Fedora or Mint for noob?

A friend might let me install Linux on his secondary laptop he uses for university. He’s not a tinkerer and wants something that just works.

Linux Mint is known for being very user-friendly and stable. Also easy to get help online.

However, in my opinion Mint seems rather outdated, both with its Windows-like workflow, default icons and look and also Xorg. When I tried it I had some screen stuttering I couldn’t resolve, probably due to Xorg.

Instead, Fedora with GNOME is very elegant and always uses the newest technologies. It feels and looks actually nice and not outdated. But I’d have to install media codecs via terminal first which suggests that Fedora is for experienced users. Also university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora for me because legacy TLS connection is not supported in Fedora (at least I couldn’t get it to work). I’m at a different uni than him tho, so it might work there. In general, less help on the web for Fedora than Mint.

What do you think? (Btw, KDE is too convoluted in my opinion. Manjaro too, it breaks too often. I will not consider it.)

EDIT: From what I’ve gathered so far, I should probably install Mint. He can try Fedora with a live usb or on my laptop. If he prefers that then I can warn him that this may be less stable and ask what he wants.

I’ve only tried Ubuntu-based Mint, but LMDE is more future-proof so it will probably be that.

GnomeComedy,

Have them check with their University if they do any Linux support. If they do - use one of the distros they support so they might possibly have KB articles about accessing University recourses from Linux.

Source: am Linux admin at a University that writes such documentation. I have seen exactly the Eduroam issue you mention and came up with an Ubuntu workaround for example.

Uvine_Umbra,
@Uvine_Umbra@partizle.com avatar

Fedora is not for beginners.

Mint is.

I could go into more detail, but I’ll leave it there.

Pantherina,

Mint has very nice tooling but its a weird Ubuntu derivate. One day a specific software doesnt install, or you have an XOrg problem that will never be fixed, or standard updates simply break something, and then…

Mint is nice and easy to get going, but its outdated a lot, and uses a Distro model that I dont like to install on random laptops that are never updated.

Uvine_Umbra,
@Uvine_Umbra@partizle.com avatar

So you’re a power user? Case in point, you’d be better for Fedora.

Also my second distro was mint, after 3+ years of the old hdd’s non-use, I pulled it out last year when my install of some OS broke, updated it to zero issues (I was curious), used the software for a bit, all was good.

3 years without an update to zero issues.

Haven’t seen any issue with Mint updates yet like I’ve fought in Fedora

Pher,

Power users do not care about the distro, linux is linux, they will compile everything how they like it.

Censedpeak,
@Censedpeak@lemmy.ml avatar

Do mint, if you really wanna do fedora try Nobara

airikr, (edited )

Begin small, end big. That works for everything when learning something new. So, with that said, go for Linux Mint Cinnamon.

I begun my Linux journey with elementary OS which is more for macOS users. I was a Windows user so I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon. After a few years of exploring and learning, I am now using EndeavourOS.

Feyter,

In general I would recommend any Debian derivate for beginners that just don’t care about how their computer is operating. So if this is really just a question regarding eight Fedora or Linux Mint then I would say Linux Mint because it’s a Debian derivative.

That’s simply because chances are high stat you will at least find a Deb package for any proprietary software you might want to use. Making it “easier” for the user.

If you install the system for your friend you’re free to change the Desctop environment to everything you want.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

That’s simply because chances are high stat you will at least find a Deb package for any proprietary software you might want to use. Making it “easier” for the user.

Fedora ships unfiltered Flathub outof the box since quite some time. If easy access to proprietary software is a deciding factor, Fedora is among the easiest options.

entropicdrift,
@entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Okay, but Mint has Flathub and the deb ecosystem.

It’s just straight-up better supported

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

Mint has Flathub and the deb ecosystem.

Random debs don’t magically work on all Debian derivatives. Simply getting debs from somewhere is just asking for problems.

entropicdrift,
@entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Anything that runs on Debian Bookworm works on LMDE 6, anything that works on the latest Ubuntu LTS works on the latest regular Mint

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

anything that works on the latest Ubuntu LTS works on the latest regular Mint

Addon repositories can cause incompatibilities. Random individually downloaded deb package here, some random PPA there, spice it up with the Mint add-on repo to Ubuntu, and you can end up with a broken system (let’s say I learned the hard way a good amount of years ago only to combine a few handpicked repos).

Feyter,

Ok so I guess it really just comes down to personal preferences at this point.

Pantherina,

deleted_by_author

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    possiblylinux127,

    Not a good recommendation

    ParanoidFactoid,
    @ParanoidFactoid@beehaw.org avatar

    Go with an LTS version. Fedora is upgrades twice a year. Mint is just Ubuntu. I’d choose 22 04 Mint over Fedora for this reason. But Debian Stable is old yet tried and true. Plain Debian works.

    KrapKake,

    ZorinOS? I saw no talk of it here and I haven’t personally used it in a couple of years. It uses gnome and can be set to mimic the look of windows, mac, or just stock gnome. It looks super clean, modern and pro. It’s easy to use and based on ubuntu. It was a just works distro for me.

    zorin.com/os/

    mintycactus,
    @mintycactus@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    Shrexios,
    @Shrexios@mastodon.social avatar

    @mintycactus @jack silverblue is not more user friendly than mint, not by any metric. A system with an immutable file system simply cannot be so. The immutability of the system often adds levels of complexity that an average person would have trouble understanding

    mintycactus,
    @mintycactus@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    Shrexios,
    @Shrexios@mastodon.social avatar

    @mintycactus to you and me that’s true, but to a person just starting with Linux, it could be complex. I think systems like Silverblue, Vanilla OS, and NixOS are great, but I would not suggest them to a new user of Linux.

    mintycactus,
    @mintycactus@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    Shrexios,
    @Shrexios@mastodon.social avatar

    @mintycactus NixOS can install to your hard drive. I have it on my laptop and it runs beautifully. I have issues with Gnome and their insistence on removing things like remembering window size and positions, and recently making it so hard to theme, but I am sure these will iron out with time.

