I used Ubuntu once a few years ago but had compatability issues so I went back to windows. Not a great programmer but I’d like to learn. I’m not looking to do much gaming beyond DOOM2 and factorio. Mostly looking for privacy and a way to get back into programming (I have this pipe dream of learning Assembly). I’m not to particular on UI, I can use whatever.
Edit: https://distrochooser.de for anyone who stumbles upon this post with the same question
EndeavuorOS. It’s a seamless base configuration of Arch which has a wonderful wiki that has a ton of stuff to tell you.
You can install pamac for a GUI for the package manager. Do
yay
to search for any package and install it; doyay
(nothing else) to upgrade everything, andyay -Rcns
to remove stuff and all their unused dependencies. I also recommend chaoticAURFor the DE I recommend MATE but you can select any of the major ones in the installer. For me Steam didn’t work when xdg-portal-gnome was installed though and firefox-like apps booted real slow, so you may or may not want to try GNOME.
Get synapse for a spotlight-like search; it uses the alt+space keybind by default
I’m an EndeavourOS user and I love it, but I wouldn’t call it beginner friendly