Guess it's too late now, but mint has an option for automatic updates.

I'd say mint is great for non tech people (90% of the time it's the DE and GUI apps that are important rather than the distro, but mint has good ones by default). For former windows power users I'd recommend CachyOS or Fedora. Either way, you can boot from USB for any of these as a live demo; I have images for all 3 + memtest on my ventoy USB.

I use kubuntu. It's a good choice for people who don't have experience but are able and willing to search for answers.

KDE defaults are solid and utilizes a lot of Windows muscle memory, and being based on Ubuntu means that it's really easy to search for answers on virtually any question you might have. Plus widespread package support

Whichever one you wind up with, Dolphin as a file manager blows the monstrosity that windows has out of the water. For someone who's eeked out some power/efficiency out of windows usage it should be very pleasant finding out the standard software available for Linux these can almost always make you more efficient with less effort.

Linux Mint Debian Edición if the laptop is not brand new.

Fedora. That’s what I run on my laptop and it’s great.

Mint, without question. A polished, conservative, stable experience with Ubuntu's broad compatibility baked in, and a familiar desktop experience. Few other distributions can deliver that. I'm very technical myself, but past the age of wanting to tinker with every little thing; I jist want an OS that is stable and gets out of my way to let me get things done - and Mint delivers.

They're both terrible choices for a beginner - constant version churn every six months confuses newcomers, some initial brokenness after every new release - Fedora would be the last distro I'd install.

You just described exactly why I would install an Atomic distribution.

So they can't run something they don't understand, and end up nuking their install.

The biggest differences in usage (dnf vs rpm-ostree) essentially function as a knowledge/intelligence filter to prevent fuckups.

Everything I value is against "how long it will work without issue", "how quick is an update", and finally "how much effort do I need to help maintain it".

Atomic systems have netted me positives on all my values. The people I know who used atomic, have only approached me due to edge cases such as specific laptop fan issues, which weren't hindered by the atomic system.

Whatever you are comfortable with supporting.

Fedora Silverblue

Arch, no gui. Let 'em rawdog it from the CLI

Nah fucking hit em with the temple os.

I installed Aurora cause immutable and auto update so hard to break anything. And normal user only need Browser, LibreOffice and maybe Thunderbird

Something immutable and auto updating, likely Fedora based because that's what I use.

HML if it’s for someone else.

CachyOS with KDE, it works well rounded and has easy to use apps to maid arch super easy and if you need help there’s a convenient discord server filled with helpers, it’s well documented, and we use it so if they need help it would be easier to guide them through things. Heavy recommend. Plus if they don’t like pacman they can always get the flatpak store

HML

Hold My Lard?

Linux from scratch you mean?

I love cachyos with KDE! Not sure if I'd recommend it to a complete noob, but if they're familiar enough with computers in general, then go for it!

Gentoo FTW. Just give them a bootable USB key.

Basic Debian

Yes, it is a bit behind the curve but it is solid, it works and can provide a solid environment for the average run of the mill user.

Hannah Montana Linux

Depends on the user. An older family member, Linux mint. A gamer, cachyOS. Otherwise fedora could also be an option. But in most cases, the person would choose and install a distro themselves if they are interested and that means that mint becomes the most common answer to the question.

Pfff, when I was young we didn't have package managers. You have it too good.

Back in my day we programmed with punch cards!

Mint

I think this what I came up with last time I considered this question, and I also wonder if I might want to use it for my next machine myself. Do you have a lot of experience using it? Do you feel like it performs pretty well? (I just have concerns that everything being containerized with flatpak and docker might affect that...)

You had a punch? We had to lick the holes into steel plates.

Have Aurora on my thinkpad and so far it was super reliable. But I dont power use that its just for mail, libreoffice, browsing

Debian. I want that thing to be so stable they forget they ever had problems.

Thats totally fair, its what we recommended our partner who is a complete noob as-well and they really enjoyed it! The only set up thing we had to help with was the FsTab situation with multiple drives.

What would you suggest instead? Those initial roadbumps with major releases shouldn't happen at all really, but I don't personally see bi-annual version updates as a confusing thing since major companies are commonly shipping yearly version updates now.

Mint. They can stay on the same release for 5 years, if they desire, or upgrade every 2 if they want. Binary-only drivers are easily integrated, it has a polished experience, integrated backups, and anyone that has used Windows can navigate Cinnamon relatively easily.

Personally I can't recommend Mint in good faith due to their heinously slow downstream update 'schedule' for apps they provide (and because Cinnamon feels half-baked still) but other than those issues Mint's great.

That was my only initial struggle too! The rest is so comfortable, coming from Windows the whole experience is just so much better and I'm a total Linux beginner myself. But I was somewhat of a Windows power user, so the transition wasn't bad at all.

Glad to be rid of Microsoft. I just miss DxO Photolabs (because fuck Adobe). Haven't tried Darktable yet but the workflow supposedly is a bit cumbersome.

“I just miss DxO Photolabs”

Heard Rapid Raw might be a good alternative though i can’t say for sure since we don’t edit raw photos too often. Might be good to check out, At the very least!

Also yeah, but so glad there’s good documentation for fstab. Wish there was just an option for Dolphin to auto add drives to fstab for you with a context menu button or something

Thanks! Rapid Raw looks good, I'll give it a try!