alt Hacker NewsI've been interested in moving my windows machine to Linux. Do you have any recommendations for distros to use? Last time I used Linux was Linux Mint. It was fine, but definitely felt less polished compared to Windows or Mac OS
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I've been using Linux for a long time, which might sound like I'm comfortable with all its rough edges, but it's honestly the opposite. Early on it was a new toy and I would accept issues as part of messing around with it. The past 10~15 years on the other hand, I've needed to get serious work done on it, and also use it for PC gaming, so I've gone the other way and focused on getting the most no-nonsense easy setup where I don't have to be tinkering with things all the time.
Based on that, I'd say: go for a popular distro with KDE. I'm sure there are other very polished options out there, but my recommendation is Kubuntu, even though it's not the one I use today (I use Arch mostly), as it's very simple to set up and well supported.
I have been very happy with Fedora, generally has up-to-date software and usually just works
Manjaro is a very sane distro
I would go either with Ubuntu or Fedora. The entry barrier is lower, they work well and shouldn't be too troublesome to install/maintain.
Then check whether you prefer Gnome or KDE as the looks and go with what you find cooler.
I've used Ubuntu most of my career and it's solid, these days I'm testing Fedora at home due to some nitpicks I have, but both are good options.