I recommend arch to a first time user…once. because he said he wanted to have Linux as a new hobby of sorts. Everyone else I recommend Pop! Or Fedora most of the time.

Fedora KDE. Just be sure to enable 3rd party repos (very easy and quick job, just a google search away).

KDE. I don’t have to change anything (other than taskbars on all monitors rather than just the main one) for an experience I like. Everything just works. Wayland support is best in class.

I don’t like gnome’s workflow and it takes COSMIC level customization for me to like it. And technical issues are common for me. Namely windows constantly spawning off screen and delayed reactions.

XFCE’s default layout is absolutely horrible and there’s no Wayland support. Mint XFCE’s implementation is good though.

Cinnamon, in my experience, is buggy and has similar technical problems to gnome.

I’ve used i3wm and it’s okay, but I would never use it on my main desktop. Takes a certain kind of workflow.

I’ve messed with AwesomeWM and can say it’s very ok.

LXDE/LXQT are obsolete. Not old school, obsolete. And in the case of QT, there’s absolutely no reason to use it when XFCE has the same ram usage anyway.

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I haven’t used any other desktops other than these.

It’s absolutely not. Use archinstall. The hardest part is preparing for breakages when you update.

Mint is considered the new standard for “it just works”, but I had nothing but problems on my desktop with mint.

Why is she so bad

I actually have access to Linux 🤷‍♂️