Opinion: Emphasizing "as a good starting point," I'd recommend anything in the Ubuntu branch. This includes Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu, as well as Mi

Opinion: Emphasizing "as a good starting point," I'd recommend anything in the Ubuntu branch. This includes Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu, as well as Mint, based on Ubuntu. The Ubuntu repository system is excellent. My favorite is Lubuntu, because it's "just your stuff" with very minimal "vestigial crap" (as the old Anybody's Bike Book https://duckduckgo.com/?q=anybody%27s+bike+book https://duckduckgo.com/?q=anybody%27s+bike+book would call it). Lubuntu does have a few small rough edges, but I like its usable minimalism. At the moment I don't think the main Ubuntu/Unity variant is good as a starting point, because its UI is significantly different from all other distros and therefore does not lead you down a path of expectations to look for when you eventually try other distros. In other words, Ubuntu/Unity mainly teaches you about Ubuntu/Unity, whereas most other distros give you more general Linux UI experience and expectations. Welcome to the Ubuntu/Unity world, as opposed to welcome to the Linux Universe. When you're at a "starting point," then you want a distro that doesn't demand attention. Distros like Arch and Gentoo are for people who are ready and willing to spend time getting things going exactly the way they want. When you're at a starting point you don't necessarily know exactly how you want things, and being forced to choose is stressful. Treat your first starting point distro as a stable base, from which you can learn. Branch out from there as far as you want, at your chosen speed. Dual booting and virtual machines will allow you to try experiments at little cost. But if you're also GSD, you want to be able to completely ignore your distro whenever you want.