Linux for home use that's free

roytom2

I'm testing various Linux distros at home using Oracle VM VirtualBox - so far I've got Mint and Ubuntu working quite nicely. My main test is if they will connect to a shared folder on a Windows drive by installing VM Ware Tools - most minor distros don't support this.
I used Red Hat (or was it Fedora) way back and thought it was very good - but I think now you have to pay to use it as its aimed at businesses. I can't see a free version - have I got this right?
Are there other Linux distos I should be trying? Like SUSE?
Thanks for reading.

Neil49

A quick search on Google should throw up a number of dedicated websites providing detailed reviews of all the major Linux offerings. 

A read through these should give you some recommendations. 

onomatopoeia99

Fedora is FOSS so should be free and is the upstream for RHEL.  RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) you should expect to pay for.

I use Debian, though I disagree with their switch to systemd.

CouldntResist

One you have finished testing, what is your actual use case? If the Windows drive is on the local PC I think I would expect every distro to be able to access it (not that I would necessarily recommend doing that....)

fwor

As said above - if it's directly connected to the PC I think pretty much any Linux distro will read any Windows filesystem without a problem, and if it's a networked drive then all you need to do is install SAMBA which is free, available straight out of the Linux repositories. So your choice is probably best guided by which user interface you like best.

onomatopoeia99

I should add that given WSL exists, there's no great need for a tool like Virtual Box to run a linux on your Windows install unless you want to impose some separation.  Depends on your use case.

GDB2222

onomatopoeia99 said:

I should add that given WSL exists, there's no great need for a tool like Virtual Box to run a linux on your Windows install unless you want to impose some separation.  Depends on your use case.

You can’t get a graphical interface with WSL. Or have I missed something?

John_Gray

Have a look at the table (right-hand column) of Linux distros on Distrowatch.

MX Linux is certainly worth a look...

mksysb

GDB2222 said:

onomatopoeia99 said:

I should add that given WSL exists, there's no great need for a tool like Virtual Box to run a linux on your Windows install unless you want to impose some separation.  Depends on your use case.

You can’t get a graphical interface with WSL. Or have I missed something?

Yes, you can 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps

mksysb

I would avoid Ubuntu as they are forcing you to use snaps for everything.  Snaps are used to bundle applications and are bloated and slow.