I think Gnome + Flatpak is a great setup for GUI only. Fedora is annoying to set up with nonfree drivers and codecs, otherwise it’s a great choice for this.
(Also, don’t try convert your friends, just wait until they come to you and ask for help installing Linux.)
Same for me. I distro-hopped for about 20 years with OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Fedora being the most memorable desktop setups for me. While all that was a valuable experience, NixOS feels like graduation.
For the Nix-curious: I wish someone would have told me not to bother with the classic config and build a flake-based system immediately. They’re “experimental” in name only, very stable and super useful in practice.
If you’re not averse to CLI and some tinkering, i think
khalmay suit your needs.