Linux Mint, Debian and Fedora

Fedora is debatable but it solid if you use Silverblue

The short rant:

1. You don’t need to ask which distro, ask which mint version
2. The answer to #1 is MATE or xfce.

The longer rant:

I’ve been using xubuntu a bit, for guest OS in desktop VM, but I don’t really know if I like it enough to recommend it. It’s less rough than Arch, but so is 24 grit sandpaper.

Like others have said, there are many contenders for your use case, but mint stands out. I’m probably gonna go with mint once windows 10 stops getting updates. Mint or parrot. But TBH I don’t want to daily drive parrot either.

Which version of mint then? That’s really the question to ask. And if you ask me then I don’t care for all the bells and whistles, I don’t need animations or semi transparent windows. And when Ubuntu went with unity back in the day I walked. So I guess I want my GUI to stay the same. So I’d go with MATE or xfce.

Bazzite is the new Ubuntu without snaps etc, give it a try

I’ve heard good things about Fedora. It seems to be mostly set-it-and-forget-it while still being flexible enough for power users.

I use EndeavourOS and really enjoy it. It’s effectively Arch but without the fuss. You get a GUI with just a few steps to set it up and you’re good to go. I tend to upgrade once a week, while checking the forums to see nothing too bad broke. That’s basically the maintenance I have.

When I do a new install on a new device, I just clone a repo I keep with the most important config files. Then I copy them to where they belong. There’s really not much more to it.

Tbh you’re probably right if you want something straight forward just stay with Debian. If your feeling adventurous and don’t do any gaming try FreeBSD

The whole separation between APT and snap packages doesn’t work well together and is really the big problem I have, as a lot of standard deb packages just refuse to install properly now.

since you are mention deb packages, I would consider these

• Linux Mint
• PopOS
• Rhino Linux (somekind of rolling release distro based on ubuntu)
• LMDE

Zorin for sure. Set up like a couple months ago, fiddled with some settings since I’m new to Linux for a couple days and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.

I would say OpenSUSE Leap. I tried many distros on my sister’s PC (Mint, PopOS, Manjaro) and all of them got borked at one point by normal updates. The last one I installed was Leap and she still uses it without any problems.

Fedora, Mint, or Pop. Hell, give BSD a try!

I’m in a similar situation. I’ve used Kubuntu (Ubuntu + KDE) for more than a decade now, and it has mostly worked beautifully. Over the years, memorable problems were a few issues with GPU drivers, GRUB shenanigans and the occasional amateurish KDE UX fuckup. But in general I found the whole experience much better than what I saw on Windows during the time.

However, for a while now Ubuntu is breaking my #1 rule of software products: Do not annoy your users. Every update they are trying to push (and fix) their useless Snap architecture a bit more, and every updates makes things effectively worse. Examples: displaying annoying popups to tell you that Snap app x needs to be updated and that the app has to be closed for that, but not updating it when closing the app, trying to fix that in the latest version by auto installing the latest snap with a popup and progress bar when closing the app (making me wait to turn off my computer till it’s finished - I just finished my work and want to go home please), numerous interoperability issues because snap apps run in some kind of sandbox and don’t play nice with regular (Debian and Linux) mechanisms, and so on. It’s an absolute shitshow, and I think they have now annoyed me, personally, long enough. I need to find something better.

Ah. I just needed that off my chest. Maybe I should give Mint a try

If you’re used to Debian based distros, Linux Mint. I personally use OpenSuse if you want to check something different.

I’ve been using Fedora Core since 2004 and it seems like it’s mostly worry free for me, but then again I remember the olden days when I needed to spend significantly more time on getting stuff to work. I think it helps to use mainstream hardware as well. I’ve been running thinkpads for years now and I think that probably helps with compatibility. I also tend to run refurbished older hardware because it’s cheaper and I don’t need bleeding edge performance.

I’ve never really used Linux as a daily driver. Back in the same Ubuntu period as you, intrialled it but got sick of software compatibility problems. So much is cloud web based these days, that it’s less of an issue.

What surprised me as a distro hopped looking for my home laptop flavourz was how different it was to install different software, such as docker. Some distros it was a hassle to run well. Some it needed workarounds, whichh surprised me.

So, I’d look at what you plan to run, then decide between opensuse, pop, mint or fedora and how easy they support what you want to do. I dipped back into Ubuntu but they have started to make some m$ style choices where you have to take back control as they try to make your PC act like they want not how you want.

All can be made to support whatever you want but not all do our of the box.

I may sound like an asshole, but before Linux Mint, I would seriously think to go with Debian with KDE. I don’t see any downsides, and there are many upsides.