I'm on the hunt for a Linux distribution that allows me to customize the desktop environment extensively. I also want something that's great for learning Linux based on my hardware specs. I recently got my hands on an ASUS S406UA with an i7-8550U and 8 GB of RAM, purchased for just $37, although it has no battery or SSD and was reported as defective. After plugging it in and booting a USB ISO with a distro, it surprisingly ran well, with just a minor issue of a loose flex cable causing some flickering. It's amazing what people discard!
5 Answers
I have to vote for Fedora! It’s worth noting again that the desktop environment choice is separate from the distro. All distros will allow some configuration. Personally, I've found KDE to be the most customizable, which led me to switch from Gnome. If you have specific goals like enterprise work, sticking with the Red Hat family (like CentOS, Alma, or RHEL) is beneficial, as that's what many businesses use.
I really enjoy using awesomewm for customizations and scripting everything on my desktop. Keep in mind that awesomewm isn’t a distro but a desktop environment! It provides a lot of flexibility.
What distros have you already experimented with? And remember, customizing the desktop environment is independent from the distro itself, so you can always swap them out later!
What do you mean by "learning Linux"? Are you aiming to manage servers or just use Linux at home? If it's the latter, you can choose any distro and get started. Just pick one that appeals to you and dive into it!
From my experience, Fedora is definitely one to check out. Alternatively, you might want to look at Ultramarine, which is based on Fedora. It comes bundled with useful apps, codecs, and media players ready to go, along with additional repos enabled by default!
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