Yes, I know that the ranking is not a good metric of real world use.
Just posting this because MX Linux has been in the number one spot for a long time (2 years perhaps?) and it’s surprising to see some other distro on the top of their site.
I’ve never understood the Mint hype. Like you say it seems like Ubuntu with extra steps.
I do have beefs with some of the decisions Canonical makes but if anyone asks me what distri they should start with I will always recommend Ubuntu simply because it’s “the distro” if you search for “Linux” tutorials online 9 times out of 10 you will get a tutorial aimed at Ubuntu. Packages for software that isn’t in repos are usually available as .deb …