    My plasma desktop, however, is my favorite. Once I got it where I wanted it, it just worked so well and looked so good that I recommend it to everyone (BigLinux with KDE)

    MonkCanatella,

    I love Fedora. I like it a lot more than Linux mint. More than either, I’ve really enjoyed PopOS. It went from a distro I wasn’t sure about to my favorite really quickly. Highly recommend it.

    snowcatridge10,

    Mint

    joel_feila,
    @joel_feila@lemmy.world avatar

    Keep in mind “it just works” also includes the windows like workflow.

    DerisionConsulting,

    From your post:

    laptop he uses for university. He’s not a tinkerer and wants something that just works.

    Mint:

    Linux Mint is known for being very user-friendly and stable. Also easy to get help online.

    Fedora:

    have to install media codecs via terminal

    university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora

    less help on the web for Fedora than Mint.

    Unless you’re sure that screen stuttering is going to be a major annoyance, you know what I am going to suggest.

    Skelectus,
    @Skelectus@suppo.fi avatar

    university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora

    As a fedora eduroam user I’m pretty sure it does.

    DerisionConsulting,

    I was just quoting OP. I am making no claims of my own.

    Skelectus,
    @Skelectus@suppo.fi avatar

    Yeah, I missed that. Sorry, guess I should pay more attention.

    jack,

    Fair enough.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    However, in my opinion Mint seems rather outdated

    That’s because Cinnamon is actually a fork of an ancient Gnome release that has since gotten much fewer enhancements compared to Gnome (and Plasma).

    I’d have to install media codecs via terminal first which suggests that Fedora is for experienced users.

    That is factually wrong: fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/38/ChangeSet#Unfi…

    Also university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora for me because legacy TLS connection is not supported in Fedora (at least I couldn’t get it to work).

    When the WiFi relies on insecure encryption, the problem will only be delayed on Mint because Mint’s underlying Ubuntu core is just older. Once a newer security policy comes to Mint, it will have exactly the same problem. The actual solution is for you university to update the WiFi encryption. In the meantime, according to fedoraproject.org/wiki/…/StrongCryptoSettings2#Up… the security defaults of Fedora can be rolled back to an earlier level quite easily.

    jack, (edited )

    That is factually wrong: fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/38/ChangeSet#Unfi…

    Okay, after removing all the preinstalled media players plus firefox and reinstalling them through Flathub it might be possible to skip the official tutorial.

    Fedora should just preinstall everything as flathub flatpaks.

    the problem will only be delayed on Mint because Mint’s underlying Ubuntu core is just older. Once a newer security policy comes to Mint, it will have exactly the same problem.

    That is a valid point. Although I can imagine that Mint devs would rather leave legacy TLS enabled to be more user-friendly.

    In the meantime, according to fedoraproject.org/wiki/…/StrongCryptoSettings2#Up… the security defaults of Fedora can be rolled back to an earlier level quite easily.

    Thanks for the link, I will try this.

    korbel,

    If you are the one installing the distro, it probably doesn’t matter that you have to copy-paste some commands to install proprietary codes because it’s a one time thing. In my experience, the bigger problem usually is not the first time setup but the maintenance. In case of Fedora they would have to upgrade it every 6 months. That’s why I usually suggest LTS or something rolling but stabe distro like OpenSUSE Thumbleweed.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    In case of Fedora they would have to upgrade it every 6 months.

    The upgrading experience for Fedora Workstation is super smooth, on par with macOS, Android, and so on. Gnome Software just tells the user that a new version is available, the user clicks on the upgrade button and then it’s just waiting a bit and a reboot.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    Okay, after removing all the preinstalled media players and reinstalling them through Flathub

    Technically it’s not required to uninstall the default applications but obviously you’d still wanna do that to avoid clutter.

    Fedora should just preinstall everything as a flathub flatpak.

    Even though not Fedora-based but that’s pretty much what I have on SteamOS: Firefox, VLC, etc. all from Flathub. Because of the 32bit dependencies, Flathub is my preferred way to install Steam on regular Linux distributions anyway (for obvious reasons not on SteamOS).

    ares35,
    @ares35@kbin.social avatar

    That’s because Cinnamon is actually a fork of an ancient Gnome release

    mate is what originally spawned from gnome 2. while cinnamon was built from gnome 3, it has been completely separated from it for a decade.

    both are under active development, run current applications, and offer what would be described as a more 'traditional' desktop environment (compared to gnome shell or ubuntu's unity). they're both lighter-weight then gnome, with mate being a bit leaner than cinnamon.

    mint would be my suggestion for op, and any of the default mint desktops, including their other option--xfce, would be suitable for op's use case.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    while cinnamon was built from gnome 3, it has been completely separated from it for a decade.

    both are under active development

    I followed Cinnamon’s git closely for years. The commit “Renamed files to Cinnamon” was the last commit to the majority of files over years, despite the fact that Cinnamon had several formal releases in that time. It took literal years for its development to actually get off the ground and not just get some light touches in JavaScript files. The slow start reverberates until this day as you can see with its slow Wayland adoption and OP’s “Mint seems rather outdated” comment. IMO Cinnamon isn’t even the best choice for people who want a Windows7-like workflow. Gnome with Dash to Panel achieves the same with less technological legacy.

    dadaredone,

    No questions it’s mint, it runs and looks very good.

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