Disagree on picking RPM distros for an absolute beginner (this is what the image is about at least). SUSE maybe but you don't want a newbie having to deal with US patent bullshit and especially SELinux. Similarly, no newbie will ever pic a barebones WM as a first time user.
Linux users fall into three categories. People who want stability over everything else, people who want everything to be bleeding edge, and people who don't use desktop environments.
The most important thing for a new user is understand which of those three they are.
Not a hot take at all. Asking someone to go from a GUI heavy operating system to a command line heavy one and be just as productive is lunacy. Like all major changes it is important to ween off the old thing.
My biggest hurdle with the switch has been permission related issues, and you can't deal with those cleanly with a UI, and every help thread under the sun throws out a bunch of command line commands giving a solution without explaining why those changes are needed. It may seem like Unix 101 to experienced Linux users, but it is really cryptic to newcomers coming from operating systems that are...cough more lenient with their permissions.
There is also a mentality that UIs are much more idiot proof than command line. UIs are written by people who actually know the OS so we can't accidentally delete our home folder because of a typo. It is a very legitimate concern.
Yesterday morning i installed Mint xfce on an old laptop.
I wanted to install synaptics drivers for the touchpad because i use the trackball as mouse but need the touchpad for clicking. Something that isnt configureable in the default driver.
When i copied an example config file and added my line, i rebooted the computer.
The GUI broke because in the example config file, there were "..." To indicate writing further options, but xorg couldnt interpret or ignore it, so i had to figure out how to edit textfiles in the command line.
No fun times, and definetely a risk for new users.
Aktually, I prefer Arch + KDE. I say if you like your current desktop, then stay with it. I've hit the sweet spot with what I've got because I love the AUR, pacman, and paru.
