I believe LMDE includes the proprietary stuff you might need and, as others have said, Debian 12 is starting to as well.

For a new user who just wants a good OS to start with, Pop_OS is a fine choice. A little surprised you had trouble with Mint identifying your WiFi card but, I see others have posted on it. Mint is typically my go-to recommendation for new Linux users.

I looked at LBRY for a while, but it kinda looked like the “trashy tabloid” section of the internet.

Have to agree. They had a great start by enhancing Debian and being user friendly but, then they just kind of lost their way.

Although, speaking as a fan of Mint who used it as my “daily driver” for years, I think the time has come for them to switch from Ubuntu to Debian and embrace Wayland. I know that, if I’d stayed with Mint, I’ve have gone to LMDE by now.

…and Cable TV didn’t eliminate commercials…and ATMs didn’t reduce banking costs resulting in higher interest on savings…etc…

I generally tell people on Manjaro to stay off the AUR. If it’s not in their “curated” repository, then just go with the flatpak.

I’ve used both. Manjaro, in their attempt to be “user friendly”, winds up disconnecting you from what makes Arch good. EndeavorOS, on the other hand, is basically Arch nicely set up for a “daily driver” PC along with some nice tools of their own you can use or not at your discretion. I’ve also used just plain Arch and I actually prefer EndeavourOS of the three.

Firefox is my go to but I keep a chromium based browser for when I really need it. Currently running with Vivaldi for that. As for other browsers, I’d love to see Gnome Web (formerly Epiphany) start allowing extensions like Bitwarden, etc.