Linux

Gentoo

There are two “just works” distros I recommend to new users: Bazzite or Fedora.

Start with Bazzite. It is familiar and has lots of guardrails so it’s nearly impossible to break.

If you decide you want more control over your system later, switch to Fedora KDE.

If you decide you want even more control and flexibility, consider CachyOS or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

You will see Mint recommended a lot, but I don’t like it. The default desktop — Cinnamon — is very Windows 95, and I much prefer KDE Plasma, which doesn’t work well on Mint. Mint also has driver issues with newer hardware. But if you like retro and your hardware is older, give it a try.

Avoid Pop_OS right now. It’ll probably be amazing in a year, but the new Cosmic desktop (currently a beta) has a lot of annoying bugs with common linux GUI packages.

Mint

Personally, I don't think anyone new to Linux at this point, who isn't tech-minded, should be pointed to an X11 environment. So until Mint devs have ported Muffin into a Wayland compositor, I wouldn't recommend it. They're used to a shiny experience visually, so I'd go with Plasma 6 running on Fedora or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

Three correct answers:

• Mint
• Fedora
• Pop

And a few incorrect answers:

• Ubuntu
• Arch
• Ubuntu again
• Really, don’t go with Ubuntu

If she's a Windows refugee, Linux Mint.

If she's a Mac refugee, fuck if I know.

If she's a IBM OS/2 refugee, please let me know how to get the drugs she's gotten. I want in.

Bazzite, i tried arch and then realized the whole wiki was like a uni level symposium and was burning through steps, kept doing instead of understanding, etc...

It's probably amazing, but since my only interaction with linux back then was being forced to use it at uni and windows, I really wanted a good experience of what linux could be. I needed it to work out of the box and be unbreakable, so I went with bazzite.

It's great, and I am digging the immutable aspect even if it broke my brain for any dev work, but once you learn how to use an immutable system (still figuring it out tbh) it's solid, easy, and works great.

Really wished there was more resources on immutable systems for newcomers though XD

Fedora is pretty cool.

Linus Torvalds uses it, so you could say it’s the canonical distribution.

As a general rule of thumb, I usually recommend Linux Mint to beginners. The installation and update processes are easy and intuitive, and there is a ton of software available, as well as good support if you know how to do web searches properly. The main trick is to try and remember that a paradigm shift needs to happen here. Linux is not Windows. It doesn't work like Windows, and it has different aims and priorities. She will also need to be prepared to learn a bit and be slightly more hands-on with her computing. The learning curve with Mint is comparatively gentle, but it does exist.

This is all very broad and general, but I hope it helps. Good luck to the both of you. I hope you are satisfied with whatever you decide on.

Linux Mint is the windows 7 experience of linux. It gets out of the way so you can work. It also has the best in-OS help tools. It's also a bit more conservative in terms of newest features, so it's a lot more reliable.

If she does PC gaming, you might want to look at Bazzite rather than Mint. It's a lot better equipped for non-technical people to start gaming. It's basically a preconfigured Fedora linux, so it's got a solid foundation. It's also something called an immutable distro, which basically means it's more difficult to break as the core OS is "read only" (to simplify).

In terms of migrating, best to avoid dual booting off a single disk. Microsoft keeps breaking Linux installs (probably on purpose). So best to install a second SSD.

Before you migrate, have her make a list of software she uses and the hardware she has. Best to post that on a forum like this to have more experienced people look for possible issues.

When it gets to migration day, if bitlocker is disabled, you can access your windows data from linux.

Also get her on Lemmy and asking questions directly. The best thing you can teach a low tech person is how to get help.

When I switched a while back I somehow got my partner to switch with me. We've both been using Kubuntu. I had her try popos, and it was flippin terrible with her multiple monitors, and unfamiliar. If Kubuntu wasn't already set up, I'd totally have her try Bazzite.

Popos 24 beta is dope if you like to live dangerously.

Coming up on 10 years since I switched from windows to Linux. I tried Ubuntu and absolutely hated it, so much so that I switched back to windows at first. But I kept reading and tried ZorinOS, and that got me comfortable with Linux, it was a little buggy but I could understand it.

After a few months with ZorinOS I switched to Linux Mint and have been running Mint for 9 years. Recently my 76 year old mother who has trouble with some basic computer stuff said she'd like to try Linux and asked me to help her, I made a live USB of Mint for her to try and she told me "I can understand this, it's like windows 7!". If she can get Mint, I feel totally confident recommending it to new users.

Here are some tips once you have chosen:

You can change your desktop environment later.

If you do your install with seperate partitions for /home and others, leave 10% unallocated. Also make /bin about 15gb and /boot about 1.5gb. When you eventually run out of space, you can use KDE Partition manager to add the unallocated space to the partition you need, even if you set up encryption (gparted doesn't play well with encryption). You can install Partition manager as a package, you don't need to use KDE Plasma.

Using a drive mirror is a good idea. Maybe use it the second time you install.

If you want to use a cool filesys like zfs, just use btrfs for now (licensing issues). Ext4 will also work for desktop user needs.

