I have tried Linux as a DD on and off for years but about a year ago I decided to commit to it no matter the cost. First with Mint, then Ubuntu and a few others sprinkled in briefly. Both are “mainstream” “beginner friendly” distros, right? I don’t want anything too advanced, right?
Well, ubuntu recently updated and it broke my second monitor (Ubuntu detected it but the monitor had “no signal”). After trying to fix it for a week, I decided to wipe it and reinstall. No luck. I tried a few other distros that had the same issue and I started to wonder if it was a hardware issue but I tried a Windows PC and the monitor worked no problem.
Finally, just to see what would happen I tried a distro very very different than what I’m used to: Fedora (Kinode). And not only did everything “just work” flawlessly, but it’s so much faster and more polished than I ever knew Linux to be!
Credit where it’s due, a lot of the polish is due to KDE plasma. I’d never strayed from Gnome because I’m not an expert and people recommend GNOME to Linux newbies because it’s “simple” and “customizable” but WOW is KDE SO MUCH SIMPLER AND STILL CUSTOMIZEABLE. Gnome is only “simple” in that it doesn’t allow you to do much via the GUI. With Fedora Kinode I think I needed to use the terminal maybe once during setup? With other distros I was constantly needed to use the terminal (yes its helped me learn Linux but that curve is STEEP).
The atomic updates are fantastic too. I have not crashed once in the two weeks of setup whereas before I would have a crash maybe 1-2 times per week.
I am FULLY prepared for the responses demanding to know what I did to make it crash and telling me how I was using it wrong blah blah blah but let me tell you, if you are experienced with Windows but want to learn Linux and getting frustrated by all the “beginner” distros that get recommended, do yourself a favor and try Fedora Kinode!
edit: i am DYING at the number of “you’re using it wrong” comments here. never change people.
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Unfortunately boring distributions don’t get recommended because users of boring distributions don’t bother commenting on distribution discussions.
And it’s really unfortunate that obscure distributions have more vocal fans, because boring distributions are much better for beginners.
Ironically this is how I feel about Arch, for me it’s worked flawlessly for years.
I don’t bother getting in ‘discussions’ about using it, because if other people have problems I’m not going to convince them that I don’t.
It’s mostly the installation and initial setup that’s a pain on arch, so definitely not a beginner distro, but very good nonetheless
Yeah totally, I think to use Arch successfully you need an opinion about what your system needs, and that takes experience with using Linux.
Installation is pretty trivial these days with the install script
Because SE Linux drove me bonkers once and I am petty.
There are couple of concerns and how Fedora Workstation is designed for… well, development workstation. There is SELinux, that sometimes gets in a way, now they ditched codecs with loyalties by default, some default configs are a bit controversial and maybe not perfectly suited for home computer and non-tech savvy users, 3rd party packages are sometimes lacking and when you want to go beyond what’s in stock repo and rpmfusion, you can even break the system by installing random COPR packages (I mean AUR is not a whole lot better, but is more complete and less needed given how much there is to stock repos, PPAs are just as bad) or end up compiling stuff manually. But I still think that Fedora can be pretty nice for many people out of the box.
People generally recommend Debian-based distributions because they tend to be more popular, have more applications designed first and foremost to work on them, and tend to have the most community support because they are more popular.
This has been my experience. I used Fedora for a while years ago, but rpm was already second fiddle to deb. Plus, I was already selling into my “old man distro” so I kept ending up with some Ubuntu version.
I did recently Manjaro and Linux Mint, but ended up with Ubuntu again, although this time Kubuntu, Ubuntu with KDE!
No shade from me though for going with Red Hat.
I love Fedora. But, part of my day job is also managing linux servers. I tend to recommend things that I think are the easiest to get running. Although Fedora is super easy to get running (at least to me), I find the installation process of mint or pop os to be much easier overall. Between those two OSes, I have moved several people from windows to fulltime linux and I’m not entirely sure that the conversion would have been as successful with fedora and without more help from me during the install process.
Fedora isn’t a beginner distribution
Fedora has been my default choice for non-techies in my family the last couple of years and it has been glorious!
All they need is a browser with uBlock, maybe an email reader and LibreOffice. With Silverblue, eveything updates automatically, and upgrades between major versions is a one-click operation. Easy rollback gives me peace of mind.
All they need to know is where the Super key is located on the keyboard. When pressed, it shows the dock with all apps they use and all open windows. Double-tap the Super key and you see all apps, but that is usually not necessary.
