Nearly any of these would have worked eventually, but I focused on “out of the box”, gaming-ready, cleanliness, and how smooth it felt. It is true that you can create a very similar experience with many options, especially since a huge portion of them are ultimately Debian-based!
Pop!_OS: Other than being annoying to type/search (“PopOS” works), this emerged as my clear favorite.
Based on Ubuntu, custom desktop based on GNOME, focused on being clean and easy to use and as a gaming desktop. Developed by System76, a PC builder, so it’s designed to work on gaming hardware, including nvidia. Pop hands-down has the best remote desktop interface, and they seem very active on updates and support.
Just plain felt the best all around, with no negatives to criticize. Occasionally had to search for tweaks.
Linux Mint: Close second pick. Likely to be most commonly recommended online by general public.
Also based on Ubuntu, Cinnamon desktop which looks like Windows 7, made for beginners and ease of use.
It looked too much like Windows for me, when the whole point was to leave!
Not as bad as others, but felt a little bloaty with lots of pre-installs that I removed.
Cinnamon is a crowd favorite, but it didn’t grab me. Menus & system settings weren’t as smooth to go through, etc. They also change “default Linux” locations for setups/configs, so searching online you often need to find Mint-specific answers.
Ubuntu: Corporate-backed building block of many distro options. Unfortunately also its downfall.
Bloaty, bulky, with lots of software installed. Owner seems to be pushing for proprietary app installers.
Still fair to recognize that these first 3 are all Ubuntu-based, and still gave similar results overall.
Ubuntu, also, is based on Debian further making the upstream chain.
Debian: Upstream to Ubuntu (and many others), foundational to GNU/Linux ecosystem.
Very clean and customizable, almost to a negative for beginners/newcomers.
Still, my Raspberry Pis run a version of Debian, and my home server will likely be Debian too.
Fully recommend for servers and headless functions, or if you are experienced, but not as your daily desktop driver.
Other Ubuntu-based
Any other Ubuntu-based will honestly give similar results to to each other
Non-Ubuntu-based
Online commenters will recommend these, and I’m sure they work for some.
But they might have less support, and might need more tinkering for the more detailed desires. Or you need to constantly un-break updates, etc.
Anything ARCH based: Not for beginners, ignore online saying otherwise, requires more attention/knowledge. “rolling updates” means you have a higher chance of frequent updates breaking your setup. These people seem to brag about how often they have to fix it.
Other than making sure my documents were backed up - nothing!
During distro-testing I confirmed the few apps I used worked in Linux just fine. Between Ubuntu-based being easy to use, Steam making almost ANY game work - the time is now!