If you go with Debian, you can add repos to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. But it is a one-way trip, so before adding sid, consider running your program in a vm. Non-free non-free-firmware and contrib are fine

Distro:

• First choice: Mint Cinnamon
• If the GPU is very shitty: Elementary OS (Mint Cinnamon expects a basic level of GPU performance)
• If Mint/Elementary are too simple: Fedora KDE

Process:

• For fully switching: Obtain an external hard drive, copy the contents of the Windows partition(s) to it and install your preferred distro so that it takes over the entire computer. This is the most stable way.
• For dual booting: Buy an SSD for Linux, disconnect the Windows drive and install your distro of choice so that it takes up the entire space. Reconnect the Windows drive afterwards and set boot priorities in UEFI.

One More Tip: Don't frontload them with information, but teach them one thing: How search for and install packages through the GUI (Mint Software Manager/Elementary Store/KDE Discover). Tell them that it's more like a smartphone apps and downloading software from websites should be a last resort.

Any of the large, easy to use distributions should work just fine. I'd recommend a popular distribution because it'll be easier to get help online. So consider Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse, Ubuntu and maybe Pop!_OS.

I think the main consideration should be which DE (desktop environment) she'd like to use. IMO the main contenders would be:

• KDE - Very configurable, nice looking, a bit heavy.
• Gnome - Simple and very opinionated, so not very configurable, a bit heavy.
• Cinnamon - Should feel familiar to Windows users, a bit faster than KDE and Gnome.
• Cosmic - A middle ground between Gnome's simplicity and KDE's configurability, pretty fast.
• XFCE - Very fast and light-weight, fairly configurable, but not very flashy.

Based on which DE she prefers, I'd suggest getting a distribution that comes with said DE by default, for the best possible integration. How do you figure out which DE she likes best? Put Ventoy on a USB stick along with a few different Linux ISOs. Ventoy wil let you choose which one to boot from a menu. You could get the following ISOs:

• Fedora or Ubuntu with Gnome
• OpenSUSE with KDE
• Linux Mint with Cinnamon
• Pop!_OS with Cosmic
• Mint or Ubuntu with XFCE

Download an ISO for each, install Ventoy on a USB stick and copy the ISOs to the stick. Boot into each ISO and play around with the desktop for a bit. When she's figured out which DE she prefers, install a distribution that comes with that desktop.

I know, it sounds odd, but: Arch! Once my best friend wanted to try linux. So he asked me, which distro to use. I gave him an honest answer: "I use Arch. But for beginners I would recommend Mint." He don't gave a shit and installed Arch anyways 😅 - with success! That's when I noticed, that the Arch Wiki is actually SO GOOD, that even a newbie can install Arch without any help. It's just a bit more time expensive, compared to distros with an installer. However, there are some huge benefits, that made me switch to Arch:

• I used Ubuntu on my daily driver before. However "stable" packages means in this case "antique". A 3 years old version of Sway isn't more stable than the newest release version.
• I never survived a dist-upgrade. That's why i prefer a roling release linux today.
• Your system is slim, because you only install what you really need. Also you know your system this way.
• Especially for gaming it's good to have the newest kernel + drivers.

However, you should also notice the down sides. Sometimes an update breaks something. It doesn't happens often, but it happens. A few years ago the bluetooth stack was broken, so i wasn't able to use my headset during a meeting. However they released a fix like a few hours later, so I just needed to update. But still: That's something to consider too.

Mint is a good jumping off point

Fedora. I would not have said that two years, but I am blown away by how easy and up to date it is.

And I am normally an Arch person.

LFS

Mint for Windows refugees

Fedora for Mac Refugees

My choice: Bazzite GNOME for Gamers, Children and Grandmas. It's pretty, is damn indestructible and has a speedy app store with loads of cool free apps.

If you're supporting it, then one you are familiar with would be my recommendation. If you're both beginners, then Mint.

I guess a good question would be what software you plan on using. If it's something more reliant on frequent updates and feature releases like gaming, the choice would be a bit different compared to something like office work or common browsing, where stability would be prioritized (at the cost of slower updates).

Mint, for example, is a great jumping off point for Windows users because of the familiar User Interface and a focus on stability and lack of prior knowledge required - but it lags behind when it comes to cutting edge stuff for things like gaming.

Always great to see more people curious about Linux, especially when the motivation is escaping ms-bullshit..

If she wants something that just works but still feels polished and professional, I’d actually give openSUSE a look. Leap is rock-solid and perfect for people who want a stable system that behaves consistently and doesn’t demand much maintenance. Tumbleweed, on the other hand, is rolling release, so it’s always up to date but still surprisingly reliable thanks to openSUSE’s testing process.

Both use YaST, which is one of the best control panels in the Linux world. You can do a lot with YaST, like manage users, partitions, updates, drivers, and networking all from one place without ever touching the terminal.

Mint is also a fine choice as well....

Fedora Silverblue (GNOME) or Kinoite (KDE) are great for a "hands-off" OS. They are atomic so very hard to accidentally fuck up the system. Apps are installed easily via the GUI software center. I tried both when I switched to Linux and found I loved the simple but powerful and delightful-to-use experience of the GNOME desktop.