Even Ubuntu is fine (this is coming from Fedora fan). If you are going for the long haul, do the following: - use LTS. You don't need every 6-mo release. - do

Even Ubuntu is fine (this is coming from Fedora fan). If you are going for the long haul, do the following: - use LTS. You don't need every 6-mo release. - don't install packages from random ppas, if you don't know what they are doing to your system. Of course, do not install anything not managed by repositories, that would break your system (If I had a dime for every person that installed hplip/nvidia driver/etc from HP/Nvidia/etc site and just overwritten their apt-managed system files. It worked... until upgrade). My parents also use Ubuntu; they are using it since 6.06, on the current hardware since 12.04. Upgrading them between LTS releases is non-event, aside the UI changes.