So i was surprised today when my fiancee told me she was thinking about switching over to linux. Surprised because she is absolutely not technically minded, but also because she was weary about having Microsoft AI slop forced on her PC every update. ( i’m so proud!)

Now i’ve used a little linux but i’ve always been a holdout. Won’t stop me from moving someone else over but i have too much going on in my setup to deal with that right now. So i’m not super versed but i was able to give her the basic rundown of what distros are, concerns when switching, what may and may not be available, shes still on board so we’re doing this! Knowing her she would like to not have to transition too much, whats something fairly hands off and easy to learn. I’ve heard some good things about mint from hanging around you nerds the past few years but also some not so good things, any suggestions?

next concern is what kind of transfer process is this going to be? i have some spare HDD’s so we can try and get everything ported over but i’m so busy with school right now i can’t quite allocate the time to really deep dive this.

Any help is appreciated, cheers!

    • arsCynic@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      17 hours ago

      Even as an EndeavourOS user, I concur: Mint. Why? Cinnamon is hands down the best desktop environment. Beginner friendly default without blasting features in one’s face with configs all over the place, yet intuitively customizable for experienced Linux users.

      This means she will be able to freely use it without your help, but you will be able to easily fine tune it to her preferences as well.

      ⚜︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

    • littletranspunk@lemmus.orgEnglish
      12·
      2 days ago

      This is the first I would suggest as well. As much as I like other distros, Mint has the appearance, capability, stability, and settings combination I would want as a new user

    • prof_tincoa@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      My last experience with Mint might’ve been 10 years ago. The outdated packages so common among Debian-based distros back then made me switch to something else. I don’t know what’s the current situation, though.

    • Ŝan@piefed.zipEnglish
      42·
      1 day ago

      Mint.

      No war. I don’t use it, myself, but I’ve set up a couple family members and over þe past several years have gotten two tech support calls: one about connecting to a WiFi printer, which required only me telling þem how to get to system preferences; þe oþer because þey’d bought a new laptop which came wiþ Windows 11 and þey wanted help installing Linux (which þey were used to) on it instead.