Linux

You could install bunch of popular liveboot distros on USB with ventoy and have them try each one. Just make sure to mention it will run faster when not in a USB.

I'm honestly astounded at how many people are suggesting Mint. I recently switched full time to linux and even as a software dev, Mint has to be one of the worst experiences I've had with a computer. Not only driver issues, but software issues and general buginess. Along with being butt-ugly, I do not think any windows user is going to confuse Mint for Windows.

I switched my wife to Bazzite (not necessarily recommending that) and she literally didn't notice it was a different operating system (even though I told her it was and walked her through it). Bazzite has a nice UI for installing pretty much anything a normie would be thinking to install. The only issue we've had so far is that Dropbox just outright does not work on it. I've filed a bug with them and have been awaiting a response from their dev team for like two months now. I'm sure they'll fix it eventually, but if you need the Dropbox UI (you can use rsync otherwise) then don't choose Bazzite.

As for myself, after trying out like 6 different OSes, I settled on CachyOS. There are still issues, but it's pretty dang stable and they're very fast to fix issues. It's not for a person not willing to touch a terminal at least once though.

If you're supporting it, then one you are familiar with would be my recommendation. If you're both beginners, then Mint.

While I'm here, I might as well figure out one for me, I usually stick to gaming and graphic design programs since I'm an artist. but honestly I do anything under the Sun and whatever my whims fancy so flexibility is a must

Did this with my SO, they have mint like me. And they like it!

They wanted puppy linux though xD

Fedora is pretty cool.

Linus Torvalds uses it, so you could say it’s the canonical distribution.

I vastly prefer/recommend stable LTS distros. There are really 2 main families of distros for this:

1. Linux Mint / Ubuntu LTS / Debian Stable (Ubuntu is based on Debian, Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS):

Basically endless amount of packages. Most people in the linux world have some familiarity with these so it shouldn't be hard to get help if you need it.

2. Rocky linux / Almalinux / RHEL (Rocky and Alma aim to be compatible with RHEL software):

For desktop systems people usually opt for fedora, but that distro does not meet my own criteria. Biggest reason you'd use these is for professional VFX software support. For whatever reason a lot of that stuff only has official support for this family of distros. Not sure why!

Get good at 1 of these families of distros. If you aren't vibing with one its okay to switch to the other. Both have more cutting edge options if you desire them.

Linux Mint is a community favorite and very much is built with a desktop user in mind, but I don't think it's unreasonable to subject someone to learning any of the others even if they are more server focused. Everything I listed has atleast 5 years of support! If your fiancee isn't super tech literate, you'll probably be the one doing a lot of the system maintenance so keeping those major updates sparse is a very good thing. And of course, if you don't wanna learn 2 different sets of tools, try and keep in the same family of distros.

Also, for desktop environment don't choose anything crazy obscure. KDE & Gnome are most common, Cinnamon & XFCE are less common but IMO fine. Venture into others at your own peril.

Transfer process depends on what you mean. Transferring your files will probably just take time. I'm hopelessly unorganized so for me backing stuff up takes a few days of combing through a bunch of junk and copying to a flashdrive or cloud storage. Other people might have more efficient ways of dealing with this though.

If you mean software Libreoffice is great local office software, SMplayer is imo a good media player, GIMP, Inkscape, and Krita got art stuff covered. We're also at the point you can more or less run most windows software on linux with enough fiddling, but that obviously isn't ideal.

Your biggest hurdle moving to linux full time will be understanding commands when you inevitably do need to change configuration of something with the terminal. If you need help there are usually forums, IRC, matrix, etc.

Happy computing!

As a general rule of thumb, I usually recommend Linux Mint to beginners. The installation and update processes are easy and intuitive, and there is a ton of software available, as well as good support if you know how to do web searches properly. The main trick is to try and remember that a paradigm shift needs to happen here. Linux is not Windows. It doesn't work like Windows, and it has different aims and priorities. She will also need to be prepared to learn a bit and be slightly more hands-on with her computing. The learning curve with Mint is comparatively gentle, but it does exist.

This is all very broad and general, but I hope it helps. Good luck to the both of you. I hope you are satisfied with whatever you decide on.

Popos 24 beta is dope if you like to live dangerously.

Any of the large, easy to use distributions should work just fine. I'd recommend a popular distribution because it'll be easier to get help online. So consider Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse, Ubuntu and maybe Pop!_OS.

I think the main consideration should be which DE (desktop environment) she'd like to use. IMO the main contenders would be:

• KDE - Very configurable, nice looking, a bit heavy.
• Gnome - Simple and very opinionated, so not very configurable, a bit heavy.
• Cinnamon - Should feel familiar to Windows users, a bit faster than KDE and Gnome.
• Cosmic - A middle ground between Gnome's simplicity and KDE's configurability, pretty fast.
• XFCE - Very fast and light-weight, fairly configurable, but not very flashy.

Based on which DE she prefers, I'd suggest getting a distribution that comes with said DE by default, for the best possible integration. How do you figure out which DE she likes best? Put Ventoy on a USB stick along with a few different Linux ISOs. Ventoy wil let you choose which one to boot from a menu. You could get the following ISOs:

• Fedora or Ubuntu with Gnome
• OpenSUSE with KDE
• Linux Mint with Cinnamon
• Pop!_OS with Cosmic
• Mint or Ubuntu with XFCE

Download an ISO for each, install Ventoy on a USB stick and copy the ISOs to the stick. Boot into each ISO and play around with the desktop for a bit. When she's figured out which DE she prefers, install a distribution that comes with that desktop.

First, BACKUP EVERYTHING.

Then, the best distro is probably going to be the same you are currently using. You will not have to deal with issues that may be specific to one distro. There is enough difference from one computer to another to cause annoying issues, even on windows.

Opensuse tumbleweed. It's solid, stays up to date because it's a rolling release, and Yast can be a life saver for new users.

So my standard thing with newbies is to suggest putting it on their old machine rather than dual booting. I feel most people will be amazed at how fast linux runs on their last pc and how slowly windows does on their current and if they dual boot it can lead to lazily keeping it booted in windows were as if the linux is available for web browsing and such it will help getting used to it. What I use I think is good for newbies. Its a lazy mans linux in the sense that it comes with everything you need out of the box. Its called zorin and its an ubuntu lts respin and once installed without doing any further tinkering you can rdp to a windows host, burn a disk, open and edit sound, image, and video files. along with standard web browser and libre office and such. I think most folks could go with it unmodified for most everything they need to do. Since its ubuntu you can add programs from the software program and update with the update program but if you feel the need to do like windows many downloads will have a debian linux option which when double clicked will work fine. also out of the box it has wine with play on linux installed so often times windows programs can be run by right clicking them and telling it to run with wine.

Fedora because it just works.

I think Linux Mint would be a good first distro.

I recently learned about a project called Operese. It is a Windows to Linux migration tool that also sets up Kubuntu. Kubuntu is Ubuntu with the KDE desktop environment instead of the GNOME desktop environment. I don't know how well that tool works since I never tried it but it looks promising.

There is also a new project called Winboat that is meant to make it easier to install and use Windows software such as Adobe Photoshop

Well quite obvious: as the name "Debian" was coined to celebrate the union between Debra and Ian, makes it a de facto choice! ;)

So you know basically as much as her. You guys can experience it together how great.