I’m your regular end user. I use my computers to edit text, audio and video, watch movies, listen to music, post and bank on the internet…
my main computer uses now debian 12.5 after abandoning xubuntu.
For my backup notebook I have several candidates:
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Simply install debian 12.5 again, the easiest choice.
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Install linux mint, so I get ubuntu but without them throwing their subscription services down my throat. I’m unsure about other advantages, as ubuntu is debian based, maybe the more frequent program updates? Kernels are also updated more often than with debian as far as I know. Do you know of other advantages?
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Go for FreeBSD: this might require a learning curve, because this is an OS I’ve never used. Are commands that different from debian?
other more niche linux OSs seem too much a hassle and I guess won’t be as supported as the main ones.
I use Debian and rhel. That’s basically the two things you’ll see in the world and the two toolsets that familiarity with is useful.
There’s some little computers running weird shit like 9front or gentoo but if you wanna branch out from Debian stable but not get weird I recommend learning rhel.
Of course, if your backup laptop is really a backup, install stable on it and be done.
In corporate software it is often RHEL and SUSE for GUI based systems
Yeah I haven’t run into suse because I live in a place that gets lots of good ol boy deals from red hat but that would be the other good choice!
E: actually, you’re right I should learn suse! The time is now!