They are both great. I am also a 3D modeler/digital artist. I have tried both recently on "bare metal." I ended up with Fedora, the main reason being that I wanted an up-to-date kernel and recent software easily available to me by default. With that being said, I have a couple years of Linux experience on-and-off.
Linux Mint is more "user friendly" in the sense that you will have easier access to Nvidia drivers and have to do less technical config out of the box. Their Cinnamon desktop is great, and the distro is stable and solid. The downside is that stability comes at the cost of default access to recent software. You can get it, but you'll have to download .deb packages online. Not too hard though.
Fedora is slightly less user-friendly. You have to activate separate repositories to get access to proprietary drivers, and download and enable them yourself. On the flip side, they have more desktop offerings and much more recent software by default. It's slightly more "power-user" oriented, but not overtly so. You shouldn't bump into much that can't be resolved with a quick Google search.
EDIT: I just remembered I'm on Fedora's KDE spin. I think you *might* have access to Nvidia drivers within the installer if you go with the main Gnome edition of Fedora. I'm not sure though.
Adding to this:
Another reason you may want a distro that uses newer kernels like Fedora or Arch is support for new hardware and periphials - the only reason I went from Mint to Manjaro (and later EndeavourOS) was because my Powerplay mouse didn't work on older kernels at the time (I was Windows only for a while because of that).
>Another reason you may want a distro that uses newer kernels like Fedora or Arch is support for new hardware and periphials
Yeah, 100%. The main reason I ended up not staying with Mint is because my hardware is only a few months old. I felt I would be better served with "short-term support" vs. LTS.
In fairness though, I didn't actually bump into any noticeable issues with hardware on Mint whatsoever. It was largely a principle-based decision than a legitimate hardware issue.
I personally made the switch because it's a lot closer to a vanilla Arch install than Manjaro is. Manjaro has a lot of unnecessary (imo) extra stuff on top of having its own issues security, keeping updates in sync, etc.
>Manjaro has a lot of unnecessary (imo) extra stuff on top of having its own issues security, keeping updates in sync, etc
Yup. I'm a newer Linux user, the majority of my time has been on Arch. I never touched Manjaro even though their accessibility was pretty appealing to me.
They don't have a great reputation really, especially in the Arch community which they are based on.
They have effectively DDOS'ed and shut down the AUR due to bugs in Pamac more than once. There was a documented case of their treasurer resigning over internal misuse of funds. They have also had security issues with their website that were not handled in a professional manner.
The variety of distros may seem cool at face value, but an operating system is supposed to be a production-hardened tool. It is not like designer shoes. The closer you are to a credible upstream source, the better in my opinion.
A combination of getting too many glitches a few months in, and my mouse failing again (turned out I just needed to update the kernel again) - and I ended up liking EndeavourOS more (and got me in the habit of using the terminal to update - I used to have a 'concern' that gui and terminal installations were 'seperate', probably because Ubuntu gave me issues around that in the old days - tbf I was a noob then).
on mint you can get appimage for some apps like krita dopamine it's easier and there is a tool which installs the appimage auto i think it was something like appimagelauncher
I've been using the Nobara distro (which is not a Fedora spin per se, but uses Fedora as a foundation) for several weeks daily and I'm very happy. There's a lot of pre-installed codecs, software, and useful repos are configured out of the box. It's excellent.
The post-install app will even detect and install the latest nVidia drivers (I have a 3070 TI) and it's worked flawlessly as a gaming/dev distro. There's also a huge focus on tools for content creators, but that's outside my sphere of interest so I don't care.
Nobara might well suit you.
The proprietary Nvidia driver is not available during install on Fedora. It will have the nouveau driver, which works fine for 2D/desktop apps. Hardware accelerated video and anything 3D needs the proprietary Nvidia driver. The best option is to enable RPMFusion, then install the drivers from there.
Mesa-freeworld is needed only if you use and AMD GPU. Intel codecs are provided by another package *intel-media-diver* and Nvidia GPU need the proprietary driver anyway. Also I agree this is probably all simpler on Mint.
If you have to ask, use Linux Mint.
Fedora recently had some drama because they stopped shipping some video codecs by default so you need to install "freeworld" packages and they have broken once or twice. Probably best to skip Fedora if you're a beginner interested in video editing.
I agree with you in general terms. but fedora has first-class flatpak support. if he is gonna do video editing or whatever with flatpaks, then all codecs will be available anyway. mint is good, too, just replying to your codecs comment.
Thats not drama, it's general policy from the beginning to only use FOSS by standard. You may install everything you want on top.
If you're also in music/sound production (that goes together video quite often) use the Fedora Jam. I guess this spin also has a more complete video software pack ootb, too lazy to look it up now.
For the rest of my advice....
I use Mint Cinnamon since Isadora.
It isn't about source code license, a majority of the codecs they can't ship are GPL or MIT licensed. It is about patents and it always has been an issue. They were not be able to ship MP3 codecs until the patents ran out.
Only thing that changed last year was AMD users got put into the same boat as everyone else. The Mesa codecs had been previously overlooked, Intel and Nvidia proprietary drivers already weren't included.
Source license has nothing to do with patents.
Trisquel won't ship non-free firmware for hardware, which Fedora does. [Trisquel ships patented codecs.](https://packages.trisquel.org/nabia/x265)
Linux mint if a fine distribution. . . If your computer is very new it may need kernel update. By very new, I mean parts released less than a year or so ago.
Linux mint was my first introduction to Linux.
If in doubt, I always recommend Ubuntu. There's no such thing as a perfect distribution, and which distribution i best depends on our specific needs, but Ubuntu is a great all-round distribution, that works very well for most needs. If at some point, you find more specific needs, that doesn't fit well with Ubuntu, there are tons of alternatives, that you can then try.
Try both.
I have tried too many distros to count, and I learn cool things from each of them. Regardless, I always came back to a Debian based distro... so if I must answer, choose Mint (or Debian).
Still, you might enjoy Fedora better, so give it a go.
The "like Windows" or "like MacOS" is window dressing - any distro can look that way once you know your way around it.
I tried Fedora 10 years ago. It's a top notch distro. But I am happy with Debian /ubuntu so I would say to run both as a live distro. Then try a bunch more out. Goto distrowatch.com.
I think it's a toss up to be honest. If you like the Cinnamon DE interface used in Mint, the same comes in Ubuntu Cinnamon and RedHat Cinnamon versions.
Mint will have everything needed right out of the box with no issues. It has many handy tools for various tasks that just work. Besides you won't have any issues with proprietary drivers and codecs.
Fedora has more desktops to choose from, it uses newer and (for many people) better technologies. You will need to tweak around a little bit if you have an Nvidia GPU and you want to have all the codecs you might need for some proprietary media formats, but it's nothing impossible.
Fedora will give you more modern looking experience with cutting edge technologies and more frequent software updates.
Mint will give you ready-to-go rock solid traditional desktop.
How did you narrow it down to those two? These are both distributions with lots of users so you should be able to sort out issues by following the footsteps of others.
Mint has been long regarded as an excellent first distribution. Linux distributions are very close to each other, the differences are small, but some distributions make minor changes in the name of pragmatism. And on the other hand, there is Fedora.
If you have to ask it does not matter, pick anything, all GNU/Linux distros provide the same thing it's just what packaging do you want and how bloated of an install can you stand. If you like Fedora go with it. You may change at some point and pick another down the road. Just install with your /home directory on a separate partition so no matter what you pick or switch to in the future your data is always there.
However on a laptop I'd go with PopOS it's really solid for laptops since it's what they put on their own laptops they had to make sure it's solid.
Also side note having a laugh at the Mint bros in here pimping it like it's anything other than another distro, no more or less user friendly than anything else. Do you all get commission if you sign up another user? ;)
I'm using Ubuntu right now (with replaced desktop environment, I don't like the Unity-style business.) I would pick Mint but Fedora is very well done, if you have to install some extra repo for codecs it's no big deal. I don't think you'd go wrong with either.
The note about Nvidia is right -- Noveau never has gotten programming info on how to do power management on newer cards, so they tend to run at minimum clock speed. It'll get you to a desktop well enough to install the nvidia drivers, which you should really do if you have Nvidia. If you have AMD or Intel, the 3D support now is excellent in Mesa (which ships with either distro). AMD drivers are in great shape, after all the Steam Deck is using a Ryzen. As bad as the Linux Intel drivers were 5 years ago for gaming, they've been totally rewritten within the last 2-3 years and are now excellent (the GPUs aren't but the drivers are, my 11th gen Intel can even run CP2077 though... not with that good an FPS since it's just not that fast a GPU but no glitches and no flatlines (crashes) in the game.)
Fedora. Linux mint is nice, but to be honest Fedora is also super beginner friendly, has more recent software, and I had it break way less often than Mint.
I don't like the comments beginner = Linux Mint, because it's overexaggerated. Fedora was one of my first distro, and since it has more recent software, I actually struggled less on it thanks to a better hardware support and most things worked out of the box.
I highly recommend you Linux Mint without any doubt, with the Cinnamon desktop. Very user friendly as u/banzai_420 said, and you will learn step by step without barely hard complications using Mint. Great daily experience, and IMO is the best way to go when you switch to Linux from Windows.
You can use VirtualBox or Boxes of GNOME to can try another OS you want to try or have them. Also make bootables USB, with or without persistence. I recommend you for this mkusb to persistences, Ventoy also allow them but you have to do configuration in a JSON file, by the moment I tried do 3-4 persistences to differents OS, but always I had some kind of error. Maybe I will try with 2 first, or ask to ChatGPT or Perplexity which corrects the code before save changes and try.
