Linux mint (Cinnamon is my fav). You can never go wrong.
Maybe
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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The first time in installed mint I ruined the partitions on my laptop. But that was on me.
Look at screenshots of default interfaces and pick your fave bug distro. Can't go wrong with fedora, Ubuntu, mint, pop_os etc. mint would be good since you have a friend who uses it. When you want to know how to do something you can ask.
I run arch btw
Mint, Fedora
Run KDE if you consistently game, otherwise Gnome is good since you can leave every setting after setup with it
What advantage does KDE have over Mint for gaming?
Oh, it's not kde, it's gnome
Gnome compositor can have issues with some games, most notable for me was TF2 and TF2 Classic
This is quite a rabbit hole you are getting yourself into, but to keep it short and relatively simple, you need to figure out something very important beforehand:
- Do you want a rolling release or a stable distro?
I'm assuming that, you are not yet familiar with these terms, so let's go with the stable distros.
You have a lot of options here, most of them will all be based of Ubuntu, which is based in Debian, so let me drop a few generally good suggestions in no particular order:
- Linux Mint
- MX Linux
- ZorinOS
- PopOS
- Fedora, (This one is not a stable distro, but you should be good with it)
Either of these is a good starting point. If down the road you feel like they stop fitting your needs, start exploring the big three, (Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux).
FedoraKDE, or Mint.
Either way you'll probably be able to search and find answers to your problems (and answers for ubuntu may work), and with mint you know your friend can possibly help if need be, and they work well.
Don't want to think about your OS? Install Aurora. The hardest decision will be choosing your password. Install instructions are identical to any other Fedora installation. Auto updates to everything, never breaking system with bleeding edge software all the time. Superb documentation, zero maintenance, windows like desktop experience but better. That's all.
Debian is one of my favorites and one of the easiest to use if you are new. i haven't tried mint but they are very similar.