I recommend Linux Mint, which a based on Ubuntu. The cinnamon desktop environment it comes with is pretty similar to windows 7, which makes it easier to use.

Debian 12 with your favorite DE, I use XFCE

You described EndeavourOS if you ask me. It’s Arch but preconfigured, so ready to use after install while being as configurable as Arch if you want to go further. Has AUR so you won’t have problems finding a program.

You might want to look at distrochooser.de. That said, Linux Mint and OpenSUSE are good, stable distros.

Help me choose a distro, please!

This is asking for trouble.

“Gentlemen, I am new to the country, and I was hoping that you could help me choose a political party.”

“I’m looking for a good text editor. What’s the best text editor to use?”

“I’ve heard that various religions have a lot of things going for them. Which religion do you suggest I join?”

With that background and do you really need suggestions?

My recommendation: LinuxMint with the Cinnamon desktop.

planned usage: should have all the software you described

default settings: has intuitive default settings, especially if you are used to windows

configuration: has lots of cool settings for tweaking your desktop - really fun stuff

low maintenance: it just works. You never really have to do anything

stability: based on Ubuntu and Debian and uses LTS releases (unlike some distros who use a rolling release modle)

automatic updates: don’t know if that’s enabled by default but it’s super easy to turn on/off

It does have some applications installed by default but that’s very common and you can always just go into the software center and uninstall stuff. Apart from that, everything else seems to fit.

What distro do you use at work? Using that at home would benefit you professionally as well. I’d start there unless it’s redhat.

I did the classic, jump in at the deep end approach, and ended up with some distro hoping for a while. I then settled on Fedora.

Why? It did everything I wanted to do and did it well. I found some distro so easy to setup but harder to maintain, some really slick but problematic with updates and apps. Fedora, for me, just worked.

All that said, there are various factors to consider, including your hardware configuration. Some distro just happen to work better on some hardware specs, especially when considering your graphics.

I have a similar usage to you, covering a little bit of everything including gaming and dev and, so far, everything continues to work. So much so, I am thinking of switching my gaming rig over to Fedora in the coming weeks.

I’m a beginner Linux user, without background in informatics, but after trying many distro, Ubuntu, Ark, Manjaro… the easiest to maintain and work as needed is Debian for me.

I’d suggest you EndeavourOR or Arch.

There is also NixOS, but you will loose the ability to use GNU/Linux for CI/CD and programming, like you did before learning nix.

Fucking any of them. Seriously. It doesn't really matter. Eventually you'll come to the realization that until you're talking about oddball shit designed for one douchebag's personal proclivities it's all the same shit under the hood. They just have fourteen incompatible package managers because, again, douchebag personal proclivities.

When you install, whatever you install, partition your drive so that /home is it’s own partition. Then if/when you reinstall, distrohop, whatever, you don’t have to worry about copying over your data. Just use the same /home partition, and format the others. You can actually use this to try multiple distros at the same time - you can install them in different partitions, but have every install use the same /home partition. This is a nice way to test new distros without blowing away your stable install.

Now, for my distro recommendation - Ubuntu gets a lot of hate, but honestly, after 15+ years of Linux, and having tried Mint, Fedora, Arch, Manjaro, and many others, I always end up back on Ubuntu. It’s easy, it’s stable, and it stays out of my way.

The defaults are good, but you can customize as much as you want, and they offer a minimal install (as of 23.10, it is the default) which comes with very few applications, so you can start clean and choose all the applications you want.

Unless you are excited to tinker, I’d really recommend starting simple. Personality, I just want the OS to facilitate my other activities, and I otherwise want to forget about it. Ubuntu is pretty good for that.

So its not really a distro, but what i do on my laptop is installed rocky 9 linux and use distrobox for installing applications. Rocky is Based on Rhel, its lts is good till 2039 and is super stable

You want Xerolinux. Ships with little, already configured and with beautiful looks, arch based.

I’d recommend Fedora, but the suggestion of EndeavorOS is also good.

