LinuxSoftwareApril 7, 20210Linux lovers read, the best Linux distributions of 2021

If you are just taking your first steps in Linux, you should begin your journey with Nitrux. The distro leverages on some of the most stable and well-respected open source projects such as Ubuntu and the KDE Plasma desktop and builds on them to create a distro that suits the sensibilities of new Linux users.

For instance, instead of building a custom desktop environment from scratch, Nitrux relies on KDE Plasma’s famed malleability along with some redesigned components to simplify the workflow for new users. It offers a couple of layouts for the desktop to allow users to make best use of the available screen real estate.

Nitrux has even customized some administration apps to make tasks such as firewall and backup approachable for inexperienced users. It ships with a healthy dose of apps for all kinds of desktop tasks.

The distro also supports and encourages the use of AppImages, which makes it straightforward to install additional apps. In fact, Nitrux plans to switch all its graphical apps to AppImages eventually. All the AppImages are launched in a firejail sandbox, which makes Nitrux more secure out of the box than your typical desktop Linux.

The distro has an active community that you can interact with on all the popular social networks. However, the lack of a dedicated documentation section is a downer. Nitrux is available for 64-bit computers only, but can also boot on older machines with the Legacy BIOS in addition to the newer EFI machines.

Kodachi is designed for anyone who cares about their privacy and needs a secure, anti-forensic, and anonymous distro. The latest edition of the distro is based on Xubuntu 18.04.5 and uses a customized Xfce desktop.

Kodachi equips with all kinds of security-centric and privacy-enhancing apps along with a whole lot of regular apps to enable you to use the distro as your daily driver. Its custom desktop is designed so as to not overwhelm first time users and gives you access to all the apps while still being intuitive.

To ensure privacy, the distro routes all the connections to the Internet through a VPN before passing them to the Tor network. If you have the know-how you can easily tweak its settings to connect through your own VPN service.

Similarly, to enhance your security, Kodachi uses AppArmor to isolate apps. It also includes several privacy-protection tools such as VeraCrypt, zuluCrypt, KeePassXC, as well as the Metadata Anonymization Toolkit (MAT) for removing metadata information from files.

Its anti-forensics capabilities are materialized with various tools including one that’ll wipe the RAM. The distro also includes an option to create a password that when entered will securely erase all contents of your encrypted Kodachi installation.

5. Rescatux

Whether you are running a Linux or a Windows machine, if you run into an error, chances are you can use Rescatux to get yourself out of the sticky situation.

With Rescatux you get all the important and useful tools to fix several issues with non-booting Linux and Windows installations. The distro uses the lightweight LXDE desktop which makes it usable even on underpowered machines.

When it boots up, the distro automatically fires up its custom helper application called Rescapp. The app is intuitive to operate and makes the process of fixing errors accessible even to inexperienced users.

Rescapp hosts several buttons that are divided into various categories, such as Boot, Grub, Filesystem and Password. You can use these to fix common repair tasks such as restoring bootloaders, repairing filesystems, fixing partition tables and resetting passwords on both Linux and Windows installs.

The buttons inside each of the categories have descriptive labels that will identify their function. When clicked they’ll bring up the relevant documentation to explain the exact steps the distro will take to rectify the issue.

If you are an advanced user, you can bypass Rescapp and launch the rescue tools directly from the command-line interface to save time. The Rescatux project also hosts lots of guides and instructional videos to help inexperienced users.

6. Parrot Security

Parrot Security is a wonderful penetration testing and vulnerability assessment distro that can do a lot more than some of its more popular peers like Kali Linux.

If you boot Parrot from a USB disk, you can choose to create a persistent partition to save your changes. Very thoughtfully the developers also allow you to encrypt this persistent partition for maximum security.

The distro has a large selection of tools that are neatly filed inside a categorized menu. These house the tools according to their use, such as Information Gathering, Vulnerability Analysis, Password Attacks, Digital Forensics and several more.

Interestingly, Parrot also aspires to be useful for average computer users that need a secure and privacy-focused distro like hacktivists, and journalists.

Open Media Vault (OMV) is a Debian-based distro that’s designed to convert an old unused computer (or even a Raspberry Pi) into a network-attached storage (NAS) solution.

