Ubuntu

The best-documented choice, which matters most the first time something goes wrong: nearly any question a newcomer asks has already been answered for Ubuntu somewhere. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS came out on April 23, 2026 and is supported until April 2031, a five-year window with nothing to pay. The trade-off is the layout. Ubuntu's desktop puts a dock down the left side and an activities overview where the Start menu would be, so expect a few days of retraining, or pick one of the Ubuntu-based options on this list that keep a Windows-style taskbar.