[TheSaint67]

l just upgraded Ubuntu to 18.04 (from 16.04) and I am not a happy camper.  My sound was all screwed up (no longer 5.1 only responding to Left and Right channels) and when trying to fix it (PulseAudio) I seemed to have totally screwed up my sound so that not only does 5.1 not work but not even stereo.   No sound.  not a peep.  I cant get it to work anymore.  Since I dont like 18.04 I really just want to do something which works.  I am a beginner at linux, basically I can issue commands if I need to, but that's about it. 
 
I have a NUC from 2015 / 64 bit with 8gb ram (I believe my setup is in the signature).  Anyway, is there an easy no bones about it setup ?  Metal Chris's HTPC Lubuntu setup seems to look good. other suggestions?

use:  I basically just watch up to 1080p video on it.  I have an HDMI cable leaving my NUC to the TV and exiting the TV with HDMI to my stereo. 

LibreElec seemed like one needs to be more than a beginner to tackle that.  ... or is it idiotproof?

[Klojum]

l just upgraded Ubuntu to 18.04 (from 16.04) and I am not a happy camper

Still using Ubuntu 16.04 here, not a fan of 18.04 either. Kodi works fine with a Nvidia GT1030 card and proprietary drivers. Biggest drawback: Nvidia doesn't do any 10bit under Linux, I'll have to use Windows for that. But Ubuntu is my daily driver.

LibreElec seemed like one needs to be more than a beginner to tackle that.  ... or is it idiotproof?

It's a simple installation without any Linux commands. Intel boxes are mostly idiot proof (but you can have the proverbial exception). You can test-drive LibreELEC on a bootable USB stick if you want.

[Artstar]

I run the latest Linux Mint (Sylvia, at the moment) on all my NUCs of choice. If it's something off eBay, as in one of those ARM-based CPUs, then I go with Librelec.

I should note, whatever you decide to use, be sure to backup your system to an image at least every six months. It may seem nutty but considering my mum's NUC managed to recently turn to shit and Kodi would never start, even after uninstalling/reinstalling it, I can only imagine something went wrong with Mint OS itself. A quick restore with Clonezilla had it up and running in about 10 minutes.

[tjay260476]

For Kodi... libreelec...

Now for everything else, I use MacOS, Windows and Ubuntu.

I prefer using the unix based OS’s, but there are some software that is only available in one OS, so being OS agnostic in my view is the next best thing than to going 100% FOSS. Also, keeps things ‘interesting’.