My head tells me Linux Mint, but my heart says listen to your head. Why is this hard? 😂

  • Kjell@lemmy.world
    2·
    7 days ago

    Depends on the user. An older family member, Linux mint. A gamer, cachyOS. Otherwise fedora could also be an option. But in most cases, the person would choose and install a distro themselves if they are interested and that means that mint becomes the most common answer to the question.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    7 days ago

    Basic Debian

    Yes, it is a bit behind the curve but it is solid, it works and can provide a solid environment for the average run of the mill user.

  • stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
    23·
    9 days ago

    There is a good reason Mint is recommended as the no nonsense beginner distro. For someone more technical and willing to learn I might recommend Fedora.

    One you get past those two distros you are pretty much in the realm where someone should be technical enough to choose their own distro and know what that means.

    • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      3·
      8 days ago

      I’m on maybe an old version of Mint at work and it is kind of miserable.

      Icons don’t work right, the panel is weird, the software center is not very easy to use.

      I’m hoping that new versions are better.

  • otacon239@lemmy.world
    9·
    9 days ago

    At my work, I convinced my boss to let us use Linux on a couple machines and, you guessed it: Mint. Everyone pretty much knows where to find things and it’s stable as a rock.

    • mystic-macaroni@lemmy.mlOP
      6·
      9 days ago

      She’s a pretty proficient windows user who mentioned looking at kbuntu. She can probably handle some rough edges on her own, but I have no interest in long term support. So probably mint 🤣

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 days ago

        I use kubuntu. It’s a good choice for people who don’t have experience but are able and willing to search for answers.

        KDE defaults are solid and utilizes a lot of Windows muscle memory, and being based on Ubuntu means that it’s really easy to search for answers on virtually any question you might have. Plus widespread package support

      • historicaldocuments@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 days ago

        Whichever one you wind up with, Dolphin as a file manager blows the monstrosity that windows has out of the water. For someone who’s eeked out some power/efficiency out of windows usage it should be very pleasant finding out the standard software available for Linux these can almost always make you more efficient with less effort.

  • Dadifer@lemmy.world
    7·
    9 days ago

    Linux Mint is by far the smoothest experience I’ve had so far in trying Nobara, Debian, Manjaro otherwise.

  • ggiesen@lemmy.caEnglish
    7·
    7 days ago

    Mint, without question. A polished, conservative, stable experience with Ubuntu’s broad compatibility baked in, and a familiar desktop experience. Few other distributions can deliver that. I’m very technical myself, but past the age of wanting to tinker with every little thing; I jist want an OS that is stable and gets out of my way to let me get things done - and Mint delivers.

  • milbyte11@lemmy.ml
    4·
    8 days ago

    I’d say mint is great for non tech people (90% of the time it’s the DE and GUI apps that are important rather than the distro, but mint has good ones by default). For former windows power users I’d recommend CachyOS or Fedora. Either way, you can boot from USB for any of these as a live demo; I have images for all 3 + memtest on my ventoy USB.

  • pedz@lemmy.ca
    4·
    9 days ago

    Does Mint have screensaver and locking issues with Cinnamon?

    I install Mint on computers of people that don’t want Windows and that I have to help, but I personally use Debian and MATE. Recently I tried to use Cinnamon on Debian but the screensaver was not always working. Sometimes I was away for days and when I was coming back, my monitor was still on. And sometimes the screensaver got stuck, impossible to remove without restarting my session.

    I have a friend that tried Mint too, and he basically told me the same thibg was happening to him.

    I have not heard about this from other folks to whom I installed Mint, but since they’re all very basic users that turn off their computer every time they are done, it never came up.

    It would be my only issue with Mint for beginners. If they leave their computer running and come back later, there’s a slight chance that the screensaver will either not be started, or very difficult to exit.