Oh, one more thing I deem relevant. I have seen many people break this rule: don't recommend software you never used. Go for stable apps that have been long established on whatever their use-case is. The bleeding edge (and hype) can be lethal to newcomers!
Discussion between fellow "expert" hackers about why the latest new distro bundling x, y, and z apps is so cool is one thing and should be differentiated from promoting the adoption of, say, Debian or MX Linux.