I am a long-time computer user, but not an expert. I worked on mainframes for years, then on a BBC Micros (anyone remember them?) for several more years, before enjoying a love-hate relationship, without much love,  with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP and finally Vista for a short period before going back to XP. I eventually got fed up fixing my PC every time Microsoft sent me a security fix, so I began dabbling with Linux beginning with SuSE, moving onto Red Hat / Fedora and then eventually Ubuntu. I was very happy with Ubuntu for several years until they introduced the Unity desktop and also made it increasingly awkward to do anything as root. I stuck it out for a bit on the assumption that I was just a ludite and would eventually get used to it,  but I eventually got so frustrated that I decided to give Linux Mint a try. I love Mint for the simple reason that , as a desktop/laptop user, everything works exactly the way you would expect. I also dabble with Kali Linux (which has a Gnome 2 desktop), but Linux Mint just seems so much more user-friendly and intuitive for what i do.