Fedora, Mint, Arch, Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSUSE go head-to-head - we've dropped the six most popular Linux distributions of the day into a cage fight for your affections. Read on to discover which distro comes up top for installation ease, customisation, performance, security and more. Which flavour of Linux gets the gold medal? You might very well be surprised, so read on for all the juicy details...

Ubuntu is dominating the mindshare for desktop distros, but there’s still a place for rivals – even those built on the Ubuntu foundation – to take things in different directions. Mint attempts to create a more polished desktop with a focus on usability and elegance. The core version, like Ubuntu, is based on Gnome, but is accompanied by packages based on other environments – in this case, KDE. But the big question is, can a KDE flavoured Mint do better than Kubuntu? Read on to find out.

The recent series of OpenSUSE releases seems to have been oscillating between trying to deliver the finest up-to-date apps and providing the easiest, most intuitive experience for users. History tells us that it's hard to do both simultaneously, but this release might just have managed to pull it off. We reckon it's worth 9 out of 10 - but why?

Finally, after weeks of uncertainty, we've just received a press release from Mandriva, and we're pasting it verbatim so you can read the news for yourselves. Let us know what you think this all means.

Yes, it slipped by a couple of weeks - but perhaps that's not such a bad thing when you've got bugs to fix very close to a release, eh Ubuntu? So, Fedora 13 is here, and hopefully the release number won't bring bad luck for the world's third most popular distro. As with previous versions, there's a live CD along with a more beefy DVD version, and you can grab it from here. The biggest changes include: Shotwell, a new photo management tool that replaces F-Spot; Pino, a microblogging client for Identi.ca and Twitter; a new scanning utility; the Nouveau video driver for NVIDIA cards; and wider PackageKit integration (so that, for example, the Brasero disc burner can grab codecs from the internet if need be). Full list of changes after the break.

Ubuntu 10.04 is just around the corner, and it's shaping up to be one of the most eagerly awaited (and controversial) releases in the distro's history. What new goodies are included? How does it tap into the ever-expanding world of social networking? And most importantly, can you move those window control buttons back to the right of the titlebar, as nature intended? Read on for the gory details...

Ubuntu 10.04 is now about five weeks away, which means the announcement of Lucid+1 (our vote is still for Manky Monkey) is around the corner. To kill the time between now and the announcement of what's to come in the next version, we decided to take a look at the keywords used to describe previous Ubuntu releases to see how priorities have changed over the years

So, making use of the excellent Wordle, we made word clouds out of the release announcements from Dapper Drake through to Lucid Lynx - the bigger each word appears, the more it was mentioned. Can you guess which one is which? To make things a little more interesting, we've removed the Ubuntu distro code names (Dapper, etc), which means you'll have to use your cunning to figure it out. To make things even more interesting, we've included five other OS announcement word clouds after the Ubuntus - can you figure them out too?

The first person to correctly guess all the word clouds wins a free internet. We'll post the correct answers in a few days. Good luck!

Yes, after six years of the Human theme and bouncy-roundy Ubuntu logo, it's time for a change. Canonical has announced the new artwork planned for Ubuntu 10.04, aka Lucid Lynx, and it's a major departure. For starters, the word 'Ubuntu' now has sharp, clearly defined points in the font, with the familiar three-folks-hugging logo a mere blob in the corner. On the interface side, new GTK themes accompany a curious arrangement of titlebar buttons - not quite Windows, not quite Mac...

Yes, it's that time of the year again: we've built up a stack of spare Linux Format magazine coverdiscs in the office, and we'd love to give them away to Linux advocates: eg if you work in education, run a LUG or have another way to spread the word of Free Software.

These DVDs include a variety of bootable distros - Ubuntu, Fedora, CrunchBang, Slackware and more - and also have newbie-friendly guides (in the Help/New to Linux section of the HTML interface).

UPDATE: We've had a huge response to this, so to make sure that everyone who applied gets a decent amount of DVDs, we're closing this offer now. Thanks!

Sometimes it's easy to forget that we all had to start somewhere with Linux. When you're not used to the way it works, or the kind of concepts involved, Linux can seem like a foreign language. If you're struggling with free software, or if you know someone who needs help making the switch to Linux, we hope this feature will help.

Fedora is a great choice of distribution to start with. It's easy to install and just as easy to use. It's one of the most well-respected distributions available, and has a very tight relationship with its parent and chief sponsor, Red Hat. With Fedora, you have access to one of the largest communities in the world of Linux, and one of the the biggest selections of software to play with. In this mini-feature, we're going to walk you through your first steps installing and using Fedora 12 so that everyone can get started and have fun in the Linux community.

(If this really is your first time using Linux, you might want to read our extensive Linux newbie FAQ before you start, then, when you're up and running, check out our guide to fixing Linux problems yourself. Finally, place a bookmark to our searchable archive of Linux solutions - you never know when it might come in handy...)