this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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Mint looks pretty Windows-like out of the box too. Both Cinnamon and KDE Plasma can be customised extensively too, which is nice. Mint is really good for beginners, very user-friendly and such. Fedora is plenty user-friendly too (and probably Kubuntu, but I haven't used that one yet), but Mint takes it a step further in my opinion. This is coming from a Fedora user. I do agree that Mint and Zorin shouldn't be the only options that beginners should consider. On the other hand, KDE Plasma shouldn't be the only option either. The best way to pick distros, in my opinion, is by creating a Ventoy drive with Mint (to try out Cinnamon), Fedora Workstation (to try out GNOME), and either Fedora KDE or Kubuntu (to try out KDE). Cinnamon, GNOME, and KDE Plasma are all great in their own ways.
Currently I am using KDE Plasma as I like the customisability, but I can see the appeal of GNOME if you want something that looks sleek and "minimal" (or if you really love padding), and Cinnamon is a bit more like Windows 10. They all have their own aesthetics (contrasty KDE vs maximally padded GNOME vs colourful Cinnamon)