From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Just try few of these from live usb and pick what you like.
You can use Ventoy and just drag all your ISO images to it but creating few USBs is easiest option for beginners.
There is nothing bad about Debian/Debian based distros and I think that it is great option I started on Mint, tryed Manjaro and get back to Mint.
As a complete Linux noob coming from Windows, I'd say Mint is the way to go. If you're worried about Cinnamon being too heavy, Mate is much lighter and a lot of fun. I'm especially fond of their file browser Caja.
Your second choice, Fedora, is my go to system, and I'll cheerfully sing it's praises. If you want to go that way, check out the KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, or LXDE spins, but I will say it's a bit less beginner friendly. Make sure you enable the non-free repositories when you log in for the first time!
Why is it that in such posts I don't see PopOS mentioned anywhere? I've been using it on my 8 year old laptop and it works really well! It had Win 10 on it previously and would crash if I opened more than 2 tabs on Firefox.