A "friendly" Linux distribution inherently needs to meet some rather difficult criteria, not starting with shinyness or the latest packages. Here are the most obvious ones:
It must be suitable for any normal use, from business to casual users. Technical users should be supported, but not three primary focus.
There must be both paid direct support and community support available.
It must be consistent and straightforward to carry out normal tasks.
It must have a reliable path to updates that are better to avoid problems and be able to receive critical security updates without delay.
It must be able to function without any of the above for extended periods of time without any of the above.
These criteria soundly rule out any distribution not based on RedHat or Debian, and trend towards Debian based heavily since the IBM purchase.
I rule out Mint and Manjaro for reasons that should be obvious if you actually intend the end user to be successful:
Mint is essentially Ubuntu (or Debian if you choose the LMDE release) with Cinnamon as the default desktop, I have used it and still do not understand the point to introducing more points of failure to have a slightly nicer Debian installer.
Manjaro is based on Arch, an otherwise fantastic technical distribution. But Arch is not supported commercially, is a rolling release and it's configuration is simply put of the scope of normal use.
This really only leaves Ubuntu and it's major flavours currently. Despite the drop in fad appeal, it provides everything necessary. I would suggest Debian, but installation is a bit less refined.
A "friendly" Linux distribution inherently needs to meet some rather difficult criteria, not starting with shinyness or the latest packages. Here are the most obvious ones:
It must be suitable for any normal use, from business to casual users. Technical users should be supported, but not three primary focus.
There must be both paid direct support and community support available.
It must be consistent and straightforward to carry out normal tasks.
It must have a reliable path to updates that are better to avoid problems and be able to receive critical security updates without delay.
It must be able to function without any of the above for extended periods of time without any of the above.
These criteria soundly rule out any distribution not based on RedHat or Debian, and trend towards Debian based heavily since the IBM purchase.
I rule out Mint and Manjaro for reasons that should be obvious if you actually intend the end user to be successful:
Mint is essentially Ubuntu (or Debian if you choose the LMDE release) with Cinnamon as the default desktop, I have used it and still do not understand the point to introducing more points of failure to have a slightly nicer Debian installer.
Manjaro is based on Arch, an otherwise fantastic technical distribution. But Arch is not supported commercially, is a rolling release and it's configuration is simply put of the scope of normal use.
This really only leaves Ubuntu and it's major flavours currently. Despite the drop in fad appeal, it provides everything necessary. I would suggest Debian, but installation is a bit less refined.
Thnaks for the input 👍😉