After narrowing it down to 3 choices then present those choices to:
- Your legal team to review licenses before you put much effort into setting up automation frameworks, support tools, installation automation. They can be a buzzkill and I think some may secretly enjoy it.
- The people using that which you plan to administer. Let them play around with each option and get their feedback to maybe have happier group(s) of people to support. Test group 1, test group 2, test group 3. Let them compare and contrast.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=427188
(imho, ymmv, n=1)
I actually went back to headless Ubuntu lts after playing around with it because everything I do is headless but I really liked it while I was using it. Debian based, I had no complaints.
Beyond that one example I have learned to not provide recommendations about Linux distributions on HN for nontechnical people because it results in extremely unexpected emotional retorts.
And if you don't care of what others think and want to truly learn, I'd say Ubuntu.
And anyway there is no Linux distribution with the look and feel of Windows, nor a distribution that will take full advantage of Dell laptop hardware. Or to put it another way, Excel…
Don’t get me wrong, I use Linux on some of my personal machines and have nothing against it. But Windows is a better choice for most people and most organizations because the Windows ecosystem has lots of documentation, training, system integrators, and consultants. Linux has Archwiki…good luck.
1. Debian 2. Fedora 3. Arch
Debian is very stable but often lacks newer packages and changes. You have to wait for the new stuff sometimes quite a long time.
Fedora is stable and up-to-date, they call it leading edge. This is the equivalent of how Windows updates work.
Arch on the other hand is the most bleeding edge and you get then new stuff almost immediately. Which can cause instability issues.
They all have their own package management, which is what makes the most difference for a distribution. Debian has apt, Fedora has dnf and Arch has pacman. Because of the former popularity of Ubuntu, a Debian-based distribution, there is a lot of forums and help online for apt and Debian distributions. But in today's age of AI, you will not be lost when you go with Fedora or Arch.
These three then have other distributions based off of them. Debian has Ubuntu or Zorin, Fedora has Red Hat, Bazzite, Nobara and Arch has CachyOS, Manjaro, Endeavour or Omarchy. You can go straight to the original distribution or pick one of the derivations. You won't make a mistake if you go for a derivation of debian, like zorin or ubuntu vs straight debian. It's more about how "batteries included" these derived distributions are vs how much work you have to do yourself(configuration + installing various packages). Often the biggest difference is just the theme they ship with with few tweaks to the system.
If you want to play games, nowadays it is no longer a problem due to Proton. There are dedicated gamin distributions, notably Bazzite and Nobara. But it does not mean you cannot game on any other distributions. They are just geared towards gaming with preinstalled packages and some system tweaks. These are good if you have a dedicated gaming pc but might not be the best choice if you have a workstation and do occasional gaming.
Then you have to distinguish system by how it's designed to be handled(not sure how else to put it). You have immutable distributions like Fedora Silverblue or Bazzite(also based on Fedora) where your system cannot be changed for security reasons, which means you cannot do certain modifications but it also means you cannot break your system and updates are flawless. Some people like it, others find it limiting. It depends on how much you want to tinker with the system. As a novice, this might be a good option that will prevent your from breaking your system while trying to run various commands and things of that nature. Note that Bazzite is has ability to be modified in a way where you create new system image with your changes baked in. So it's not like you cannot change the system, it just takes more work and makes things safer and stable due to this nature at the expense of speed of making your own changes.
There is also NixOS with Nix package management that works a bit differently and it allows you to define your entire system in a text file. So in a way it is not immutable but you can always put the system into predefined state. This is for advanced users though.
And then there is normal system where you can do whatever you want, which is the most common case.
Lastly, as I have mentioned package management before, there is also another way to install programs other than a dedicated package management that comes with the distribution. And that is appimage, flatpack and snap. Appimage is like an .exe file on Windows. It is self-contained application in a single file. Flatpack and Snap are like app stores on your mobile phone. Snap is a Ubuntu thing though, everyone else uses Flatpacks. Snaps are slow, Flatpacks are fast. Both mean the programs are running in isolated containers, like Docker. So they do not have full access yo tour system or to each other, unlike programs installed via native package manager or appimage executable. The difference between flatpack and snap are that snaps can be console programs or services whereas flatpacks are only UI programs. Here you can decide if you want more security and install programs via flatpack so they run from their own container or you want a standard program that you install via the system's package manager. For example, you'd likely want Steam for games to be installed via native package, not run as flatpack container because you want Steam to have access to your hardware and services without isolation concerns.
I almost forgot to mention the UI. There are various UIs out there, known as window managers. The Gnome and KDE are most popular. Gnome is more like MacOS and KDE is more like Windows, although you should be able to make them look anyway you want via configuration. As a Windows user, I strongly urge you go with KDE and forget Gnome even exists. Or any other window managers for that matter. The KDE Plasma is what you want.
So tl;dr - for beginners, Zorin(Gnome) is very smooth and intuitive for Windows users. For something long-term and stable, Fedora Kinoite(KDE version) is your best choice. If you are into gaming, Bazzite(immutable distro) or Nobara(normal mutable distro) - both are based on Fedora with KDE. If you want performance and more advanced system, CachyOS is the most popular Arch derivate right now(you can pick any window manager during installation, just go with KDE Plasma as mentioned before). Cachy also allows you to use btrfs file system and create snapshots of your system after you do updates so if an update breaks something, you just rollback to previous system snapshot and you're safe. So it is like having a immutable distribution without its limitations.
Linux Mint is what I always put on for new family members.
Disclaimer: original investor of RedHat.