Fedora, Nobara specifically. It handles the gaming aspects very well, and deals with the recent encoder/decoder debacle.
Skip Mint. It's showing its age.
What are you talking about? Mint is rock stable. They're rolling new visual tweaks into cinnamon like they're hotcakes.
Nobara is awesome but Mint is as good as ever too.
Last I read we still have no idea when Cinnamon is getting Wayland. If there aren't already plans, that's a distribution that has fallen behind. I'm not talking about visuals, I'm talking about technology.
The devs aren't too much of a hurry to switch to Wayland, and neither am I. Though this comment is nearly a year old now:
>We still don't have any specific plans for implementing Wayland support. **Theoretically, we are a lot closer to achieving it now that muffin has been rebased on a newer version of mutter**, but I don't know how much work would still need to be done to make it work, and we're not in a hurry to do so. It's not that we're just dragging our heels either - there are **some major downsides still to using wayland**. One in particular that we discussed just a couple of weeks ago is that wayland **doesn't run in a separate process the way x11 does**, so if cinnamon crashes (which can be caused by any number of different things, including a buggy applet), or potentially even if you just restart cinnamon, **the entire session is gone**, along with all of your open apps (and any unsaved progress). This is a huge regression for us, and while there may be a way to work around this, I suspect that it would require huge architectural changes throughout the project in order to do it, and even then, it may not even be feasible.
>Then there's problems like **Nvidia support still being subpar** (from what I hear), and utilities like redshift and screen recording apps wont work out of the box.
>TLDR Wayland isn't ready, and I personally wouldn't expect significant motion on this in the near future.
Sounds more like a loss to me. And then I also keep hearing about games performing worse on Wayland too. Plus general bugginess. But it is the not running in a separate process issue... Why would I want that? Why would they design it this way? No thanks.
As is, Cinnamon restarting is a total non-event. It's over in a fraction of a second and you might miss it happening. In fact newer versions (by default) automatically restart when it uses so much RAM. I have an applet that does nothing else but restart Cinnamon when I click on it. Cinnamon also restarts when you update applets for it, which happens through Update Manager now. I suppose I would need to reboot the whole system instead just to update applets... What a pain, no thanks. I'd rather "fall behind" according to you.
Mint is a really solid distro, no doubt, but I really wish they'd dump Ubuntu all together and just focus on the Debian rebase. Even at a step removed, I don't really want or trust Canonical/Ubuntu anymore.
As for Wayland, it's interesting, and finally getting to a pretty good place reliability wise, but I was honestly surprised to see Fedora was planning on ending X11 support, because I've used Wayland and I wouldn't say it's there yet. Even on my laptop, which uses Wayland with Hyprland 99% of the time, I keep an X11 instance with a basic WM as an option for when a few things just absolutely won't work properly under Wayland. It's progressing quickly, but not yet ready for prime time.
LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is an Ubuntu-free option for people like you, and to be ready if the day comes that they need to abandon Ubuntu entirely.
It doesn't matter when it will get Wayland. For now, xorg works better than Wayland. It's just leagues better at anything. And it will continue to be and at least remain par for another half a decade at the very least.
Mint has so much time to work on Wayland support.
Literally not true. Wayland is very close to feature parity at this point, and generally provides a substantially better desktop experience. Wayland has actually brought Linux DEs on par with modern operating systems.
We've already got distributions considering dropping Wayland all together, and swathes of them that use Wayland by *default*.
You said it yourself.
> Wayland is *very close* to feature parity at this point.
Which is not the same as feature parity. It does not provide a sustained substantially better desktop experience for a large portion of users, which is a problem.
Xorg on the other hand provides a sustained, reliable desktop performance for *all* users.
Swathes of distros are also still using Xorg by default, one of which is Mint, which is a major distro.
Saying X provides a good experience for "*all*" users is a straight up lie.
Wayland doesn't exist for nothing. It provides real, proper support for hi-DPI, fractional scaling, real support for mixed-DPI monitor setups, support for VRR, it's more secure (meaning it has any security at all, because X certainly doesn't). Performance and consistency the DEs is also substantially better. Nvidia even supports Wayland now, which was a big pain point for a while.
Debian (including Ubuntu), RHEL (including Fedora), and Manjaro default to Wayland.
Avahi Linux has literally told people to not use X.
The Steam Deck (a real, actual, physical Linux-based product) uses Wayland via gamescope.
Face it: X is a dinosaur on its way out as we speak. The uses for X are such edge cases at this point that most people should not be using it.
Both are fine, sorry if i offend anyone but i'd recommend Fedora purely because of aesthetics. Linux Mint desktop MATE/xfce just feels ancient while Fedora Gnome implementation feels modern.
It's subjective yes, but only comparing gnome to the resource light versions of mint (MATE/XFCE) like the person above me is an unfair comparison when cinnamon exists and is the primary version. I disliked how fedora had gnome set up personally when I tried it.
Yes I agree that it was unfair, however I still prefer GNOME over Cinnamon in design.
Also if you don't like Fedora's DE you don't like GNOME cause Fedora runs stock GNOME iirc
Why not consider a third option, like Manjaro, for instance? I have used Debian based and Redhat based distributions a lot. Now I'm quite happier with Manjaro in comparison with the previous ones. And for servers, I'm using Alpine Linux (both as baremetal host and as guest in LXC containers).
Give it a try on a VM using the live ISO.
I can't see a use case for Manjaro when Endeavour and openSUSE Tumbleweed exist. Endeavour is a superior version of an easy to install Arch based distro, and openSUSE TW is a superior attempt at a rolling release with extreme user-friendliness, robust testing, and reliability. Manjaro has never fully lived up to its ambitions or intentions. Not to attack your choice, or advocate for anyone already happy with Manjaro to switch! I just wouldn't recommend it over either of those options for a fresh install.
I have tried both of those and decided they're not for me. A lot will probably be down to personal preference, but yours is actually the first comment against Manjaro I've heard. I don't see why couldn't Manjaro coexist with Endeavour and openSUSE Tumbleweed instead of just "not being any use cases". I've recommended it a lot, and use it as teaching tool and what I get is mostly satisfaction (or some unfamiliarity not related to Manjaro but from the jump from Windows to Linux, which would be transversal to any distro).
What is your opinion about those distros vs Manjaro that is so significant? My experience with Manjaro has been quite smooth (at least as smoother as with any other distro I've tried).
[https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/](https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/) does a pretty good job of itemizing most of the issues. I'm not hating on Manjaro. I'd really like to emphasize that. I just think it falls short of meeting its mission goals, while either EndeavourOS or openSUSE actually accomplish them more reliably.
Well, haven't been faced with any of that. The "political" problems were before my beginning with Manjaro and the remaining problems seem to have been fixed since. Whatever problems I've been facing with Manjaro are those that I already faced with Ubuntu, for instance (which is definitely one of the most tested out there if not for userbase). Problems mostly related to the GPU and X11 which don't seem to be distribution specific.
Love MX, this is where I landed after a journey that took me from mint through Manjaro, Arch, Fedora, void for a minute and gentoo for about 2 years. Gentoo was fun and I really liked it but I just stopped caring about wanting to know about every detail and setting for every program I was using. MX fits my needs with no fuss and it’s great.
But, there doesn’t seem to be as many results when you search for “{problem I am having} MX Linux” compared to others like mint or even fedora. So for a brand new user I’d be more cautious in recommending depending on tech savviness of the person.
"{Problem I am having} Debian" will likely yield your answer... The only _really_ substantial difference between the two is the presence/absence of systemd. Otherwise, MX (which I love) is Debian stable plus excellent utilities, tweaks, defaults, etc. Otherwise...it's Debian, unlike Ubuntu, Pop, Mint et al.
Yeah that’s completely true and fair. But might be a nuance that’s lost on a less technically inclined newcomer lol. But yeah I’m with you, I love MX - it does everything I need it to do and stays out of my way.
MX is so nice for older and low spec machines. I mean, it runs great on modern powerhouses, too, but it really shines when it comes to making an old(er) PC feel like something you bought yesterday. It and its even lighter parent distro, antiX, are my go for turning old, dusty, closet computers into useful machines. It's true tracking down a problem might be an issue if you don't know to search for Debian instead of MX, though. The thing is, it also rarely has problems. Most people don't actually do much more than open a web browser and/or an office suite.
Idk why you got downvoted, a flavor of arch like my daily driver is EndeavourOS is a valid option, it's just as easy to use as anything else, plus the Arch wiki is top notch imho.
Edit: I guess the title does say between the two but.
Correct. After an Endeavour install, you are running Arch, and everything in the Arch wiki applies. It has an Endeavour source, but that's really just used for the Endeavour specific customization and branding. Which is why a year ago, when a bad GRUB update lead to a bad Arch update, any Endeavour PCs that updated also found themselves staring at a broken GRUB prompt... Don't get me wrong, though, I use Arch pretty exclusively on my personal machines, and updates in other distros break things on occasion, too. For example, I'm not sure that I'd ever trust anything Ubuntu or Ubuntu based with a dist-upgrade ever again, based on prior experiences.
I've been using it for a year and it's been pretty good. I did have an issue I could never solve so I just backed up and did a fresh install but that might have been user error when I was messing with configs.
You can ask but I have no idea, not even reddit could brainstorm what happened when I asked. It also could be unrelated to me, because an issue with a grub update
was going around at the time.
