SUSE -> Mageia -> Ubuntu -> Manjaro -> Mint -> Manjaro. Been on Manjaro for 4 years now.

I also have a tech-savy mom - and she’s using Linux Mint too. :)

Honestly, besides backupping my data from Windows and choosing a distro that fit my needs, I didn’t really do any preparation.

Cinnamon! Although I want to give KDE another chance to become my default DE.

Snap is easily available on other distros as well. If anything, they want to lock you into their proprietary store.