this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023

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Fedora or Mint for noob? (monero.town)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by jack@monero.town to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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However, in my opinion Mint seems rather outdated, both with its Windows-like workflow, default icons and look and also Xorg.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 It feels and looks actually nice and not outdated.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

(page 2) 27 comments

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[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I personally recommend Debian with xfce or lxqt

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[–] KrapKake@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

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.

https://zorin.com/os/

[–] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

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: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/38/ChangeSet#Unfiltered_Flathub

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 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/StrongCryptoSettings2#Upgrade/compatibility_impact the security defaults of Fedora can be rolled back to an earlier level quite easily.

[–] jack@monero.town 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

That is factually wrong: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/38/ChangeSet#Unfiltered_Flathub

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 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/StrongCryptoSettings2#Upgrade/compatibility_impact the security defaults of Fedora can be rolled back to an earlier level quite easily.

Thanks for the link, I will try this.

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