I also use the built in remote desktop feature (RDP) in conjunction with a Wireguard connection to my home network. So nice and a joy to never have to fight teamviewer again 😝
I dunno if I’d say any distro of Linux is really beginner friendly.
It takes quite a bit of learning the ins and outs of operating systems before Linux makes sense in any capacity.
If you’re just looking to run a few basic apps like discord/slack/teams/zoom, and run a browser, then sure, just about every distro can do that without trouble, and can be configured to be as “friendly” as Windows, with a few exceptions.
But anybody who wants to do intermediate/advanced stuff with little to no prior Linux knowledge? I’m not sure any distro is much easier than others. Again, with a few exceptions.
The exceptions are distros that are almost intentionally difficult to use, or that require a high level of competency with Linux before you can attempt to use it.
There’s always a learning curve, that learning curve is pretty much always pretty steep.
I’ve been using Linux for dedicated servers for a while and I don’t use Linux as a desktop environment, in no small part because despite having a fairly high level of competency with Linux, I don’t feel like I know enough to make Linux work for me instead of the other way around.
I have always wondered what advance is when ppl say Linux is difficult when you have to do something advance. Isn’t that the same for all oses? A os no matter what os (mac, android, Windows, iOS, linux) is difficult to use the first time. It doesn’t matter witch os it is everyone will have a hard time the first time until they learn how it works. Mac for example, it was extremely hard for me to find how to get to my root folder without using the terminal and when I told a friend about it who use mac didn’t they know either… I found out by accidently by miss clicking. Android depending on brand (what you had before) can also be annoying to use the first week or weeks until you have relearned.
Linux is the same, it isn’t more advance than windows or Mac the first time, it is all about learning how it works (most ppl build their Ikea furniture first and then read the manual) and windows and Linux in that regard is at least kinda similar because they don’t hide stuff as mac os does (you still ned a lot of knowledge to use windows too) and they are kinda alike, Mac is completely backwards in my opinion. I think everyone forgets how it was the first year they used a computer for the first time. Ppl laugh when studies shows that the younger generation do not know or do not understand the folder structure. It is all about experience and knowledge, if you know something exist then it is easier to find it.
The biggest problem i had using Linux for the first time was finding good alternatives for programs. And learning these new programs. You don’t have to use a terminal with most distros now days but it is a very nice and fast interface to use. It is also easier for everyone to learn and use because it is less dependent on what kind of environment you are in.
But I think we both are kinda agreeing with each other I just want to point out that all os are difficult the first time and you don’t have to make it harder than it is, linux is beginner friendly just like any other os.
What makes a beginner distribution and why isn’t fedora one?
When the time came to pick which boring old man distro to use, the people who picked and would recommend fedora all got jobs supporting rhel. They don’t have time or energy to devote to computer touching when they get home from their serious business jobs making sure the computer keeps increasing shareholder value.
Fedora is very good.
I’m generally more of a Debian user, when I use Linux at least, so anything red hat based doesn’t even occur to me to recommend. I generally don’t get involved in distro discussions though.
My main interaction with Linux is Ubuntu server, and that’s where my knowledge generally is. I can’t really fix issues in redhat, so if someone is using it, I’m mostly lost on how to fix it.
There’s enough difference in how redhat works compared to Debian distributions that I would need to do a lot of work to understand what’s happening and fix any problems.
I have never touched Linux/GNU and I installed Linux after the Microsoft recall and when with standard workstation (GNOME) as a dual boot. After the first two weeks reinstalled fedora over top of windows and haven’t looked back.
That was 2 months ago and and having no issues even gaming on my machine works great.
Just finished moving all 3 of my computers to Fedora and WOW it is so good compared to ubuntu. I was missing out. Everything is working on both AMD and Nvidia, even wayland.
- requires a fair bit of post-installation configuration (suboptimal OOTB experience for newbies)
- Uses btrfs by default but comes with no snapshots or GUI manager pre-configured for system restore
- Less software availability compared to Ubuntu or Mint
- More likely to break than Ubuntu or Mint
requires a fair bit of post-installation configuration (suboptimal OOTB experience for newbies)
I’m not the biggest fan of Gnome’s defaults but the regular, non-techie users want a browser (maybe Chrome instead of Firefox, depending on preference) and possibly Steam for gaming. Both are on Flathub, available from Gnome Software.
Less software availability compared to Ubuntu or Mint
The software that isn’t available, isn’t of interest to newbie/non-techie users.
