The same reason why there are many political parties, or restaurant brands, or even games: everyone thinks that their way is better, or are trying to improve on something that they like.
I get that it can be daunting for someone wanting to start, but just like with other topics you should start with something simple to dip your toes and move on from there. My personal recommendation has been Linux Mint, it has sane defaults, works out of the box for most cases and it’s popular enough (and based on another popular distro) which makes getting help easier.
Trying to pick your distro from the sea of available options might feel impossible, but 99% of the stuff is the same, so picking something that works out of the box for you is a great start, and you can learn what you need to make a meaningful choice afterwards.
Let me give you an example on the sort of differences you can expect: do you think that updates should be delivered as soon as possible or leave some delay to catch bugs/issues? If a delay how big should it be?; How much stuff should come installed by default with your system? Should you get a bare ones system to build up or something at least functional for everyday tasks to adapt?; Should you be able to edit your system files or should they be locked so it’s harder to break stuff?. These sort of questions might seem pointless, but they’re the core differences between Linux distros, and if you’re answer to them is I don’t know/care anything that works out of the box would be good enough until you develop an opinion on the matter.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 16 hours ago
It is ridiculous. We need to develop one universal Linux that covers everyone’s use cases. (Relevant XKCD on Standards)
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
That one universal linux is Fedora, or OpenSuse, or Debian, or Pop_OS. Take your pick.
I recommend Bazzite to gamers. If you primarily play games, there is no reason to look at anything else.
If you want more control and like to experiment, try one of the above distros I mentioned. I like Fedora and constantly come back to it, but any Linux with KDE Plasma is going to be fine for most people. I am very excited for the upcoming version of Pop_OS with the Cosmic desktop beta. There is a strong chance that becomes my go-to once that releases, since it has the good parts of Ubuntu and none of the bad ones.
Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu are the only ones I tell people to avoid. Also, avoid Arch until you get really into Linux and crave complete control.
avatar@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
I do primarily play games, but it only takes one program to not work for the whole OS to be a failure for that use case.
And then over time, another program, then another program. It either all works or none of it does.