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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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 recommend slackware exclusively. Sometimes times it feels like I’m pissing into the wind.
Coincidentally, that’s what using it is like, too. :)
I’d be offended if I weren’t so busy managing my own dependencies.
Nice to hear that recommended! Slackware was the first distro I installed at home, thanks to it being included on a special cover CD from one of the magazines some time in the late 90s? Not touched it for about 20 years but glad to hear it’s still going.
i discovered it around the same time, but i forget how. It’s been my only daily driver since then. I can fumble my way through a .deb distro if I have to, but slackware is my comfort zone.
You should throw -current up on a distrohop partition and re-live your youth.
if you like fedora, have you tried endeavour?
I have not but it was actually on my list of distros to try if Fedora didn’t work out. I should give it a look.
I find it pretty problematic how Ubuntu is messed up and still used as default distro.
Fedora has issues with always being a bit early. I prefer it a lot over buggy Kubuntu, as I use KDE, but for example now 6.1 is too early and still has bugs, while Plasma 6 was really well tested (with Rawhide, Kinoite beta and Kinoite nightly being available)
Fedora has tons of variants and packages, and COPR is full of stuff. The forums are nice, Discourse is a great tool.
It uses Flatpak, but adds its legally restricted repo by default.
The traditional variants… I think apt is better. I did one dnf system upgrade to F40 and it was pretty messy.
The rpm-ostree atomic desktops are really good, but not complete. For example GRUB is simply not updated at all. This is hopefully fixed with F41.
Or the NVIDIA stuff, or nonfree codecs, which are all issues even more on atomic.
So the product is not really ready to use, while rpmfusion sync issues happen multiple times a year. This is no issue on the atomic variants, but there you need to layer many packages, which causes very slow updates.
I am also not a fan of their “GUI only” way, so you will for example never have useful common CLI tools on the atomic variants, for no reason.
It is pretty completely vanilla, which is very nice.
I always recommend Pop_OS! for beginners. It’s IMHO a lot closer to what Ubuntu used to be, uses apt and/or flatpaks (and no snaps), has sane defaults, a good installer, a decent company behind it, nvidia drivers included and their upcoming Cosmic desktop environment looks sick.
Also, I feel like this is a better Fedora-based distro for beginners since it’s harder to break:
Yes probably agree on PopOS, even though never used it. Also their DE will need a lot of time, I hipenthey dont ship it too early. I dual boot it, actually the Fedora Atomic image.
Yes, Silverblue is the GNOME Atomic desktop but as I said it is not finished. There are many things not done.
Being in active development does not mean it’s not ready. To recognize faults or things that can be improved upon and keeping track of those does not mean it’s not ready.
By your definition, not a single distro is ready. Which, to be frank, is a perfectly fine stance to hold if the extent of this is explored and explained. However, you pose it as if Fedora Atomic is the one with that problem (implying others don’t have that issue), which is just plain false.
It is not false.
There is a workaround for updating the bootloader, but I often use “how well does it scale” as a measurement.
Atomic should replace traditional distros, and apart from the need for improved tooling everywhere (like easily converting random files to RPMs) it has the big issue that currently GRUB is not updated.
This means the system is not possible to keep installed over many versions, without tweaks. This will hopefully be fixed with bootupd integration in F41.
This means users with secureboot get issues on newer Kernels, if they installed Atomic a few versions back.
Here is the Atomic issue tracker and I would call a few dealbreakers, while not all.
What you’ve pointed out here is definitely something that should be fixed soon. Thank you for clarifying.
- 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
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.
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.
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.
Is it because Fedora is usually considered bleeding edge?
Is it because Fedora is usually considered bleeding edge?
That was literally more than 10 years ago.
I mean, Ok
Yes, that article is wrong
I don’t use Fedora, so I believe you.
Maybe GNOME got more stable… but the non LTS kernels often cause issues, and KDE is currently unstable again (while it worked perfectly on Plasma 6.0)
the non LTS kernels often cause issues
In 10 years of using Fedora (granted: my current main Linux system is SteamOS but I do have hardware running Fedora as well but with Gnome as desktop in that case) I once had a kernel-related bug, IIRC involving some fairly new AMD hardware.
KDE is currently unstable again (while it worked perfectly on Plasma 6.0)
Unless you’d be so kind to point me to a direction that showed that your instability is because of Fedora and not some bug that suck into Plasma 6.1, you’d have the same bug under any other distribution with Plasma 6.1.
