The worst mistake I could have possibly made with Linux...

Ubuntu
Snaps
- Agreed. I’d say Ubuntu is generally fine except for defaulting to installing snaps (which are terrible, the worst package management).
  
  Yeah :3.. I use pop which is ubuntu based, but they replace all snaps with flatpaks, and over the 4ish years I've been using it it's been the most stable experience on the desktop I had. If not for snaps ubuntu/kubuntu would probably be one of my default distro recommendations for beginners
- ubuntu
  Snaps
  Canonical
- A wild thing for me was installing reaper(a music DAW) from the website and not seeing it in my app list. then finding out it needs to be installed in a opt folder and then I gotta make a .Desktop file so it'll show up in my 'start menu' like damn, is this how it really is out in Linux?
  
  Depends on how you install it
  You basically chose one of the more complicated ways to do it, short of compiling the source code lol
  
  Get your head out of installing apps via their websites like Windows. While it's often possible, it's preferable to use your distros package manager. If it's not in the repo, try flathub. Finally, if they have an Appimage, use that, many distros will integrate Appimages automagically. All that stuff gets taken care of for you.
  Last resort is what you ended up doing and having to install/update manually. I mean, it depends on the package but if you're using a common distro like Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch, there should be a package ready to go for nearly anything that supports Linux.
  
  Linux doesnt install things like windows does. A tar file is just an archive. What you did is basically the equivalent of copying a program's Program Files. Itll still work if you just run the exe from the folder, but there's no registry entry, no start menu shortcut, no desktop shortcut until its created by you or the installer on Windows.

The first rule of Linux is that you always picked the wrong distro and here is why mine is better.
If it works for you then it's good enough. Just focus on learning what you're on and a lot of that knowledge will transfer to any other distro if you want to try others.
- Totally agree with this and to add everyone's tastes are different which is why there are so many different distros. It is true there are some tailored for specific things but no one distro is better then another. Any app you install on one can be installed on another

Ubuntu Studio is an excellent choice to get you ~~started~~ busy doing your things. It's a work of love, from passionate people, going at it for many years now.
The only drawback is that the bundle is overstuffed, for my use case there's just too much stuff in there lol (sound eng)
Enjoy yourself, test your creativity against the available tools, and make stuff. That's the important part: making!
- Yeah I've noticed that. Tryna work out how to delete most of them now lol. Cool to open them up and see what the are though

The biggest mistake one can make with Linux?
Using windows instead.
- https://media.tenor.com/kV_E_N_WJ4QAAAAM/antm-americas-next-top-model.gif

you did nothing wrong. ubuntu is a perfectly fine distro for beginners. the reason i dont use ubuntu anymore is the age of the packages started to bother me. also its kinda annoying that releases hit eol at some point. i like arch for the rolling release (no eol) and the fresher packages.
if ubuntu worka for you, keep using it. there is no correct distro.

Eh, every distro is trade-offs. There’s not a straightforward “better or worse”.
The worst mistake you could make? Making it hard for you to change your mind later.
So take notes on what you modify, try to keep your data/configs consolidated so you could easily migrate to a new distro, etc.
And ideally have your hardware set up so that you can try booting a new distro without losing your existing setup.

The biggest problem of ubuntu is snaps.
However, if you're into audio, you can install linux mint, which is ubuntu-based, and then install the ubuntu-studio-pipewire-something (sorry, can't remember how the package is actually called), which FIXES pipewire to work properly with high end audio apps. For example, on my vanilla Linux Mint, Bitwig Studio would not make a peep! After installing that package, it produces sound. With that fixed, you can do everything on Mint.

When you're trying out distros, I usually say to just go for it. Install the one that grabs your attention. Save everything to a NAS or cloud because the distro is going to break and you're going to want to try another one. However, Ubuntu is actually the wrong one to start with for this trajectory because it's the least likely to break.

@phonics Your distro of choice is right for you:
As long as you are still getting used to it
As long as the important things work for you
You can live with the downsides
It is your choice
(My distro is Arch for my riced laptop by the way, but also Debian for servers and Garuda for gaming.)
I would suggest you keep your home directory on a separate partition and maybe use etckeeper. This way you can distro hop your way when you are ready for your next hop while still being able to reverse hop.
- This is the best advice, in my opinion, keeping your data in a separate partition (or a separate drive if possible). This makes distro-hopping a breeze, since your data remains intact between distros.
  After that, jump around as much as you want until you find something you're comfortable with.

