Nobody is asking you what hardware you’re running or your use case…
If your computer is a couple years old and you’re doing general web browsing, then I would recommend Kubuntu 24.04, latest version of Linux Mint, or Debian.
If your computer is newer, as in a year old or so, I would recommend Kubuntu 25.10, latest version of Fedora(KDE/Plasma spin), or possibly CachyOS(Arch based).
If you’re a gamer, then same as above, Kubuntu 25.10, Fedora, or CachyOS, but I would highly recommend CachyOS in this instance.
The main things to consider for Linux is the version of the Kernel you may need and what Desktop Environment(Gnome, Plasma, Cinnamon, etc) you prefer.
The Linux Kernel is where most drivers will come from and are baked in. You can install proprietary drivers, but that process can vary depending on the distro.
The Desktop Environment is what you’ll be interacting with on a daily basis. Personally I prefer and highly recommend Plasma. It has great Wayland support(newer way to render and manage programs graphically) and customization is there if you need it. You CAN install multiple Desktop Environments at the same time and you’re not stuck with whatever is the default. But again, I’d recommend Plasma.
Now, why CachyOS? Simply because it has a lot of quality of life aspects available. It’s not a “gaming” distro, but it can be right out of the box. It’s built for speed, but also convenience in my opinion. Cachy can automatically detect and install the latest Nvidia drivers during the initial install. The “gaming” packages are a single click in their “CachyOS Hello” window on startup. And if you choose GRUB or Limine for your bootloader and BTRFS for your filesystem, you’ll have snapshots for recovery automatically setup for you(which saved my butt twice now).
Definitely try out a few distros. Personally I started with Mint and loved it, but I ran into driver issues eventually due to how they do kernel releases. Then tried Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, Endeavor, Debian…all of these never “kept” me because of something breaking or lack of timely driver updates. But I’m on CachyOS now and within a month of trying it I ended up switching all of my Windows machines to it, which I’ve never done before. I’ve never gone “full Linux” before, but Cachy pulled me right in. I’ve thrown it on multiple laptops, a NUC, and a desktop gaming PC and it’s “just worked” on all of them.
Nobody is asking you what hardware you’re running or your use case…
If your computer is a couple years old and you’re doing general web browsing, then I would recommend Kubuntu 24.04, latest version of Linux Mint, or Debian.
If your computer is newer, as in a year old or so, I would recommend Kubuntu 25.10, latest version of Fedora(KDE/Plasma spin), or possibly CachyOS(Arch based).
If you’re a gamer, then same as above, Kubuntu 25.10, Fedora, or CachyOS, but I would highly recommend CachyOS in this instance.
The main things to consider for Linux is the version of the Kernel you may need and what Desktop Environment(Gnome, Plasma, Cinnamon, etc) you prefer.
The Linux Kernel is where most drivers will come from and are baked in. You can install proprietary drivers, but that process can vary depending on the distro.
The Desktop Environment is what you’ll be interacting with on a daily basis. Personally I prefer and highly recommend Plasma. It has great Wayland support(newer way to render and manage programs graphically) and customization is there if you need it. You CAN install multiple Desktop Environments at the same time and you’re not stuck with whatever is the default. But again, I’d recommend Plasma.
Now, why CachyOS? Simply because it has a lot of quality of life aspects available. It’s not a “gaming” distro, but it can be right out of the box. It’s built for speed, but also convenience in my opinion. Cachy can automatically detect and install the latest Nvidia drivers during the initial install. The “gaming” packages are a single click in their “CachyOS Hello” window on startup. And if you choose GRUB or Limine for your bootloader and BTRFS for your filesystem, you’ll have snapshots for recovery automatically setup for you(which saved my butt twice now).
Definitely try out a few distros. Personally I started with Mint and loved it, but I ran into driver issues eventually due to how they do kernel releases. Then tried Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, Endeavor, Debian…all of these never “kept” me because of something breaking or lack of timely driver updates. But I’m on CachyOS now and within a month of trying it I ended up switching all of my Windows machines to it, which I’ve never done before. I’ve never gone “full Linux” before, but Cachy pulled me right in. I’ve thrown it on multiple laptops, a NUC, and a desktop gaming PC and it’s “just worked” on all of them.