the DE is very important unless you have A LOT of free time and REALLY WANT to see something different from what youre used to.

my first distro (other than ubuntu in school computers, but we dont talk about those) was fedora server minimal install, where i installed dwm and had fun using it. i had just switched from windows and was happy to have so many options, even though i had (almost) no linux experience before. after trying most of the big DEs and distros, i ended up on arch with xfce, which i have been using for more than a year now.

most people really should go slower and try things step by step, as what i did would be really weird for anyone that tried it …probably