Most distros are running the same software. The biggest difference is your package manager & community. Personal preference is NixOS but that ain’t beginner-friendly even if the rollbacks from bad states would help. Arch isn’t as difficult to set up as it used to be & has been more stable than a lot of distros in my experience so I wouldn’t discount it but .pacnew files can bite you if modifying in /etc instead of in the home folder (when possible). Of the things folks normally suggest as a first go, Fedora would probably be my pick (not yet had a problem) as everything Ubuntu-based still rubs me wrong for support & leadership.
I actually disagree on what the biggest difference is. For the average everyday user, the biggest difference is the desktop environment. Having a desktop environment that the user finds intuitive, easy, and is stable is by far the most important thing.
Most distros are running the same software. The biggest difference is your package manager & community. Personal preference is NixOS but that ain’t beginner-friendly even if the rollbacks from bad states would help. Arch isn’t as difficult to set up as it used to be & has been more stable than a lot of distros in my experience so I wouldn’t discount it but
.pacnewfiles can bite you if modifying in/etcinstead of in the home folder (when possible). Of the things folks normally suggest as a first go, Fedora would probably be my pick (not yet had a problem) as everything Ubuntu-based still rubs me wrong for support & leadership.I actually disagree on what the biggest difference is. For the average everyday user, the biggest difference is the desktop environment. Having a desktop environment that the user finds intuitive, easy, and is stable is by far the most important thing.