[LeFantome]

If you are new to Linux then Manjaro and Ubuntu are two good choices. I say this primarily because of documentation and repositories.

On Linux, you really want the software you use to be available as a package for your OS. Ubuntu and Manjaro ( through AUR especially ) have the largest package repositories ( something like 70 thousand ). Some distros have maybe 10 or 20 thousand. As a developer, you will for sure want stuff those distros do not provide ( eg. Distrobox — available on Manjaro ).

If you are reading instructions on the web for how to do something on Linux, it is highly likely they apply to Ubuntu. There is no doubt that the popularity of Ubuntu makes it better for a beginner.

Probably the best Linux documentation available is the Arch Wiki and all that documentation applies to Manjaro.

Manjaro is a friendly version of Arch Linux in the same way that Ubuntu is a modified Debian.

I used to use Fedora and it is a great distro. It would not be my top choice for a new user though. There are many great “friendly” distros that are very easy to get into. The problems come when you want them to do more. It can be hard to find documentation and things may be done just a bit differently. It can be harder to find software. And fighting the package manager on any distro is no fun.