'it came to me in a dream' has got to be a pretty unique reason for switching to Linux

Anytime someone new ask for recommendation, I'd give Linux Mint.

You don’t need to be a programmer to use Linux. I’d probably recommend you go with something like mint. Avoid things like Arch or Gentoo or NixOS for now as they involve a lot more manual configuration and it’s probably best to understand the landscape of things first.

What was your dream about windows?

Many people have asked me this (I'm the certified neighborhood tech guy :P), I always recommend Linux Mint, with the Cinnamon desktop environment, or KDE. Ubuntu used to be the best one and it's still very good, but pretty heavy on hardware and they keep adding frustrating features nobody asked for.

Please please please, at the start, stay away from Arch and it's derivatives. I daily Gentoo, but you need a decent knowledge of Linux to use both. If you need help, post to the Linux community or DM me :)

Really recommend mint, or ubuntu. Please for the love of god stay away from arch and all of it's derivatives, or at least try Ubuntu/Mint first. Also do NOT use manjaro it sucks, it is not maintained well at all

Clear vote for Fedora,

You didn't give much info to go on, so maybe try Distrochooser. Honestly, most distros should work out fine. If you like Ubuntu, maybe try Mint.

Pop os

I'd recommend against Ubuntu. It uses snaps and it'll teach you that the hard way eventually by having very weird issues.

Mint is based on ubuntu but says no to snaps, so that's a good place to start.

https://distrochooser.de

My vote is for mint. If you've been a long time windows user it should be the easiest one to get used to. PopOS is also newbie friendly if you're not into the feel of Mint for whatever reason.

My biggest recommendation though is to spend some time with a few different OS's and try setting things up different ways. Like if you start with Mint, try something new a month or two later. It's a good way to get used to the way linux OS's work under the hood.

I'm not a programmer at all, but if you have some background with computers and are willing to sink some time into learning and setting up a new system you'll be fine.

Mint is currently my recommendation for Windows refugees and has been for a while.

• Cinnamon desktop environment works like Windows' UX
• Ubuntu-based, so you'll find help online for basically anything
• Not just Ubuntu; follows more popular, community decisions rather than Canonical's (e.g. things like Flatpak instead of Snap) which will help you in the long run since you'll be using what everyone else is using
• Ubuntu-based, so Debian-based, so pretty stable with lots of available software (even outside of Flatpak)
• Significant amount of work put into UX with less you have to do

If you're not worried about high-performance gaming, you'll be fine with whatever. For developers, any Linux distro is gonna be leagues better than what you're used to on Windows. For Assembly, NASM + VS Code will be great.

Do yourself a favor and just go with Debian Stable

I recommend Pop! OS.

I still think Ubuntu or a flavor of it is the right answer for people new to Linux.

Linux Mint or Garuda Linux

Fedora is great with gnome for beginer and don't get in way to much like Ubuntu when used daily

EndeavuorOS. It's a seamless base configuration of Arch which has a wonderful wiki that has a ton of stuff to tell you.

You can install pamac for a GUI for the package manager. Do yay to search for any package and install it; do yay (nothing else) to upgrade everything, and yay -Rcns to remove stuff and all their unused dependencies. I also recommend chaoticAUR

For the DE I recommend MATE but you can select any of the major ones in the installer. For me Steam didn't work when xdg-portal-gnome was installed though and firefox-like apps booted real slow, so you may or may not want to try GNOME.

Get synapse for a spotlight-like search; it uses the alt+space keybind by default

Just use Ubuntu/Mint, because that's what everyone uses and has the most support forums.

Arch, of course.

Ubuntu is a good starting point.

You can follow the general idea of: "Are you new to Linux? If yes, use something you know other people know too. If no, use whatever the fuck you want, heck, make your own distro if you want".

I'd say try whatever looks good to you, you can always install something else if you don't like it, as long as it isn't Manjaro. (backup your data before you install something new)

Some distros that I think are a pretty good choice for starters (no particular order):

• Pop!_OS
• Ubuntu
• Fedora
• Endeavour OS
• Linux Mint
• openSUSE Tumbleweed

You can also use Distrochooser to maybe help you make a decision.

Not a great programmer but I’d like to learn.

That's alright, you don't have to be a programmer to use Linux. You don't even have to use the command line if you don't want to (tho I recommend it, getting good at it feels pretty great).

Linux Mint

I've been using arch for years, but finally removed my windows install a week ago and ended up on opensuse tumbleweed. It's rolling release like arch (so there's never a need to reinstall or have a big update once a year) and it has some extra fail-safes for when updates go wrong (there's an automated QA that tries to find package breaks before they're pushed for updates, and they have a tool called snapper that let's you revert back to a working state if you run into problems)

Since you're just starting out, I would probably recommend mint. I think it's the most stable of the "mainstream" distros and you'll have less frustrations. If you want to have a great experience with managing packages, I think installing and using the nix package manager is the best way to manage packages on any distros (and who knows, maybe in a year or 2 you'll want to try nixOs!)

Any general purpose distro will work well for you. As others have said, Ubuntu and Mint are the standard recommendations.

I use my PC for gaming. Ubuntu works well for me with my new hardware: Intel 13gen, Nvidia 3080, Steam.