I'd recommend Mint. I've been using that for a while, but recently switched to Debian. Debian 12 seems promising and can have proprietary firmware on it easier set up for new users now. Debian is what people prefer for stability.

Id recommend just finding an old laptop and putting something like mint on it if you are starting. Some people like Manjaro for the newish packages. Some people like Arch linux for the actually up to date packages.

If you really want to go security hipster, use Alpine linux

if you want to have lots of useful tools to make rich people's lives interesting install Kali Linux

If everything seems to easy for you and you like a challenge, try Gentoo.

If you want to have all of the options available when you install it, use linux from scratch.

One of my friends swears by Nix OS, I think that has some interesting implications.

if you care more about security use some variant of BSD

If you really like rust use Redox OS.

If you want something open source but can run windows programs, use React OS.