Linux

My personal recommendation is Fedora, but the community recommendation will likely be Linux Mint, which is also a perfectly good recommendation. Either of them are "just works" distros. I prefer the update cycle of Fedora, and would certainly want to distance myself from Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives (even Mint), and Debian's update cycle is painfully slow. Fedora manages what is seemingly a perfect balance of quick and stable updates.

Fedora comes with Gnome by default, but it has spins for other DEs like KDE Plasma if that's more of your thing (I'll be switching to Plasma when Fedora 40 releases with Plasma 6).

I like fedora but I'm really loving opensuse tumbleweed on both my desktop and laptop. I have Nvidia rtx cards and support is just a few mouse clicks post-image. I get better FPS now than I did in Windows 11.

If you like Arch-based, there's Manjaro and EndeavourOS.

You could try fedora sway or gnome spins

If it's KDE that's causing issues you should just be able to install a second desktop environment and try that out.

Otherwise, Debian stable is good. Can also testing or unstable if you want newer packages. Debian "just works" if you're not on day 1 hardware, don't have Nvidia graphics, and can troubleshoot the occasional issue that any Linux distro will bring.

Anything except Ubuntu and it's direct downstreams

Fedora for my pick.

@Canadian_Cabinet www.tromjaro.com/ - you can try our distro. Based on Manjaro it has all you need to just use it. Enabled the Chaotic AUR repos, flatpaks, and our repo, thus you can find any linux app via one single place. Click and install. Plus we have a list of some 700 curated apps on our website www.tromjaro.com/apps/ - apps that are trade-free. Meaning no BS, no freemiums, no limitations, purely free apps.

We made TROMjaro back in 2018 and kept it up to date since, plus developed our own tools like a Layout and Theme Switcher. See the homepage to get a more detailed idea about it.

That's all! :)

what about regular fedora on gnome?

I like Garuda. I use the dragonized theme and it makes it look similar to mac OS. IMO it’s as easy to use as any other justworks distro but is far prettier

Universal Blue might be what you're looking for. It's a Fedora-based distribution based on ostree (same stuff for Silverblue/Kinoite). It has the leading edge system components of Fedora with the reliability of flatpak and ostree updates. I truly consider ostree to be the future of the Linux desktop.

Debian stable.

I’m sure someone will link you the install media…

Slackware. It just works. Even current is pretty stable

None of those people have a slightest clue. Your options really are: ubuntu vanilla and maybe pop os.

Everything else will very quickly require you to read through some obscure docs and bash your head against the terminal.

Vanilla Ubuntu, not kubuntu/xubuntu/whateverbuntu is the only polished and documented distro. After a year or two of that you'll be ready to consider this "what distro" question.

Go with EndeavourOS. It won’t “just work”, but it will be the best compromise between confusing abstraction and low level frustrations.

Fedora is good but it abstracts a little too much away, this is great when you understand how software works, but it’s very confusing when you’re new to Linux and programming.

Arch is good, but you won’t be able to hid the ground running, you’d have to sacrifice a weekend to learn.

Go:

0. [Optional] Fedora
1. Endeavour
2. Arch
3. Learning

• Ghost BSD
• Void
• Gentoo

Tinkering with those in that order, after about 6 months, you’ll start to feel at home.