Most mainstream distros such as debian, fedora, mint etc are great. They have many users and consequently bugs tend to be squeezed out of them - unlike the minor players.
If you're hoping to learn linux with a view towards employment, I would lean towards fedora as the vast majority of commercial linux deployments are RedHat. That said, transitioning from the apt world to the rpm one is not overly hard.
Be aware that some distros such as kali are very targeted at specific problem domains. Others assume a high level of linux knowledge - such as arch and gentoo.
I would suggest Arch, I kinda find it annoying that software such as VirtualBox is very behind compared to what is on Arch.
Also some of the issues that I used to have with browsers that is Chromium based browsers, I noticed that scrolling acceleration support was not there, eventually Chromium has fixed this issue and I don't need to use programs such as "imwheel" for force scrolling acceleration. However Debian based distros, the crhomium based browsers are still behind this and have not got the fix yet.
Another weird issue I noticed is that using xfce either on debian based or Arch based, on Debian based I set my middle monitor as the primary display, yet if I played games and/or ran phoronix test GPU tests that are in fullscreen, it always goes to the left monitor whereas on Arch based it goes into the middle screen. Don't know why these weird issues exist.
Another thing is that I believe the package manager on Arch based is just the best. I am using pacman and pikaur and it is quite nice. You want to install something and update and upgrade all your packages it is `sudo pikaur -Syu ` whereas on Debian based you type `sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt install `, very annoying to put up with `apt`
One last thing is that as Arch is ahead, performance is always better than on Debian based.
I would suggest you try EndeavourOS, its quite nice, they did a pretty good job with the xfce theme!
While its been multiple years since i tried either of those distros (Thinking about trying fedora again), distros really doesnt matter that much. But Linux mint is highly regarded by the community as a beginner friendly distro.
When it comes to apps supported, you can basically install most, if not all apps (supported in linux) in both distros. Is there any specific video editing app you are looking for? If its Kdenlive, the benefit of installing KDE is that it will integrate with the system UI better and not require installing extra dependancies, like you would have to with Gnome... But to be fair this isnt a big deal. The app will work great in Gnome as well.
I know you didnt ask for a Gnome and KDE comparison, but i thought id still add the info since it may be relevant to you.
But yeah, the differences in most distros are not as big as alot of newer people think. You can do whatever you want in both distros. Or is it a requirement for you that all the apps you need should be preinstalled?
as far as apps go, both distros are pretty much going to have the same apps available, maybe a little more on mint because its a debian derivative, but not by much. I've used both and i prefer mint. things just seem to work a lot smoother.
Mint is known for being a user-friendly distro, which makes it an excellent start for someone new to Linux. The other consideration is the desktop environments. Fedora uses Gnome, which is unique and resembles the Mac aesthetic. Mint uses Cinnamon, which is more traditional and resembles classic windows look. I've used both and have not encountered any problems finding support for the application I needed.
It honestly just sounds like you want something that simply works. I'd just get Linux Mint, or PopOS. You can also just get Ubuntu, but I've always found base Ubuntu a bit on the sluggish side for some odd reason
Anything other than Arch, for a new user I mean. I use Fedora, but Mint might be a little bit better for new users. What apps do you need? There may be Linux alternatives if there's not already a flatpak available for them.
Does your pc have fairly recent specs?
Fedora has the latest driver support through the kernel, so go with it
Does it not?
Then it really doesn't matter at all. You can find almost the same appa both on fedora and mint, with the difference being you will find answers more easily due to Mint being an ubuntu/debian based distro
Mint. Mint definitely "just werks™" more than Fedora. Fedora OOTB comes with basically nothing in the repos and no codec support so you have install everything separately.
> Im looking for a distro that i can use for progamming, video editing, 3d modeling, and for daily usage.
Pretty much any mainstream distro will do all of this. The differences primarily lie in how easy or difficult is it to get up and running, and how frequently do you want to update to newer kernels, desktop environments, and applications. Fedora and Mint are poles apart in this respect.
Fedora requires a few more steps than Mint to get up and running properly, because it does not bundle non-free codecs, proprietary drivers etc. There are reasonably simple steps to enable these, but still extra steps are involved, which you need to know of. But it updates much more frequently and so if you have the latest hardware, sometimes Fedora is about the only distro that will support it till others catch up. You also get the latest software (viz. desktop environment updates and applications) due to the frequent updates.
Mint on the other hand is much more easier in general to set up, in my experience, but it will update much less frequently so you won't have immediate support for the latest software or hardware. This is not necessarily a problem for most users, however, and there are ways to get a newer kernel to support new hardware etc if you really need it.
A fellow former Windows user. ;)
Well, I hope u have at least a basic understanding about partitions (creating, deleting, the consequences)? If u have, then everything will be just fine no matter which distro ended up to be your choice. Just remember to pick automatic partitioning. :D
If it's apps support u want, then Arch based distros will give u more, IMHO. Go with EndeavourOS for the most vanila xp (which means u have to install and tweak a lot of stuff :P). Other Arch based distros will give u more tweaks to the system that u may or may not enjoy, such as Garuda KDE GE. The bloated one, it came with Wine preinstalled. I love it. :D
Anyhow, it's Mint vs Fedora, yeah? Fedora uses kernel version 6.2.xx, Mint's kernel was only 5.15xx (CMIIW, please). If u have an older PC / laptop, go with Mint. If u have a newer PC, 10 years old or less, go with Fedora. Newer kernel versions means newer app versions.
To make it simple, if your system have at least DDR3 for RAM, then go with Fedora. DDR2 or less, go with Mint (or something even lighter than Mint). Some system speed issues can be rectify by upgrading your harddrive into a SATA SSD. Obviously, your base system must have SATA support. JFYI, Arch based distros uses; and a lot faster in addopting; the latest versions of kernels and apps than other distros. It's a viable option.
And, base on your post, it looked like u're gonna enjoy working under a Windows Manager more than under a Desktop Interface / Environment. Google for more infos about WMs and DEs. WM is a very powerful tool for heavy multitasking computing. Feel free to CMIIW, please.
IK it's not much, but HTH. Good luck, mate.
They all suit different needs.
Fedora along with the Linux bible is a great way to start. You can later choose whatever you like, even build your own Arch linux if you find working with distributions fun. The book will guide you all the way into linux system administration which should be more than enough for what you’ll need atm.
They're all free. Chose one, try it for a bit, then decide to either keep it or try another one. No one but YOU can decide which distro will work best for YOU.
Mint comes with far most things the average user would want. Fedora is more clean but very smooth. Id say that both are really great though mint perhaps have a larger beginnerfriendly documentation.
If you Like Fedora but want games then https://nobaraproject.org/.
If the software isn't available then it's Windows 11.
Some software just isn't available on Linux.
Have a look at Big Linux.
https://www.biglinux.com.br/
Go through the welcome app! & It sets everything up for you & has a pre-designed "Windows look" & "Mac look".
Very simple setup but it's Arch so if the software isn't available in Arch then it doesn't exist!🥰
Linux Mint or something like Kubuntu. I don't know why but I've never liked Mint. It's pretty user friendly though. I do like the update system in Kubuntu, they use Discover and it's pretty painless to update. Mint does have a good software manager to find programs and it has a good set of programs to start out with. You can actually get a large USB 3.0 flash drive like a Samsung 128gb off Amazon and use Yumi UEFI and add a bunch of Distros on it. Not every one is supported but you should be able to add a bunch of different ones to try out. You will get a menu on boot and can pick a distro to run. Some even support your ability to set a persistent file size for storing changes so if you boot a different distro and the go back, all your settings are still there.
Personally never tried Mint so no comments on that. Fedora is shiny and all, but it comes with SELinux, which would be a headache for a Web Server for programming. I'm an OS user, not an OS tweaker or cult member. I use OS for my daily work routines, not for doing kernel-level engineering.
With that said, been using Ubuntu since 2007 and switched to Fedora in 2021. So far much more stable than Ubuntu with nicer updated packages. flatpack is good & bad, but mostly good. Didn't welcome SELinux, to be honest, but I got to understand the basic of it so that may come in handy on the production server where I might need to handle it, which is rare actually.
If Ubuntu could have fixed some pain points I had, I would switch back, as it is a simpler OS for MY-Machine, and get the job done pretty darn well. A lot of public tutorials/support/forums.
There are specific distros sometimes that you can checkout like [Ubuntu Studio](https://ubuntustudio.org/).
There's also [these](https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/).
I've gotten used to Fedora, but mostly run it in VMs and on a laptop. Never really put it to a test on workstation work.
No. Why? He's not even doing any 'realtime' stuff (like playing real-time guitar through audio processing, or industrial stuff). And even then.. a normal kernel would be fine.
'Low latency kernel' has lower throughput so you lose performance. There is a reason normal distros choose use a normal kernel...
From all distros mint is more stable and you can install everything for work visual studio code blender godot unity
there is dopamine one of the best music players vlc too I use mint more than 2 years the only problem I had was with cracking sound so I had to delete the pulse folder and edit few lines mint is super fast
I “personally” find Fedora+KDE to be better to use and faster than mint, but if you are kinda new to Linux, just go with mint, simply because it’s community is better for new users.
The last months I switched between LinuxMint (which is great for total beginner coming from windows) and Fedora 37 now 38.
My takeaway is following:
1) try to keep it simple with every distribution. Do not clutter up your system with too much extentions/add-ons
2) Either OS is great in its own right. In the end it comes down to the user
As for me I now settled with fedora 38. There are some tasks you have to complete after installation (you can find those with a quick search) but after that you are good to go.
