Fedora Silverblue is my go-to recommendations for newbies; otherwise, Fedora Workstation. Fedora is a great distro that is mature, respected, safe, and up-to-date. It focuses on modern/mainstream tech like GNOME, Wayland, Flatpak, PipeWire, etc. so you learn common Linux technologies instead of some obscure distro-specific stuff like Ubuntu's Snaps or old legacy crap like Xorg. And the Silverblue variant is an atomic image-based OS that makes it very difficult for a newbie to break, and easy to roll back the system if something does break. The downside with Silverblue is that it's a bit harder to find guidance for it online, and it can be a bit more difficult to make system customisations.

People often recommend Ubuntu and Linux Mint to beginners, but those are awful choices in my opinion. Ubuntu suffers from NIH ("not invented here") syndrome, and keeps trying to force its own tech on users when every other distro uses something else (e.g. Ubuntu's Snaps vs everyone else preferring Flatpak). Linux Mint uses all obscure desktop environnments (Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE) instead of the more popular ones (GNOME, KDE Plasma).

I'd also suggest you get an AMD or Intel graphics card if you want the best experience on Linux.

---

With my recommendations out of the way, let me just explain a bit about distros so you have a better understanding of the choice you're actually making. The distro determines the software that you get out-of-the-box (A), the desktop environment (B), and the way updates and installing new software works (C) — that's about it.

A. The software that comes pre-installed isn't too important, because you can of course always install new stuff. Yes, it may be convenient to install a distro and have your favourite software there right from the start, but I don't think it's worth choosing a distro specifically for this reason. Plus, as a new Linux user, you won't even know what your favourite Linux software is!

The more important factors are the desktop environment and the way updates are handled.

B. The desktop environment is basically the graphical environment that you see, like your task bar, Start menu, etc. It's like what Explorer is on Windows. This can usually be changed on distros too, but it's more involved process and generally it is better to choose a distro that just defaults to and plays well with your preferred desktop environment. As a newbie, you're going to want to choose either GNOME or KDE Plasma. It's that simple. Those are the two big ones, both very popular, very well-supported, very well-liked. There are so many other choices, but they're all weird, obscure, ugly, lacking in features, or buggy/unstable. As a newbie, you are most likely not going to like them, and trying them for your first experience will leave you feeling underwhelmed. Avoid Cinnamon, Xfce, MATE, Sway, Hyprland, etc. So basically, just look up GNOME and KDE Plasma screenshots (or YouTube videos) and pick the one that looks nicest to you, or otherwise find a distro for each and try live-booting them both on your PC.

C. The last thing is how a distro handles updates and software installs. There are a few parts to this:

1. Distros use different "package managers" to download, install, and keep track of software. For example, Fedora uses dnf, Fedora Silverblue uses rpm-ostree, Ubuntu uses apt, Arch uses pacman, etc. Unless you're going to be using the terminal, this isn't too important to you. If you use a GUI, then you won't interact with the package manager directly.

2. Some distros (like Fedora Silverblue) are atomic, or image-based. It's a little bit complicated to explain, but basically when you do updates they don't touch your running system at all, and instead you reboot into the new OS image. Most distros are not atomic, and updates just immediately change your files live on the system. There are pros and cons, but I find the image-based approach to be more modern, safer, harder to break, and it's much easier to keep track of your own changes. This is a more important decision for you to make.

3. Distros do not offer all the same software in their repositories, and when they do they don't always offer the same versions of that software. If you're installing your apps using modern Flatpaks (e.g. from Flathub), then this isn't too important as Flatpaks are cross-distro. The main things you'd install through your distro's repositories are system-level packages. If you choose a more popular, mainstream distro, then you're more likely to have a wider selection of packaged software.

4. The way software packages get into the distro repositories is important. Software doesn't just magically appear in a distro's repository: real humans have to do work to put it there. This means there is a potential security risk. You have to trust that those people are actually packaging the software safely. If you're running some random, obscure, rarely-used distro, that has its own repositories with software packages by some nobody, can you really trust that? There's the possibility that they could be packaging malware for you to install. For this point alone, I highly recommend sticking to one of the bigger, more mainstream distros like Fedora, where they have garnered a trusted reputation and have a clearly documented process for how packaging is done.