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However, in my opinion Mint seems rather outdated, both with its Windows-like workflow, default icons and look and also Xorg.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 It feels and looks actually nice and not outdated.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.
Mint.
You’re working to his requirements, not yours.
Fedora is not for beginners.
Mint is.
I could go into more detail, but I’ll leave it there.
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Mint is nice and easy to get going, but its outdated a lot, and uses a Distro model that I dont like to install on random laptops that are never updated.
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
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.
Fair enough.
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university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora
As a fedora eduroam user I’m pretty sure it does.
I was just quoting OP. I am making no claims of my own.
Yeah, I missed that. Sorry, guess I should pay more attention.
Mint is like 99% plug and play on most laptops, so I’d recommend they go that route.
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.
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.
Mint doesn’t have to look outdated if you put a little work into it. Check out this fellow’s rice in unixporn: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/17dwneg/cinnamon_available_as_installable_iso/
No questions it’s mint, it runs and looks very good.
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.
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.
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.
Okay, but Mint has Flathub and the deb ecosystem.
It’s just straight-up better supported
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.
Anything that runs on Debian Bookworm works on LMDE 6, anything that works on the latest Ubuntu LTS works on the latest regular Mint
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).
Ok so I guess it really just comes down to personal preferences at this point.
You would get less hassle with Mint. One thing that came to mind is the codec.
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.
They said they’re targeting 2026 in the post where they announced Wayland.
Keep in mind “it just works” also includes the windows like workflow.
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
Mint
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.
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.
Thanks for your input.
