So what Linux distribution is everyone recommending for folks finally looking to ditch Windows over Microsoft's spyware-out-of-the-box footgun/camelstraw? I ran out of mental energy for troubleshooting esoteric issues many years ago, so I just use Mint (Xfce) now. It's fine. Like Windows 7 again, except my printer doesn't work.
If the person asking for help requires that someone else do all the setup/techwizardry for them, does that change your recommendation?
@log I can comment on two use cases:
1. If you're unhappy about getting stuck on technical problems but you want to be liberated by being able to fix deeply technical issues yourself, one avenue is to learn about the internals. Gentoo was (still is?) a good way to do this for me when I used it until about 12 years ago. You get to compile everything by yourself. The distribution is designed for this and it's very interesting but it gets tiring because compiling all the packages takes ages.
2. If you want something that just works, the latest LTS (long-term support) release of Ubuntu is a good choice. Do not expect it to just work but with a bit of luck, it might.
I haven't spent much time looking for the ideal Linux distribution in a while, so they may be better info out there.
@log oh, I see. I would lean toward a particular hardware/OS combo that's known to work (like Apple does lol) and pray hard.
@mjambon The specific use case I'm thinking is people who have always used Windows or MacOS and don't have much technical knowledge. I have been leaning toward Debian/Ubuntu/Mint mainly because Mint's usually what I install and forget on beater computers. Just wondering if anyone has put together another distribution specifically for inexperienced non-admin users, or maybe for the family tech support person who could admin for them.