Scroll past *** for what I think is most valuable advice

Ultimately, switching to Linux is preferable, regardless of which distro you choose, from an open source/FOSS mindset. I’m not a super techy person, and made the initial switch due to philosophical reasons and a deep, deep dislike of Windows.

Ubuntu catches a lot of heat for making controversial decisions that go against the beliefs of the FOSS community, such as proprietary app packaging with snaps, and back in the day straight up putting ads for Amazon in the os.

Mint is the golden child, mostly because it is directly based on Ubuntu, so it keeps 99% of the convenience and ease of use that Ubuntu is famous for, while removing the more controversial elements.

There is also LMDE, mint based directly off of Debian. Debian is the distro that Ubuntu, and many others, is based off of. It has a reputation for being very solid, but slow to adapt and offer new features. It is the safe, reliable choice, but “boring,” so people fork it, and make newer more “exciting” distro from it. So Ubuntu is based on Debian, mint is based on Ubuntu. Linux mint Debian edition (LMDE) is based directly on Debian.

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Mint’s big thing is cinnamon, it’s desktop environment.

Desktop environments are where I think most newbies should actually be spending their time considering, instead of distros.

You can change the DE on pretty much anything, but some play better with some distros than others.

Cinnamon is very windows like. It is customizable, recognizable to a Windows user, and makes the transition from windows easier.

Gnome, and gnome based DEs, like what ubuntu uses, are more Mac like. Flowy, opinionated, and visually quite modern.

Kde plasma is more similar to Cinnamon, and is the Mac daddy of customization. Wanna do a thing? Likely, Kde will let you or you can brute force it and get it done.

Personally, I am a subby little soyboy who wants Daddy to tell me what to do, so I fucking love gnome. I love the look, I love the feel of it, and the thing I love most is that, when I first made the switch, it wasn’t windows. It was different, and that was fun and let me feel like I had really made a change, and that’s what for the Linux switch to stick after more than a decade of going back and forth.

My actual advice for a distro is Fedora with gnome, and few extensions. But realistically, try mint, try Ubuntu, try whatever, but spin up a virtual machine and specifically try out different DEs (there are a bunch that I didn’t mention) and see which one you like. The distro is secondary, especially for a beginner