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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Linux
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Any effort that goes into making Linux more accessible is a worthwhile thing, so props to you for sitting down and putting this together.
That said, it wouldn't be a distro recommendation discussion with out at least some disagreement, so I guess I'll start the ball rolling!
In my view, the primary considerations for new users getting into Linux are:
From this standpoint, distros like Pop OS! and Nobara are leaps and bounds ahead of Debian and Fedora, the former of which is infamous for having one of the least user friendly websites in the Linux distro world (and yes, it's better since Bookworm, but it's still a maze for new users to find the right Live image).
Sure, forks and downstream distros tend to add a bunch of extra software that may or may not be needed, but the overall utility and improved ease-of-use to new users greatly outweigh the drawback of having some extra packages that they don't end up using. The base distros are great if you only want free, non-proprietary software on your machine, but the average new user is much more concerned with having a working computer without having to dig around in config files and find the additional packages they need to install first.
Also, while Linux Mint is still a great distro, its lack of Wayland and multi-monitor support means it is falling behind and is no longer the automatic recommendation it once was, I would argue. Users with a newer machine are going to find distros that offer KDE Plasma or Gnome feel much more slick and modern than Mint does.
TL;DR - Debian and Fedora are not beginner-friendly distros and should not appear on any recommendation list for new users, IMHO. Pop OS! and Nobara are the safest and best two to recommend to most users right now, for my money, with Tumbleweed and Mint following along behind.
I would be disappointed if there wasn't, lol
I actually put quite a bit of thought into how I wanted to go over forks/downstream distros, and I may have come to a weird conclusion but I decided discouraging them was the best option because:
Distros like Manjaro/EndeavourOS are being described as "beginner friendly" when beginners should not be starting with anything Arch based. Listing out individual bad examples would just make the entire message more confusing.
People will always google their question in the format of "distro name" + "problem". Someone with Linux experience using KDE Neon will know to google "ubuntu problem" because it's just Ubuntu, but a beginner will google "kde neon problem" and will find very few results. Alternatively, if they're using an upstream distro, that search will (probably) return lots of thorough results with more information on why exactly that problem occurred.
Upstream is (generally) less likely to break than downstream, although this shouldn't be an issue for well managed downstream distros. But again, listing specific examples will make things more confusing.
Regarding Linux Mint and Wayland, I completely agree. I didn't know that Cinnamon/Mint still didn't support Wayland, so that should've moved Mint into the tentative recommendation category.
Fair points all round.
I totally agree with #1, somewhat agree with #2, and somewhat disagree with #3.
For support, I would point to the fact that both Nobara and Pop OS! have very helpful communities and are quite good about directing users to use those channels to troubleshot problems rather than simply googling them.
As for upstream distros being generally less prone to breaking? I can't say that has aligned with my experience. My laptop had more issues with Fedora than any other distro I tested on it, and while Debian is definitely pretty solid in terms of stability, the age of the packages and the general unfriendliness of the user experience don't quite make up for it, in my opinion.
This is obviously why the question of "which is the best beginner distro?" remains a point of perpetual debate!