linux mint

Pop_OS or Linux Mint. Both just work. The Atomic idea is nice, but still too soon for complete beginners or the lazy (not a pejorative).

Mint, it just works.

If you need secure boot on current (like intel gen 10+), Fedora Workstation. If you don't need secure boot, Linux Mint.

Fedora has the easiest way to make secure boot just work, it will even dual boot fine on the same disk although you should still backup the m$ partition if you actually need it. Fedora can do secure boot even with Nvidia.

Ubuntu can do some of the secure boot stuff like Fedora does, and there is the advantage of the stable kernel if you have Nvidia.

Note that "stable" as a label has nothing to do with its intuitive meaning like alpha/beta/testing/crashing etc. It is a term for servers and people that want to run very specific setups that will not require human intervention on embedded devices and servers. If you want to game or use the latest sw "stable" might be a pain. However, if what you are running is not kept up to date with the latest packages and libraries, a stable release may be the only way to run your stuff.

Overall these are the biggest factors on current hardware; secure boot yes/no, and up-to-date software needs yes/no.

Linux Mint. It's THE best distro hands down. Those who know, know.

My vote is Linux Mint. I had installed it on a family members laptop and have been going strong for years without fault.

Fedora

Everytime I want a distro that just works I just roll with Linux Mint.

Being one of the most popular distro if something goes wrong is really easy to find how to fix it .

Linux Mint Cinnamon

I think your best bet for this is one of the spinoffs of enterprise Linux: fedora or openSUSE. both are very solid ootb, and have starting configurations that are generally good.

The microos or silverblue variants respectively are really promising as well, but still have some caveats.

If you have Nvidia, pop os has all that built in. My go-to is usually popos, or mint

For me it is Fedora

Mint, it's not the shiniest toy but it really does just work

Fedora atomic GNOME or KDE.

You don't mess with the system at all. If you look for something specific, you may find something here https://universal-blue.org/images/ .

I use fedora for the nice OOTB experience, but if there's issues with parts of the hardware - I try Ubuntu. And if it works, I just install it.

Life's too short to deal with hardware blobs.

Ubuntu or Linux Mint

Do live images not exist anymore? Pick a distro, burn an iso to a USB drive and boot it. See if you like it.

You're just going to get a bunch of personal preferences with such an open ended question.

What are you trying to build? A work laptop that you're going to take on trips, a gaming computer, a server? Something else?

For you, what is too much hassle? Are you a new Linux user or an experienced user with no spare time? What are you accustomed to doing when you install an operating system and what do you expect to be preinstalled?

What is your favorite colour?

Pop os or Mint

Debian.

It depends of your definition of "hassle".

I have 2 screens, I like to have the same panel on each screen, so when I use one in fullscreen, I can use the other one. So far, the only Desktop Environment that can give me that without too much difficulties, is KDE (even if I had to do it manually).

If you have the same use, maybe Kubuntu is a great choice. Tuxedo OS would be the same as Kubuntu, but you don't have to change the priority of the package manager, because the snaps are already disabled. ( they got another load of malicious softwares in the snapstore recently, and some snap might not be as good as .deb or flatpak).

If not, Linux Mint is an out of the box distribution. If your hardware is the most recent one, they have a "edge iso".

Pop!_OS or Fedora

Linux Mint. Always.

Linux Mint definitely

openSUSE Tumbleweed is pretty comfy. Btrfs snapshots enabled by default so it's really hard to break it. I've been using it for about 8 months now and haven't had any big issues.

If you want an elaborated answer you will have to share the hardware you want to install it on.

I've put kubuntu on a couple of machines now and I'm pretty happy with it.

Pop os

Ubuntu if you're used to Mac, Zorin (based on Ubuntu) or Mint if you're more used to Windows.

Never used Pop OS but I hear that's another that works well out of the box.

It's Linux Mint Cinnamon. Unless you are trying to run your OS in a potato, then it's Linux Mint MATE.

I would highly recommend fedora kinoite, it's immutable so the system doesn't break without you trying very hard, well configured out of the box, and uses flatpak for apps so the system can be stable and the apps can be updated regularly!

I've got PopOs on my personal (framework) and work (System76) laptop. It's been super stable. Specially if you don't mess around with different PPAs.