Original question by @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
I have used linux in a past job (I did not set it up), so im not a total noob with linux. But I am far from an expert. I bought a tablet that had a flavor of linux on it and found myself woefully unprepared trying to navigate the tablet. I was planning to use it for DnD for pdf reading, but it apparently wasn’t capable of that bcz it was a rather custom OS. With windows 10 support being dropped by Microsoft in the next few months, I want to transition my desktop to Linux, and I thought I’d get a headstart on that. I have a windows 11 laptop (and I hate it), but im kinda stuck with it for now. So, in the spirit of I am a noob who isn’t quite a noob, what do ya’ll recommend? p.s. I used Ubuntu for a bit way way back in high school
Debian with KDE.
Debian because it is (one of) the most established distro(s), stable releases, most distros are based off of it for a reason, you’re not forced to deal with Snap packages (I recommend Flatpak via Flathub, but Appimages and .Deb files are common options too).
KDE gives you that Windows look (other popular one is GNOME if you prefer the MacOS look). It’s the desktop environment people often confuse with as the distro, so don’t go necessarily by how it looks as you can easily change that.
Debian and KDE would make a solid experience, but that’s not what this user is looking for.
They’re not going to know what Debian or KDE are, and they’re not going to have the requisite knowledge to know that you’re probably recommending Kubuntu.
Kubuntu is a great choice, but since we don’t have all the information on the user’s needs, it might not be the best choice.