I would actually recommend against Cachy, as it is not very friendly out of the box.
Decent choice, but not for a novice user. Still, can be turned into same thing as everything else.
Nah, it's a mature take. Desktop environment means more for everyday user experience than the distro choice.
I have OpenSUSE Slowroll on one machine and EndeavourOS on the other. Both have KDE installed with exactly the same configuration. Aside from package management and other technicalities, the experience is 100% identical.
Fundamentally, they're all the same and they all are Linux. As long as you use the same desktop environment (KDE, GNOME, you name it) across different distros, you may not notice a single difference in your experience.
That's not to say there are no differences, but for someone just dipping their toes into the Linux world, the main piece of advice is not to stress that too much.
Ubuntu is a fine distro choice - there are controversies, and it is arguably not the best at X, Y or Z, but it's well-rounded, stable, and user-friendly, which is all that novice user needs.
Of course, if you want, you can always explore other options and see what's absolute best for you - this kind of thing is called distro-hopping. Start with something Ubuntu-based for familiar experience (Linux Mint is a common recommendation, if you don't mind Cinnamon desktop), check out Debian as this is what Ubuntu is based on, and then try Fedora, OpenSUSE and stuff. After gaining experience with these, you can explore Arch and derivatives, such as CachyOS, EndeavourOS etc.
But again, if what you have works for you - you're not missing out on anything special. What you have is true, real, actual Linux experience, and there's no best way to approach it.
I still wonder who ever thought cobbled roads are a great idea.
Terrible to ride. Terrible to walk. Bad at just about everything.
Ikarus is an absolute legend, imported by plenty of places including the Soviet Union, the home for UAZ vehicles from the original post
At this point, it's not a race to get people to Linux, but rather a race to get people off Windows and MacOS, which is almost the same thing practically.
We really don't want them to have it their way, as it's detrimental to digital freedom.
Eggs enjoying an entire separate section on the fridge door:
⭐
While people in power are absolute evil most of the time, this is not an excuse to change your own morals for the worse.
Small acts of kindness, when taken in decent quantity, change the world no less than massive fraud and sex trafficking.
That said, one of the most moral things to do is to be on the lookout for powerful people doing nasty things and do everything in your capacity to prevent or at least retaliate. This makes abuse less common, and goes a long way to restore democracy and responsibility for everyone.
I'd say go KDE.
GNOME looks like it will be good for portable devices, but it's kinda not.
First, in my experience, Fedora on GNOME completely ignores battery limits (which are also set by jumping through so many hoops you can't even imagine). It just drains this thing to 0, which is not great for longevity. KDE, on its end, has it all in the GUI and it works flawlessly on all distros I tested.
Second, KDE has made plenty of great optimizations for touchscreens. A while ago, it was not great, but now it's just the best at handling them, especially if you theme it respectively and do not rely on defaults.
Third, customizations are so much better in KDE. You can make her laptop look and feel like a MacBook in no time, and edit everything to be touch-friendly.
One thing GNOME does well though for the use case you describe, though, is app theming, namely Adwaita. Luckily, Adwaita-themed apps and style editors for the rest are freely available on KDE, and you can even change their look as you like.
So, yeah, go KDE.
Tea is absolutely an art no less than beer, and if you're there for the ritual or exploration, it offers both.