Warning about HP Laptops - incompatibility with Win 10 Creators Update

[Falconius]

Yeah, definitely look them up on distrowatch, and try and find a couple of videos reviews on the one's you are intrested in. The one that looked really nice to me and my tastes was Ubuntu Budgie, haven't tried it out yet though (the intention is to put it on my old machine, because there is no way in hell I'd pay 120 dollars for another windows key).

[ChickPea]

Yeah, definitely look them up on distrowatch, and try and find a couple of videos reviews on the one's you are intrested in. The one that looked really nice to me and my tastes was Ubuntu Budgie, haven't tried it out yet though (the intention is to put it on my old machine, because there is no way in hell I'd pay 120 dollars for another windows key).

I'm interested in Budgie too, but to be honest, I wouldn't recommend it for a new user right now. It's still relatively experimental and I've read that there are still a lot of issues to be ironed out. It's definitely one to consider for the future though.

For a brand new Linux user, I wouldn't consider anything other than Ubuntu (or Ubuntu derivative) or Mint. My personal recommendation would be Xubuntu. It's relatively light-weight and the interface will be familiar to a Windows user. If you want to go really light-weight, there's Lubuntu.

The reason I suggest an Ubuntu base system, is that there's so much help out there for the questions that a new user will inevitably have. Once you've got a couple of months usage under your belt, you can look around at other distros then, but I think it's just easier to start with the most common Linux to gain experience.

I've been using KDE Neon (based on ubuntu 16.04) and I'm loving it. I've tried various KDEs off and on for years and I don't think I ever lasted more than a week with any of them. I kept reading good things about Neon and it was supposed to be very snappy, so I installed it earlier this year and I haven't looked back. I'm really pleased with it.