I understand the concerns on how long some of these might last, like Nobara, but now that it’s been a couple of years and some of GEs work is being used by Steam/Valve, I think it’s safe enough to recommend.
Normally I would have instead recommended Bazzite, as others here have, since she doesn’t seem like a power user. But because of those other uses she might need, it’s a bit riskier to have to work in a more locked down system in case you yourself have to rig something up for her for work, hence I didn’t recommend an immutable distro.
PikaOS I understand is more niche though, but it is still Debian based and Debian is pretty stable, even Sid is. It’s more of you preferred a Debian option.
The reason I mentioned the gaming focused OS’ isn’t because they’re gaming focused, but because they likely have good driver support for her laptop out of the box, and controller etc support as well. I wouldn’t say either really has a heavy “gamerz” aesthetic to them (Pika if anything is just cute Neytirix vibes), and they come with KDE options which can be customized however you like. I think you’ll like it as a power user, and their updater is handy too. Also they set up Discovery to already have access to Flathub as well.
Now for the main reason I’d recommend against Zorin.
The issue is they’re update model + how they have things set up. Gnome + extensions can be prone to messing up with updates, and Zorin doesn’t usually do the longest of updates unless you go with the paid editions. It’s also heavier on system resource use. It’s not the worst option, but it’s not the best either, especially since she has someone who understands Linux decently with her too. But most of all, if you really want something to look like Windows, you can get a better result on a cleaner distro with KDE than you can with Gnome and extensions. Here’s some links - from Windows XP to Windows 10.
https://store.kde.org/p/2136378
https://store.kde.org/p/1407086
https://github.com/AlexcomX/Windows-8-Dark-Theme-for-KDE-Plasma
https://github.com/yeyushengfan258/Win10OS-kde
If you really want to make it feel like a seamless transition for her, that last one might be it, though there’s other variations of it too. It’s much more Windows-like than Zorin, all while making it easy to avoid snaps entirely and Ubuntu dependency.
It’s your choice though, and if you do end up going with Zorin, well, that’s still kilometers better than Windows 11. Just want to make sure you know all the options out there for switching someone away from Windows. I’ve done Fedora KDE + Windows 10 theme in the past for an older family member that wasn’t too tech savvy that couldn’t update to 11. Just told them it was a new update and they thought it was still windows, though they really liked how the new “update” really sped up their computer a lot.
No problem! But um, I think you meant the Bazzite part for someone else - I also said I didn’t recommend it in this case because of the reasons you listed with it being too restrictive (or any atomic distro for that matter), especially since there’s a chance she might need some more obscure software than what a Flatpak can provide, or might need something that doesn’t come as a Flatpak. It’s usually good for lightweight users, but this wasn’t the case so I was also against the idea of atomic distros like Bazzite that others were recommending.
What I mean to clarify was my final recommendation per the last comment was Fedora/Debian + KDE + a Windows skin.
You make a good point with Nobara, in that it’s not run by an organization though, even if it has had years of stability. That could be problematic in the long run.
As for KDE customization - it has many options, but they’re completely optional - you’d have to go into the settings to mess with that. I’d say it’s about on par as Gnome extensions, only more popular because it’s easier for people to make new customizations for it compared to Gnome (you don’t really need to know much about coding is why).
And as I stated, Zorin is still an improvement over Windows anyway, so either way can’t go wrong. From my past personal experience with Zorin however, it did use more system resources and did have issues with the extensions after certain updates, but that was a few (3?4?) years ago in fairness, when I was replacing Windows 11 for my wife too when she was getting sick of Microsoft’s antics. My logic was similar to yours then. In the end, she’s ended up happy with Fedora KDE, even though I use mostly Debian myself. She even figured out customizations on her own even though she’s not too tech savvy, but then she is also an artist so maybe it comes naturally to her. And since then I usually go that route for others in my family switching as well.
Hopefully it all works out for you though and the transition goes smoothly! At least we can both agree Mint was not the best choice here XD (just a mention since so many usually recommend it for beginners but I think Mint is riding on legacy - its UI feels a bit dated and driver support doesn’t seem as good as other distros these days).