Nothing wrong with Ubuntu, but it’s interface is definitely geared more towards Mac folks.

My recommendation for someone making the jump to full time Linux is Fedora Kinoite. It’s “immutable” meaning impossible to break, and uses KDE Plasma, which is like the modern Windows you’ve always wanted.

Again nothing wrong with Ubuntu, it’s great and will run on the hardware you mentioned, but if you are someone who wants to tweak settings without fear of breaking something somewhere else, I really recommend Kinoite.

100% Also, y’know Ellen, or Will & Grace…

A nas or home server with one of them is a great idea

It’s the “just works” distro for people who want to play games.

It’s been flawless for me with similar performance (slightly better in some areas) than Windows.

Very cool thanks for pointing them out, I will look into them.

Can you explain more? What are ublue scripts and what makes them so handy? I’m still new to this space.

To my knowledge Bazzite is basically SteamOS with more flexibility under the hood if you’re looking for it. By default it boots right into big picture mode. I imagine if you get an HDMI-CEC dongle it would work great as an HTPC once you get Big Picture set up with the streaming apps.

Kinoite is also great and usually what I recommend someone coming from Windows who wants a distro that “Just works”.

Bazzite is great. I wish I’d tried it sooner. It is great for a “steam machine” or just as a very stable regular desktop.

Wow he actually went with Mint and not some niche distro!

Well, it is rebellious.

As others have suggested it is probably smarter to just backup windows onto a portable hard drive, or you could do Windows2Go which is finicky but do-able.

Also you didn’t ask what distro, but I have been enjoying Fedora Kinoite it’s a very smooth transition (and improvement) from Windows.

Nobody is stopping you

If they are coming from Windows: Kinoite

If they are coming from Macintosh: Silverblue

This is the right answer OP!

If they are coming from Windows: Kinoite

If they are coming from Macintosh: Silverblue

Ah ok I got it thanks, yes the goal is to replace the apps on my TV as seamlessly as possible.

KDE bigscreen says it supports CEC but there is no official release yet. I still might give it a shot. I actually tried the Android TV you linked to (which also says it supports CEC) but it doesn’t work. I know the hardware supports it because Libelec was seamless.

You’re saying wayland is an interface that works with tv remotes and hdmi-cec? I looked it up and it seems to be not that.

I mentioned in the post that I did try LibreELEC but the Plex plugin is very buggy and there is no functioning youtube plugin.