Fedora simply takes what KDE offers, and the whole VRR etc. additions seem to cause tons of bugs.
Already reported, not sure how helpful.
But being the first to implement KDE releases… is problematic.
Fedora simply takes what KDE offers, and the whole VRR etc. additions seem to cause tons of bugs.
Like any other distribution with KDE software.
But being the first to implement KDE releases… is problematic.
That comment makes little sense. Someone has to be the first. It’s impossible for everyone to wait. Also waiting forever means that existing users are stuck with old bugs because the update is not coming out. The first Plasma 6.1 update has been released yesterday. Don’t think Fedora users will have to wait forever for this.
Btw, Plasma is not the default desktop of Fedora. OP mentioned it but OP also talks about noobs who should stick to defaults anyway and also not make experiments with Atomic editions either.
Yeah, it might be easy to install but you are also a beta tester of things that will be in more stable distros two years from now.
But with that said, I love Fedora, but with Gnome. I use Nobara for the gaming simplicity but with the vanilla Gnome spin. I’d recommend it to anyone, most Linux distros these days are pretty user friendly once installed.
you are also a beta tester of things
Huh? Fedora Workstation is built on stable releases, made by people who actually do QA.
Beta is the wrong word, but there is quite a difference in stability between Fedora and Debian.
there is quite a difference in stability between Fedora and Debian.
Sure but Debian really, REALLY is not a newbie distribution.
Because on Fedora sometimes you are required to use terminal for some stuff like installing nvidia drivers and you dont really want to send a total beginner to Fedora
idk I have only needed the terminal once, with Ubuntu/Gnome it was a daily occurrence.
What were you using the terminal for that now you don’t need it? I personally prefer KDE to GNOME as well, and I think lots of it can be related to that and not the distro itself.
Nvidia can be installed through the App Store (or whatever it’s called) now. You just have to enable the non-OSS repo in the settings.
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.
I put my tech illiterates on Fedora with GNOME without issue. If you’re the one doing the installation and can install the RPMFusion stuff like drivers and codecs then yeah it’s pretty smooth sailing.
@flork I would say the main reason is that the best of Fedora is under the hood, and goes completely unnoticed by the general public. Beginners don’t care how and when Wayland, PipeWire, zram or SELinux were implemented.
Other reasons:
- The system requires manual intervention after the initial installation (e.g. RPMFusion)
- Some choices, such as firewalld and Anaconda, are not so good for beginners
- Bad marketingUnfortunately 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
I had a similar experience on my laptop. I tried Ubuntu which broke after trying to throw on Nvidia drivers (using the official docs). I tried Mint and Debian, both of which couldn’t detect my laptop’s wifi card (after hours of trying to fix - apparently a common issue but the fixes did not work for me!). I landed on Fedora, worked great. I’m now on EndeavourOS, but Fedora was the stepping stone I needed.
My desktop I built recently is Bazzite, which is Fedora based and I love it.
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.
I’m probably going to get downvoted for this but I’m a Linux noob overall…. Windows has historically been what I’ve used. Or Ubuntu. I did distrohop to antixLinux and other really super small distros, but they didn’t fix my problems and I ended up back on relatively bloaty Ubuntu for further testing and sadly it solved bout a third of my problems (the hardware is ancient enterprise shit with a whopping 4gb ram and 16 usb ports)
I’ve been looking for a Debian based system to replace Ubuntu because I’m a noob and Debian-based is super different from the fedora.
I’m sure fedora is great! Tons of people love it! But for a noob is can be really daunting. Especially when most Linux instructions come in three flavors “Ubuntu/debian” and 2 other things. Who knows which two. You, the advanced Linux user, probably know which two but your noob doesn’t. And doesn’t understand the difference.
I’m not a total noob but I prefer Debian because I know a person who gets Debian and can help me. If I knew a fedora user that was actually willing to help me, I’d use that, but I’ve never met one so I’ll stick with what I know.
Surprisingly unhelpful, thanks! :)
That’s why I don’t swap for fedora. That’s the kind of help you tend to get unless you know someone who knows the distro, so I guess thanks for exemplifying :)
I don’t understand. That’s essentially where I learned Fedora from. Where did you learn to use Windows?
What about a lightweight variant like Lubuntu or Xubuntu? 4Gb should be usable for a lot of things.
I’m a big fan personally. I an experimenting more with OpenSUSE’s distro including microOS but that not because of Fedora but more so I want to recommend options that are easy to scale into FOSS professionally for people too and unfortunately RedHat no longer offers that path for Fedora users.