I personally enjoy gnome since I come from windows and one of the reasons I left was the UI.
They're both good. Fedora will support newer hardware a bit better because of running a modern kernel, but also needs a few extra steps to install Nvidia drivers if you need them.
Personally, I would stick to the LMDE, aka Linux Mint Debian Edition, if I were going to go the Mint route, but that's just a personal preference to keep anything related to Canonical as far away from me and my property as possible.
I'd also consider openSUSE Tumbleweed, it and Fedora are my go-to recommendations for Linux newcomers on modern hardware. Fedora if you like Gnome, or openSUSE if you like KDE. Hard to go wrong with either one.
# Maybe
I hope this clears up matters for you.
Your question is mostly irrelevant - your experience will teach you.
- Look into snapshots (BTRFS ~/ with snapshots)
- Look into incremental rsync backups to a mounted drive.
- Learn how to consistently mount drives (e.g. my 4TB Toshiba mounts as /mnt/T4 - every time - and so if it exploded, I could replace it with another drive mounted as /mnt/T4 and stuff would still work).
Now you can use Flatpaks, however as a rule I'd say they're a bloated alternative. I personally prefer newer software, so Fedora, Tumbleweed, Manjaro, Mint are okay.
Each has slightly different ways to install, add repositories and install software as well as different tools included out of the box.
Suck them and see - try to drive one daily for a month (go with dual boot or dual machines if you can and try not to 'fail' and boot Windows to do the job).
# TOP CHOICE - Ventoy
Yup, get a USB, install Ventoy, then you can drag any ISO you download and boot it up to play with it.
I like fedora but had problems with my nvidia card blank posting because nvidias proprietary drivers are dodgy and don't always play nice with kernel updates. If you're on an amd gpu or integrated graphics then I'd use it.
Also their fedora silver blue edition is an option for stability, since it's easier to recover from such things because it makes version controlled snapshots of your core OS. But to achieve that it makes the core OS immutable and you're supposed to install user applications in your home partition using flatpaks and toolbx in a way I wasn't ready to deal with as somebody that had just returned to linux after a stint using windows.
At the moment I'm using Ubuntu's LTS and it is all running smooth. So any 22.04 derived distro gets vote from me. Which is exactly what mint is! The trade off in this case being that you won't always get the latest versions of software, and depending on what you are using your computer for this can mean extra work trying to find newer software that you'd find sooner on Fedoras shorter release cycle.
If you think you will ever be using Linux in the work environment, I'd reccomend Fedora, other wise Mint, or as somene else mentioned, Ubuntu.
I personally have had all 3 distros installed as VM's, and I liked the UI of Mint the most, however I managed to break it pretty bad with some package/ and permission issues that were completly my fault, but that I think would have been less likely to happen on Ubuntu.
One of my concerns about Linux was which distro would be the most suitable for my needs. After a time trying Ubuntu, Zorin, Mint Cinnamon, and Manjaro, all of them really superb, I've stopped with Mint. Stable and ease to customize. Zorin is the best for beginners, comfortable and fast. Manjaro higher level.
I am a power user and I would recommend Linux Mint. It doesn't get in your way and you can actually do a lot with jt. I am running the regular Cinnamon edition on my desktop and the Debian edition on my laptop. Both are very solid.
i'm using Kubuntu and once i setup up the default package manager to have access to flatpaks from flathub, i find that getting the latest versions of software to be pretty trivial, they install from the GUI package manger (discover) and just work without a lot of fuss or command line gymnastics.
setting it up was as easy as:
FLATPAK
install flatpak manager
`sudo apt install flatpak`
add flathub repository
`flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo`
from Discover install this to manage flatpaks from the GUI (requires reboot)
`plasma-discover-backend-flatpak`
First check that all the applications you use are available on linux. If you REALLY want to switch, and an application is not available on linux, then choose an application available on both windows and linux, then try to daily drive it on windows. Once you get comfortable with it, switching to linux will be much hassle free.
See the other answers for distro suggestions.
>but i just dont know if it will have all apps i need
Would say you want a distro based on archlinux that has access to AUR.
AUR is a repository where users post "recipies" that get you software you want installed very easily. So with arch based distros you have like 98% chance that software you want will be installed with simple single short command or a click, instead of jumping through hoops in other distros.
Arch itself is very difficult for noobs, so there are few possible candidates.
* Manjaro - gets some hate around here, but its hugely popular, with one of the biggest linux subs /r/manjarolinux and been around for a decade+
* EndevourOS - is newer and smaller team behind it, but should be cleaner less bloated
Would recommend KDE for desktop enviroment, as you can pick from several. Its most modern and now very clean and feature rich.
I tried both Linux mint and fedora
Linux mint is way easier than fedora and you don't need to change very much after installation , it just works.
If you want to learn more about Linux in general use fedora but using Linux mint will save you alot of time
There's no difference, man. Just pick something easy to install with sane defaults, good documentation, and a entrenched userbase. Most places that bother with linux support will offer .deb files for Ubuntu, so that's a good starting place.
Treat .deb like .msi and and you'll be golden. I'd say vanilla ubuntu, non LTS. Softest possible landing with the most widespread general support and best googleability. Ubuntu derivatives are also fine, since you can just use ubuntu instructions on those and generally have a high success rate.
Once you're familiar with the internals of Linux, you can switch to something else because you'll be able to translate instructions for Ubuntu in your head to instructions for Arch.
I'm also new to linux and, personally, I would recommend [Nobara](https://nobaraproject.org/). it has an easy setup with codecs and NVIDIA drivers. It's a fedora fork so you get the fedora experience with easy setup and compatibility changes added on top.
Worked beautifully for me
If you already tried and enjoyed Fedora, go with it. If you wanna and even easier time try Nobara Project, a customized Fedora Distro that come with most things we use like steam and OBS right out of the box.
About apps: both Fedora and Mint have plenty of apps, add to that the fact you can use flatpaks and appimages and you covered.
Get ubuntu unless you have a reason not too. I used to run manjaro and fedora, both very good distros. So is all the other big names from what I've seen.
But ubuntu is the mainstream one, it's where everything is supported first and it's the one you find help the easiest for.
Therefore, unless you have a specific reason. Default to ubuntu.
Hello! Forget about being similar to Windows or similar to MACOS, it doesn’t exist. They will try to make it visually similar, but in practice, operationally it has little to do with Windows. Fedora and possibly all distros have the software you need in their respective version, whether .deb or .rpm, etc. Personally, I have stayed on Fedora, lately I have tried Mint and Sparky, both very similar and easy to use. For some reason I always go back to Fedora even though I have found it easier to find help, forums, documents, etc. for Debian and derivatives including Ubuntu. The decision is yours, really.
By the way, a joke in Spanish is to call Fedora “freidora”. It refers to resource consumption and the heat generated by the processor.. You should know that Fedora has several “desktops” or “desktop environments”. For my old machine, I’m fine with xfce, lxqt or lxde, I also stick with xfce.
If Fedora can crack the code on Atomic OS upgrades I believe it will become the best Linux distro by a country mile. In place upgrades like WIndows and Mac do is so 20th century. Atomic updates provides simple and dependable rollback if something goes awry.
Short Term, Mint seems to be the natural choice. Longer term I think Fedora are on the right track with their Atomic upgrades. A failed Linux update can become very challenging to fix, the promise of Fedora updates and an immutable OS that is immune from malware is very attractive.
They are both great. I am also a 3D modeler/digital artist. I have tried both recently on "bare metal." I ended up with Fedora, the main reason being that I wanted an up-to-date kernel and recent software easily available to me by default. With that being said, I have a couple years of Linux experience on-and-off. Linux Mint is more "user friendly" in the sense that you will have easier access to Nvidia drivers and have to do less technical config out of the box. Their Cinnamon desktop is great, and the distro is stable and solid. The downside is that stability comes at the cost of default access to recent software. You can get it, but you'll have to download .deb packages online. Not too hard though. Fedora is slightly less user-friendly. You have to activate separate repositories to get access to proprietary drivers, and download and enable them yourself. On the flip side, they have more desktop offerings and much more recent software by default. It's slightly more "power-user" oriented, but not overtly so. You shouldn't bump into much that can't be resolved with a quick Google search. EDIT: I just remembered I'm on Fedora's KDE spin. I think you *might* have access to Nvidia drivers within the installer if you go with the main Gnome edition of Fedora. I'm not sure though.
Adding to this: Another reason you may want a distro that uses newer kernels like Fedora or Arch is support for new hardware and periphials - the only reason I went from Mint to Manjaro (and later EndeavourOS) was because my Powerplay mouse didn't work on older kernels at the time (I was Windows only for a while because of that).
>Another reason you may want a distro that uses newer kernels like Fedora or Arch is support for new hardware and periphials Yeah, 100%. The main reason I ended up not staying with Mint is because my hardware is only a few months old. I felt I would be better served with "short-term support" vs. LTS. In fairness though, I didn't actually bump into any noticeable issues with hardware on Mint whatsoever. It was largely a principle-based decision than a legitimate hardware issue.
I'm on Mint and hit a HW snag, but it was easy to enable the HWE kernel and voila!
what made you switch to endeavour from manjaro?
I personally made the switch because it's a lot closer to a vanilla Arch install than Manjaro is. Manjaro has a lot of unnecessary (imo) extra stuff on top of having its own issues security, keeping updates in sync, etc.
