[orca-list] Accessible distros

[James <james londonsw15 gmail com>]

Hello

I am currently running Ubuntu Mate 18.04 LTS in a VM as i still need 
Windows for work. I am unfortunately unable to find the time to dedicate 
to  playing with it at the moment. obviously I am not getting the 
experience I am assuming I would if I ran Linux on my machine natively. 
However, after reading threads about Fedora on the list recently, I 
would like to know if i am still correct in thinking  that Ubuntu with 
GNOME is still the most mainstream accessible distro for new/casual  users?

Also for those of you who use Windows  at work, do you run Windows in a 
VM at home?

From what I have read it appears that  Fedora ships with more updated 
packages than does Ubuntu, but could I not simply just update to the 
latest packages on Ubuntu as required?

I am also trying to learn programming, specifically Python. I hope that 
if I become competent enough I may be able to contribute something back 
to the community.


Thanks for any advice.
Best wishes
James