Sell me on Loonix, Holla Forums

GNU coreutils didn't invent a Unix or Unix-like command line. They're great utilities, but they didn't invent their interface, and they are not the only POSIX userspace that exists for Linux.

It seems to me like you need to learn a bit.

Please show me where in the POSIX standard the -h option of ls is specified, or cp's and mv's -u and -v, for a start. Unix ⊂ GNU.

Look user, most distros are the same shit with a different default desktop and a different package manager. Most of them have minimal installs and a lot of them even rolling and non rolling releases (Like Debian). The amount of options you have will be the same no matter what you choose, because almost everything is interchangeable by packages.
More power or variety may come to you if you use distros that are actually different from the rest: Slackware, Gentoo, Alpine, NixOS, LFS and Gobo are some of them. But you will only make good use or enjoy them if you actually know about your system, so do not install them yet.
I personally use Debian (Sid specifically, which is the full rolling release, meaning we get updates as they go), but Ubuntu works just fine.

You've got me there. I didn't realize that you were responding to the PDF. Brain lapse on my part.

Linux has no coreutils so it is not good to refer to a "Linux command line" that doesn't exist. If you're using Linux as part of a Unix system, then chances are, you're running the GNU OS together with Linux.

oh god no

Do you want your tool to work against you and for megacorps that made it, or do you want your tool to bend to your will? That's the choice between Windows/macOS on the one hand and GNU/Linux on the other.

Debian is a great universal distro but for that reason it could potentially require some configuring here and there, although if you install a desktop environment through their installer it shouldn't be much work. However the installer itself requires some minimal practical knowledge of GNU/Linux.
I'd recommend Linux Mint for beginners and lazy users alike. It will immediately make sense and be very nice to use because they try to polish traditional use patterns instead of inventing new paradigms.

Look pal, most board recommendations don't hover around "hard to get into" content like we're hipster scum that love recommending whatever is the most arcane bullshit to people. We recommend based on what is good and gets the job done. If someone is new we don't recommend that they install Slackware either unless they are nostalgic for DOS or eager to start tinkering with command line.

How is devuan doing these days? Apparently it just had its 1.0 release last month.

Anything without systemd. Crunchbang 11 is easy but doesn't hold your bitch hand after you install it.