I was in a similar situation; I was a windows power user and I jumped straight into nixos. I do not recommend it for someone completely new to linux.
Having to deal with new concepts and confusing terminology like window/display/login managers, a new file system, bash, desktop environments, etc., and then having to learn nix (my first dive into a functional language), nixpkgs, NixOS, AND all the noise surrounding flakes was incredibly frustrating. After a week I gave up and jumped ship.
I played around with void linux for a bit (followed jake@linux's playlist on YT, it's a fantastic guide), had a blast ricing my desktop, got comfortable running without a desktop environment, then went back to nix a month later. By that point I was familiar enough with linux and just had to learn the nix ecosystem (still difficult, but bearable).
Things started to click, especially once I had read the nix pills in its entirety. Now with my entire system configured with flakes I just can't see myself ever going back :>
I never tried the beginner friendly distros like mint or ubuntu so I can't comment on them, but I was really happy with void. Yes it's doesn't hold your hand, but it very quickly taught me a lot about how everything fits together. I'm sure arch provides a similar experience.
I was in a similar situation; I was a windows power user and I jumped straight into nixos. I do not recommend it for someone completely new to linux.
Having to deal with new concepts and confusing terminology like window/display/login managers, a new file system, bash, desktop environments, etc., and then having to learn nix (my first dive into a functional language), nixpkgs, NixOS, AND all the noise surrounding flakes was incredibly frustrating. After a week I gave up and jumped ship.
I played around with void linux for a bit (followed jake@linux's playlist on YT, it's a fantastic guide), had a blast ricing my desktop, got comfortable running without a desktop environment, then went back to nix a month later. By that point I was familiar enough with linux and just had to learn the nix ecosystem (still difficult, but bearable).
Things started to click, especially once I had read the nix pills in its entirety. Now with my entire system configured with flakes I just can't see myself ever going back :>
I never tried the beginner friendly distros like mint or ubuntu so I can't comment on them, but I was really happy with void. Yes it's doesn't hold your hand, but it very quickly taught me a lot about how everything fits together. I'm sure arch provides a similar experience.