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However, in my opinion Mint seems rather outdated, both with its Windows-like workflow, default icons and look and also Xorg.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 It feels and looks actually nice and not outdated.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

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.

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

Censedpeak,
@Censedpeak@lemmy.ml avatar

Do mint, if you really wanna do fedora try Nobara

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).

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.

mintycactus,
@mintycactus@lemmy.world avatar

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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)

    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.

    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.

    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/

    PseudoSpock,
    @PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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

    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.

    Pantherina,

    deleted_by_author

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    possiblylinux127,

    Not a good recommendation

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