i had a nice discussion with many friends but i came away from it still not sure what linux distro to use
@typhlosion Personally, I used Debian from 1998 until this year, and now I'm using NixOS. Both are great for various reasons and I strongly don't recommend starting with either of them. 😅
I also want to emphasize that Ubuntu isn't "only" a starter distribution; I have friends who are full-time programmers who use Ubuntu exclusively. It's a good choice all around. You might find that more specialized choices better fit your needs later though.
@typhlosion For *distribution* I'd pick something mainstream and well-supported - Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu are good choices.
It's a lot of effort producing a Linux distribution, and that means the smaller distros tend to either have poorly-tested updates or miss out on security updates.
You can run whatever desktop you want on any of the mainstream distros, and can easily switch between them, so you need less up-front thought about that.
(Obviously I'd pick Ubuntu ☺)
@typhlosion I guess that's because they're all okay, which is not very helpful for decision making 😅
My observation of watching other people adopt Linux is that Ubuntu is usually a nice starting point when you aren't sure why you'd want one of the others.
It might also depend on whether you have friends in your area with Linux experience; choosing whatever they use will let them help you more easily.