So ive use windows pretty much for everything and ive kinda had a enough of windows. i was thinking of trying linux on an old laptop that i just upgraded to 8gb of ram and im not sure wha tos to put on it. i was thinking something lightweight maybe ubuntu mate? i need somethign like windows that will allow me to game and do other things liek gaming maybe even streaming or reading? idk. also what are some neede dsoftware, browser so rthigs needed for linux. i com efrom a family who has never trie dlinux and hates it because its “the smar advanced coders os” somethign liek that.
anyways im a noob so go easy on me please als i may have ben linux distro hopping but i still feel lost.
Mint was the first distro I tried. It seemed very nice, but it has been like 5-10 years since I have used it and I cannot really speak to what it is like today.
Manjaro is also a good distro which I got into more recently when I was trying to daily drive Linux (I used the KDE version). It also has access to the Arch User Repository, which is incredibly powerful and gave me access to certain programs which I might not have alternatives for otherwise.
Regardless of which distro you go with, my experience switching to Linux for a daily driver is to have a mindset that you are learning a skill. I can’t speak for Mint more recently, but my experience with Manjaro is that not quite everything “just works” first time, every time. For daily use-- web browsing and such-- it works fine, and I have rarely had anything spontaneously break without me doing something, but if you have certain types of programs you want to install where you might run into some kind of compatibility or configuration issue, be prepared to look around online to solve problems or ask questions on forums as needed when you need help.