Hello,

Im thinking of Ubuntu or Mint.

What is the difference between Ubuntu and Mint?

Every 2 years, Mint takes the long-term support version of Ubuntu after any obvious bugs have been reported and removed, makes some alterations, and turns it into Mint. Then for the next two years, they update it themselves, a bit more cautiously than Ubuntu. The result is that Mint is slightly more reliable: I can remember the Ubuntu with the crashing installer and the one with broken usb sound support, both of which Mint headed off at the pass.

The other difference is the GUI. The default for Ubuntu is Unity, which will be replaced by Gnome. The joint defaults for Mint are Cinnamon and Mate. Unity makes your computer look like a phone, Gnome makes it look like a tablet (and is actually the best bet if you actually have a tablet) Mate (plainer) and Cinnamon (fancier) are more traditional. You can obviously use almost any GUI with almost any distro, but the defaults are the ones that most people use and so are often better maintained.

People tend to love or loath Ubuntu, but most people who pick Mint seem contented enough.

3 members found this post helpful.

You really need to try different stuff. It may be that some distro works for you. It may be that windows or Mac works. Only you can tell what appeals to your needs.

The mission and target audience for distro's are almost always posted on the distro's web pages. Sometimes information can be recovered from distrowatch.com and web searches.

If you are only interested in Mint or Ubuntu then I'd call them a draw to some extent. Mint may have more mediacentric abilities by default. Ubuntu may have more documentation.

Knowing the hardware may play a part in this.

1 members found this post helpful.

If you're only looking at Ubuntu and Mint then I would suggest that the desktop environment that you choose is of more importance.

My preference is for the "classic desktop metaphor" (think Windows XP/7) and so I've chosen the MATE desktop flavour of Mint 18.1 (MATE is also available in Ubuntu).

Also similar, and available as flavours in either/both Ubuntu and Mint, are Cinnamon (Mint), Xfce (both), and LXDE (Ubuntu).

Don't spend too much time choosing. Dive in and boot from a few live distros and see which one you feel more comfortable with, then install that one.

1 members found this post helpful.

There's a marvelous Unix distribution called Macintosh OS/X ...

Brought to you by the people who stole the concepts of mouse and windows as computer interfaces from the folks at PARC and then tried to sue the rest of the world for using similar.
Pricks.

Personally I steer new Linux people towards Mint.

1 members found this post helpful.

People seem to pay (loose approximation) TEN times as much (1,000 percent more)
for an iPhone vs. Android, iPad vs. cheap tablet, Mac/MacBook vs. economy PC/laptop,
with the same *basic* functionality. ("regular, non-computer type people", I guess.)
Something must be "insanely" great about Apple'$ User Interface/User eXperience
(Not for me tho; my insanity is: cheapest minimal basics.)

So, what's the feasibility/recommendation of a Linux distro which duplicates
the UI/UX of iPhone/iPad/Mac (..ick)yApple.com$$$ most closely?

1 members found this post helpful.

One of the best distros for having the hardware all working out of the box, and having a bootable system regardless of the hardware, is opensuse. The downside is less available software (less than Debian), and older packages.

2 members found this post helpful.

Hmm ... haven't looked at them in years. I have a similar requirement for a new user. Maybe time to have a look again. Tx.

Many distros offer "Live" versions. They can be installed to a CD/DVD or USB stick and booted directly from that media without being installed to bare metal.

I would suggest trying some of those and then deciding which one you find most comfortable.

I generally recommend Mint MATE (Cinnamon's okay, I just prefer MATE), Magiea, or OpenSUSE, though I myself started using Linux with Slackware.

Elementary OS
Solus

And others that target "new" users. I'm not really a fan of ubuntu, but if it's someone else's computer and I don't want my phone to ring, I tend to install that one for others.

1 members found this post helpful.

Less software: Curious assertion. Got anything to back it up?

Older packages?:
Latest stable Debian release: 25 month old Jessie/8 with standard repos: kernel 3.16.7, Xorg 1.16.4, Plasma 4.11.13, Thunderbird 31.6.0, libreoffice 4.3.3, Gimp 2.8.14, QT 4.8.6
Latest stable openSUSE release: 6 month old 42.2 with standard repos: kernel 4.4.47, Xorg 1.18.3, Plasma 4.8.2, Thunderbird 45.4.0, libreoffice 5.1.5, Gimp 2.8.18. QT 5.6.1
openSUSE also has rolling release Tumbleweed with standard repos: kernel 4.11.2, Xorg 1.19.1, Plasma 5.9.2, Thunderbird 45.7.1, libreoffice 5.3.0.3, Gimp 2.8.20, QT 5.7.1

openSUSE not only has its Build Service able to build almost any software anyone wants, but will do it for distros other than openSUSE, e.g. Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise and other distributions.

I just downloaded the 14.2 DVD - I might be less than inclined to suggest such a complex arrangement as snapper to a person new to Linux. I'll do a build tomorrow and see if I'm mistaken.

Well openSUSE is (still) an unmitigated disaster IM(NS)HO. There is zero chance of me recommending that to a new user.
Screen constantly flashing with the radeon driver - but every other distro has no issue.
No locale for AU got installed, and nor is one available - and yast crashes without message on any update. journalctl shows a pam error for root session being already active. But it isn't.
Yast was probably the reason I abandoned {open}SUSE years ago. SUSE insist on not providing decent stand alone CLI tools. (lspci/hwinfo/whatever for example before you ask).

What is a new user going to think - especially if some tells them to post their fstab ...
Mint it is if anyone happens to ask me.

openSUSE is the only distro I've ever run 24/7, up for past 47 days since last kernel update, in use to type this. I have more openSUSE installations than I can keep track of, more than all other distros (Fedora, Debian, Mageia, Kubuntu, AntiX, Mint, Gentoo and others) combined, probably at least 90, all in multi- multiboot. Several machines have ATI video of various vintages, including the one I'm in the middle of updating Tumbleweed on, and no openSUSEes have any trouble with Xorg. They have always included lspci. I can't remember ever needing to explicitly ask for hwinfo to be installed. Best cmdline package manager anywhere is SUSE's zypper.

openSUSE's installer provides far and away the most overall flexibility of those I've ever used, doesn't use mousetype as some do, yet for a first time user is plenty simple and straighforward.