Okay great! An interesting tea combination: Mint with Cinnamon :) do most desktop environments work with most distros, or is there a list per each distro?

That's a great response! Thank you, that helps a lot.

Lots of suggestions for Mint so it seems that's a good choice for me! Thank you!

Okay thank you! Could you give some examples about tasks that "should be easy" but aren't? I've worked with MacOS casually and I thought it was based on Unix (maybe?), so I was at least aware that the way to maneuver through the desktop/settings/file searches are different from Windows of course. I am certainly not a power user, just getting frustrated with companies overstepping more and more and want to cut myself from their whims, if that makes sense.

That's true, most of what I do would be in a browser as a casual user. My work laptop would still be running Windows and doing what I "need" (Excel, SolidWorks, etc.) Although I want to keep the ability to torrent and manage my media files nicely, I'm open to using different softwares than I'm used to for those.

Okay I'll try out a few and keep notes on which ones I prefer until I make that "final" decision.

Okay that's good to know! Stick with one to get more comfortable until it doesn't do something I need, basically?

Okay great! I'll give those each a try. Thank you!

Okay that makes sense. Thanks!

Okay so maybe ease myself in with dual boot, then Linux + virtual Windows, then Linux only. That seems like a good transition.

Yes non-corporate is pretty important to me as the reason to move away from Windows in the first place! Thanks for the suggestions!

Yes dual booting seems to be the way to go for a while so I've got my toes in the water but not lost the safety net just yet!

Thank you for the response! Those you said are getting a lot of mentions so I think Mint will be a good first choice to make the swap.

Okay that's good to know. That will come later as I get more comfortable in the environment.

Noted: avoid xorg.conf!

Thank you! I'll look into them. Why did you decide to choose Fedora over the others you mentioned?

I'm sure they will! I appreciate it!

I'm hoping to keep it on desktop (not allowed to edit my work laptop), so hopefully that won't be an issue but will keep it in mind for power usage. Thank you!

I'm not wanting to dive into programming specifically (only dipped my toes in the past for school/work as needed but certainly not experienced) so I'm not interested in maintaining scripts and a GitHub if that is necessary for Arch or what you mentioned as "serious" distros. That's good information though, thank you!

Okay I see. Thanks for the clarification!

Why do you suggest it for a new user? Is it just more user friendly?

Okay that's good to know. What made you choose kubuntu specifically?

Thank you for the tips!

What makes it the best, in terms of distro and desktop experience?

I suppose trial by fire can be a fast method of learning! Thanks for the response!

Thank you for the suggestion!

Gaming is not a high priority for me on the desktop, but the others I will keep in mind!

Thank you! When people say "customizing" (throughout this thread and others) what are they referencing? For instance, just the desktop layout/formatting, or the way the files are structured, or the kinds of software they are using for tasks?

Thanks for the link!

Oh that's interesting. So each time I login I could potentially load into a different styling as I choose?

Yeah that's what has made me apprehensive to be honest. I feel pretty comfortable in windows doing many things, and my wife has a MacBook that I'm also pretty comfortable using so learning a new, third OS does seem obtuse. I like the idea of having more control over the software, but don't want to lose the "it just works" feeling of an OS or software I am used to using.

I've added it to the list for review! Thank you!

Do others auto-update or are users prompted as updates become available?

I'll be stuck with Windows on my work laptop, that's not something that I will be able to change anyway. I can point out as things come up, but with industry accepted software (like SolidWorks for example) that we use daily I can't see us switching to any alternative.

Do you know of good emulation setups in Linux? I've run a bunch of emulators (NES, SNES, N64, GBA, and some GameCube and Playstation although not as prevalent), and am interested in getting something to emulate the Switch after I upgrade the hardware.

Thanks for the detailed response! This sounds promising.

Interesting. Thank you!

So if I wanted two users for instance, then I'd have to download an extra copy of each piece of software (one per user) to be able to access (if I wanted tk store them on the drive and not on the network?)

I appreciate the advice! Thank you!

Perfect, thank you!