I recommend Linux Mint. It comes with good default settings but is configurable. The Cinnamon DE is exactly like that of Windows, so you don’t need a lot of effort to start using it. Mint comes with some pre-installed apps like Firefox and LibreOffice, but they may not be the latest version that’s available, so you can purge them afterwards.

Mint comes with APT and Flatpak as package managers, but Snap is disabled by default. You can enable it, if you want to.

Mint does not come with any gaming apps pre-installed, but Steam can be installed, and many games work on it, especially those that are verified to work on the Steam Deck. Lutris is another game app you can install, and that allows you access to other game platforms like Blizzard, but don’t assume that all games will work perfectly through Lutris.

Given your background it should come to no surprise that it doesn’t really matter much.

That said, I recommend Arch with some caveats, mainly with regards to the “very little effort to start using” requirement. If you know how to follow instructions, it should only be about 30-45 minutes to install it. It will on the other hand fit your other requirements of good defaults and not shipping with loads of applications. When you install an app you will get that app and nothing else, and the defaults will either be exactly what the upstream defaults would be if you built it yourself or something very close to that. You also have everything available through the AUR, and after using it for years I’ve yet to run into an update not going smoothly.

arch is super stable ( for the most part ) at with the arch install script it’s easier than ever to install, endeavouros is a gui installer but leaves you with basically an arch system

ive been running arch on my desktop and laptop for years and the only issue I had was that fucked up grub change that somehow got thru

LMDE

I can’t recommend enough EndeavourOS. It has a very good defaults and its softwares is very up-to-date since it’s based on Arch Linux. Their community is also very nice.

Of course you can try Arch Linux too, it’s minimalistic and you have to configure most thing yourself. It’s not really hard, but gonna take some time.

If you want more “stable” distro, Fedora and Linux Mint is very good choice.

I have to agree with most people, arch is probably the way to go.

But given the subject I’m gonna piggy back on you and ask about KDE Neon. This is what got me back into desktop Linux after installing it on an old crappy tablet.

Now i currently run it on a couple older but upgraded AIOs and even my server that primarily does VMs.

If i understand it’s a little more bleeding edge than people would normally like but I’m curious the community thoughts on it as i don’t hear much. Am I missing out not running arch or mint?

I began with slackware linux late 1990s and have moved to FreeBSD about 10 years ago. Just recently installed Linux again and found pop! os to be quite usable. I think it’s worth to check out.

If you’re ready to take a bit of a dive, take a look at NixOS. As a CI/CD guy it might be right up your alley.
It allows you to configure your entire system via a single, declarative config file, including any configurations for installed software. You could even develop the config in a VM and, once you’re happy with it, use the same for to configure your host machine.
Be warned, though: the wiki is nowhere near as good as the Arch wiki.

Probably Arch.

You make it sound like all distros are paid, not free. With that said… all distros can deliver the same quality as you’d expect out of a “stable OS”. Still, theres Nobara, Linux Mint, ZorinOS and Garuda for your “noob-friendly” needs.

I thought you were describing Debian (FOSS only, stable and conservative, boring in the good way). It does take longer to get the updates because they build everything themselves, but that’s part of the stability deal.

I’m no expert though; I’m mostly reading to get suggestions for when I make switch properly myself.

I like Fedora and PopOS. I find PopOS to be the most exciting and best out of the box experience, with plenty of options for customization. Endeavour is also fantastic and considering you have lots of experience with Linux already, should be and excellent choice as well. If you want kind of a set it and forget, I can’t recommend PopOS enough. Fedora for if you want to tinker and set things up to suit yourself more, and endeavour even more so.

Leaning on SuSE Tumbleweed for a set it and forget it without the Arch weirdness. Kubuntu for “I really just need an OS and don’t wanna play with it”. Or Linux Mint. Idk I lean more .deb based distros. I love apt.

Depends on desktop Environment honestly.

I’ve seen arch install and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. All the “arch,btw” people are just bragging that they went with the hard mode install setup (probably cheated and used Endeavor lol).