I have worked with Windows for years and am not happy with the recent way they force changes on you so I plan to get a laptop with a Linux system. I have used Unix in the distant past. What version and flavour of Linux would you suggest?

Start by reading this sticky:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/linux-newbies-how-to-choose-a-distro-4175623119

4 members found this post helpful.

When you just want a working thing on new hardware, don't care for free software and get started really quick without visiting the shell too often you should go for a stream-updated Distro like Fedora or one that is known to be very stable and offers inplace-upgrades to new versions.

The actually most popular distros are
1 MX Linux
2 Manjaro
3 Mint

For these I only know Mint and it is a rather easy installed one too. When you are not using external repos and exotic configs you can also do inplace-upgrades like with Debian.

So my suggestion: Have a look at Mint, Debian or Fedora, depending on your use-case they can all do it rather good and the community is rather big.

Gentoo of course!

You can get a fixed release or a rolling release. The fixed release means that you have to cope with a major upgrade every few years, just like with Windows. The rolling release model gives you regular small updates, so you never need a new version. Some distros of both types are famously prone to major, possibly infuriating, change. I would not recommend a beginner to go for Fedora or Arch, good as they are in many respects. It's always a good idea to get a distro with it's default GUI, since that's the one that most developers and users have. The alternative versions may be excellent, or they may have odd glitches that nobody's noticed or reported.

For what it's worth, I'd recommend
Linux Mint in the Mate version. Good documentation, new versions every 2 years with 4 years' support, large user base making it easy to get help.
MX Linux. Very conservative in the choice of software versions, so few undiscovered bugs are likely. Annual releases supported for 3 years.
PCLinuxOS with KDE Plasma. Rolling release, excellent community forum for support. I've been using it for the last year and the only problem with updates was when a game stopped working — it was fixed in 24 hours. Incidentally updates in Linux, even rolling release versions, are not forced on you as in Windows 10 — you decide when to install them.

1 members found this post helpful.

Many thanks to one and all!

The document suggested in the previous post by boughtonp is rather complete. I would however take into consideration that people around you, members of your family, colleges and friends may be available in the future to assist you. The Linux-distribution that they favor will probably be your (initial) best choice, too.

If people I knew applied that logic, over half of them would be put off by the wrong distro (for them), and a chunk of the rest might not be fully satisfied.

On the other hand, if they asked my advice on what was suitable for them, I'd (hopefully) get it mostly right, at least for the people I know well (though I'd still need to ask at least some of the questions from that sticky), and that's because I try to consider other people - not everyone realizes what works for them doesn't always work for others.

The way it works with most new people (my thinking), is that you try one or several distributions. (A) You're either successful in some form and begin using it, or (B) you have little to no success and have a ton of questions whereupon you either eventually do succeed or give up. Anyways, let's assume you get there, then you learn about it, shape it how you want, find out how to break it a lot sometimes and then learn how to reconstitute it (maybe).

Over time you usually decide to use it on an everyday basis and evaluate what you need from your computer.

Many people tend to have some time frame where they maintain both OS capabilities and eventually find that they're 100% pure Linux over time, so the next time they build and configure a system, even if they buy one that has Windows preloaded, they nuke it entirely and put their favorite Linux distribution on it.

I concur with the second post, a lot of Newbie thread advisers contributed to that to make it, and explain the varieties of engagements one could expect as they explore various distributions.

That or "try" one or the other distros that you've heard about, or seen cited here by people. (EXCEPT FOR KALI!!! OK? There's another sticky thread at the top of this forum explaining why that's not for newbies, and also in the General forum there's another sticky thread.)

I wasn't entirely joking when I recommended Gentoo. We see in Gentoo forums people coming without previous Linux/Unix knowledge and succeeding. OK, to be honest, not all of them. It depends on many factors, and personality is not the least important.

I would suggest narrowing your list to a few distros you are interested in and then trying them out in Live CD/USB mode. Then pick the one you feel most comfortable with.

I normally recommend Mint for new users, all other things being equal; it is a nice job of work.