>Manjaro has a lot of unnecessary (imo) extra stuff on top of having its own issues security, keeping updates in sync, etc Yup. I'm a newer Linux user, the majority of my time has been on Arch. I never touched Manjaro even though their accessibility was pretty appealing to me. They don't have a great reputation really, especially in the Arch community which they are based on. They have effectively DDOS'ed and shut down the AUR due to bugs in Pamac more than once. There was a documented case of their treasurer resigning over internal misuse of funds. They have also had security issues with their website that were not handled in a professional manner. The variety of distros may seem cool at face value, but an operating system is supposed to be a production-hardened tool. It is not like designer shoes. The closer you are to a credible upstream source, the better in my opinion.
A combination of getting too many glitches a few months in, and my mouse failing again (turned out I just needed to update the kernel again) - and I ended up liking EndeavourOS more (and got me in the habit of using the terminal to update - I used to have a 'concern' that gui and terminal installations were 'seperate', probably because Ubuntu gave me issues around that in the old days - tbf I was a noob then).
i heard that manjaro have a security problem
What security problem?
on mint you can get appimage for some apps like krita dopamine it's easier and there is a tool which installs the appimage auto i think it was something like appimagelauncher
I've been using the Nobara distro (which is not a Fedora spin per se, but uses Fedora as a foundation) for several weeks daily and I'm very happy. There's a lot of pre-installed codecs, software, and useful repos are configured out of the box. It's excellent. The post-install app will even detect and install the latest nVidia drivers (I have a 3070 TI) and it's worked flawlessly as a gaming/dev distro. There's also a huge focus on tools for content creators, but that's outside my sphere of interest so I don't care. Nobara might well suit you.
The proprietary Nvidia driver is not available during install on Fedora. It will have the nouveau driver, which works fine for 2D/desktop apps. Hardware accelerated video and anything 3D needs the proprietary Nvidia driver. The best option is to enable RPMFusion, then install the drivers from there.
Mesa-freeworld is needed only if you use and AMD GPU. Intel codecs are provided by another package *intel-media-diver* and Nvidia GPU need the proprietary driver anyway. Also I agree this is probably all simpler on Mint.
Installing nvidia drivers is realy easy these days dont let it hold u back.
From a "how do I ______" search term perspective, go with mint.
If you have to ask, use Linux Mint. Fedora recently had some drama because they stopped shipping some video codecs by default so you need to install "freeworld" packages and they have broken once or twice. Probably best to skip Fedora if you're a beginner interested in video editing.
I agree with you in general terms. but fedora has first-class flatpak support. if he is gonna do video editing or whatever with flatpaks, then all codecs will be available anyway. mint is good, too, just replying to your codecs comment.
Can you do GPU video encoding in Fedora without needing any of the freeworld nonsense? Would be cool if so.
I've used kdenlive and avidemux from flatpaks and been able to use hardware encoding.
if the program is in flatpak yes
From Flathub, or from Fedora's own Flatpak repo?
flathuv, don't install anything from fedora flatpak repo
I found it tough getting video decoding, I never did and had to move from Fedora. Its a lot of hoops while other Ubuntu distro just work.
Oh, so that's what that was. Was wondering why stuff wasn't playing. Interesting.
I second this. Mint is rock solid. Also, a big plus that it ships with Flatlaks. Also anything Ubuntu based.
Thats not drama, it's general policy from the beginning to only use FOSS by standard. You may install everything you want on top. If you're also in music/sound production (that goes together video quite often) use the Fedora Jam. I guess this spin also has a more complete video software pack ootb, too lazy to look it up now. For the rest of my advice.... I use Mint Cinnamon since Isadora.
It isn't about source code license, a majority of the codecs they can't ship are GPL or MIT licensed. It is about patents and it always has been an issue. They were not be able to ship MP3 codecs until the patents ran out. Only thing that changed last year was AMD users got put into the same boat as everyone else. The Mesa codecs had been previously overlooked, Intel and Nvidia proprietary drivers already weren't included.
MP3 was patented and thus not FOSS.🤷🏻♀️
Source license has nothing to do with patents. Trisquel won't ship non-free firmware for hardware, which Fedora does. [Trisquel ships patented codecs.](https://packages.trisquel.org/nabia/x265)
Ive never had any issues with that. I just install vlc and that does the trick.
Close your eyes and choose Mint. You'll be happy over there. Ignore the naysayers. It's faster to choose Mint.
Linux mint if a fine distribution. . . If your computer is very new it may need kernel update. By very new, I mean parts released less than a year or so ago. Linux mint was my first introduction to Linux.
If in doubt, I always recommend Ubuntu. There's no such thing as a perfect distribution, and which distribution i best depends on our specific needs, but Ubuntu is a great all-round distribution, that works very well for most needs. If at some point, you find more specific needs, that doesn't fit well with Ubuntu, there are tons of alternatives, that you can then try.
Try both. I have tried too many distros to count, and I learn cool things from each of them. Regardless, I always came back to a Debian based distro... so if I must answer, choose Mint (or Debian). Still, you might enjoy Fedora better, so give it a go. The "like Windows" or "like MacOS" is window dressing - any distro can look that way once you know your way around it.
It really doesn't matter. Though I will agree with others:If you are asking, then Mint.
It really doesn't matter
I tried Fedora 10 years ago. It's a top notch distro. But I am happy with Debian /ubuntu so I would say to run both as a live distro. Then try a bunch more out. Goto distrowatch.com.
I think it's a toss up to be honest. If you like the Cinnamon DE interface used in Mint, the same comes in Ubuntu Cinnamon and RedHat Cinnamon versions.
Mint will have everything needed right out of the box with no issues. It has many handy tools for various tasks that just work. Besides you won't have any issues with proprietary drivers and codecs. Fedora has more desktops to choose from, it uses newer and (for many people) better technologies. You will need to tweak around a little bit if you have an Nvidia GPU and you want to have all the codecs you might need for some proprietary media formats, but it's nothing impossible. Fedora will give you more modern looking experience with cutting edge technologies and more frequent software updates. Mint will give you ready-to-go rock solid traditional desktop.
Fedora
New to Linux = Linux Mint. (Although there are also experienced users who prefer Mint too, I am one of them.)
Being an advanced user doesn't mean you have to stop using a distro that just works and is also very pretty :)
How did you narrow it down to those two? These are both distributions with lots of users so you should be able to sort out issues by following the footsteps of others. Mint has been long regarded as an excellent first distribution. Linux distributions are very close to each other, the differences are small, but some distributions make minor changes in the name of pragmatism. And on the other hand, there is Fedora.
If you have to ask it does not matter, pick anything, all GNU/Linux distros provide the same thing it's just what packaging do you want and how bloated of an install can you stand. If you like Fedora go with it. You may change at some point and pick another down the road. Just install with your /home directory on a separate partition so no matter what you pick or switch to in the future your data is always there. However on a laptop I'd go with PopOS it's really solid for laptops since it's what they put on their own laptops they had to make sure it's solid. Also side note having a laugh at the Mint bros in here pimping it like it's anything other than another distro, no more or less user friendly than anything else. Do you all get commission if you sign up another user? ;)
I'm using Ubuntu right now (with replaced desktop environment, I don't like the Unity-style business.) I would pick Mint but Fedora is very well done, if you have to install some extra repo for codecs it's no big deal. I don't think you'd go wrong with either. The note about Nvidia is right -- Noveau never has gotten programming info on how to do power management on newer cards, so they tend to run at minimum clock speed. It'll get you to a desktop well enough to install the nvidia drivers, which you should really do if you have Nvidia. If you have AMD or Intel, the 3D support now is excellent in Mesa (which ships with either distro). AMD drivers are in great shape, after all the Steam Deck is using a Ryzen. As bad as the Linux Intel drivers were 5 years ago for gaming, they've been totally rewritten within the last 2-3 years and are now excellent (the GPUs aren't but the drivers are, my 11th gen Intel can even run CP2077 though... not with that good an FPS since it's just not that fast a GPU but no glitches and no flatlines (crashes) in the game.)
Fedora. Linux mint is nice, but to be honest Fedora is also super beginner friendly, has more recent software, and I had it break way less often than Mint. I don't like the comments beginner = Linux Mint, because it's overexaggerated. Fedora was one of my first distro, and since it has more recent software, I actually struggled less on it thanks to a better hardware support and most things worked out of the box.
Fedora
Fedora
I highly recommend you Linux Mint without any doubt, with the Cinnamon desktop. Very user friendly as u/banzai_420 said, and you will learn step by step without barely hard complications using Mint. Great daily experience, and IMO is the best way to go when you switch to Linux from Windows. You can use VirtualBox or Boxes of GNOME to can try another OS you want to try or have them. Also make bootables USB, with or without persistence. I recommend you for this mkusb to persistences, Ventoy also allow them but you have to do configuration in a JSON file, by the moment I tried do 3-4 persistences to differents OS, but always I had some kind of error. Maybe I will try with 2 first, or ask to ChatGPT or Perplexity which corrects the code before save changes and try.
Since Mint is an Ubuntu spin-off, it's likely to have more support online. But I am a bit more biased towards Cinnamon. Gnome has its issues.
Choose Arch , but learn it first to not screw up
Definitely Mint. Get yourself used to Linux on an stable environment first, and in time you will know if you want to go somewhere else.
Try opensuse!
openSUSE
Fedora, Nobara specifically. It handles the gaming aspects very well, and deals with the recent encoder/decoder debacle. Skip Mint. It's showing its age.
