Evaluating for ease of use for non-techies:
Mint 16:
easy install. Everything worked.
on first update asked whether or not to update a config file that I couldn't know about and should have been a default
firefox defaults to Yahoo search. Setting up Google was not as straightforward as it could have been.
apparently no choice of screensavers?
defaults to automatic updates only for security issues. To change this involves editing a file.
the “start” menu has an overwhelming # of files listed, not organized in any particular way (except alphabetically)
settings and where to find them doesn't seem especially clear.