Learn how to – Best Linux Desktop Distributions to try in 2022

Learn how to – Best Linux Desktop Distributions to try in 2022.

The beginning of 2022 looked as promising as a brilliant protégé. The surprise of the pandemic made lots of devastating damage in the previous year and everyone around the world was hopeful that the new young year held good things for them. As we continue to get to terms with the new realities of life, we found it would help to share some Linux distributions you might consider using while you are in lockdown, working remotely or just experimenting even after the lockdown has been lifted. This article will be under frequent updates as the distributions get updated from time to time. We hope the following list of distributions will make your desktop experience worthwhile.

1. EndeavourOS Apollo

Speaking of Arch Linux, most of the people who have installed and used it have this nostalgic feeling creeping under their skin because they understand what it is all about. Arch has come along way and this can be proven when you take a look at its pedigree that now boasts of may children. EndeavourOS is one of them. It is a rolling release Linux distribution based on Arch Linux that aims to be succeed Antergos – providing an easy setup and pre-configured desktop environment on an Arch base.

Some improvements you will stumble upon

• Many Desktop environment support: With EndeavourOS Apollo, you have a choice of seven Desktop Environments Xfce, Mate, LXQt, Cinnamon, Plasma, Gnome, Budgie, tiling window managers i3-WM, BSPWM, Qtile, Worm and Sway.
• Double installed packages conflicts fixed; no more conflicts in case you select both i3 and xfce for installation
• A few Display managers to choose from are now available; These DMs include ly, Lxdm GDM, and LightDM + Slick greeter and not just the common default LightDM + Slick greeter
• The order of DE option and package chooser now vary; Calamares makes it possible for the user to first choose the DE, before getting to install other packages such as another kernel
• The issue of Firefox getting installed by default is fixed
• Unlike before where compression was applied to files post installation, in Endeavour OS Apollo, compression is applied on installed files for btrfs installs
• By default Bluetooth is disabled, however after installation, you can check if Bluetooth is working on live environment since that is where it is enabled
• For those doing an online installation, you can track the online installation process by checking the status just below the progress bar
• For a better Calamares integration, there is a rewritten custom EOS modules
• Both Qogir icons and cursor are available on Live environment unlike before where Arc icon theme was used
• An internet check is done by the installaer just before any installation is done to avoid issues of failed internet connection for regions where  GitLab or GitHub is blocked
• Generated GRUB code can work with both dash and bash
• Auto-login: Bugfix on DE not opening when chosen auto-login during installation on Calamares.
• Send logs to Pastebin – Calamares is now shipping with a send logs to Pastebin feature, making tracking down the cause of a failed installation easier for us, once posted on our community platforms.
• Nvidia-inst:Comes with a command line tool that helps in the installation of Nvidia driver, legacy drivers 470 and 390 drivers
• Linux Kernel: 5.17.1
• nvidia-dkms 510.60.02-1
• Calamares 3.2.54
• Firefox 99.0-1
• Mesa 22.0.1-3
• Clean-up: A thorough clean-up of our packages to keep our ISO under 2GB.

More on the latest features and improvement of EndeavourOS can be found on its Main Website

2. KDE Neon

Derived from KDE neon website, KDE neon is the intersection of a stable desktop with cutting-edge features using a stable Ubuntu long-term release as its core, packaging the hottest software fresh from the KDE Community ovens. It is all packaged in a fashion that is easy to use and ready to make their own.

Default Desktop: The default Window Manager you will land on is KDE Plasma
Init Software: For application lifecycle, you will enjoy the flexibility and ease of systemd
Journaled File Systems: Btrfs, ext3, ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS
Package Management: As it is based on Ubuntu, rest assured that DEB (apt) package manager has your back

Applications

• Firefox 87.0
• Linux Kernel 5.4.0
• Python 3.8.2
• You will find KDE Plasma 5.19.4 installed on it.
• Kernel: Since it is based on Ubuntu 20.04, Neon uses Kernel 5.4.

You can find more details about this distribution on its main website.

3. openSUSE 15.3 – Leap

openSUSE is a stable, easy to use and complete multi-purpose distribution aimed towards users and developers working on the desktop or server. It is great for beginners, experienced users and ultra geeks alike, in short, it is perfect for everybody! The latest release, openSUSE Leap 15.3, features new and massively improved versions of all useful server and desktop applications.

What is Hot!

