Down that hole
2 points
Complete agree: always mainstream distribution for new users - Fedora, opensuse tumbleweed, Ubuntu are all great choices.
There are a lot of distros that are great (for beginners and in general), but I recommended Ubuntu and only Ubuntu for two reasons:
- Itβs the only distro other than SteamOS that Valve officially supports (and thereβs a reasonably decent chance folks wanting to try Linux are also gamers).
- Even merely presenting choices incurs a cost in terms of increasing cognitive load, and I think itβs important to avoid inflicting more than is absolutely necessary on newbies. I think itβs very likely that analysis paralysis on distro choice is one if the biggest barriers to entry for Linux, and saying βX, Y, and Z are good optionsβ when the person has no clue what the differences between them are or why they should care, instead of just straight-up saying βuse X,β may be doing them a disservice.