I have tried Linux as a DD on and off for years but about a year ago I decided to commit to it no matter the cost. First with Mint, then Ubuntu and a few others sprinkled in briefly. Both are "mainstream" "beginner friendly" distros, right? I don't want anything too advanced, right?
Well, ubuntu recently updated and it broke my second monitor (Ubuntu detected it but the monitor had "no signal"). After trying to fix it for a week, I decided to wipe it and reinstall. No luck. I tried a few other distros that had the same issue and I started to wonder if it was a hardware issue but I tried a Windows PC and the monitor worked no problem.
Finally, just to see what would happen I tried a distro very very different than what I'm used to: Fedora (Kinoite). And not only did everything "just work" flawlessly, but it's so much faster and more polished than I ever knew Linux to be!
Credit where it's due, a lot of the polish is due to KDE plasma. I'd never strayed from Gnome because I'm not an expert and people recommend GNOME to Linux newbies because it's "simple" and "customizable" but WOW is KDE SO MUCH SIMPLER AND STILL CUSTOMIZEABLE. Gnome is only "simple" in that it doesn't allow you to do much via the GUI. With Fedora Kinode I think I needed to use the terminal maybe once during setup? With other distros I was constantly needed to use the terminal (yes its helped me learn Linux but that curve is STEEP).
The atomic updates are fantastic too. I have not crashed once in the two weeks of setup whereas before I would have a crash maybe 1-2 times per week.
I am FULLY prepared for the responses demanding to know what I did to make it crash and telling me how I was using it wrong blah blah blah but let me tell you, if you are experienced with Windows but want to learn Linux and getting frustrated by all the "beginner" distros that get recommended, do yourself a favor and try Fedora Kinoite!
edit: i am DYING at the number of "you're using it wrong" comments here. never change people.
I've been having a tough time with it. Maybe I'm unlucky with my hardware and setup. Spend hours this week recovering from a black screen after upgrading to F40. Issue with Plymouth + Nvidia + Luks at boot. Also getting Nvidia to work on F39, my first install. Secondary computer (laptop) macbook 2017, keyboard doesn't work with Fedora compared to Linux Mint.
I'd recommend Linux Mint for beginners after my experiences. imho
Nvidia can be a bitch. And it's unfortunate that Fedora isn't particularly well known for handling that graciously.
Absolutely fair. FWIW, if you ever feel like giving Fedora another chance, consider doing it through its derivative (i.e. Bazzite).
Thanks for the recommendation, I just installed Bazzite. Had been trialling LMDE but found it frustratingly lacking. No Driver Manager on that edition made NVIDIA drivers a nightmare. Meanwhile that's handled in Bazzite and it has a shortcut to install Moonlight? Awesome.
You're welcome 😊!
I agree that Bazzite is very very good. So much so, that it's the first distro I recommend in person.
Enjoy 😉!
One of these days, I'll have to give Universal Blue a look for general computing. Bazzite is excellent, but I don't imagine my MiL is going to care about having Steam and gamescope installed out of the box, should I ever have to do a fresh install for her.
I understand. And to be frank, I agree with you that perhaps it's too much focused on a particular set of things (i.e. gaming).
There's also Aurora and Bluefin (see uBlue's website) for those that seek a very similar experience but without the focused-on-gaming part. The reason I prefer Bazzite over those two is related to Waydroid (i.e. software to run Android (apps) on Linux). However, your mileage may vary.
Finally, uBlue used to dedicate resources and documentation on their base images; i.e. relatively not-opinionated images for Silverblue, Kinoite and Fedora Atomic with basically any desktop environment you could imagine plus hardware enablement. These are perhaps still worth considering. However, personally, I've been having a better time on Aurora/Bazzite/Bluefin.
I always forget about Aurora and Bluefin. Thanks for the reminder!
Things should get a lot better with NVIDIA soon in distros like Fedora that want to stick with only open software.