Thx in advice.
Linux Mint definitely
A lot of folks would recommend Ubuntu as a start but it’s very bloated af so starting on Linux Mint or Zorin/Elementary OS (if you want a windows/macos experience in your distro) would be a great start imo
Ubuntu if you’re used to Mac, Zorin (based on Ubuntu) or Mint if you’re more used to Windows.
Never used Pop OS but I hear that’s another that works well out of the box.
Ubuntu or Linux Mint
Kinoite or mx linux
Everytime I want a distro that just works I just roll with Linux Mint.
Being one of the most popular distro if something goes wrong is really easy to find how to fix it .
I’ve got PopOs on my personal (framework) and work (System76) laptop. It’s been super stable. Specially if you don’t mess around with different PPAs.
linux mint
Thirded. It just works. Even deployed to elderly relatives with wifi printers with no issues.
I researched this question for a laptop to sell on eBay. I tried Pop OS and Mint and choose Mint.
It seems that Mint may be the most popular distro for older Linux laptops sold on eBay.
That’s exactly what I did with my old Core2Duo laptop because I couldn’t in good conscience sell it with factory-loaded Win-Vista LOL.
If somebody with knowhow gets it, they can put whatever they want on it. If someone without? They get a solid OS that gets security updates. Win-win.
More specifically, Linux Mint Debian Edition. Canonical has been very weird, I would get the debian based branch
The one and only objectively best answer, imo.
Seconded. I’ve been using it for years because it just works, but if I want to try to
break shitdo things myself I can.
Ubuntu
I got annoyed with snaps, I can’t recommend it because removing snaps is that opposite of not having to mess with it out of the box
Linux Mint is basically Ubuntu without snaps. Flatpak is available for that sort of thing where necessary.
This doesn’t make sense to me. I have Ubuntu installed on a machine and have never even touched snaps. I did not have to do anything out of the box to not use snaps.
A person new to Linux would probably not even care or notice it.
Then don’t remove snaps and you don’t have to mess with anything out of the box.
I’ve put kubuntu on a couple of machines now and I’m pretty happy with it.
Fedora atomic GNOME or KDE
I think your best bet for this is one of the spinoffs of enterprise Linux: fedora or openSUSE. both are very solid ootb, and have starting configurations that are generally good.
The microos or silverblue variants respectively are really promising as well, but still have some caveats.
Fedora is not an enterprise Linux spinoff, it is an upstream to an enterprise Linux distribution. Neither of those support proprietary video codecs and other potentially patent encumbered pieces out of the box, with some work for proprietary drivers too.
Is that so? I can remember a option on install to download proprietary stuff. I think that means codecs?
I am not saying that you are wrong just asking if you are sure.
That option is in Ubuntu and works as you expect it to.
Fedora has an option to enable third party repositories. Those are extremely limited.
Enabling all of rpmfusion or packman on opensuse is still work and even more work in the immutable distributions.
I’ve used both, and the only third party repo I’ve enabled was tailscale. I’ve not had any issue with needing codecs in anything I’ve Installed through the discover app. I’ll admit that I don’t have an Nvidia card, so I don’t know how good support is ootb there (though iirc, at least openSUSE has a separate installer that include Nvidia drivers)
You likely have and not noticed. Hardware rendering even with the Intel iGPU requires them. Just means things are not as performant or efficient as they could be, and more power usage, as your cpu is doing the rendering instead.
For example: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration#Configure_VA-API_Video_decoding_on_AMD (this references Firefox but applies to most video players)
The patents have routinely caused headaches. For years (2017) neither one could play mp3s and only recently have they gotten support for proper subpixel rendering. The mp3 (and dvd) thing was a big reason people used Ubuntu instead for a long time.
I use fedora for the nice OOTB experience, but if there’s issues with parts of the hardware - I try Ubuntu. And I’d it works, I just install it.
Life’s too short to deal with hardware blobs.
If anything shouldn’t Ubuntu not work? Fedora runs the regular kernel while Ubuntu runs the Ubuntu kernel
Pop_OS or Linux Mint. Both just work. The Atomic idea is nice, but still too soon for complete beginners or the lazy (not a pejorative).
Ubuntu and its derivatives are quite solid. My favorite ispopOsS which has grown to have a nice identity for itself.
