Today I'm gonna make the switch for the first time. Is

>>57547692

anywhere is a good start for beginners willing to learn

It's fine.
Just make sure you have an ethernet connection, because the firmware for your wifi card is most likely located in the non-free repos and aren't installed by default.
You'll have to fetch them online by adding "contrib non-free" to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

>>57547726
doesnt Debian have an iso with nonfree included though
I know I just got one..

>>57547747
yeah, but they don't make it easy to find on their website, so I pretend it doesn't exist

>>57547692
Ubuntu is a little friendlier for beginners, but Debian's fine. Ubuntu is just Debian with more bloat and hand-holding.

>>57547726 has got it right.

>>57547755
Its unofficial. And its linked from the downloads page.

Debian is a great all around distro. If you want to learn the ins and outs of linux, go with Slackware because it pretty much forces you to compile from source. Just don't use the package manager because no packages except the most popular ones are regularly maintained. For example mpv is two versions behind.

>SJW: the distro

mint is probably the best beginner distro hands down

>>57547692
i guess ubuntu would be easier, but debian is fine as a first distro. if you want to use it as a desktop system, consider using backports for more recent packages.

File: debian.png (81KB, 1028x1270px) Image search: [Google]

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>>57547692
Debian here. You should go for Mint.