I second the recommendation of giving Linux Mint a shot. I didn’t use XP extensively but Mint is low hassle and gets out of your way.
I’m not sure it has quite the same feel, but closest I can think of that is also approachable coming from Windows. Obviously a lot of other distros also satisfy the “built by engineers” vibe.
I generally agree. However, for the MDN Web docs icon, I’m not sure I’ll ever acclimate to that one, even with how often I see it. so bad. Love MDN still though
A couple mentions in here of Linux Mint, I also recommend it having tried out a few distros before landing here. Especially if you go with an external GPU laptop, which might be a good choice for gaming needs, then Linux Mint has been really good about solving all of the annoying driver problems that could come up.
I have a Dell G15 Ryzen (AMD with nvidia GPU), it’s been pretty good but there’s always a trade-off between bulkiness and gaming needs. It’s just a little awkward to lug around to coffee shops, but it’s certainly got enough processing power for me.
System76 was a contender too, I think I just went with whichever was on sale!
My anecdote, granted I’m no Linux master: I recently went into a distro rigamarole, installed openSUSE, Manjaro, etc, before arriving to Mint, because I could not find one that handled my CPU and graphics and drivers setup without significant effort.
Then I installed Mint (avoiding Ubuntu and its Canonicalness), and setup was very simple and everything worked out of the box. I could run Steam with external GPU without going through many workarounds or setup using nvidia prime and launchers and so forth
Stylistically I also like cinnamon, but Mint mainly was just so low hassle and simple I have to give it props for that
It can't be stopped (startrek.website)
Icon design (lemmyf.uk)
Linux laptop recommendation thread🐧💻 (lemmy.world)
I’m on the market to buy a new laptop, and Lemmy has successfully coaxed and goaded me to give Linux a serious try....
Linux mint = best beginner distro (lemmy.ml)
I'm scared guys.. (lemmy.ca)