The distro is easy to install and can be easily managed through its intuitive browser-based administration interface. You can use OMV to tie multiple disks into various levels of software RAID or just use them as simple storage silos that you can access over the network via all the popular network protocols such as SSH, SMB/CIFS, FTP, Rsync, etc.

Best of all, you can extend the usefulne

While you can carry and use virtually all Linux distros from a USB drive, Porteus is one of the few that’s been designed specifically for this use case.

The distro is available in several different editions, each with a different desktop environment, and most weigh around 300 MB. All of these are designed for use from removable, rewritable media such as USB drives and SD cards. The distro boots up fast and enables persistent storage by default.

The only downside is that the project isn’t regularly updated. While its last stable release was in 2018, it is still perfectly usable, and the developers are currently working on the next major release.

Arch Linux is one of the most sought after distros that’s designed for experienced Linux users who want to build their own customized installations.

While the average Linux distro provides a predefined set of apps, Arch lets users assemble their installation from scratch. The downside of this dexterity however is that Arch’s installation is an involved process. Though the process is well documented it is still cumbersome for the average desktop Linux user.

But it is Arch’s wide package repository, package management tools, and the rolling release model that have given rise to a number of projects, like Manjaro, that offer to wrap its advantages in easy to digest distros.

Solus is a general purpose rolling release distro that can be used for all sorts of regular desktop tasks. In fact, it pitches itself as an ideal platform for developers.

On its website the distro advertises the fact that it supports several advanced editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) such as Atom, Idea and Gnome Builder. Furthermore, you can also manage code in multiple version control systems such as Git, Bazaar, and others through graphical tools like GitKraken and git-cola.

The distro’s website also claims that the OS supports a number of programming languages such as Go, Rust, PHP, Node.js and Ruby, and you can download a host of other developmental tools and libraries from its repositories.

If you don’t have the time to configure and deploy a server manually, you can use the NethServer distro to roll out lots of common network services with a single click.

For instance, using NethServer you can set up a web filter, a mail server, file server, web server, firewall, VPN, a Slack-like team chat, and several other services. The best part is that you can deploy and configure just about every aspect of your server through an intuitive browser-based interface.

The CentOS-based distro offers all these features for free, which makes it an ideal choice for small businesses. However, the project also offers several tiers of professional support for larger organizations, starting at €250/year.

14. OPNsense

Best firewall distro

Thanks to its inline intrusion prevention system, OPNsense is one of the best firewall distros around. Furthermore, it doesn’t just provide a stateful firewall, but several other network services as well.

With OPNsense you can display a captive portal, shape traffic, detect and prevent intrusions, as well as setup a Virtual Private Network (VPN), and lots more. You can manage all these services from an intuitive, modern, web-based multilingual and well-documented user interface, which is a pleasure to use.

Technically, however, OPNsense isn’t a Linux distro and is in fact powered by HardenedBSD, which is a security-oriented fork of FreeBSD.

There are several distros for the Raspberry Pi, however the best starting point has to be the Raspberry Pi OS, which is the official distro of the Raspberry Pi and for good reason.

Earlier known as Raspbian, the Debian-based distro, uses a lightweight customized LXDE-based desktop environment that uses the Openbox window manager. The custom desktop doesn’t just save resources for other crucial tasks, but also looks elegant and inviting.

The latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi can now be used as a very capable computer and the distro developers have ensured that it performs flawlessly with popular video conferencing software such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

In some aspects, the Ubuntu Server edition is just as popular as the desktop version. Ubuntu produces both LTS and non-LTS releases of the server just as with the desktop.

Ubuntu Server runs on all major architectures, including x86-64, ARM64, POWER9, IBM s390x, RISC-V, and more.

The distro is also popular for building cloud computing platforms, and the project also offers cloud images for AWS and Azure. In fact, Canonical claims that over 55% of OpenStack clouds already run on Ubuntu, and for a fee, it will set up a managed OpenStack cloud for your company.

Some of the best educational software in use today are open source and DebianEdu/Skolelinux bundles the best of the lot.

The distro is the result of the collaboration between the two projects that lend it its name. Besides the educational tools, the distro also has the full gamut of desktop apps, which allows you to use the distro as your daily driver.

One of the highlights of the distro however is that it includes a pre-configured terminal server keeping in mind the requirements of a typical educational institution. In addition to installing the distro on your computer, you can easily deploy it over multiple computers in a lab.