[ekianjo]

SteamOS is only made for Gaming though. You can go back to desktop mode but nothing's really added versus Stock Debian there.

I'd recommend Mint, they use Cinnamon as their Windows Manager and it's pretty cool.

[xorcist]

I need something that just works for the parents. (Since Unity, Ubuntu has been on a constant slow slide downwards usability-wise.) I tried Mint on a recommendation, but their idea of an upgrade was a re-install (really!), so that was a no-go. Any other ideas?

[collyw]

Manjaro with XFCE.

Mint is good. Cinnamon is pretty, but occasionally has problems that I don't see since I swapped to XFCE (it randomly started hogging the CPU, I never worked out why).

Manjaro needed a few more tweaks to get things working at first, but I have had less problems afterwards.

[bronson]

Agree with Mint. Its Cinnamon experience is excellent and, if it turns out you're not a fan, it's just Ubuntu: you can switch to any of the other desktops without reinstalling.

[sampo]

Or you could just use Ubuntu, and install the Cinnamon desktop.

[ekianjo]

Yeah, but I find the Mint experience often more polished vs Ubuntu. In Ubuntu (at least in previous versions) there was always a bug somewhere that annoyed me, in Mint it's almost flawless.