Hey, so my friend asked me which distro i can recommend for him. He basically used Windows his whole life. The recent developments of Microsoft though seems to worry him, so he want to give Linux a try.
I myself use Linux since around one year, so i’m definitely far from being an expert and i don’t really feel i have enough expertise to give him an appropriate answer. I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and love it, but i suppose it’s not a good distro for him since he is not that tech affine and i suppose getting used to the terminal is a bit much too ask and could scare him away from the Linux experience.
So what im looking for is a distro, that is easy to use (for beginners & non techies; also not a rolling release) but is also good for Gaming (NVIDIA) and lightly everyday stuff. He uses his computer only for free time, not for his work.
I hope some people here have some helpful recommendations. I was thinking of maybe recommend Mint or Ubuntu, but i only used Ubuntu for a few days and don’t really know much about it.
I’m sure you’ll get 20 different recommendations, but if you’d like another one, I’d agree with your original suggestion of Linux Mint.
For someone who’s familiar with Windows, they should be able to pick up and use it immediately, it uses the easy to understand traditional desktop visual language, menu bar etc.
As an Ubuntu based OS, you’re giving yourself access to a lot of very user friendly forums etc - the vast majority of what applies to Ubuntu applies to Mint. It’s currently very well supported based on its popularity.
I only steer away from Ubuntu itself because of the newer versions using non-traditional (perhaps Mac-like?) desktop visual language, and problems with Snaps (fonts, external drives, USB pens, cameras, printers etc not being visible).
Nvidia drivers are sorted during the install. You could happily use it for years without touching the terminal, as long as your install runs smoothly in the first place (wifi/touchpad/sleep etc) - though that should apply to any distro really.
Basically it should work, should be safe and comfortable, should be easy.
He’ll have a significantly easier time if he works with the idea that “Games = Steam. No other shop/launcher exists” (same for any distro).
I sometimes offer a little informal tech support to older/less computery people near where I live - Mint tends to be easily picked up and understood, and for most of them, it’s now a yearly check-up rather than a weekly panic :)
Thanks for your great answer. Seems this could be a fitting distro, i will keep mint in mind :)
Bear in mind that most of what is written above also applies to PopOS - except for the desktop environment being Gnome 3’s “Mac-like” rather than Cinnamon’s “Windows-Like”. There’s a few cool little adjustments to both, but this preference may have the biggest impact.
You can always test a “Live USB” of both, which allows you to load the OS directly from a USB stick, without installing anything - to test which seems right (and the same applies to any other distro anyone mentions in the thread). I’m pretty sure a ten minute test of each would give a sufficient amount of “Hmm, that’s cool” / “Huh, that’s weird” to help things along :)