While mint is neat, Ubuntu or any distro with gnome would work in the "very graphical, large icons" sense.

I dont know about mint, but debian does security updates automatically and just politely asks for a reboot now and then, perfect for an "unattended" device.

Mint is good, just go with that.

You are familiar with it and can most easily help her if/when she needs it.

KDE and showing her the effect customisations are key. My daughter went nuts with those when she was ten. Wobbly windows for life!

Just print out the arch wiki in a series of binders, give her access to a tech recycling center, and a screwdriver set. That'll learn'er

The nice thing about her being 10 is it's all the same to her. She doesn't have any preconceived notions about what the OS "should" do. If her only machine runs mint, then she'll figure out how to use mint.

supertuxcart

As the parent of a ten year old, make sure you check in with the parent. I'd want to make sure there's some web guardrails and some time limits.

I installed and switched to Ubuntu around the same age. I'm sure your niece will be fine with Mint. All she really needs to know how to do is to look stuff up online.

I recommend pointing her towards Mint and encouraging her to install it herself. Don't assume that children are incapable of these things just because they're children.

I'm thinking Hannah Montana Linux

I'd say go ahead with Mint, MATE edition is my preferred flavor.

Set it up with the Compiz 3D desktop cube switcher thing, and maybe a couple other nifty effects to mesmerize her even more!

Sure she'll likely end up tinkering more with the Compiz settings and bork the settings a bit after she sees what all it can do, but it can totally be a fun learning experience, and Linux is easy enough to reinstall anyways in worst case..

Mint is good. Fedora & KDE might be a good choice because of the customization. Could be a nice way for her to make her desktop her very own creative project that inspires her to learn more about her computer and how it works. Fedora is pretty damn snappy. dnf is really easy and she could just use discover or whatnot to install apps.

Help her rice up her desktop a bit and show her how to install some programs. Maybe bookmark some tutorials for different programs you install and the OS of your choice.

Blender, kdenlive, krita, gimp, inkscape, strawberry for music, libreoffice, vlc, supertuxcart etc....

Then turn her loose and let her have fun.

Make her install Gentoo in her own and make sure to berate her at every step /s

Personally I would go with something that has KDE so she gets fancy animations and stuff, but Mint is a perfectly valid choice too (cinnamon also has some cool stuff to toy around with but not as much imo). Just make sure to show her how to install stuff, and put adblockers and shit in the browser. Also highly recommend installing some of the linux games.

I can't speak very well about it because I've never used it myself but I kind of always the dream of giving PuppyOS to my future daughter if I ever had one. I know sounds delusional but I found the OS looks cute and maybe works.

Maybe setup system backups with picka backup or sth like that so that if something brakes you can easily restore everything.

Here's what I'd give to 10y/o me.

1. Explain partitions and filesystems (I already knew CPU, HDD, RAM etc)
2. Explain the boot startup process

• and how limited the motherboard's mechanisms and the pre-OS environment is

3. Hand over:

• 1 working computer with an empty internal HDD (no OS pre-installed)
• 1 USB drive with Debian ISO
• 1 USB drive with Arch ISO
• 1 other internet connected device with a pre-installed web browser

Don't do this to others.