More likely to break than Ubuntu or Mint
If anything causes breakage, it’s those web tutorials telling inexperienced users to add a bunch of PPAs to do shit. “So you use Ubuntu but video playback is a big laggy on your super new, hardly upstream-supported Radeon graphics card? Easy, add this PPA with untested git snapshots of Mesa and Kernel.” Yeah, no.
requires a fair bit of post-installation configuration
This is crazy to me because of all the distros I’ve tested over the years Fedora Kinote is by FAR the one I’ve had to do the least amount of tweaking with. It’s almost boring how “just works” it is. It’s honestly changed my perspective of what a distro can be.
Wait until you try out bazzite for gaming or just the regular kinoite ublue images. Both are basically kinoite with more tweaks and added software on top.
Uses btrfs by default but comes with no snapshots or GUI manager pre-configured for system restore
False on Fedora Atomic.
Less software availability compared to Ubuntu or Mint
Distrobox and Nix exists.
More likely to break than Ubuntu or Mint
Mint, perhaps. For Ubuntu, this was only true in the past. And only if PPAs were used sparingly. But Snaps have been a disaster for them in this case. So much so, that even Valve told Ubuntu users to use the Flatpak for Steam instead of the Snap.
even Valve told Ubuntu users to use the Flatpak for Steam instead of the Snap
Hahaha really? That’s awesome. I wonder if Canonical will ever take the hint that nobody wants Snap when better, more open alternatives exist
Yup. Here’s the post as found on Mastodon by the developer that works on Steam on Linux on behalf of Valve.
More likely to break than Ubuntu or Mint
how so?
More frequent kernel updates.
fair enough, but its generally ok as long as maintainers wait for a few point releases beforehand.
A crash 1-2 times a week sounds very strange no matter what Linux distro you’re using. I would suggest testing your RAM right away, it could be a hardware problem.
Yeah that’s not a distro’s fault that’s something wrong. I run several machines with a variety of distros and nothing crashes ever, unless I’m testing partially working software.
It’s not a RAM problem lmao it rarely crashed on Windows and it’s not crashed with Fedora either.
If you did a full memtest and it came out good then OK.
I’m just saying don’t discount hardware issues. Bad RAM blocks are notoriously hard to diagnose by use alone because there’s not just one symptom you can point at, and they can manifest themselves wildly differently on different apps and different OS depending how large the blocks are and how they are spread.
Luckily there’s a very simple and straightforward test you can make to put it out of your mind.
Crashes aren’t normal even in Windows. Rare crashes mean a hardware problem 99.7% of the time. Typically RAM as others have pointed out. The only way to figure that out is 4 passes of Memtest86+ without red. Yes 4 because the the first pass is a short one made to spot obviously bad RAM quickly. Less bad RAM might need more. I’ve had a case of 4 sticks that each pass on its own. Every two passed on their own. All 4 failed on the third or fourth pass. And if you think I tested for shits and giggles, I did not. I was see checksum errors on my ZFS pool every other day. No crashes. Nevertheless, if it wasn’t for ZFS I’d have corrupted files all over my archive.
That doesn’t mean anything. I once had an issue where every few hours, a random application would crash on Arch Linux, but not on e.g. Debian or Windows. But this wasn’t an Arch issue per se, but was instead related to an UEFI overclock setting (which defaulted to on). After turning it off, everything worked fine.
So while it seemed like an Arch issue, it was actually hardware/overclock related, it’s just that the other OS wouldn’t run into the trigger for the crash.
Curiously that’s not as accurate as you might think. Different systems use memory differently, even just between different Ubuntu flavors or customizations. 1-2 crashes a week is not normal, unless it was consistently happening when you did something specific. Also, what exactly do you mean by crashing? Did you get a black screen with some error or the computer would just freeze or reboot?
That being said I don’t think this is likely to be a hardware issue. One thing that comes to mind is maybe swap, did you had swap on Ubuntu and do you have swap on Fedora now? If Linux runs out of memory it freezes, having swap prevents it from doing so, so if you have low enough memory it’s possible that it would get filled up and freeze your system without swap (Windows has the equivalent by default)
Yeah that’s not a distro’s fault that’s something wrong. I run several machines with a variety of distros and nothing crashes ever, unless I’m testing partially working software.
Long-time Fedora user here. I do not think Fedora is noob friendly at all.
