I’ve been having a big think over Linux distros. See, I’ve been looking back at my still-new Linux experience of nine months, and wondering how my own journey can help other people get started with FOSS operating systems. Whenever the topic of a Windows refugee-friendly OS came up, I would recommend Linux Mint because, first, it’s the one everyone says, and second, it was the Linux OS that I started with, fresh off Windows.
I always follow that up with a comment about how you don’t have to stick with Linux Mint if you don’t want to. You can do what I did, which is to dip your toe into the Linux distro water and find something that suits you better. But if I’m setting up Linux Mint as “my first Linux distro,” why not just skip the middleman and get right into the distros that have a bit more meat on them?
I’ve used Mint, popOS, and some others. I always recommend new people use the desktop version of Bazzite now.
It’s super newbie friendly. So much stuff is installed and set up for you that the average person won’t even need to touch command line. Also, the Bazaar has pretty much anything someone would need for day to day stuff.
Obviously, if you are the type of person to make serious changes at the OS level then it’s not great for that, but most people just need something to browse the internet, play some games, and maybe do some word docs and stuff.