are largely people who don't support Trump.

[โ€“] Saleh@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago

Also i find "Europeaness" a bit sketchy, if things are developed globally. We should embrace global cooperation rather than mimicking US nationalism with a new "European" nationalism.

[โ€“] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago

I completely agree. I think FOSS software is way harder to control by a corporation (especially licensed copyleft) Personally i don't think it's harmful to use OSS software from any country at all. Whether by chinese, belgian or american as long as it is open source, it's fair game i think.

I shared this post since i thought this community might enjoy it, but all distros are fine.

[โ€“] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you look at a lot of the other posts they're more along the lines of "these companies are based in the EU".... and that's it. Not why they're better than the US based equivalents or why the US based ones are worth boycotting.

And to a certain extent I understand that. But the signal to noise ratio has lowered considerably in the past few weeks.

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[โ€“] klu9@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Thanks for this post. Here's my contribution:

Search results for Lemmy communities for these distros:

Others mentioned in the comments (I can't vouch for their "Europeanness"):

Others (I can't vouch for their "Europeanness"):

At this point I remembered Distrowatch and realized you can search by country of origin. E.g. Distrowatch search for active distros from Austria. And Italy.

Too many European countries and too many distros for me to do them all. If anyone else wants to chip in, e.g. pick a country, feel free.

And if one neighbouring country (Canada) being threatened by that f$#king guy can get an honorary mention here, let's include another, too: Mexico.

Mexicans also started the GNOME desktop environment, but I don't think the upcoming GNOME OS is based in Mexico.

[โ€“] XM34@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

Manjaro is German, French and Austrian.

[โ€“] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thank you! Sorry for ignoring my inbox for some time, i've been slow these couple of days. I tried to avoid more obscure distros/forks since they're harder for users. I've gotten multiple manjaro recommendations, and i wanted to add vanillaOS but it's small (though why not lol) I'll add them, thank you :^)

[โ€“] klu9@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

You're welcome :)

Obscure distros vary in difficulty, some are quite easy, but generally the more obscure they are, the less chance of support through forums, chat rooms etc. That's the main reason why I personally moved from more obscure to more popular (Mint).

Vanilla OS is still pretty obscure (it has Wikipedia pages in only 2 languages, Spanish and German), but I think it's designed to be pretty unbreakable by noobs. (I haven't tried it yet, so can't vouch for that.)

[โ€“] Polderviking@feddit.nl 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Maybe I'll get down-voted so hard I end up below earth's tectonic plates but I'm against this, in the context of open source software.

The whole point is that it's worked on by everybody from everywhere and we really need to not tarnish that ideology. Very little money changes hands in this desktop OS landscape and there's thusly more to lose than to gain here.

You'd literally only be caring about the location of the entity behind any distribution because all the packages that make up the vast majority of Linux distro's are still going to be coming from the same places as, again, that's the whole point.

[โ€“] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

Nah i agree :) FOSS software's location matters much less than corporations. It does not matter much at all, really. Now that i think about it i should've added a disclaimer about this, i even agreed with this point from before. I was just inspired by blaze's OpenSUSE post and decided to make a comprehensive list of european distros.

[โ€“] turtl@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Linux Mint is honestly amazing. I always read about it being labeled as "for beginners" or being "boring" almost as if that's a bad thing. I just wanted something that works out of the box and not take on a new hobby.. And I got just that with Linux Mint. Highly recommended

[โ€“] Lauchs@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Good to know! Being a Canadian, I'm pretty determined to transfer over to linux before Microsoft stops supporting windows 10 but have been pretty intimidated by various horror stories etc.

[โ€“] phanto@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Canadian person! If you break it, ask me and I will do my best to non-snarkily assist. I am working on becoming less snarky, so it's practice!

[โ€“] Lauchs@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Thank you! I will hopefully not have to take you up on this offer but I have it saved and already appreciate it!

[โ€“] phanto@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Also, I like Mint. Back in the day, I had an obscure wifi issue, asked Twitter, and Clem himself replied with a one-liner that fixed me right up.

[โ€“] KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I broke my system several times and probably will continue to do so. Linux really shoehorned it into my thick skull to make backups xD

Apart from that I can recommend saving any important data on a seperate drive or partition from the OS and keeping a thumbdrive with the live OS around. If the system is truly borked, you can boot the liveOS and do some damage control, like getting important data out, before reinstalling the system.

Best of Luck on you Linux journey. :)

[โ€“] klu9@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

For anyone who wants a system that doesn't break, look into immutable distros (unchangeable base OS and libraries) with atomic updates (which don't replace anything until they have been fully installed and confirmed as working).

I don't know where Vanilla OS is officially headquartered but I do know several of its key figures are Italian.

https://vanillaos.org/

[โ€“] EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 month ago

It will be an adjustment, but for most people it's really not a difficult thing to get used to. Just need to wrap your head around different installation methods, different file system layouts, and just the fact that you have so much freedom available to you.

