I think the standard recommendation for people coming from windows is to try Linux Mint. It’s Ubuntu based, but the interface is more windows like, which helps easy the transition. The transition is also easied if you’ve been using open source alternatives on windows or the linux for windows subsystem. Anything to keep the amount you have to learn at once relatively low.

I wish you the best on linux, but if you find the interface differences are too much for you and decide to go back to windows, try these other things to make switching to linux later easier. As fanatical as the linux community is, there’s no shame in needing a longer more gradual transition.

Im using linux Mint. no issues so far, except maybe dropbox integration. never going back to microslop

Ubuntu? What is this, 2008?

Fedora

I’m on Win10 LtSC IOT… The only reason I moved from Win7 to that operating system was so I could keep steam alive. My steam account is 18-19 years old. Any one have step by step instructions on how to get the nicest, easiest to use Linux distro for a guy who uses 5 different windows keyboard shortcuts entry 5 minutes?

I’ve been with Windows since 95, I’ve been working in IT support since XP… I just want to get away from Microsoft, keep all my games, keep a file explorer and be able to quick change my brain to learn new (just as easy ) keyboard shortcuts like Crtl-C, Ctrl-F, Win-R, Win-E…

Don’t settle immediately. If you can spare the time, distro hop for a few weeks / months. On the shorter run of things, give each OS you try a good week before moving on to the next. All distros do essentially the same thing, they just flavor it diffetently. Do you like typing apt, or dnf, pacman or yum? Do you prefer being deep in CLI or prefer using an application store? How do you like your userspace to look? Shiny? Bubbly? Classic? Retro? GNOME, Plasma, Xfce, Mate, Cosmic?

There’s enough options out there to make your head spin. Without touching arch, you should at least visit the following -

Little Champs

• Mint
• Zorin
• Endeavour
• Pop OS

Big Champs

• Fedora KDE (or any of its “spins” https://fedoraproject.org/spins/)
• Ubuntu (and its corresponding “flavors” https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavors)
• Debian
• Arch (just one of the four main pillars)

Gaming focus

• Bazzite (fedora)
• Nobara (fedora)
• Cachy (arch)

Give each or those that pique your interest a fair shake. A week at the minimum. Some you may not need a week, some you’ll find yourself in a natural swing of things. You’ll know when you know.

Kubuntu has been pretty nice to me. It has the beginner friendliness of Ubuntu and the modern desktop of KDE

Any distro > Ubuntu > Qubes (not for beginners haha)

Highly recommend Fedora over Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Server and Desktop has some dumb defaults that look measly next to Windows, but still annoying next to Fedora.

Fedora also generally has more solid documentation without a bunch of LTS slag threads with outdated answers.

I prefer Fedora over Ubuntu because Canonical’s direction has been worrying, not that Fedora’s leads have been doing any better in certain areas. Depends on how old the Thinkpad is, a lot of the rolling release distros tend to support a certain range of devices out of the box (not super old, but not also super new hardware). If the Thinkpad is from 2021 or later, you’ll probably be okay! There are distros that you can research for better compatibility with older hardware.

Yeah, going down the rabbit hole of Arch isn’t for everyone, learn, and explore, decide your comfort levels before deciding on that (in the further future). I personally use Garuda Linux (which is based on Arch, not as difficult).

Fedora is great but I did hit some really annoying snags a couple of times. Ubuntu is easiest and generally is most supported. I don’t like snaps and some other Ubuntu things so I go Ubuntu-based instead, with pop os. I really like it.

Bazzite on my gaming machine, Bluefin on my other machines. Both are Fedora Atomic based (meaning read-only kernel. Secure, stable, amazing. Apps are installed via Flatpak, and cli tools using Homebrew.

I’ve been a full time Linux user for 25ish years now. I’m currently happy here, but have tried most of them

I had a great experience with Fedora on my thinkpad, it’s almost as if they’re made for each other. It’s basically the testing version for Redhat. If you want something more stable and still enterprisey, Rocky Linux or Almalinux are both basically RHEL rebranded.

I’ve abandoned Ubuntu, even though it was what I started on and used for over a decade. Canonical is kind of like the Microsoft of linux right now, a bit hostile toward the rest of the community, but still an acceptable choice. I would recommend Linux Mint instead, though.

Keep in mind that the look and feel you’ll experience is all the desktop environment, so if you don’t like it, trying using a different one instead of looking at a new distro. I highly recommend using a few live USBs of what you want you try before installing to get a feel for what you like.

Fedora. Better than Ubuntu in pretty much every regard.