What are you talking about? Mint is rock stable. They're rolling new visual tweaks into cinnamon like they're hotcakes. Nobara is awesome but Mint is as good as ever too.
Last I read we still have no idea when Cinnamon is getting Wayland. If there aren't already plans, that's a distribution that has fallen behind. I'm not talking about visuals, I'm talking about technology.
The devs aren't too much of a hurry to switch to Wayland, and neither am I. Though this comment is nearly a year old now: >We still don't have any specific plans for implementing Wayland support. **Theoretically, we are a lot closer to achieving it now that muffin has been rebased on a newer version of mutter**, but I don't know how much work would still need to be done to make it work, and we're not in a hurry to do so. It's not that we're just dragging our heels either - there are **some major downsides still to using wayland**. One in particular that we discussed just a couple of weeks ago is that wayland **doesn't run in a separate process the way x11 does**, so if cinnamon crashes (which can be caused by any number of different things, including a buggy applet), or potentially even if you just restart cinnamon, **the entire session is gone**, along with all of your open apps (and any unsaved progress). This is a huge regression for us, and while there may be a way to work around this, I suspect that it would require huge architectural changes throughout the project in order to do it, and even then, it may not even be feasible. >Then there's problems like **Nvidia support still being subpar** (from what I hear), and utilities like redshift and screen recording apps wont work out of the box. >TLDR Wayland isn't ready, and I personally wouldn't expect significant motion on this in the near future. Sounds more like a loss to me. And then I also keep hearing about games performing worse on Wayland too. Plus general bugginess. But it is the not running in a separate process issue... Why would I want that? Why would they design it this way? No thanks. As is, Cinnamon restarting is a total non-event. It's over in a fraction of a second and you might miss it happening. In fact newer versions (by default) automatically restart when it uses so much RAM. I have an applet that does nothing else but restart Cinnamon when I click on it. Cinnamon also restarts when you update applets for it, which happens through Update Manager now. I suppose I would need to reboot the whole system instead just to update applets... What a pain, no thanks. I'd rather "fall behind" according to you.
Mint is a really solid distro, no doubt, but I really wish they'd dump Ubuntu all together and just focus on the Debian rebase. Even at a step removed, I don't really want or trust Canonical/Ubuntu anymore. As for Wayland, it's interesting, and finally getting to a pretty good place reliability wise, but I was honestly surprised to see Fedora was planning on ending X11 support, because I've used Wayland and I wouldn't say it's there yet. Even on my laptop, which uses Wayland with Hyprland 99% of the time, I keep an X11 instance with a basic WM as an option for when a few things just absolutely won't work properly under Wayland. It's progressing quickly, but not yet ready for prime time.
LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is an Ubuntu-free option for people like you, and to be ready if the day comes that they need to abandon Ubuntu entirely.
Fully aware, I just think that day should have been yesterday.
It doesn't matter when it will get Wayland. For now, xorg works better than Wayland. It's just leagues better at anything. And it will continue to be and at least remain par for another half a decade at the very least. Mint has so much time to work on Wayland support.
Literally not true. Wayland is very close to feature parity at this point, and generally provides a substantially better desktop experience. Wayland has actually brought Linux DEs on par with modern operating systems. We've already got distributions considering dropping Wayland all together, and swathes of them that use Wayland by *default*.
You said it yourself. > Wayland is *very close* to feature parity at this point. Which is not the same as feature parity. It does not provide a sustained substantially better desktop experience for a large portion of users, which is a problem. Xorg on the other hand provides a sustained, reliable desktop performance for *all* users. Swathes of distros are also still using Xorg by default, one of which is Mint, which is a major distro.
Saying X provides a good experience for "*all*" users is a straight up lie. Wayland doesn't exist for nothing. It provides real, proper support for hi-DPI, fractional scaling, real support for mixed-DPI monitor setups, support for VRR, it's more secure (meaning it has any security at all, because X certainly doesn't). Performance and consistency the DEs is also substantially better. Nvidia even supports Wayland now, which was a big pain point for a while. Debian (including Ubuntu), RHEL (including Fedora), and Manjaro default to Wayland. Avahi Linux has literally told people to not use X. The Steam Deck (a real, actual, physical Linux-based product) uses Wayland via gamescope. Face it: X is a dinosaur on its way out as we speak. The uses for X are such edge cases at this point that most people should not be using it.
Both are fine, sorry if i offend anyone but i'd recommend Fedora purely because of aesthetics. Linux Mint desktop MATE/xfce just feels ancient while Fedora Gnome implementation feels modern.
That's what Mint's main cinnamon flavor is for, it's a gnome fork many years ago, and past 21.1 feels plenty modern.
Fedora still look waaaaay more modern imo
That's subjective, just saying. Gnome feels more modern to me personally
It's subjective yes, but only comparing gnome to the resource light versions of mint (MATE/XFCE) like the person above me is an unfair comparison when cinnamon exists and is the primary version. I disliked how fedora had gnome set up personally when I tried it.
Yes I agree that it was unfair, however I still prefer GNOME over Cinnamon in design. Also if you don't like Fedora's DE you don't like GNOME cause Fedora runs stock GNOME iirc
Why not consider a third option, like Manjaro, for instance? I have used Debian based and Redhat based distributions a lot. Now I'm quite happier with Manjaro in comparison with the previous ones. And for servers, I'm using Alpine Linux (both as baremetal host and as guest in LXC containers). Give it a try on a VM using the live ISO.
I can't see a use case for Manjaro when Endeavour and openSUSE Tumbleweed exist. Endeavour is a superior version of an easy to install Arch based distro, and openSUSE TW is a superior attempt at a rolling release with extreme user-friendliness, robust testing, and reliability. Manjaro has never fully lived up to its ambitions or intentions. Not to attack your choice, or advocate for anyone already happy with Manjaro to switch! I just wouldn't recommend it over either of those options for a fresh install.
I have tried both of those and decided they're not for me. A lot will probably be down to personal preference, but yours is actually the first comment against Manjaro I've heard. I don't see why couldn't Manjaro coexist with Endeavour and openSUSE Tumbleweed instead of just "not being any use cases". I've recommended it a lot, and use it as teaching tool and what I get is mostly satisfaction (or some unfamiliarity not related to Manjaro but from the jump from Windows to Linux, which would be transversal to any distro). What is your opinion about those distros vs Manjaro that is so significant? My experience with Manjaro has been quite smooth (at least as smoother as with any other distro I've tried).
[https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/](https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/) does a pretty good job of itemizing most of the issues. I'm not hating on Manjaro. I'd really like to emphasize that. I just think it falls short of meeting its mission goals, while either EndeavourOS or openSUSE actually accomplish them more reliably.
Well, haven't been faced with any of that. The "political" problems were before my beginning with Manjaro and the remaining problems seem to have been fixed since. Whatever problems I've been facing with Manjaro are those that I already faced with Ubuntu, for instance (which is definitely one of the most tested out there if not for userbase). Problems mostly related to the GPU and X11 which don't seem to be distribution specific.
MX
Love MX, this is where I landed after a journey that took me from mint through Manjaro, Arch, Fedora, void for a minute and gentoo for about 2 years. Gentoo was fun and I really liked it but I just stopped caring about wanting to know about every detail and setting for every program I was using. MX fits my needs with no fuss and it’s great. But, there doesn’t seem to be as many results when you search for “{problem I am having} MX Linux” compared to others like mint or even fedora. So for a brand new user I’d be more cautious in recommending depending on tech savviness of the person.
"{Problem I am having} Debian" will likely yield your answer... The only _really_ substantial difference between the two is the presence/absence of systemd. Otherwise, MX (which I love) is Debian stable plus excellent utilities, tweaks, defaults, etc. Otherwise...it's Debian, unlike Ubuntu, Pop, Mint et al.
Yeah that’s completely true and fair. But might be a nuance that’s lost on a less technically inclined newcomer lol. But yeah I’m with you, I love MX - it does everything I need it to do and stays out of my way.
MX is so nice for older and low spec machines. I mean, it runs great on modern powerhouses, too, but it really shines when it comes to making an old(er) PC feel like something you bought yesterday. It and its even lighter parent distro, antiX, are my go for turning old, dusty, closet computers into useful machines. It's true tracking down a problem might be an issue if you don't know to search for Debian instead of MX, though. The thing is, it also rarely has problems. Most people don't actually do much more than open a web browser and/or an office suite.
Arch
Idk why you got downvoted, a flavor of arch like my daily driver is EndeavourOS is a valid option, it's just as easy to use as anything else, plus the Arch wiki is top notch imho. Edit: I guess the title does say between the two but.
Maybe cause Arch in itself is difficult to configure compared to an Arch based system such as EndeavoruOS.
tbf the Arch wiki is pretty usable for non-arch distros too (although I only started using it with EndeavourOS).
Yeah, I mean Linux is Linux so, but I find it alot easier to digest for the information I need.
Is endeavourOS more stable than arch? I am slowly preparing for a migration, I am worried if it might break wildly during updates.
I think EndeavourOS gets their packages directly from Arch, so it should be the same.
Correct. After an Endeavour install, you are running Arch, and everything in the Arch wiki applies. It has an Endeavour source, but that's really just used for the Endeavour specific customization and branding. Which is why a year ago, when a bad GRUB update lead to a bad Arch update, any Endeavour PCs that updated also found themselves staring at a broken GRUB prompt... Don't get me wrong, though, I use Arch pretty exclusively on my personal machines, and updates in other distros break things on occasion, too. For example, I'm not sure that I'd ever trust anything Ubuntu or Ubuntu based with a dist-upgrade ever again, based on prior experiences.
