Reach and appeal

Who do they target?

Despite its longevity, Slackware has limited appeal. The distro is ideal for purists who don’t need the conveniences offered by other modern Linux distros. It’ll suit those who can appreciate its approach of not anticipating use cases or precluding user decisions. However, if the CLI gives you cold feet, you’ll find Slackware has a dauntingly steep learning curve.

The other distros are a lot more welcoming. Debian pitches itself to desktop users, developers and even for enterprise use cases because of its focus on stability. That said, Debian’s freesoftware-only approach limits its appeal for pragmatic desktop users looking for an install-and-use desktop.

OpenSUSE is one of the options that fits that bill. It has fixed and rolling release editions, which will cater to a wide variety of users, from beginners to experienced campaigners. The new MicroOS release helps it target containerised use cases as well.

Ubuntu is another that’s primarily known as a desktop distro, though it also targets enterprise, cloud and IoT deployments as well. One of the reasons behind its popularity is that it offers all the conveniences users would expect on the desktop, as well as on other non-desktop platforms.

Fedora has a similar wide reach and between its various releases and spins does enough to serve the needs of a wide variety of users. The distro is known for working closely with upstream Linux projects, which often sees it bundle the latest software before others. It also helps serve as the upstream source for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which gives users an opportunity to test, improve and use enterprise-grade software.