From an engineering perspective, I prefer Debian distros. Apt is the greatest package manager ever built. For a production server, I'd choose Debian or maybe Ubuntu if I needed to pay someone for support.

But for a desktop, Ubuntu kinda sucks. These days, I think I'd recommend Fedora to Linux noobs.

And for my toys at home, I run Arch btw.

Imagine putting Manjaro as reliable and cutting edge over, say, Fedora.

Ubuntu isn't your only option

Thumbnail shows Pop!_OS which is a fork of Ubuntu.

The problem with going for alternatives is support.

Imagine picking a random Linux flavor, then trying to figure out how to change settings, only to get either hundreds of different answers.

No one ever recommends OpenSuse....

Manjaro: Reliable and Cutting-Edge Features

Rarly laughed that hard. Reliably is by defenition wrong. Manjaro delays packages a few days in their main compared to Arch this can cause issues and makes them not compatible with the AUR which one of the most advertised and enabled by default feature.

You can read more about other problems here, https://github.com/kruug/manjarno

Anyone else notice that the first three are Ubuntu?

Ubuntu used to have the mission of being Linux For The Masses. Their marketing material used to include a bunch of trendy diverse young people standing on their logo. I'm pretty sure they've completely abandoned that cause in favor of trying to out-corporate RHEL. Their present-day web page has more corporate logos on it than the starting grid at a NASCAR race, and I challenge you to find the link to download "Normal Ubuntu for normal desktops."

Y'all seriously overestimate thr average user:

Debian. It's simple, stable, minimal upkeep, rarely if ever has breaking changes, and all this out of the box.

Someone new doesn't need to be thrown in the deep end for their first foray into linux, they want an experience like windows or mac: simple interface, stable system, some potential for getting their hands dirty but not too much to worry about breaking

Well as a psychopath, I always recommend beginners start with Gentoo. Guaranteed they won't go back to Mac or Windows. /s

I wish howtogeek would change back to their old ms paint logo.

So Ubuntu, Ubuntu and unstable arch… here let me have a go:

1. Fedora
2. Tumbleweed
3. Endeavour OS

• easy install arch with extra repos, zfs and and dracut

4. Bonus for the curious

• void
• Redcore Gentoo

My personal recommendations for beginner distros:

-OpenSUSE

-Fedora

-EndeavourOS

-KDE Neon

-ElementaryOS

-Zorin OS

-Linux Mint

Or you could just install ordinary Debian, since it's stable and well-supported. Kind of a GOAT among distros, alongside Slackware.

“New to Linux? Where the most daunting thing about switching to it is how many choices you have in configuration? Well, good news! You have more choices than you think!”

Well many search engine results recommended ubuntu for newbie.
I remembered the first time i used linux (15 years ago), i choose ubuntu because google recommended it & it has very nice UI compared to other linux that time

Recommending Pop_OS! to newbies

That might just be the quickest way to make someone hate Linux forever. The glitchiest, most troublesome install I've ever tried to do. In the end, after two days of work just to get the damn live image to boot, the only reason I kept going was probably sunken cost falacy.

To any Linux curious users,

I consider myself to be an intermediate Linux user. I have hosted applications and services on Linux servers in the cloud and use it as my primary operating system. I recommend Linux Mint. If you have an nvidia GPU, then I recommend PopOS as they have a version that has nvidia drivers pre-installed.

When I first started with Linux, I thought that Mint was less capable than other distros as it was the most user friendly. But I learned that you can do anything you want with any Linux distro. It is just that Mint is the least likely to give you trouble with random things.

With that all being said, you will have far fewer issues with Linux than you will with Windows.

Additionally, you can get legit troubleshooting steps for linux that actually work. With Windows it seems that there are 100 ways to possibly fix an issue and they feel like patching a sinking boat.

Not the first time trying Linux, but the first time in the last 10 years since I tried it and I'm digging Mint. Still has problems with my Logitech steering wheel and Logitech mouse, but overall not bad.