Best beginner-friendly OS? Looking for something simple and efficient.

Could someone please recommend an OS for a beginner?
To be honest, I wouldn't even call myself a novice; I've been owning PCs since '95, back when we were dealing with Windows NT or whatever those versions before Windows 95 were called...
I remember installing Windows 98 using nothing but startup floppies, many years before most readers of this thread were even born. Nowadays, I find myself unable to install any operating system that can handle my most modest requirements without needing a degree in computer science.
Windows XP works for about a month and then dies on me—that’s happened three times now. As for Linux Mint, I simply cannot configure it to be remotely usable; video playback fails, and Flash Player or Shockwave seems permanently "broken," regardless of what I try to launch, unless it's just a still image...
As time goes on, I feel like I'm knowing less and less instead of more. Instead of progress, there's just frustration. No web browser seems to work properly; they're all completely broken. Everyone is searching for "plugins" that don't exist or are impossible to find. Even when I do manage to find and install them, they don't function. I can spend two months hunting for solutions only to come up empty-handed. It's ironic; I used to be the person repairing computers for others, and now I have to download everything from the internet because my own machine is practically useless!!!

On Linux, I'm stuck with some search tool that is the height of absurdity; I don't even know its name, and it can't find anything useful. I know there's a war between Mozilla and Google, but even Opera won't work. Everything is needlessly complicated and impossible to tune; nothing plays video, not even the browsers themselves.
Until recently, my kid could watch music videos without issue, but now I have to tell him he's ruined the computer...
Because after twenty years of surfing the web, I just can't get things configured anymore...
Maybe we should all just join the extremists, go out and nail everyone to stakes, and smash every electronic device with a hammer... nothing works anymore except for spyware...

Is this actually a hidden camera...?! 🍿

If you stay away from your field for too long, technology tends to run you over... ☕

When it comes to the Windows environment, setting up the OS is basically just hitting "Next, Next," reading the prompts as they pop up, and you're pretty much done in no time.
Browsers work just fine right out of the box without needing any extensions; it really just depends on what you're looking to get done.

Alexander Mitchell4, man, you are spot on about so many things here! 😂 Honestly, it feels like a massive conspiracy by Big Tech just to turn us all into mindless sheep who can't function without them. 😁 Pretty soon, you won't even be able to buy a basic toaster without having to hire some hacker guy just to get it set up. 🤣 On the flip side, you've got those products that work flawlessly and stay super simple, but they're under total manufacturer lockdown—we're talking devices that literally only have a "start" button and nothing else. 😁
edit: Have you ever messed around with a Macintosh or OS X? I've heard everything comes pre-configured and ready to go, but yeah, you definitely pay a premium for that convenience.

If everything is running that slowly, you should probably start by looking into fixing whatever hardware issue is going on with your PC first.

I've actually had similar thoughts myself. I have two computers that are nearly identical, and I've been testing all sorts of combinations lately. Recently, I've been running into issues with Linux; it managed to ruin three or four DVDs that just wouldn't work for some reason. Eventually, I managed to get an installation of Linux Mint 14 through somehow. That helped me format my secondary hard drive so I could reinstall Windows XP. I have the original disc, but it isn't working—it just hangs halfway through, claiming a file is missing. I also have a few burned copies, though one of them is a dud. I can't quite remember everything I need to install. The radio worked on XP for about a month before it froze up, so I reinstalled it. It worked fine again for a month or two, but now I can't even boot it up, not even in Safe Mode. I've truly never experienced anything like this before.
Sometimes Linux just freezes completely, and I haven't found a way to reset it other than hitting the physical reset button.
The Ctrl+Alt+Del command doesn't respond in Linux, and Mozilla crashes quite frequently. It does manage to restart itself and restore everything I had open within a second or two, so it isn't a massive disruption, I suppose.
It is frustrating that video won't play, and it refuses to install easily without some heavy programming involved.
I see the Adobe Flash Player icon in my menu, but Mozilla doesn't seem to recognize the program. It has a "Shockwave Flash" extension that crashes constantly; it seems to collapse within a tenth of a second the moment it detects any kind of video.
Synaptic hasn't been of any real help. A few packages will download, but reinstalling them doesn't improve the situation even slightly.
If I recall correctly, some Ubuntu distributions from four or five years ago were relatively stable, even though there were issues back then with video and ATI drivers. My current setup, Mint, doesn't indicate any driver problems, yet it still won't play video. The browser seems to have evolved... for the worse.
On XP, video played perfectly after installing Flash Player (Adobe).
AutoCAD 2007 runs normally on XP. If there were a hardware issue, the rendering in AutoCAD would likely freeze because it would peg the CPU at 100% for two or three minutes straight.
Mozilla keeps crashing on both Windows XP and Linux. On Linux, I can't even get rid of that useless search bar that's totally incompetent. Honestly, sometimes I feel like giving up on electronics entirely and just heading out to a mountain to start farming.😵