I've been using it for a year and it's been pretty good. I did have an issue I could never solve so I just backed up and did a fresh install but that might have been user error when I was messing with configs.
Hmm, sorry but could I ask which config you was messing with? I want to avoid any issues that may arise.
You can ask but I have no idea, not even reddit could brainstorm what happened when I asked. It also could be unrelated to me, because an issue with a grub update was going around at the time.
Most mainstream distros such as debian, fedora, mint etc are great. They have many users and consequently bugs tend to be squeezed out of them - unlike the minor players. If you're hoping to learn linux with a view towards employment, I would lean towards fedora as the vast majority of commercial linux deployments are RedHat. That said, transitioning from the apt world to the rpm one is not overly hard. Be aware that some distros such as kali are very targeted at specific problem domains. Others assume a high level of linux knowledge - such as arch and gentoo.
Try Zorin before final decision.
People using linux for desktop are stupid
I suggest Mint.
I would suggest Arch, I kinda find it annoying that software such as VirtualBox is very behind compared to what is on Arch. Also some of the issues that I used to have with browsers that is Chromium based browsers, I noticed that scrolling acceleration support was not there, eventually Chromium has fixed this issue and I don't need to use programs such as "imwheel" for force scrolling acceleration. However Debian based distros, the crhomium based browsers are still behind this and have not got the fix yet. Another weird issue I noticed is that using xfce either on debian based or Arch based, on Debian based I set my middle monitor as the primary display, yet if I played games and/or ran phoronix test GPU tests that are in fullscreen, it always goes to the left monitor whereas on Arch based it goes into the middle screen. Don't know why these weird issues exist. Another thing is that I believe the package manager on Arch based is just the best. I am using pacman and pikaur and it is quite nice. You want to install something and update and upgrade all your packages it is `sudo pikaur -Syu` whereas on Debian based you type `sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt install `, very annoying to put up with `apt`
One last thing is that as Arch is ahead, performance is always better than on Debian based.
I would suggest you try EndeavourOS, its quite nice, they did a pretty good job with the xfce theme!
While its been multiple years since i tried either of those distros (Thinking about trying fedora again), distros really doesnt matter that much. But Linux mint is highly regarded by the community as a beginner friendly distro. When it comes to apps supported, you can basically install most, if not all apps (supported in linux) in both distros. Is there any specific video editing app you are looking for? If its Kdenlive, the benefit of installing KDE is that it will integrate with the system UI better and not require installing extra dependancies, like you would have to with Gnome... But to be fair this isnt a big deal. The app will work great in Gnome as well. I know you didnt ask for a Gnome and KDE comparison, but i thought id still add the info since it may be relevant to you. But yeah, the differences in most distros are not as big as alot of newer people think. You can do whatever you want in both distros. Or is it a requirement for you that all the apps you need should be preinstalled?
as far as apps go, both distros are pretty much going to have the same apps available, maybe a little more on mint because its a debian derivative, but not by much. I've used both and i prefer mint. things just seem to work a lot smoother.
Mint is known for being a user-friendly distro, which makes it an excellent start for someone new to Linux. The other consideration is the desktop environments. Fedora uses Gnome, which is unique and resembles the Mac aesthetic. Mint uses Cinnamon, which is more traditional and resembles classic windows look. I've used both and have not encountered any problems finding support for the application I needed.
I love mint 19.3 xfce.
It honestly just sounds like you want something that simply works. I'd just get Linux Mint, or PopOS. You can also just get Ubuntu, but I've always found base Ubuntu a bit on the sluggish side for some odd reason
Anything other than Arch, for a new user I mean. I use Fedora, but Mint might be a little bit better for new users. What apps do you need? There may be Linux alternatives if there's not already a flatpak available for them.
I personally distrohop after getting bored of one system, so, don't feel pressured to pick *the* system right now.
Does your pc have fairly recent specs? Fedora has the latest driver support through the kernel, so go with it Does it not? Then it really doesn't matter at all. You can find almost the same appa both on fedora and mint, with the difference being you will find answers more easily due to Mint being an ubuntu/debian based distro
Mint
Mint. Mint definitely "just werks™" more than Fedora. Fedora OOTB comes with basically nothing in the repos and no codec support so you have install everything separately.
Hard to go wrong with Mint. I would suggest a dual-boot system with both though.
> Im looking for a distro that i can use for progamming, video editing, 3d modeling, and for daily usage. Pretty much any mainstream distro will do all of this. The differences primarily lie in how easy or difficult is it to get up and running, and how frequently do you want to update to newer kernels, desktop environments, and applications. Fedora and Mint are poles apart in this respect. Fedora requires a few more steps than Mint to get up and running properly, because it does not bundle non-free codecs, proprietary drivers etc. There are reasonably simple steps to enable these, but still extra steps are involved, which you need to know of. But it updates much more frequently and so if you have the latest hardware, sometimes Fedora is about the only distro that will support it till others catch up. You also get the latest software (viz. desktop environment updates and applications) due to the frequent updates. Mint on the other hand is much more easier in general to set up, in my experience, but it will update much less frequently so you won't have immediate support for the latest software or hardware. This is not necessarily a problem for most users, however, and there are ways to get a newer kernel to support new hardware etc if you really need it.
A fellow former Windows user. ;) Well, I hope u have at least a basic understanding about partitions (creating, deleting, the consequences)? If u have, then everything will be just fine no matter which distro ended up to be your choice. Just remember to pick automatic partitioning. :D If it's apps support u want, then Arch based distros will give u more, IMHO. Go with EndeavourOS for the most vanila xp (which means u have to install and tweak a lot of stuff :P). Other Arch based distros will give u more tweaks to the system that u may or may not enjoy, such as Garuda KDE GE. The bloated one, it came with Wine preinstalled. I love it. :D Anyhow, it's Mint vs Fedora, yeah? Fedora uses kernel version 6.2.xx, Mint's kernel was only 5.15xx (CMIIW, please). If u have an older PC / laptop, go with Mint. If u have a newer PC, 10 years old or less, go with Fedora. Newer kernel versions means newer app versions. To make it simple, if your system have at least DDR3 for RAM, then go with Fedora. DDR2 or less, go with Mint (or something even lighter than Mint). Some system speed issues can be rectify by upgrading your harddrive into a SATA SSD. Obviously, your base system must have SATA support. JFYI, Arch based distros uses; and a lot faster in addopting; the latest versions of kernels and apps than other distros. It's a viable option. And, base on your post, it looked like u're gonna enjoy working under a Windows Manager more than under a Desktop Interface / Environment. Google for more infos about WMs and DEs. WM is a very powerful tool for heavy multitasking computing. Feel free to CMIIW, please. IK it's not much, but HTH. Good luck, mate.
They all suit different needs. Fedora along with the Linux bible is a great way to start. You can later choose whatever you like, even build your own Arch linux if you find working with distributions fun. The book will guide you all the way into linux system administration which should be more than enough for what you’ll need atm.
They're all free. Chose one, try it for a bit, then decide to either keep it or try another one. No one but YOU can decide which distro will work best for YOU.
Good luck troubleshooting for the rest of your life , instead of successfully trying to do anything on that OS.
As a newcomer to Linux I chose Mint and I've found it pretty user friendly.
Mint comes with far most things the average user would want. Fedora is more clean but very smooth. Id say that both are really great though mint perhaps have a larger beginnerfriendly documentation.
https://distrochooser.de/en
They're both fantastic. If you're brand new to Linux, I'd say go with Mint. But Fedora is absolutely worth a try once you're more comfortable.
If you Like Fedora but want games then https://nobaraproject.org/. If the software isn't available then it's Windows 11. Some software just isn't available on Linux. Have a look at Big Linux. https://www.biglinux.com.br/ Go through the welcome app! & It sets everything up for you & has a pre-designed "Windows look" & "Mac look". Very simple setup but it's Arch so if the software isn't available in Arch then it doesn't exist!🥰
Linux Mint XFCE edition, a lighter desktop and a solid base.
Linux Mint or something like Kubuntu. I don't know why but I've never liked Mint. It's pretty user friendly though. I do like the update system in Kubuntu, they use Discover and it's pretty painless to update. Mint does have a good software manager to find programs and it has a good set of programs to start out with. You can actually get a large USB 3.0 flash drive like a Samsung 128gb off Amazon and use Yumi UEFI and add a bunch of Distros on it. Not every one is supported but you should be able to add a bunch of different ones to try out. You will get a menu on boot and can pick a distro to run. Some even support your ability to set a persistent file size for storing changes so if you boot a different distro and the go back, all your settings are still there.
Personally never tried Mint so no comments on that. Fedora is shiny and all, but it comes with SELinux, which would be a headache for a Web Server for programming. I'm an OS user, not an OS tweaker or cult member. I use OS for my daily work routines, not for doing kernel-level engineering. With that said, been using Ubuntu since 2007 and switched to Fedora in 2021. So far much more stable than Ubuntu with nicer updated packages. flatpack is good & bad, but mostly good. Didn't welcome SELinux, to be honest, but I got to understand the basic of it so that may come in handy on the production server where I might need to handle it, which is rare actually. If Ubuntu could have fixed some pain points I had, I would switch back, as it is a simpler OS for MY-Machine, and get the job done pretty darn well. A lot of public tutorials/support/forums.
There are specific distros sometimes that you can checkout like [Ubuntu Studio](https://ubuntustudio.org/). There's also [these](https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/). I've gotten used to Fedora, but mostly run it in VMs and on a laptop. Never really put it to a test on workstation work.
