I have tried to learn Linux for ages, and have experimented with installing Arch and Ubuntu. Usually something goes wrong when I try to set up a desktop environment after installing Arch in VirtualBox. KDE gave me a problem where I couldn’t log in after getting to the point where my username was displayed in a similar format to how it is for Windows. My end use case is to help keep my workflow more organized than haphazardly throwing files somewhere on my desktop or in a folder nested somewhere that I’ll just inevitably lose :(
Somehow after all this time, I feel like I actually understand less about my computer and what I need to understand regarding its facets. Is it an unrealistic goal to want to eventually run a computer with coreboot and a more cybersecurity heavy emphasis? I’m still a noob at this and any advice would be appreciated!
Even though Arch is very well documented, it’s not really accessible to newcomers. The documentation assumes that you know the basics, so if you don’t, you’re screwed. Mint, Pop! and Debian, to some extent, are much more accessible.
As an absolute noob, I can tell you this is not the case for Arch based images though. I’ve used Manjaro and now settled on Crystal Linux. Both Arch based. They are as easy as any other distro, even more than Debian.
Debian, in their philosophy, provides a pretty bare ones image, and you have to add everything yourself. They don’t even ship Flatpak for example.
Pop! Has an archaic Gnome desktop but an otherwise excellent system.
I don’t like Mint’s desktop environment, but that’s very subjective, so no cons there.