Mozilla definitely isn't crashing on me. Firefox might be, though (IIRC, it crashed on me exactly once in the last few years, and mind you, I usually have at least 50 tabs running at any given time—I don't just shut my PC down constantly, ya know? Everything stays synced with my phone too).

Btw, just buy a new computer and everything will work fine. Honestly, there's probably no point even starting threads like this because there just isn't an OS simple enough for someone who refuses to actually learn how to use one.

Edit: That "pacia" search engine (check out Quack in my signature) is absolute gold. And honestly, if you can't figure out how to swap the default search engine in, uh, oops, Firefox... well, that says a lot about your basic "tech-savvy" skills, man.

Changing my default search engine isn't really an issue for me. I can easily add eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia, and a couple of others whose names escape me at the moment. From there, I just head into the Firefox settings to find the option for additional search engines, which typically leads me straight to the Linux Mint pages.
Once there, I can find those plus Yahoo... personally, I find Yahoo to be a bit more helpful since finding information feels slightly more intuitive there than dealing with these other illiterate, corporate types.
As for images, they’re essentially useless here, even though you need them sometimes. Having a dedicated image search that provides direct links back to the original sources would be a brilliant feature.

The way I handle Google is by setting it as my primary search tool—I'll set it as my home page, so to speak—and then I get the full-screen experience. Its landing page features its own search bar with a specific Google search button, which allows me to find exactly what I'm looking for.

Sure, Google spies on you, but it is packed with information. It manages to track down just about anyone or anything, whereas, in most of my experiences, the other engines simply don't measure up.

Buying a brand-new computer just for web browsing? How old are you, anyway?

dustyorca14 said:Alexander Mitchell4, you actually have a point there.😂 It feels like a massive conspiracy by the tech industry just to turn us all into dependents.😁 Pretty soon, you won't even be able to buy a toaster without needing to hire a hacker just to get it installed.🤣 On the flip side, you have those products that work perfectly and simply, but they are under total manufacturer control and basically only have a single 'start' button.😁
edit: Have you perhaps tried a Macintosh or OS X? I hear everything comes pre-configured there, though that is likely why it carries such a premium price tag.

You can joke about it, but it really does boil down to that. I found myself in a similar predicament with a Celeron 500 about ten years ago. Back then, it was constant troubleshooting; I knew Windows 98 like the back of my hand—where every file sat and how everything needed to be tuned—but eventually, it just couldn't handle rendering modern web pages anymore. I struggled with it until I finally decided to scrap it for a new machine. However, on the new hardware, I couldn't even install 98, which at that point had been largely abandoned by virus developers and was relatively safe. The new hardware simply didn't support Windows 98; it would install, but every bootup would trigger an error that slowed the startup process, "subtly" nudging me toward upgrading to Windows XP.
Today, I have two computers; both are older models, but they function fine. They can't quite handle high-def video playback—sometimes SD is okay, occasionally DVD or 720p quality works on the same machine—but I can no longer find a way to download the old Flash player.
Capitalist greed truly knows no bounds.😠

edit;
It was the same with my old Ubuntu setup; I just had to type `sudo apt-get install dsl provider` into the terminal, enter my password, and everything functioned flawlessly for years. As far as I can recall, neither Ubuntu nor Firefox ever crashed or froze once.
Nowadays, Ubuntu feels too bloated for my old computer, and I haven't found Mint to be usable even after several months of trying.
And yes, about 17 or 18 years ago, when a computer was a staple in every third household, I used to make boot disks for people, wipe their drives, and reinstall Windows—first 95, then 98, then XP.
Lately, though, I haven't messed with that sort of thing much; it's mostly just some CAD work and general web surfing.

