Even though I'm a minimalist (I only have a few utility and application software installed on my device), it is nice if one has access to a lot of software.
Which linux distro has plenty of software available and also fits on these parameters?:
1. It should be user friendly (easy to use)
2. It should be lightweight (or supports a lightweight desktop environment)
3. Main parameter- It should have a large amount of software in its repositories.
4. It should have a graphical package manager like synaptic.

Is it ubuntu, fedora, opensuse, manjaro, linux mint, or some other distro? One thing important to note here is that I'm not talking about the availablity of appimages, flatpaks and snaps, only the official packages like .deb, .rpm, etc.

Ignore the grammatical mistakes (if there are any).

I think you are looking at either Debian or Ubuntu, or some compatible derivative that can use their repositories. Gentoo has an enormous amount of software available, but it's not particularly friendly and doesn't have a graphical package manager.

On the other hand neither Debian nor Ubuntu is particularly lightweight, though you can certainly install Debian with a lightweight desktop such as lxde.

Maybe AntiX. That piggybacks on the Debian repos so it has access to most of what's in Debian, and it has some nice python-based desktop software.

2 members found this post helpful.

Almost all of them.

Matter of opinion, build it how you like.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lis...indow_managers

Yup, that describes Linux. Plus lots of software on github sitting there. Some distros have user made repositories.

https://distrowatch.com/

1 members found this post helpful.

yes, would be nice to check it yourself. Almost every software is available on any distro (ok, there are some exceptions). So choose what you really like.

1 members found this post helpful.

Systemd, or not(?).....

Debian, or Devuan.

1 members found this post helpful.

Repology has some (not very reliable) statistics. Scroll down to "Top repositories". Here is a huge table with all repositories tracked by them.

1 members found this post helpful.

To be able to use deb, you want debian/ubuntu based distros. For rpm you want redhat/fedora.

What you mentioned about not wanting to use snap/flatpak, may be a good reason not to use Ubuntu, as with each new version they're putting less stuff in repository and relying on snap more. Their previous LTS (20) no longer provides Chromium, and their next LTS (22) won't have chromium *or* firefox directly packaged.

If you go with an Ubuntu based distro like Mint or Bodhi, they may resolve that for you - both those distros use Ubuntu repos plus their own, and for example have chromium in their own respective repositories and have disabled automatic snap installation.

Mint XFCE is fairly light (but not minimal) and very easy for linux beginner. Bodhi is lighter and minimilistic, but not quite as beginner friendly. Debian is fine too, use the net installer then you pick your desktop during install; LXDE is the lightest and simple to use.

If you want it even more minimal debian desktop, uncheck all the boxes during the installer, and you'll start with terminal; from there install lightdm (which will bring in xorg as dependency), an xterminal, and whatever desktop or window manager you want. To minimize it (using apt) install without recommends.

You can basically do that with arch too, but it uses yet another package manager (pacman), and their repos are full of stuff too almost as much as debian, plus they offer the AUR which is like a ports system to build your own stuff from already prepared scripts (is my understanding).

1 members found this post helpful.

Any of the big distros, including the ones you listed will have a comparable number of packages in their repos.
User friendly depends on the user, any distro you can install pretty much the same apps.
lightweight depends on the Desktop or window-manager that you use. With Gnome being the heaviest.

2 members found this post helpful.

Just install mint xfce, and check back in a few months. By then you'll have something to compare to.

I don't think there is a single person ever that will disagree with me that it's a good start.

1 members found this post helpful.

In response to OPs original question, I recommend Debian. It's repos are widely regarded as being among the most extensive, it not the most extensive.

As an aside, most of the "weight" of a distro is in the GUI environment. Ubuntu and Debian work quite nicely with a window manager; I am currently both with Fluxbox.

Thank you for all the answers. I would love to try all of the suggestions.