Which Linux Distro to use on VM

[Alister]

I'm a Windows user who had dabbled with Linux and Hackintosh and I am wondering what the consensus is as to which distro to run in a VM?

CentOS / UBUNTU / Linux Mint

Any to stay away from?

 

[kdragon75]

well mint is just a shiny version of Ubuntu... If your running as a server, I would use Ubuntu server edition and a minimal vm install. Its light, fast, and has tons of support for new users.

 

[KrisBee]

Not for linux beginners : gentoo, alpine and perhaps even arch linux. As to the others, for server a VM I'd suggest debian, Ubuntu or centos. If you want a graphical desktop VM then pick a distro with an iso that can run both in a liveCD and be installed for the "try before you install" option. The choice here is about which DE you are comfortable with, e.g: Cinnamon, Mate, xfce4, KDE/plasma or openbox. For a lightweight graphical desktop linux install have a look a bunsenlabs latest iso.

 

[bmess]

Debian is small and out of the way. Fedora will show you what will be in CentOS in 5 years. CentOS to get closer to what you're probably running at work.

 

[scrappy]

Ubuntu is very user friendly and has all the bells and whistles you could want in a Linux distro. But for stability's sake you might want to try Debian or CentOS.