Kinda. It’s not hard, but it’s also not idiot proof.

On Fedora for example you just need to use RPM Fusion instead of the standard Fedora repos. The problem is that you need to know that you need to use RPM Fusion.

Fedora is a pretty common recommendation to new users (with good reason it’s excellent) but plenty of casual users will run into that problem and decide that videos don’t work right on Linux.

I feel like there really are just 2 or 3 main distros for Linux adoption. Every article, forum, discussion, etc… it’s always Mint, followed by either Fedora or Ubuntu. IMO distro is less important for converts than desktop environment.

I think the most important thing for adoption is actually little quality of life stuff.

• The first question during installation should be “are you new to Linux” and if you select yes it doesn’t ask you about file systems or partitions it just installs the goddamn operating system with a default configuration, and casual friendly software.
• Photo and video thumbnails that just work.
• An idiot proof way to get a video player with support for every video codec.
• More GUI based “intermediate” applications. If Grandpa has to figure out samba config files just so he can open up his photos on his laptop he’s going to second guess his decision.

I can’t speak for anyone else but I can tell you what I personally love about Gnome.

I like that it’s Spartan. I like that it looks good without me having to customize a thousand different settings.

I like that It has client side decorations, so every window doesn’t have to have an obscene, chunky, mostly useless title bar.

I don’t miss every single application having 100 different options packed into a menu bar. Once you get used to it, you realize that it was mostly getting in the way the whole time.

It’s just a really streamlined workflow for 98% of what you do. The problem is that 2% where it’s too spartan and God do you wish you had some options.

But I also think KDE is a great desktop environment. If I were more of a gamer I’d be using KDE. I think XFCE is an excellent desktop environment for aging hardware and Windows converts. It is very much a matter of taste, Use cases, and your preferred workflow.

There are a lot of different reasons that people hate Ubuntu. Most of them Not great reasons.

Ubuntu became popular by making desktop Linux approachable to normal people. Some of the abnormal people already using Linux hated this.

In November 2010, Ubuntu switched from GNOME as their default desktop to Unity. This made many users furious.

Then in 2017, Ubuntu switched from Unity to Gnome. This made many users furious.

There’s also a graveyard of products and services that infuriated users when canonical started them, then infuriated users when they discontinued them.

And the Amazon “scandal”.

And then there’s the telemetry stuff.

Meanwhile. Arch has always been the bad boy that dares you to love him… unapproachable and edgy.

I was just thinking, I wish a trillion dollar company would figure out a way to turn a few billion dollars worth of usable hardware into e-waste today.

Hopefully people dumping these cards drives down the used prices.

“This PC is basically my life” screams leave well enough alone. I wouldn’t even set up a dual boot on a machine I depended on to make my living. If you do, make sure you’ve got everything backed up before you start. Nothing should go wrong, but that’s a very different statement than nothing will go wrong.

If you want to start using linux I’d recommend you buy a cheap second computer and start there. You can safely experiment as much as you like without risking your professional set up.

I daily drive Fedora and I think it has the best Gnome desktop.

But in terms of “best at what they do” I’m blown away by Mint as an apporoachable easy to use “just works” OS. It instantly became my recommendation to new linux converts. Everything is easy to set up. It’s remarkably user friendlly. Good software store, flatpack support out of the box. Brilliant hardware support. I like the aesthetics as well.

I have an old Core 2 machine and I tried to get every potato grade distro running on it. I tried Puppy, and Linux Lite, and AntiX and all the “this will run on your toaster” type distros and had problems with every one of them. Mint XFCE installed no problem. It ran beautifully. I pressed my luck and installed a Quadro K620 and an old firewire card (trying to back up old Mini-DV videos). It handled ancient hardware perfectly. Butter smooth 1440p desktop computing and light video editing on an 18 year old machine.

You don’t need a high level of technical skill. You can learn everything you need to get started in a few minutes of tutorials or walk throughs. The rest you learn as you go.

Bear in mind no every linux user has memorized every terminal command and the whole file structure. Lots of people are just casual users who learn what they need.

One of the things I wish someone had told me at the start of using linux is that initially your desktop environment will effect how you feel about linux more than the distribution or specific architecture of the OS.

The good news is they’re all free. Try a few things and see what you like. IMO Fedora is a great, beginner friendly Gnome or KDE experience. Mint has an excellent Cinnamon and XFCE desktop either of which will feel somewhat familiar to a windows user. Mint will also run on just about anything.

Also, it’s not binary. You can dual boot. If there’s something you need windows for you can use it. Over time you’ll eventually find that you don’t really need windows anymore.