Rolling around
I know it’s a difficult job, finding the best of dozens of good Linux distros. I’ve used or at least tried four of the five ‘top’ distros you selected and could perhaps give some of them another shot, except that my distro-hopping days seem to be over.
I’ve been using Manjaro for more than six months now and I really can’t say enough about it. I love that it’s based on the rolling release Linux Arch distro; no more changing my entire OS every few months or years. I’ve also had absolutely no problem installing the functionality I want from the built-in software management system. The Xfce desktop is simple but Manjaro manages to make it look good, as you note.
I like Manjaro enough that I bought a new laptop for my mother and installed Manjaro on it. Her other laptop was cheap, ran Windows and suffered from a Windows support scam. She was stupid enough to pay $250 to have strangers ‘fix’ her system. Manjaro has proven simple enough for her to use.
I was pleased to see that you give some props to Manjaro on your Rolling Releases page [Features, p39, LXF203). Any of the five you selected as ‘best distros’ are fine, though I find Fedora an odd choice. Still, as I see it, users still hopping around trying to find a good, simple, usable distro need look no further than Manjaro. RoyBirk, via email Neil says Manjaro is one of those distros that we continue to happily promote when and where we can. Jonni is a big Arch fan, so he’s all for it and I think there’s little to dislike about Xfce if you just want to get on and get work done. That is the wonderful part of the FLOSS ecosystem – everyone can find a distro that suits them down to the ground. So more advanced users can go with rolling distros, oldschoolers can pick Slack and neophites can pick up Ubuntu or Mint and get on using Linux.