• Linux kernel: Leap 15.3 uses the Kernel 5.3.18 
• GNU Compiler Collection: GNU Compiler Collection 9, GCC 8 (Leap 15.1) and GCC 7 (Leap 15.0) are available.
• Hardware Support: Leap 15.3 works with  x86_64, aarch64, PowerPC (ppc64le) and s390x, and deployment scenarios can be run for physical, virtual, host and guest, and cloud.
• Networking: Leap 15.3 utilizes AppArmor for both laptops and desktops.
• Security: Leap 15.3 has received all necessary backports and uses the same Enterprise Linux Kernel that SUSE uses.
• systemd: Leap 15.3 has systemd version 246.10-1.10
• PHP 7: The 7.4.6 version of PHP is applicable for OpenSUSE 15.3
• Printing System: Leap 15.3 has same CUPS 2.2.7-3.20.1 is standard for OpenSUSE
• Containers: Leap 15.3 is filled with several containerization technologies like Singularity, which bring containers and reproducibility to scientific computing and the high-performance computing (HPC) world.

You can find more details about openSUSE 15.3 on its openSUSE

4. Deepin 20.5 – Details Make Perfection

As an open-source GNU/Linux operating system, based on Linux kernel, the new Deepin 20.5 preinstalls Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) and nearly 30 Deepin native applications, as well as several applications from the open-source community to meet users’ daily learning and work needs. When you hear about a new version, what automatically lands in your mind is new features, better performance and a new experience. Deepin 20.5 comes with a new 5.15.24 (Stable) kernel, Debian 10.6 repositories, enhanced system stability and compatibility.

New features in Deepin 20.5

According to Deepin’s website, Deepin 20.5 presents an operating system with many known glitches fixed and optimization of the existing functions.

Enhanced performance

In Deepin 20.5, the operating efficiency of processors, network transmission and response, file reading and writing, and graphics display has been significantly improved.

Better system repositories

Debian 10 (buster) are integrated by default

Cloud Sync

Can you imagine the flexibility of having most of your desktop system settings backed up in the cloud? Deepin has that served hot. After Signing in Deepin ID in Control Center, you can sync system settings to the cloud automatically, including network settings, sound settings, mouse settings, update settings, power settings, corner settings, theme, wallpaper, launcher, and dock. You can choose to turn off the specified options or all of them. With this feature, you can move to and work on another computer seamlessly
The mantra here is to Sync the system settings at one click

Superb desktop environment

When ultimate performance is required, the high-performance mode offers smoother user experiences.

Movie

The movie video and audio are supported in Deepin 20.5

Grand Search

This has been greatly optimized. You can use both the file types and extensions as keywords for your search.

Drivers

The NVIDIA graphics cards have been added

Dock now Shows the 12 hour time system

Before the 12 hour time system was incompletely displayed

Glitches Fixed

Deepin 20.5 comes with a heavy load of fixed bugs that had been experienced and raised in the previous versions. Some of the applications whose bugs have been fixed include the following.

• Fixed: the Telegram launcher icon not being seen in most devices
• Fixed: wireless networks not being found nor listed on some devices
• Fixed: wrong display of app icons on the dock

Find out more about the new Deepin 20.5

5. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)

As you might have noticed, Ubuntu releases its new LTSs accompanied by a codename to make the juice sweeter. Ubuntu 22.04 has been baptized with the name (Jammy Jellyfish). This LTS will be supported until 2032. Below are some of the features associated with Jammy Jellyfish. They include:

• New desktop GNOME 42
• Cloud images for Azure, AWS, and GCP 
• Latest Linux 5.15 kernel
• OpenSSL 3.0 for modern secure communication and general-purpose cryptography
• General support for FRRouting, GlusterFS and realmd/adcli 
• PHP(v 8.1)
• Ruby 3.0
• Python 3.10.0
• Grub 2.06
• NetworkManager 1.32
• New hardware support for AMD CPUs, Apple’s M1 chip, Intel Alder Lake CPUs and GPUs,
• Enhanced drivers including new NTFS file-system driver named NTFS3
• Runs on major architectures including x86-64,IBM s390x (LinuxONE), POWER8, POWER9,ARM v7, ARM64, and RISC-V
• Firefox version 96.0
• LibreOffice 7.2.5
• Thunderbird version 91.5

With the continues support for Jammy Jellyfish by Canonical, we are yet to see more updates . This will help them tailor this new release not only to their tastes but also in accordance with what the multitude of users would wish to have as their desktop.

6. Fedora Workstation 36

After working so hard with zeal and passion from thousands of Fedora community members and contributors, Fedora celebrated another release-Fedora 36.

