Hey everyone!
I'm planning to switch to Linux and could really use some advice on choosing a distro.
My biggest priority is customization. I don't just want to change wallpapers or themes—I want to explore everything. I want to mess around with different desktop environments, window managers, panels, docks, taskbars, launchers, animations, widgets, themes, icons... basically, if it can be customized, I want to learn how to customize it.
Here are the things I'm looking for:
• Maximum customization and freedom to experiment.
• Lightweight enough to not put unnecessary load on my system.
• Good battery life for a laptop.
• A good learning experience so I can understand how Linux works instead of just using it.
• Large community and documentation, since I'll probably break things while experimenting.
• Stable enough to use as a daily driver, even if I spend a lot of time tweaking it.
• Easy to try different desktop environments or even window managers without having to reinstall.
I'm not afraid of using the terminal and I'm actually looking forward to learning it. I don't mind a learning curve as long as it's worth it.
I've heard people recommend Arch, Fedora.
For people who enjoy heavily customizing their systems, what distro would you recommend and why? If you started over today with customization and learning as your main goals, what would you choose?
Thanks in advance!
Also, if I do decide to stick with Arch, I'd love some recommendations for the ecosystem around it.
Which compositor or desktop environment would you recommend and why? For example, Hyprland, Niri, Sway, River, KDE Plasma, GNOME, Qtile, AwesomeWM, etc.
If you recommend a compositor, what setup do you pair it with? (Waybar, AGS, Ironbar, Caelestia, Aylur's GTK Shell, Rofi/Wofi/Fuzzel, Kitty, Ghostty, Foot, etc.)
I'd also love recommendations for:
- Shell (bash, zsh, fish, nushell)
- Terminal emulator
- Status bar/panel
- App launcher
- Notification daemon
- File manager
- Dotfile managers
- Any must-have CLI tools or utilities
Basically, I'm looking for a setup that's fun to customize, looks great, performs well, and teaches me more about the Linux ecosystem.