I’ve personally started using KDE plasma shell version of fedora, its as close to being windows (in terms of technical functionality) without actually being windows. On top of this you have the fedora community, and in a time where access of information has gone to shit, you can be rest assured that someone will get to your question or you’ll find an answer to a question you may have on fedora.

if that’s all you need it to do: browser, kitra, libreoffice and not much else… any mainstream distribution will work.

fedora’s ‘atomic’ distributions tick your boxes. minimal terminal exposure, hard to break, and infrequent demands of user password.

silverblue (gnome) or kinoite (kde). kde is a traditional desktop experience, but gnome would be excellent for your rather basic set-up.

As everybody suggests, you should either try Mint again or go ZorinOS. If you have problems there are dedicated communities for asking general Linux questions so feel free to ask.

https://programming.dev/c/linux4noobs

https://lemmy.zip/c/linuxquestions

Also, LLMs are very handy for trivial questions like binding PDFs together (which can be done using pdfunite FYI). Just don’t blindly execute what it says, let it explain the meaning of each part of the command.

When I started my Linux journey a couple of years ago, I tried lots of distros and experienced some of the same frustrations. The distro that hooked me and just worked was Pop! OS. It was very user friendly, didn’t require any fiddling, it just worked. Later I wanted a more up-to-date system, and after trying several distros I settled with Fedora.

Other thoughts: …be sure to install Timeshift (system rollback app). …my experience is that gnome desktop is easier, cleaner, less tweaking and less overwhelming than kde.

First, try LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice; it is a highly maintained fork of the latter, with plenty of improvements. Another thing is, even if there are GUIs for everything, do not be afraid of using the terminal! As another commenter noted, it can even be easier. As for passwords, it is like that for security purposes; if you disable it, you’ll be at a higher risk of breaking something.

It looks like you want SteamOS. I recommend either getting a Steam Deck, wait for the Steam Machine or install it compatible hardware if you have any. No Nvidia GPUs.

SteamOS checks all three requirements for the most part, maybe 3 not so much. But it will be near impossible to fuck it up as it has a read-only filesystem and all apps are installed through flatpak which are sandboxed similar to apps on iOS.

Like some already said, how long ago is “a few years ago”? Because last year my installation had an annoying issue which is now fixed. And maybe five years back, some (newer or rarer) hardware/devices needed a fix through the terminal, but now work perfectly by default.

I haven’t tried Bazzite, but I’ve heard good things about it and what I know about it so far sounds good. Although @jlow mentioned some alternatives which I wonder if they’re even more suitable since you didn’t mention gaming. Out of habit, I still recommend Mint to former Windows users. But I haven’t needed to input a password for web, graphics tools or office apps, only have to type a password when updating, installing new apps or doing special terminal stuff (which I do by choice!)

On one hand, Mint’s default experience (Cinnamon desktop environment) generally resembles Windows which can make the switch smoother. On the other hand, some other ones fix a lot of defaults Windows chose wrong. Even little things, like moving the taskbar to the top (closer to other options) or to the side (takes up less space), so even if you pick a smaller leap to start with, it’s good to casually look around once you’re comfortable.

Based on those requirements, honestly, I’d recommend a Mac. Very user friendly, no terminal, very, very hard to fuck up, and only needs authentication when you’re changing system settings.

Macs do things a little differently, so you’ll have to learn the Apple way, but generally it’s all very dead simple point and click.

Zorin is user friendly. You may still need to use a password for doing updates.

If you game, then probably Bazzite.

If you hate the command line you could try tumbleweed, you will have Yast2 GUI apps for everything yo want to alter on the system. And it has automatic snapshotting if out you mess things up, you can boot to a previous snapshot. Howeverits will require a password whenever you want to make system changes. And a learning curve compared to other distros.

Not really getting away from typing a password, that’s the part that can keep malicious stuff out because it doesn’t have permission.

Mint is honestly your best bet. I installed it for my parents on their aging laptop and they’re allergic to the terminal and they’re getting on great with it. Requiring a password for administrative actions is generally a good thing for security but you could disable it (unfortunately the only way I know how is via the terminal!). I’m biased here because I’m a techy person but I’ve used Windows, macOS and Linux professionally for years and I always have to troubleshoot things. Windows, in my experience, has always been worse than the others because while Linux has very technical or terminal-based solutions a lot of the time, Windows official support generally tells you to “just reinstall or restore from a system restore point” which is such overkill for most problems. That or registry edits.

I’d suggest you don’t listen to anyone in this thread and don’t switch.

You don’t want to learn how to use linux, you want to keep using windows and you’re trying to do something about it now because the clock has run out on you. Go to massgrave.dev/windows10_eol and follow the instructions to get esu updates for three years or do an in place switch to iot ltsc 2021 and get updates for eight years.

During those years, branch out a little and try using a mac or linux on their own terms. Neither will be an easy switch, you’ll have to retrain your muscle memory and you will absolutely have to learn to use the terminal if you wanna use linux but especially if you have someone who can help you in person, you can easily get switched over.

+1 for Bazzite (or another one from https://universal-blue.org/ ), very hard to destroy, if an update breaks something just choose old install during boot and wait a few weeks before trying again. I am kinda savvy but don’t really need (or can 😸) tinker with the system.

Where are you based? Maybe someone from https://endof10.org/ or another local hacker grouo could help you in person. There are regular install parties in my city.

One thing to keep in mind about the terminal:

In Linux, many GUI tools are simply pretty interfaces for the terminal. That’s why folks tell you that you’ll need the terminal occasionally, no matter what: you might need to type in commands that don’t already have a friendly GUI.

The terminal isn’t that scary, though! Every big distro has a support community. And if you need to do something in the terminal? Someone else has definitely needed to do the same thing, so you won’t need to figure it out on your own.

I mostly use Bazzite in front of a big TV. When I first set up the computer, I needed to use the terminal to configure a couple of things related to network shares. Later, I used it to help specific devices wake up the computer from sleep. It’s been months since then, and I’m not sure I’ve needed the terminal for anything else.

Use it as an opportunity to learn how your computer works. It’s really satisfying to understand how things happen.

I’d like to know a bit more about your troubles to answer.

Do you know what desktop you were using? If so, what did you like and what didnt you like?

Where were you reentering your password all the time? Was it logging in, logging in after the screen went dark, the wallet, etc?

What sort of troubleshooting were you doing? Was it an application not working, a piece of hardware, or something else?

The reason I’m asking these questions is because most people are interacting with just the desktop GUI, so some of your issues (password) may just be configuration, the distribution won’t matter. If your troubleshooting was due to hardware, there may be a better choice.

For example, I use Debian everywhere. That said, there are times where certain pieces of software or certain pieces of hardware work better with a different distribution. On my T480, I’m using arch, mostly because of the fingerprint reader and a some things I’m building will be easier this way.

Generically speaking, it doesnt matter which distribution you use, you can do the basics on all of them. What it can come down to is familiarity, hardware, and purpose, and the guiding principles for each distribution.

What’s your favorite color? Pick the distro with that color in their logo.