It took a lot of work, but I've created the definitive Linux distro flowchart

I'd rather someone's first choice about Linux was which DE to use. This plays a way bigger part in first impressions.

The obvious choice is KDE, ofc

You missed the step where you tell everyone what distro you use, and that its the best.

Searched, not googled. Google is bad, M'kay?

Hannah Montana Linux is the best distro! It leaves out all those newfangled things like Wayland, GNOME 3, SysVInit and gives you Hannah Montana.

What if I don’t want to use whatever I want? What if I want my distro forced upon me?

Install Gentoo

If beginner, use PopOS.

If Linux nerd, use Arch.

That's my guide. I don't like any other distros. :)

Okay, but when most people are looking for advice on which distro to use it's because they don't know what they want.

Hmm I don't see arch on here it must've gotten cropped

I was a huge distro hopper until I started using immutable distros. One thing no one tells beginners is that you do have to maintain your system more on Linux than other OSs because Linux gives you the rope to hang yourself with. I would always bloat my OS and things would get unruly, everything would slow down or become unstable and I would lose track of how I had everything set up. Immutability make things so much cleaner.

The endgoal: Linux from scratch.

The two things that matter when choosing a distro - package managers and desktop environment/window manager. And even then, universal package managers like Flatpak, Snap and AppImage can provide a substitute for the package managers.

Sums up what I did

Mainstream choice? Raspbian it is

You missed a third option;

"Just dive in you nerd."

Honestly from experience I've learnt that the yes answer also usually applies to the no answer because it's important to everyone. Advanced users tend to hit advanced issues and surprise, surprise, then community size matters all the same!

So since Linux is highly customizable and the choice of e.g. desktop environment matters little (just install whatever you want on any distro, including DE), community size is the most hard-earned property and thus usually trumps all.

So I personally try to keep closest to upstream regardless experienced or less experienced users => Debian if you adore those DEB packages and management, Fedora if you love those RPM packages and management, indie ones for indie packages e.g. Alpine, Arch... If you still run into issues it's usually you, not the distro because it's already battle hardened. :) But no worries, then you'll find a lot of help and the problem has usually already even been discussed and is googleable! It's 2023, none of the huge distros are plain shit and annoying, that's been ironed out like a decade ago. So just go with a (big) flow somewhere.

I started with PopOS. Didn't like so many decisions being made for me so I started using Arch instead. Easy customization. Got tired of breaking systems. Jumped to Debian Testing. I think I'm settled.

Started with Ubuntu ended up with arch

(Web developer) I distro-hopped for years, after discovering Ubuntu 8.10 (OpenSUSE, Fedora, Linux Mint, Ubuntu Mate,Manjaro, Ubuntu Budgie, etc). Then left Linux altogether for some time. 4 years ago returned to Kubuntu, using only LTS. My best Linux experience ever. Until yesterday, when I installed Debian 12. Hated Gnome before (I don't remember why), but not anymore, the stability is astounding.

I've used 10 distros since 2008, all of as main system. I agree with you, but I think everyone should try a few distros until they find the right one for them.