As a user-friendly, reliable and powerful FOSS operating system, Fedora can be wonderful for your laptop or desktop computer. As this article is being written, Fedora supports a wide range of developers, from hobbyists and students to professionals in corporate environments.

The following are new features that this new release of Fedora can afford to its audience

Better GNOME 42

Fedora 36 slid into the world with the latest GNOME 42. Putting new wine on old wineskin is retrogressive. For this reason, Fedora 36 is unleashed garbed in new regalia. That is the improved GNOME 42 with many apps being ported to GTK 4, a universal dark mode theme, and an added interface whose purpose to do video recoding and take screenshots.

Screenshot tool

An updated screenshot tool, all possible with GNOME 42

Latest DEs

On this new Fedora 36, some of the latest DEs are supported, they include, LXQt 1.0.0, KDE Plasma 5.24, and Xfce 4.16

New wallpapers

To make the default Fedora experience better, there are a variety of cool wallpapers to choose from.

Other hot features that will make your life amazing include the following.

• PostgreSQL 14
• Linux Kernel version 5.17
• Ruby on Rails 7.0
• PHP version 8.1
• Golang 1.18
• Django updated to 4.0
• Java 11 to Java 17
• gcc 12 and Glibc 2.35
• Updated OpenLDAP from version 2.4.59 to version 2.6.1
• utoconf updated from 2.69 to 2.71

7. Linux Mint 20.3 (Una)

It has been known that most users who switch from other operating systems such as windows to Linux almost always choose Linux Mint to begin with. This is major because Mint has many user-friendly tools and a good look that will cause them to feel comfortable pretty fast. Now Mint is a distribution that is based on Ubuntu as the base. Linux Mint 20.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2025.

Cool new and improved features include:

Cinnamon updated to 5.2

Linux Mint 20.3 comes with the new Cinnamon 5.2.

Thingy

A document manager that comes with Linux Mint 20.3 for proper access of your documents.

Hypnotix

Another application which is new in Linux Mint 20.3 is Hypnotix, an IPTV player which looks far much better thanks to dark mode.

Web Apps

In Linux Mint 20.3, the Web App manager comes with a new column used to show the browser which is used by each of the WebApp

XApps improvements

• The Xreader toolbar is no longer in fullscreen mode
• In Xed, navigation through tabs is easier using Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab
• The Xviewer image viewer, has the ability to fit images quickly to either the height or width
• Xed and Xreader feature can hide the menubar

System improvements

Linux Mint 20.3 ships with linux-firmware 1.187

Upgraded Flatpak to version 1.12

8. Manjaro 21 “Qonos”

Manjaro has managed to stay among the top list of Linux distributions for a long time now on trusted sites and this tells more of good news than bad about the distribution.

As a new user, you can download either GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Manjaro-i3 and many other editions that are available in the community for example Mate, Budgie and Cinnamon among others. Anyhow, whether it deserves to be your distribution of choice depends on you based on the following features.

Updated desktop environment

One of the things that are so impressive about KDE on Manjaro 21 is the sleek and beautiful look it was designed for users to enjoy. In case you will not be impressed with the settings you will encounter, there is an armoury of widgets that you can use to tweak your environment to befit your preference and unique taste.

Applications

There is a collection of applications that come with Manjaro by default which aid in the immediate usage of the OS. Some already mentioned include Firefox browser.

Xfce 4.16 and Plasma 5.23

Manjaro 21 comes with the new Xfce 4.16, GNOME 41, redesigned KDE with Plasma 5.23

Revamped Calamares

The installer Calamares received many improvements. There is improvement in the filesystem selection to promote auto-partitioning and better Btrfs support.

9. MX Linux 21 (Wildflower)

According to mxlinux.org, “MX Linux is a cooperative venture between the antiX and former MEPIS communities, using the best tools and talents from each distro.” MX Linux 21 consists of bug fixes and application updates since the previous version. So much bug fixes have been done not forgetting the improvements done on the distribution to make your experience better if not best on your desktop.

Based on Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’

The new MX-Linux has its base as Debian 11 which in itself has many new features as will be seen in this article below.

New Xfce Desktop environment

MX Linux 21 ships with the latest Xfce Desktop 4.16

Kernel 5.10

Debian 11 has been upgraded to include Kernel 5.10. This makes it the default Kernel in MX Linux 21. Also know that the AHS (Advanced Hardware Support) ISO features a Debian 5.10.24 kernel, mesa 20.3 updates, as well as a new updated firmware packages

MX-Apps have been updated

Bugs have been fixed, performance improved and other issues resolved, MX Linux 21 comes with its own application for a better experience as a user.