Listen, man, maybe it’s time to brush up on your skills... try approaching things with a more modern mindset. Some things are better left where they belong... in the past.
You know how it is, once a driver, always a driver.
☕

It’s one of those wonderful modern miracles, isn't it? I’m sitting down to log in for the evening, and I can only see about a third of the window. To make matters worse, the section offering Facebook or Google login options is visible, but the lower portion—where you actually enter your username and password—is completely cut off from view. On top of that, I keep getting hit with constant pop-ups asking me to enable Adobe Flash. Every time I grant permission, the window just turns white. It’s a total blank; nothing displays correctly. I can't see any Flash animations or videos on Facebook, and it seems to be happening on various forums as well.
I suppose I ought to brush up on my technical knowledge, though I don't recall things ever behaving quite this erratically before.

Alexander Mitchell4 said:Honestly, it's one of those "300 miracles" kind of days... I'm trying to log in this evening, but a third of the window isn't even visible. It offers the Facebook and Google login options, but that bottom section where you actually type in your username and password? Totally cut off. On top of that, I keep getting these pop-ups asking me to enable Adobe Flash, and once I finally click allow, the whole little window just turns white. I can't see a thing—no Flash animations, no videos on Facebook, nothing on the forums either.
I really should brush up on my tech skills, but I don't remember things being this glitchy before.

It sounds like you need a deep clean—think Arial + Vanish. Honestly, it might be best to let someone who really knows their stuff take a look at it.

Alexander Mitchell4 said:buying a whole new rig just for browsing the web??? how old are you guys even??

Lol, okay, then why are you getting so worked up about it? Honestly, man, I wish I could run a fresh Fedora with GNOME 3.14 or even Windows 8.1 in a VM on my old Pentium 166—yeah, I still have that relic sitting around somewhere—with its massive 16 MB of RAM and that legendary 1 MB GPU. If I had, I would've saved a mountain of cash by not upgrading everything over the last 18 years or so.
And oh yeah, I’d love it if the entire Adobe CS6 suite ran perfectly on it too, or if I could just blast through FHD 60 videos shot on an iPhone or binge some 10-bit FHD anime without a hitch.

Newsflash: tech actually moves forward.
With your attitude, people would still be riding around in horse-drawn carriages (if they even did that, though I bet they'd still complain that the carriage doesn't hit agera R speeds) because, seriously, how many years do you have to live before you decide to get a car just to drive? (Actually, that needs like three question marks, but whatever)

Man, time really caught up with you, along with all this new tech. It's your call: adapt or don't. If you want to keep up, just install an OS that fits what you need and what your gear can actually handle. Like, starting with a Debian netinst is a pretty solid move. Instead of picking a heavy DE, try a WM (look it up if you don't know what that is, I'm using acronyms on purpose here) and suddenly you'll realize you can actually get a ton done even with 1 GB of RAM (hell, even 512 MB on x86).

Ugh, everything takes effort, some things more than others. Or you can just pay someone else to do all the heavy lifting for you...

I figured I’d jump in here too;

The issue doesn't seem to be with my OS or the software itself, but rather this ancient hardware that just can't keep up anymore.

I haven't seen the specs yet, so it would be helpful if you could post them.
What are we looking at—what’s the CPU, the GPU, how much RAM...?

Look, I spent my youth in the early '80s chasing after everything from Apple IIs to Commodore 64s, but let's be real: I wouldn't be able to do a single thing on those machines today. Back then, a Commodore was the gold standard. But give us the actual data on this computer. Even without seeing it, my gut tells me it's just way too underpowered for modern demands—especially since the internet is an absolute beast now, whereas back in 1995, it wasn't even a fraction of what it is today.

Cheers. 🙂