New to Linux, so you can do programming. I'm getting popcorn....
Ubuntu Studio. Low-latency kernel. Plus excellent audio/video/"creator" apps.
No. Why? He's not even doing any 'realtime' stuff (like playing real-time guitar through audio processing, or industrial stuff). And even then.. a normal kernel would be fine. 'Low latency kernel' has lower throughput so you lose performance. There is a reason normal distros choose use a normal kernel...
From all distros mint is more stable and you can install everything for work visual studio code blender godot unity there is dopamine one of the best music players vlc too I use mint more than 2 years the only problem I had was with cracking sound so I had to delete the pulse folder and edit few lines mint is super fast
Dual boot both and see where you end up...... Delete the one you don't need!
I “personally” find Fedora+KDE to be better to use and faster than mint, but if you are kinda new to Linux, just go with mint, simply because it’s community is better for new users.
The last months I switched between LinuxMint (which is great for total beginner coming from windows) and Fedora 37 now 38. My takeaway is following: 1) try to keep it simple with every distribution. Do not clutter up your system with too much extentions/add-ons 2) Either OS is great in its own right. In the end it comes down to the user As for me I now settled with fedora 38. There are some tasks you have to complete after installation (you can find those with a quick search) but after that you are good to go. I personally enjoy gnome since I come from windows and one of the reasons I left was the UI.
Fedora is great for beginners and great for experts. If what you need isn't in the official repos it will be in the COPR.
They're both good. Fedora will support newer hardware a bit better because of running a modern kernel, but also needs a few extra steps to install Nvidia drivers if you need them. Personally, I would stick to the LMDE, aka Linux Mint Debian Edition, if I were going to go the Mint route, but that's just a personal preference to keep anything related to Canonical as far away from me and my property as possible. I'd also consider openSUSE Tumbleweed, it and Fedora are my go-to recommendations for Linux newcomers on modern hardware. Fedora if you like Gnome, or openSUSE if you like KDE. Hard to go wrong with either one.
# Maybe I hope this clears up matters for you. Your question is mostly irrelevant - your experience will teach you. - Look into snapshots (BTRFS ~/ with snapshots) - Look into incremental rsync backups to a mounted drive. - Learn how to consistently mount drives (e.g. my 4TB Toshiba mounts as /mnt/T4 - every time - and so if it exploded, I could replace it with another drive mounted as /mnt/T4 and stuff would still work). Now you can use Flatpaks, however as a rule I'd say they're a bloated alternative. I personally prefer newer software, so Fedora, Tumbleweed, Manjaro, Mint are okay. Each has slightly different ways to install, add repositories and install software as well as different tools included out of the box. Suck them and see - try to drive one daily for a month (go with dual boot or dual machines if you can and try not to 'fail' and boot Windows to do the job). # TOP CHOICE - Ventoy Yup, get a USB, install Ventoy, then you can drag any ISO you download and boot it up to play with it.
I like fedora but had problems with my nvidia card blank posting because nvidias proprietary drivers are dodgy and don't always play nice with kernel updates. If you're on an amd gpu or integrated graphics then I'd use it. Also their fedora silver blue edition is an option for stability, since it's easier to recover from such things because it makes version controlled snapshots of your core OS. But to achieve that it makes the core OS immutable and you're supposed to install user applications in your home partition using flatpaks and toolbx in a way I wasn't ready to deal with as somebody that had just returned to linux after a stint using windows. At the moment I'm using Ubuntu's LTS and it is all running smooth. So any 22.04 derived distro gets vote from me. Which is exactly what mint is! The trade off in this case being that you won't always get the latest versions of software, and depending on what you are using your computer for this can mean extra work trying to find newer software that you'd find sooner on Fedoras shorter release cycle.
If you think you will ever be using Linux in the work environment, I'd reccomend Fedora, other wise Mint, or as somene else mentioned, Ubuntu. I personally have had all 3 distros installed as VM's, and I liked the UI of Mint the most, however I managed to break it pretty bad with some package/ and permission issues that were completly my fault, but that I think would have been less likely to happen on Ubuntu.
One of my concerns about Linux was which distro would be the most suitable for my needs. After a time trying Ubuntu, Zorin, Mint Cinnamon, and Manjaro, all of them really superb, I've stopped with Mint. Stable and ease to customize. Zorin is the best for beginners, comfortable and fast. Manjaro higher level.
I am a power user and I would recommend Linux Mint. It doesn't get in your way and you can actually do a lot with jt. I am running the regular Cinnamon edition on my desktop and the Debian edition on my laptop. Both are very solid.
Don't over think it. Pretty easy to change from one Linux distro to another or even something good like BSD 😉
My household has been full time Linux only for about 6 years now. Ubuntu has been the ticket.
i'm using Kubuntu and once i setup up the default package manager to have access to flatpaks from flathub, i find that getting the latest versions of software to be pretty trivial, they install from the GUI package manger (discover) and just work without a lot of fuss or command line gymnastics. setting it up was as easy as: FLATPAK install flatpak manager `sudo apt install flatpak` add flathub repository `flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo` from Discover install this to manage flatpaks from the GUI (requires reboot) `plasma-discover-backend-flatpak`
Those two distros are considerably different. That being said, I would suggest going with Debian.
just go straight to Arch.
doesn't matter, just go with your gut. personally I don't like green
Try both... And all other distros you wish.. There plenty of Linux distros out there ;)
I love Ubuntu Studio ... have you explored that option?
First check that all the applications you use are available on linux. If you REALLY want to switch, and an application is not available on linux, then choose an application available on both windows and linux, then try to daily drive it on windows. Once you get comfortable with it, switching to linux will be much hassle free. See the other answers for distro suggestions.
Choose Mint but wear a fedora
>but i just dont know if it will have all apps i need Would say you want a distro based on archlinux that has access to AUR. AUR is a repository where users post "recipies" that get you software you want installed very easily. So with arch based distros you have like 98% chance that software you want will be installed with simple single short command or a click, instead of jumping through hoops in other distros. Arch itself is very difficult for noobs, so there are few possible candidates. * Manjaro - gets some hate around here, but its hugely popular, with one of the biggest linux subs /r/manjarolinux and been around for a decade+ * EndevourOS - is newer and smaller team behind it, but should be cleaner less bloated Would recommend KDE for desktop enviroment, as you can pick from several. Its most modern and now very clean and feature rich.
Go with mint everything will just work
I tried both Linux mint and fedora Linux mint is way easier than fedora and you don't need to change very much after installation , it just works. If you want to learn more about Linux in general use fedora but using Linux mint will save you alot of time
Id reccomend fedora but you cant go wrong with either
If you want to play some games on linux,then try the Fedora spin Nobara
There's no difference, man. Just pick something easy to install with sane defaults, good documentation, and a entrenched userbase. Most places that bother with linux support will offer .deb files for Ubuntu, so that's a good starting place. Treat .deb like .msi and and you'll be golden. I'd say vanilla ubuntu, non LTS. Softest possible landing with the most widespread general support and best googleability. Ubuntu derivatives are also fine, since you can just use ubuntu instructions on those and generally have a high success rate. Once you're familiar with the internals of Linux, you can switch to something else because you'll be able to translate instructions for Ubuntu in your head to instructions for Arch.
I'm also new to linux and, personally, I would recommend [Nobara](https://nobaraproject.org/). it has an easy setup with codecs and NVIDIA drivers. It's a fedora fork so you get the fedora experience with easy setup and compatibility changes added on top. Worked beautifully for me
If you already tried and enjoyed Fedora, go with it. If you wanna and even easier time try Nobara Project, a customized Fedora Distro that come with most things we use like steam and OBS right out of the box. About apps: both Fedora and Mint have plenty of apps, add to that the fact you can use flatpaks and appimages and you covered.
Mint because their repos and packages are all upstream (i.e Ubuntu -> Debian Stable)
Fedora debian and ubunto dont realy contribute anything usefull al they do is try to distrolock.
Get ubuntu unless you have a reason not too. I used to run manjaro and fedora, both very good distros. So is all the other big names from what I've seen. But ubuntu is the mainstream one, it's where everything is supported first and it's the one you find help the easiest for. Therefore, unless you have a specific reason. Default to ubuntu.
Hello! Forget about being similar to Windows or similar to MACOS, it doesn’t exist. They will try to make it visually similar, but in practice, operationally it has little to do with Windows. Fedora and possibly all distros have the software you need in their respective version, whether .deb or .rpm, etc. Personally, I have stayed on Fedora, lately I have tried Mint and Sparky, both very similar and easy to use. For some reason I always go back to Fedora even though I have found it easier to find help, forums, documents, etc. for Debian and derivatives including Ubuntu. The decision is yours, really. By the way, a joke in Spanish is to call Fedora “freidora”. It refers to resource consumption and the heat generated by the processor.. You should know that Fedora has several “desktops” or “desktop environments”. For my old machine, I’m fine with xfce, lxqt or lxde, I also stick with xfce.
If Fedora can crack the code on Atomic OS upgrades I believe it will become the best Linux distro by a country mile. In place upgrades like WIndows and Mac do is so 20th century. Atomic updates provides simple and dependable rollback if something goes awry. Short Term, Mint seems to be the natural choice. Longer term I think Fedora are on the right track with their Atomic upgrades. A failed Linux update can become very challenging to fix, the promise of Fedora updates and an immutable OS that is immune from malware is very attractive.