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However, in my opinion Mint seems rather outdated, both with its Windows-like workflow, default icons and look and also Xorg.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 It feels and looks actually nice and not outdated.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.

Moobythegoldensock,

I’d say Mint.

Mint is planning to add experimental support for Wayland this winter, so he’s probably only 1-2 years away from full Wayland support in the DE.

entropicdrift,
@entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

They said they’re targeting 2026 in the post where they announced Wayland.

scytale,

Mint is like 99% plug and play on most laptops, so I’d recommend they go that route.

slowbyrne,
@slowbyrne@beehaw.org avatar

As a few have already mentioned, a Debian based distro is a good choice, and you Mentioned vanilla Ubuntu isn’t ideal do to prioritizing snaps, I would then suggest Pop!_OS or Mint. I like what System76 (Pop) is doing with their scheduler and the upcoming Cosmic DE (written in Rust and should see an alpha early next year).

PseudoSpock,
@PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

6 in one, half a dozen the other. Both are good.

Skelectus,
@Skelectus@suppo.fi avatar

As a fedoraman myself, I think Pop!_OS is a great option.

But are you doing this because your friend wants linux or because you want it? It’s okay to recommend it but don’t push it if they don’t need it.

OscarRobin,

I love Fedora but definitely Mint for a normie. Even then I question if you should install Linux at all since reliably being able to do what you need to do is priority one, especially for a student, and if he may be blocked in his work as a result I don’t think it’s a great idea.

Strit,
@Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show avatar

Maybe stock Ubuntu?

It’s pretty new. Has wayland and pipewire. You can just enable a checkmark in the installer to install codecs. Uses Gnome, so a non-Windows like workflow. Pretty sure Eduroam would work there, as many schools use Ubuntu by default.

jack,

I haven’t tried Ubuntu yet myself, but generally I’m turned off by some decisions Canonical makes, especially the whole Snap thing adding complexity, slow app startup and proprietary store. Not very trustworthy.

But you are right, Ubuntu is the most popular and things like eduroam will likely work.

Patch,

If your want something that just works, Ubuntu is pretty hard to beat. Snaps are really not a big deal anymore, performance wise; a lot of the bad rap on slow startups etc. are from years (and many versions) ago.

If you don’t want Ubuntu and you don’t like Mint, there are also other options in the Ubuntu/Debian family. Pop_OS and Zorin are both popular.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

generally I’m turned off by some decisions Canonical makes

Those decision will trickle down to Ubuntu remixes like Mint eventually. Canonical’s plan is to replace as much as technically possible with Snaps. They just barely delayed shipping CUPS itself as Snap but it will come, so even a basic task like printing will rely on Snap. I don’t see Mint having manpower to package everything on their own, even if it’s “just” about porting Debian packages. Might just as well use LMDE right now.

jack,

LMDE is the future of Mint, hopefully with a Flatpak-first approach.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

that's the whole reasoning behind having LMDE. seems a little redundant today; but within a release or two mint may very well be only based on debian itself, with the way canonical is steering ubuntu.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

within a release or two mint may very well be only based on debian itself, with the way canonical is steering ubuntu.

I expect Canonical going hard in the Snap direction leading up to 26.04. They are desperate given the fact that Flathub got a huge popularity boost thanks to SteamOS. I don’t think Ubuntu remixes will come out unscathed.

HamBrick,

I can’t really give a super useful opinion given that I haven’t really touched fedora, but I’ve been using mint for school for almost a year, highly recommend

Taleya,

Mint.

You’re working to his requirements, not yours.

beta_tester,

Even if Mint (Cinnamon) doesn’t look as good as GNOME, you can always install another desktop environment.

I’d recommend fedora silverblue. You’ll install all graphical packages via a Software store and you won’t brick your system. Even if, you may just recover an old state. I installed media codecs via the software store, not command line.

Fedora is very beginner friendly too

vsis,
@vsis@feddit.cl avatar

I recommend Mint.

Chances are your friend’s secondary laptop doesn’t have extra resources for Gnome to run smoothly. Sad thing is nowadays Gnome is very heavy and bloated.

Also, he may try both distros live-usb. Maybe he don’t care about Mint looking outdated. But if he does, you may try Fedora live-usb and check if university wifi works properly.

It’s his laptop after all, so I believe your appreciations on the beauty of desktop environments are secondary.

jack,

Good ideas, I will consider that.

It’s his laptop after all, so I believe your appreciations on the beauty of desktop environments are secondary.

You are right. I was thinking that the Fedora workflow might give him some Linux-exclusive benefits over Windows so he might consider switching his main laptop too. Mint is rather a drop-in replacement for Windows so the advantages of Linux are not very visible/important for a newcomer. At least compared to a DE like GNOME.

Gemini24601,
@Gemini24601@lemmy.world avatar

Mint doesn’t have to look outdated if you put a little work into it. Check out this fellow’s rice in unixporn: reddit.com/…/cinnamon_available_as_installable_is…

EuroNutellaMan, (edited )
@EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.world avatar

I installed Mint on someone’s old laptop at my Uni’s lab (it’s mostly for the field of environment and agriculture so nobody is an IT expert here), he didn’t have any complaints and is actually falling down the Linux rabbit-hole, while others are considering switching to Linux too after seeing how it resurrected 2 old basically-defunct laptops.

I’d go with that, it is a trusty and reliable distro for newbies. I even know some greybeards that use it.

Then again as others pointed out he can try both from live USB. The important part is that you explain a distro can have everything another distro has with the right know-how and some patience, as well as how things work on Linux (for example: imstall programs using the package manager whenever possible). But again he isn’t a tinkerer so stock Mint will work just fine with him.

jack,

Thanks for your input.

pastermil,

You would get less hassle with Mint. One thing that came to mind is the codec.

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