@BiggusDiccus @threat @laurel The most important thing you can do is completely ignore everyone that says anything about a distribution of Linux on the internet. I will now say things about distributions of Linux.

> So what would you consider to be an ideal pipeline for breaking away from windows/apple? Assuming the person in question is a nontard autist.

I'd suggest Slackware as it's easier for a beginner to get running than CRUX (but I think CRUX is easier if you know Linux pretty well). Some people do not like this sentence. Some people do not like Slackware or CRUX; there's a lot less hand-holding and bloat than in typical distributions and they tend to be a lot more Unix-y. It will involve more reading and while you are new, a lot of not knowing what to do, and this is frustrating to people and that is understandable.

I do not like Arch, but the reason I do not like Arch is a lack of stability: pacman has hosed itself on me a few times and I had to fix the machine to get it working again. But if you're trying out a new OS, you are going to hose it a few times anyway and a problem that crops up after a year or two isn't going to be a concern. Arch does maintain a reasonable balance of keeping things convenient without hiding things from you, and there is a very large Arch wiki (and it is general enough that I refer to it sometimes for things I'm trying to do with CRUX or Slackware), it's easy to get help.

I would rather run Devuan than Debian because I think systemd is :glowinthedark::cia::plasticbottle::indiancallcenter::fluoride::happynegro:, but a person that is new to Linux will generally not notice or care about systemd, and Devuan breaks a little more often and is somewhat less popular than Debian. Debian generally just works as long as you don't mind a little bloat and you don't start yelling "Goddammit, *you're* the computer, I know what I'm doing, fuck yourself" if you see "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE" in some places that you will usually not see during your first few months using Linux. They have put some effort into making sure that the desktop works.

Ubuntu is roughly Debian-based and more popular than Debian, especially among people that are new, but it is maintained by a corporation with a history of questionable maneuvers (e.g., at one point they integrated "Amazon" into the search box on their desktop, so you try to find some file you saved last week and you get the file maybe but you also get some suggested Amazon product listings) and they cram shady analytics into every corner that they can. Games produced for Linux (I almost made a joke here out of habit but then remembered Steam) tend to work more reliably if you are using Ubuntu than if you are using anything else, but that may have changed if they are pushing Wayland.

Gentoo has a slightly higher learning curve than Debuntu but people that use it report that it is fun. It is another distribution that I do not use for reasons that probably do not matter unless you are a programmer or a sysadmin, but as mentioned above, Gentoo (along with Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) has a lot of Gentoo in it.

Depending on how serious you were about the autist remark, I think this is worth doing at least once: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ . It is probably not suitable as your first foray, in much the same way as a dude that turns 18 and moves out of his parents' house will probably get an apartment instead of building his own cabin in the woods, but that kind of thing appeals to a certain type of guy, maybe you are that type of guy and you have enough patience and tolerance for frustration. This is the equivalent of assembling a car from instructions without ever having driven a car.

It is probably worth mentioning that Ken Thompson (one of the initial creators of Unix) mentioned at a somewhat recent talk that he is now using Armbian on a Raspberry Pi as his main OS. If you don't mind that they are not Linux, then FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD tend to have a more cohesive system. I like Plan 9, but it's a hacking environment rather than an OS suitable for most people's desktop systems.