Ubuntu or Mint

[RobGoss]

I would prefer Ubuntu because I feel it has more resources

[deadflowr]

Xubuntu is more malleable, being lighter off the bat, but still capable of adding heft if you want ( You add advanced compositing components like compiz)
Ubuntu lacks the customizations that Xubuntu can offer. And starts off hefty.

As well as Ubuntu being a gnome desktop it follows the ebb and flow of gnome and the crazy zany ways gnome packages can change rapidly.
Xubuntu has generally stayed much as it has for most the time I've used it going on and off for 6/7 years now.
(Or at least Xubuntu's changes are by far less intrusive, imo)

So Xubuntu's stable and familiar base is something to think about.

[Bucky Ball]

+1 to what deadflowr says. I use Xubutu-core on all my machines, from dinky portables to i7 desktop AV machine. Just don't need a lot of what Ubuntu has to offer (and some of what Xubuntu has to offer) so no point installing it or using any more resources than I need to. Speeds things up. Xubuntu generally bit faster.

All use the same repositories so you can install anything you want from Ubuntu in Xubuntu, but the main consideration is what suits you best, not us. Try 'em all if that's what it takes!

[lammert-nijhof]

Ubuntu simply because you can upgrade to new releases. With Mint you have to reinstall the new releases from scratch.

[jpberes]

I did come from Linux Mint 17.2 and the reason I did personally ditch Linux Mint (which is a nice system) for Ubuntu, is each time their upgrade path towards a new version, f.i. from 17.3 towards 18.1 ...
But for the rest, if someone says that Linux Mint Cinnamon is more Windows like, well the same can be told about Xubuntu or even Ubuntu Mate (using the Mate Tweak) to change the presentation of the Desktop Environment to your personal taste ...
Using Ubuntu you can also use Desktop Environments not standard available through Linux Mint, thinking of LXDE on Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie (nice new DE !), Ubuntu Gnome ...
Linux Mint has currently Mate, Cinnamon, XFCE and KDE, where the latest one (KDE) will be abandoned ...

[monkeybrain20122]

They are basically the same except for some cosmetic differences. Mint is just rebranded Ubuntu with a different interface and Ubuntu-restricted-extras preinstalled.

[monkeybrain20122]

Ubuntu simply because you can upgrade to new releases. With Mint you have to reinstall the new releases from scratch.

Except that "upgrade" will very likely leave you with a broken system unless it is a stock system with minimal modifications, i.e no ppa, no proprietary driver, no customized config, in other words it only works in the scenario where fresh install is most straight forward, but it takes a lot longer than fresh install. So "upgrade" is hardly a selling point IMO.

[deanr2]

I started off my Ubuntu / Linux experience just a few months back with Ubuntu 16.04 because I didn't really know about the other distros. But I now use Ubuntu Mate 16.04 on one machine and Mint 18.3 on the two others which I use regularly for work purposes.

One thing was that I just couldn't (and still don't really) see the sense of having the launch bar down the left hand of the screen taking up so much space with icons for programmes that I rarely or never use. I know you can make the launch bar smaller, move it to the bottom, remove unwanted icons etc. and I know I was coming straight from many years with Windows but it still seemed to me to be more of an attempt just to be different from Windows rather than having better functionality.

I actually do have Ubuntu 16.04 on a laptop I use for music and enjoy the novelty of the side bar but when I tried to use it for browsing and/or writing texts it just seems unnecessarily in the way all the time. I guess if you regularly use a large number of programmes this can be more efficient than opening a pop-up menu but a simple panel along the bottom of the screen works well for me and both Mate and Mint kinda do that by default (although there's a top panel too with Mate).

I would very strongly suggest you try Mint alongside / as well as Ubuntu. It's very user-friendly, looks perfect in my humble newbie opinion, and will give you another taster of just what this whole Ubuntu / Linux lark can actually do in terms of personal computing. It's all very impressive really whichever distribution you end up spending most of your time with

[sudodus]

Standard Ubuntu and Xubuntu (as well as Linux Mint) have been suggested a lot in this thread. You have tried version 16.04 LTS, which is getting old, but also very stable.

Don't forget to try some Ubuntu flavours of Bionic Beaver (to be released as 18.04 LTS during this month (April 2018). You can find the daily iso files (test versions; there are still some hiccups, but most things work well).

Kubuntu Bionic was a positive surprise for me. Also Ubuntu Budgie is interesting.

I am usually running Lubuntu in older computers and standard Ubuntu in newer computers.

You can find some tips about several linux distros at DistroWatch.

[oldrocker99]

I installed the Mint version ((can't remember the girl's name) that introduced MATE, which I had prayed for since the introduction of the horrible, horrible Unity. I used it so I could have the interface that I fell in love with on Ubuntu 8.04. I don't like Mint, with its questionable upgrade system, and other annoyances. I went back to Ubuntu and installed MATE from the PPA. Then Ubuntu MATE came out, and clams aren't happier than I am with it.