Ubuntu: User friendly and easy to setup
Ubuntu
Official website ubuntu.com
Our take
Ubuntu is the friendly on-ramp to Linux, the distribution with the most tutorials, driver support, and forum answers when something breaks, which matters more than ideology for a first switch. Be aware Canonical has made past privacy missteps and pushes Snap packages some users dislike, so it is a step up from Windows rather than a privacy-maximalist choice. Pick it to get comfortable on Linux easily; tune the defaults or move to something stricter once you know your way around.
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Ubuntu alternatives
Qubes OS Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system
Tails Tails: Portable, encrypted and secure through the Tor network
Whonix A free, open-source desktop operating system that forces all traffic through Tor, run as two isolated virtual machines.
Fedora Workstation Fedora Workstation: User friendly and easy to setup
openSUSE Tumbleweed openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling-release Linux distribution that defaults to Btrfs with Snapper snapshots, letting you boot into a previous system state if an update breaks something. Available with KDE, GNOME, or Xfce.
Arch Linux Arch Linux is a minimal, rolling-release Linux distribution built around a do-it-yourself philosophy. You assemble the system yourself from a bare base, choosing every component, and keep it current with the pacman package manager.