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I need to install a new Linux/Gnu OS soon. The present one, Linux Mint (Mate) Debian edition no longer fills my needs. I run 4 screens with 3 X sessions. Mate worked great for this, then an update broke it to one screen. I tried Cinnamon but it won't even start on multiple X sessions. XFCE works but with some serious drawbacks although that may be caused by my current system. Enlightenment actually worked well until it started crashing and I had to restore the settings file. When it finally crashed so nothing got it to run again I gave up on it.
I need a OS with multimedia support, the ability to install programs that may not be in the repositories ( Mythtv ), and multi X screen support. I am also looking for a file manager that has something like Gnome scripts. I have fair command line skills. I presently have Nvidia cards but I will go shopping if I have to. I might try Xinerama but I usually watch one screen while switching the other 2's desktops. Also not having a menu on all screens would be a pain.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 26 2019, @02:40PM
Both .rpm and .deb-based distros have multimedia support, via the RPM Fusion [rpmfusion.org] (RPM) and deb-multimedia [deb-multimedia.org] (DEB) repositories, respectively.
Not sure what other multimedia software you might need, but MythTV is available via the repositories above, making updates and version synchronization between front and back ends really easy.
As for multi-monitor support, I'd say that was likely a driver/desktop environment (DE) issue rather than a distro issue. I suppose it could be a distro issue. That said, if multi-monitor support was broken for a distro and/or DE, you'd think there would a be a lot more complaining about it on the intertubes.
You can find a bunch of discussions about multi-monitor support on the relevant superuser and stackexchange sites (DDG is your friend).
What's more, most distributions can support various DEs (XFCE, Mate, Gnome, KDE, etc.) and you can generally switch between them fairly easily.
For personal use, I generally roll with Fedora (currently 30) and XFCE, which meet my needs nicely. But many folks around here use Arch, Mint, Gentoo, Devuan and/or one of the BSDs (which generally have poorer hardware support, but might meet your needs).
If you want to be in complete control, or at least make sure you are running what you want to run (and only that), you could check out LFS [linuxfromscratch.org].
Or you could just choose one or more distros from Distrowatch [distrowatch.com] and see which meets your needs the best.
Good luck. I hope you resolve your issue and find a distro that works well for you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr