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.