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions about adopting Linux! Even if you think it's a stupid question.

[โ€“] Bilaketari@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago

The honest truth is that it takes some time to get to an 'expert' level where you can be confident about what you're doing, but simply setting it up and using it for basic tasks (following some guide) is pretty darn straightforward. Most people that have issues tend to have them with use cases (eg. someone wants to edit photos but can't get the same results as with Adobe Lightroom with alternative applications) or with specific bits of hardware (maybe they have a laptop which requires specific windows-only drivers to get the full functionality out of the trackpad, WiFi card or battery optimisation). So if you set it up and the hardware all works, you'll probably be fine for all the basic tasks most people need, and you will gradually pick up advanced knowledge as you go along.

[โ€“] flightyhobler@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If it breaks more is because you are free to do more with it. Just try dual booting or even just via a live "install". There's nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

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[โ€“] FatsoJackson@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

one word about SuSE - one of the oldest still active distros. Is one of the few "real" enterprise distros with features like SAP certification. 10+ years support for SLES releases (Suse Linux Enterprise Server). Has Tumbleweed as rolling release like Arch and Leap for non-rolling. Also Micro OS (which is IMHO the future), and desktop is of course not only KDE but also GNOME and every other major and minor DE available. Don't get discouraged by the Installer, it's very powerful but also not simplest point and click. Also zypper and YaST take getting used to if you come from apt or pacman lands. Disclaimer I use Tw ;)

[โ€“] kaidezee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In my opinion, it is unfair to judge a distribution by it's origin country. Because it's an international effort regardless.

[โ€“] 0x0@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

True, but if there's some sort of legal body representing it, like a foundation or something, then the distro is legally bound by those country's laws.

[โ€“] coldsideofyourpillow@lemmy.cafe 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

ultimate neckbeard momentI'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

[โ€“] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 weeks ago

You've just made this post x10 better

[โ€“] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

Iโ€™m pleasantly surprised by the country origins of Arch and Mint.

[โ€“] LimpRimble@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Manjaro was originally German/French. It is more international now, but still:

The Manjaro project is backed by Manjaro GmbH & Co. KG, an open source driven company.

[โ€“] recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Wait Arch is Canadian?

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[โ€“] lazycog@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

Whaaat linux mint my beloved is Irish! Awesome!

[โ€“] vga@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You should probably classify a lot of these as global. Like Arch: sure it was founded by a canadian, but nobody in the current dev team is from Canada.

[โ€“] plumpsklo@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

What about Zorin? I think it is one of the best to Show Windows users a Linux experience.

[โ€“] zymagoras777@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

I've been using Mint for ages and never realized it's Irish

[โ€“] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

Hooray!

[โ€“] banghida@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Isn't Canonical (Ubuntu) a UK-based company?

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[โ€“] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Desktop: None

lmao

Also I never knew NixOS was European! Good post

[โ€“] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Thank you!

[โ€“] EuropeanMade@feddit.uk 2 points 3 weeks ago

I love this list because it's about open source software, but I also agree to what @Polderviking says because open source transcends the boundaries of countries.

[โ€“] StellarSt0rm@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

NixOS supports more than just KDE Plasma and GNOME, the installer is in one of those (It has the options KDE Plasma, GNOME and minimal (No GUI)), but in it you get the choice to install any* DE (It has like 5 or 6 choices, otherwise you can still install any other directly from your config) :3

EDIT: Nevermind, i didnt read the note at the top of the post, although i'd consider NixOS as having no main DE :p

[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is LMDE also the one that would be recommended for beginners or, as one, should I stick to the Ubuntu-based?

[โ€“] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because its been Mint-ified, there's not a huge amount of difference apart from the positive step of not shipping with Snap. I use LMDE and if you stick with Cinnamon you're not going to notice much difference at all. You can trial it on a live usb if you want.

[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Snap and Cinnamon being UIs, right?

Sorry, but I am THAT much of a beginner.

[โ€“] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Snap is a way of installing applications (like Flatpaks) but is seen by many as problematic as its closed source and Ubuntu seem to want to make it the default way to install apps.

Cinnamon is a desktop environment like gnome or KDE - so things like (to use a Windows example) File Manager - things like icons, folders, toolbars, windows etc - all the graphical bits that make up your desktop.

[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

What is a better alternative to Snap that I could/should use as a beginner in Mint?

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[โ€“] DaiDactylos@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Snap is a packaging format for applications that was created by Canonical, the company that makes Ubuntu. Works similarly to Flatpak in that you just download one file and the application still then just run as it includes any necessary libraries, etc. I don't know how well supported it is outside of Ubuntu, but Flatpak seems to be more prevalent.

Cinnamon is a UI, one that should be easy to pick up for new users if they've had some experience with Windows.

And FWIW, everyone starts as a beginner!

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