- Their installer is awful
- Their spins are really well hidden for people who don’t know they exist
- The Nvidia drivers can’t be installed via the GUI
- There’s no “third party drivers” tool at all
- The regular Flathub repo is not the default and their own repo is absolutely useless
- AMD/Intel GPUs lack hardware acceleration for H264 and H265 out of the box, adding them requires the console
- Their packages are consistently named differently than their Ubuntu/Debian counterpart
I really like Fedora for their newish packages without breaking constantly. I still would not recommend it for beginners.
Half of your complains are fixed in newer releases. For instance it asks you if you want to enable third party repos. If you hit yes it enables the repo for chrome, Nvidia and others plus it setups stock flathub.
That only applies to the GNOME variant, the KDE spin is missing the third party repo toggle.
At least the Flathub repo is fixed on the GNOME variant now. The Nvidia repo is added but the driver is not installed, meaning you still need to use the CLI to install the drivers.
What do you mean the installer is awful? I have found it quite straightforward. Select the disc, your keyboard setup, timezone and then it install itself…
It caters to a middle ground that barely exists, meaning it doesn’t have enough options for a power user and too many for a newcomer.
For example, a newcomer doesn’t know what a root account is and doesn’t have to care, yet they have to choose if they want to enable or disable the account. They can also remove their administrator privileges without knowing what it means for them. I get asked what a root account is every time somebody around me tries to install Fedora.
I recommend spinning up a Ubuntu 24.04 VM and taking a look at their installer.
They have a clear structure on how to install Ubuntu step by step while Fedora presents you everything at once. They properly hide the advanced stuff and only show it when asked for it. They have clear toggles for third party software right at the installer and explain what they do. Fedora doesn’t even give you the option to install H264 codecs or Nvidia drivers.
It also looks a lot cleaner and doesn’t overload people with too much info on a single screen. And yet it can still do stuff like automated installing and has active directory integration out of the box, where the Fedora installer miserably fails for a “Workstation” distro.
The Fedora installer works, but it doesn’t do much more than that and the others do it better in many areas.
Don’t even get me started on disk partitioning. I feel like they somehow have the most obtuse partitioning setup out of every distro I’ve ever installed. It feels like if you don’t just hand over your whole disk (which, if you do that, I feel like it doesn’t make it clear how it’s going to partition it), the installer gets very spiteful and just goes “fine then, figure it out”. I’ve never had so much trouble manually partitioning a disk before, I would literally rather just use fdisk lol.
If you’re installing an OS you should absolutely understand what the root account is. That’s like buying a car without understanding the concept of keys.
No, it’s like buying a car without understanding how the engine works, which a lot of people do.
That’s absurd. You don’t need to understand the inner workings of the kernel to know what a root account is. If you’re regularly encouraging people to install a new OS when you aren’t even confident in their ability to understand what a root account is, you’re not doing them any favors.
• The majority of useful packages are hidden in RPM Fusion
Their packages are consistently named differently than their Ubuntu/Debian counterpart
I agree with all your points, but this one has way more to do with Debian being a bunch of weirdos about how packages are packaged. Its really more of a Debian demerit than anything since sometimes their packaging practices can be somewhat hostile to projects not directly associated with Debian, especially since the Debian community can have a certain “Our way is the only right way” attitude. That said, the Debian packaging standards can make it easier as a developer to experiment with creating a software package to interact with an existing package. Like there’s a reason to do it that I can support and I wish Debian packagers would more often say “we package things like this so people can experiment” instead of “Everyone else does packaging wrong and our way is the only way”
Completely agree. I mean, I’m what you’d call a power user, and I still opt for using a flatpak for my browser (Floorp) because codecs are a pain.
I do, Fedora is simply the best and meets the most use cases. It combines good privacy and security out of the box with a clean UI (at least with Workstation and KDE spin) while having a package manager that’s easy to learn and easy access to Flathub and up-to-date apps (can’t stress this enough, even windows and Mac keep apps up to date and don’t hold them back for the sake of LTS (sorry Workstation Debian fans). It also brings in newer and better technologies without breaking almost anything (at least for me).
This is just my opinion though, I know people like to reccomend Mint but I personally do not like it, and despise it’s desktop options (I am one of the people that do not and never have liked Cinnamon).
I decided the nuclear option using mint with kde plasma 5
Well I did switch to opensuse tumbleweed, liked kde plasma a lot so while setting up weekly backups, I ended up… uh… “overwriting” it and my last external backup was a month old mint backup, so to not set things up again I just install kde on mint and said F it.
I generally do mention that I like my Fedora KDE, but I’m a little worried about SELinux. I have had two or three run-ins with it, and I think that would be hard to diagnose for a noob.