Read more details about MX Linux 21

10. Elementary OS 6.1 Jólnir

As the name openly suggests, elementary OS is founded on the philosophy of simplicity. That should not be confused with a lack of elegance. elementary OS which is based on Ubuntu has made it easier for many users having a Windows background to transition as smoothly as possible. It is simply a distribution you should be eyeing in case you do not need the technical aspects of Linux. elementary 6.1 has finally been released and brings the following to your buffet.

New Onboarding app

This new app introduces key features to users and handles common first-run tasks like managing privacy settings. Moreover, when a major new feature lands in elementary OS, Onboarding can also be used to introduce it to existing users. Due to its maturity over the years, the elementary team decided to commit to a Flatpak future for their AppCenter ecosystem.

Flatpak

Flatpak is an open-source technology that enables developers to ship apps to different desktops in a way that is more secure and privacy-respecting for users.

Sideload

There are some Apps out there that will not meet the strict requirements that elementary OS AppCenter has set. For this reason, they may be shipped in a different location that may be insecure. To mitigate this risk elementary OS team developed this utility called Sideload to make it extremely easy to sideload Flatpak apps. Sideload explains the implications of installing an app including potential download size and if it will add a remote that might contain other apps.

AppCenter

The headlining feature is Flatpak support: updates to sideloaded apps will appear in AppCenter alongside all other updates, and apps from any user-added Flatpak remotes will show up in AppCenter as uncurated apps. Whether you are removing, installing or upgrading apps, you will track what is happening using the new progress indicator.

Accessibility and Privacy

Aside from showing whether an app is curated or non-curated beforehand, you are able to also access detailed information on apps yet to installed has certain content warning.

Many Apps have been updated

Some of the updated applications include Calendar, Camera, Photos, Music, Files, Videos, Code and of course the terminal.

There is much more for you in elementary OS 6.1. Please check it out at Elementary Website

11. Zorin OS 16

After getting all the feedback from its users, Zorin replied with a new release of Zorin OS. They have focused on making the desktop feel even more familiar and user-friendly to new users, especially those moving away from Windows 7 leading up to the end of its support. This new release promises the following good tidings to its community and users.

New LibreOffice version 7.3

This new LibreOffice comes with a multitude of improvements to make it even more compatible with Microsoft Office documents. In addition, documents now open and save up to 97% faster than before, and a better dark mode.

Zorin Connect has been improved

Zorin Connect has been upgraded to make the experience between your computer and Android phone even more seamless.

User Interface Refined

The default theme has been revamped and animations that present a polished look.

Linux Kernel version 5.13  

Zorin OS 16 is now powered by Linux Kernel version 5.13 which works with even more hardware and introduces performance enhancements and security improvements.

12. Pop!_OS 22.04

Developed and maintained by System76, a US-based Linux hardware company, Pop!_OS is an operating system for STEM and creative professionals who use their computer as a tool to discover and create. Unleash your potential on secure, reliable open source software. Based on your exceptional curiosity, we sense you have a lot of it.

Features

The following are just some of the features you will find in Pop!

Auto-Tiling With Pop Shell

Auto-tiling helps you be both organized and efficient, and is especially convenient on large displays. When you open new windows, the OS takes care of slotting them in on the available space while you focus on the window you are currently working on. To make it even better, you can resize, move, launch and search using keyboard exclusively. If you have used i3 before, you will have a lot of fun using Pop!_OS 22.04.

improved workspaces view 

Increased performance, HiDPI fixes, and awesome multi monitor support, hence limiting journald log to 1Gigabyte.

Update Schedule terms

Pop!_OS provides the latest features and security patches through rolling updates and periodic OS version upgrades, to be performed at your discretion, only when you choose what time it should happen.

Encryption out of the box

Pop!_OS encrypts your installation by default, and is the only Linux distribution that enables pre-installed full-disk encryption out of the box.

Desktop Environment: Pop!_OS 22.04 has been revamped with the new GNOME 42

Kernel: Pop!_OS 22.04 ships with Kernel 5.16

Defaults to PipeWire

This is meant for audio processing. The purpose of this is to improve customization, quality and the control of audio.

Get more details about Pop!_OS here

Conclusion

Thank you for reading through. As you navigate this year of 2022, we wish you the best in your endeavors, and keep safe. At the course of it all, take an adventure as you explore some of the Linux distributions we have managed to share. May it be a great experience.