Asklemmy

Mint

Depends on the user. An older family member, Linux mint. A gamer, cachyOS. Otherwise fedora could also be an option. But in most cases, the person would choose and install a distro themselves if they are interested and that means that mint becomes the most common answer to the question.

Basic Debian

Yes, it is a bit behind the curve but it is solid, it works and can provide a solid environment for the average run of the mill user.

Arch, no gui. Let 'em rawdog it from the CLI

Something immutable and auto updating, likely Fedora based because that's what I use.

CachyOS with KDE, it works well rounded and has easy to use apps to maid arch super easy and if you need help there’s a convenient discord server filled with helpers, it’s well documented, and we use it so if they need help it would be easier to guide them through things. Heavy recommend. Plus if they don’t like pacman they can always get the flatpak store

I installed Aurora cause immutable and auto update so hard to break anything. And normal user only need Browser, LibreOffice and maybe Thunderbird

HML if it’s for someone else.

Mint, without question. A polished, conservative, stable experience with Ubuntu's broad compatibility baked in, and a familiar desktop experience. Few other distributions can deliver that. I'm very technical myself, but past the age of wanting to tinker with every little thing; I jist want an OS that is stable and gets out of my way to let me get things done - and Mint delivers.

Whatever you are comfortable with supporting.

Fedora Silverblue

Linux Mint Debian Edición if the laptop is not brand new.

I would definitely choose Linux Mint 100% :p

I started off with it and its learning curve wasn't too steep. It uses Calamares for installation, features a built-in app store, and is very familiar to those coming from Windows.

Fedora. That’s what I run on my laptop and it’s great.

I'd put LMDE on it, the familiarity of Mint with the stability of Debian and no fucking snaps.

I'd say mint is great for non tech people (90% of the time it's the DE and GUI apps that are important rather than the distro, but mint has good ones by default). For former windows power users I'd recommend CachyOS or Fedora. Either way, you can boot from USB for any of these as a live demo; I have images for all 3 + memtest on my ventoy USB.

I put Mint on my brother’s laptop when his hard drive died, he’s not a techie sort of person at all and has had no complaints.

My head tells me Linux Mint

my heart says listen to your head

My head tells me Linux Mint

My mom won't update Mint despite me showing her how, so I switched it to CachyOS since I'd be the one updating it anyway. At least it's not nearly as annoying for me to work on.

I work in an environment with a lot of people that are not very technically skilled. We run Ubuntu (GNOME) in their Laptops.

If I install Linux for family members etc. I install Ubuntu.

My reasoning is:
Ubuntu/.deb based systems are very wifely supported. If you google "how do u do X on Linux" most likely an answer tailored to Ubuntu may come up. Which is however mostly important if the Users will be doing some stuff themselves.

Also, I believe Desktops make a huge difference because that's how people interact with their Computer. And in my opinion it's not super important what desktop you start people on, its important it stays cohesive. My parents PC's run MATE for that stability* (and for the "classic" usage scheme they learned back in the XP days) but even GNOME has a pretty stable usage paradigm these days ...

Tl;dr: My reccomendation always is Ubuntu with a Desktop that resembles what they are used to.

* though with the MATE project seeming less active these days I've been looking for an alternative with low switching friction

Hannah Montana Linux, obviously.

There is a good reason Mint is recommended as the no nonsense beginner distro. For someone more technical and willing to learn I might recommend Fedora.

One you get past those two distros you are pretty much in the realm where someone should be technical enough to choose their own distro and know what that means.

Bazzite for young people, Mint for old people would be my first thought

If you want to do the least amount of tech support: Fedora Kinoite.

Linux Mint is by far the smoothest experience I've had so far in trying Nobara, Debian, Manjaro otherwise.

At my work, I convinced my boss to let us use Linux on a couple machines and, you guessed it: Mint. Everyone pretty much knows where to find things and it’s stable as a rock.

Whenever this question comes up, I think the distro is less important than the desktop environment. If they feel more comfortable in Windows, go with something that provides KDE. If Mac, go with Gnome. Once they get used to it, let them go through the rite of passage that is distro hopping.

That said, and I know everyone recommends Mint or Ubuntu, and they're fine, but you could do better. I like the immutable distros for people who just want to use their computer without thinking about it. They aren't able to mess with anything important that keeps the computer running, and as long as they restart the computer, it's always up to date. It's like a Chromebook, which is the level most people are with computers.

Debian
With Mate desktop