I think everyone's basically hit my complaints with Ubuntu. It's a very bloated OS with a hard dedication into snaps, which I dislike(but I also hate flatpak so yea)
Being said if this is your first Linux distribution, you can't go wrong with Ubuntu. It's a very beginner-friendly distro. The only other one that I would have recommended aside from that would have probably been Mint. But Ubuntu is going to have quite a bit more tutorials and guides for it.

You're good. If you like your setup please don't feel like you need to change. Ubuntu will serve you just fine.
Now if you just like tinkering or configuring....
The main drawback of Ubuntu is mainly that people don't like Canonical, the company behind it. They can be very opinionated in their decisions. Also many prefer rolling-release distros (like Arch, or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed) where you get much quicker software updates over Ubuntu and other traditional distros.

You made a great choice of distro for media creation.
Some background information and other options are below.
--//--
Ubuntu studio is a distro targeted at creatives(audio, visual).
Ubuntu is touted as a 'high ease of use' distro, but as a company, it is a user-data collector and advertising injector.
For a similar audio/visual targeted distro, but one that is free/libre and includes no spyware or tracking, you could try Dynebolic.
Can be booted as a LiveUSB (or LiveDVD) to test.
NB. Any hardware connected to your PC, that needs proprietary drivers, will probably not work because those drivers are not included in any Libre Distros.
Also NB, Dynebolic is made by friendly, neighborhood, activist, Rastafarians.
Usage video here
- Users data collection... Eeeew. That's why I'm leaving windows. I'll have a look at dynebolic thnx. My audio interface already doesn't like Ubuntu so far so I'm gonna have to get techie with it anyway

If you're looking for a change, there's AV Linux, which is also Debian-based. Might be worth checking out.
- Av for audio video I presume. Thanks will look into it

Just get endeavoros. It's Arch with an install process like any other easy Linux distro.
Aur is useful for people that don't want to build packages.
That combined with flatpak and you can basically have an easy install of anything.

Good choice, man. Good choice. I have Arch and Manjaro, they're good, but there was a time when I was doing photography as a freelancer and I used Ubuntu Studio back then. The codecs are ready and instead of configuring, you can get to work.

My most used distro in the past few years is CachyOS.
Recently swapped to Bazzite because I got tired of the papercuts of running Arch. I also wanted to move to one of the official supported Distros that is supported by my laptop in case I ever need to make a support ticket.

If you like "unlikely to break, don't mind my software and kernel a bit behind", anything Debian or Ubuntu based will be fine. Now, if you want cutting edge, even if you have to get pissed and confused a bit, Arch or Fedora based, in my opinion.
At the end of the day it comes down to taste and need. They all work (mostly 😋).
- I'm pissed and confused with Ubuntu already. I think arch might shorten my lifespan even further.

I went for Nixos (distro) with Plasma (desktop environment). Nixos has a great package manager (99% of the things there just work)and the way you install things is essentially having a list of your packages/apps. Deleting them is just as easy and the best part is that it’s totally gone, no lingering random files that could bite me in the future. If you mess up your configuration bad it’ll force you to stay the working version if you don’t like what you did you’ll revert it. Plasma has incredible defaults and you can click around in it to fine tune to your liking. Plug things into plasma is just works at least for me. I’ve plugged midi controllers, audio interface, dock, hdmi, game controllers first try no fuss. Oh I’m sure other distros have this as well but fun fact if your bt is on and the laptop is connected to a speaker you can just connect your phone (or any other bt source) and use your laptop as a bt speaker. And I mean it just works again. Yeah sure you need to pair it first. But boy oh boy Im playing on the tv and i can just bt to it and play my tunes like it’s nothing. Back to the question in hand. I have a windows version of Ableton 11 that I installed there with 3rd party vst 2 and 3 plugins figuring that one out took me longer but it was in front of me all the time so in hindsight that wasn’t too hard either. So that was my new generation Arch btw xD aka NixOS btw. The tl dr is that I find Nixos with KDE Plasma 6 having very friendly defaults that can be built on if and when you ready
- Completely dodged the question to crow about nix. I'm 90% convinced nix users are the new "arch BTW" users.
  
  New user comes to ask question about their distro: gets "use NixOS; it's totally simple".
  Weirdos.
  
  What was the question then? Wasn’t it about the distro of my choice and how it handles packages specifically about media creation? I fell like you folks just saw nix decided “nah f this guy” but ok I get it. Ps.: Im self aware if you read the last few lines