I don't want to start a distro ware here but... Ubuntu is really opinionated about the UX and if you want to change or fix anything you have to get kind of hacky. Sometimes when I woke my computer of from sleep it would ignore the keyboard and you had to use the mouse to click and slide the screen upward as if it were a tablet. Multiple workspaces only worked on the main monitor, side monitors would only show Workspace 1. There was a workaround for this, but it was a little bit buggy. When I want to drag a window, exit a window, or minimize, I usually just slam my cursor into the top of the screen. On Ubuntu there's a thin black status bar at the top of the screen, so you have to aim your cursor carefully instead of gesturing your mouse upwards, and it was a huge pain to try to remove that.

I started a new job and my boss installed Linux Mint on my work laptop because that's what he was using; after a month I installed Mint on my home desktop. The defaults are sensible, there's tons of customization options, and I don't have to hack my way into really simple and obvious changes.

I second Mint. Have used it for a decade on my main dev machine. Only now have I turned to Win 10 and WSL for my main work and I've got to say: it's not bad. And it pretty much just works.

I've had my parents set up with MATE and Plasma Desktop for about two years now without a problem. Both just work.

I haven't used GNOME in years because it was too unstable when I used it myself.

I suggest Linux Mint. Stable Ubuntu derivative with a sane, "just-works" desktop environment (Cinnamon).

What if I don't want any desktop environment, but just want to run the i3 window manager?

I've been using Ubuntu with IceWM and it was as simple as installing the window manager, logging out and then selecting IceWM before logging back in.

Arch if you don't mind or enjoy tinkering, otherwise I believe manjaro has an i3 spin configured and ready to go.

then install ubuntun mint, and follow by apt install i3-wm

That's what I have been doing the past 7 years.

I think perhaps you mean install Ubuntu Server or use the netinstall ISO?

I've been using Ubuntu 20.04 since it's release now (a few months?) and my biggest gripe has been bluetooth connectivity and fixing updating issues (gpg keys, no releases, etc.)

Problem is Ubuntu’s desktop. Try with a recent Fedora with Gnome, will prob work fine no tweak required.

Try to use KDE/Kubuntu

yeah the first period after switching to Linux is almost always ok-ish, sometimes even pleasant, depending on one's specific use case.

then you live trough your first pulse audio upgrade. or maybe you have to bring a laptop in two wireless location with slightly different network configs. or it's just a distro upgrade where the default filesystem changed and they dropped the older fs kernel module. or you have a second monitor, or a multitouch pad, and at every update there's a chance for some package change breaking their config.

Yeah and consistently there seems to be a bad Windows Update that breaks a whole bunch of stuff... Not sure if people are just used to Windows being a piece of shit, or if we are holding the Linux desktop to a higher standard.

All of these were legitimate issues 10-20 years ago. None of them have been since.

Lets not pretend that your parents will be able to fix any obscure Windows issues either.

I put my dad on Ubuntu about 10 years ago and never looked back. I do 100x less support than I had to do when he was on Windows. Windows was a malware shit show back then, but I have no interest in trying to switch him back to Windows again.