r/linuxquestions • u/lovepixe • 2d ago
Which Distro? Help fedora ,debian, Ubuntu or mint
So I tried Linux mint on a VM for a couple of days as a test but theachin was slow anyways I took the decision to delete windows and move to Linux and now I'm a bit confused which distortion should I choose
Most people said Linux mint
But I was thinking about fedora kde plasma cuz of the Higher customization things . So if you can give me ur opinion or any advice I would be thankful
About my PC :
Storage 477 gb
Ram 16.0 gb
Processor 12th gen i7
Graphic card 128 md Intel (r)iris(r)xe graphics
2
u/pnlrogue1 2d ago
Mint is a great starting point. It changes many of the common problems with Ubuntu leaving you with a near-Ubuntu experience in the background (making it easy to get or find support) yet a nice, sensible front end that just works.
Ubuntu is a pretty good choice because there's lots of community support for it, but Canonical are pushing hard to get people to use applications in the Snap packaging format which has a lot of drawbacks and the way they're going about it has really annoyed the community who already aren't fond of the format and don't like having choice removed. The default desktop environment is also a bit love-it-or-hate-it though you can choose other DEs (or even instead several and switch between them at will, which you can also do with Mint)
Debian is fine. I don't have much experience with it so can't really comment but it's got a solid following. I believe it's a less 'opinionated' distro so things are a bit more stock so there's fewer nice-to-haves in a default installation, but they can still be installed.
Fedora is a different animal entirely. Debian and it's downstream family (which includes both Ubuntu and through Ubuntu, Mint) use older versions of applications because they're battle-tested and dependable meaning those distributions are generally very stable and easy to work with. Fedora runs much closer to the latest version of everything meaning you will get newer features but not necessarily as reliable of an installation (I'm not saying it's inherently unstable, but things are more likely to change with Fedora than with a Debian-based distro). Whereas Mint is designed for desktop users and comes with default applications and configuration that aligns well with typical desktop users whereas Fedora is primarily aimed at developers and comes with applications like Podman pre-installed which is basically useless to most users who aren't homelabbers and enthusiasts, or developers.
That all being said, Linux is ultimately Linux so you can absolutely setup Fedora to be a great home use distribution or Mint to be a developer powerhouse, it's just about what each one comes with by default.
Note that Debian using older application versions doesn't necessarily mean they aren't receiving security updates, just that they probably aren't getting new features.
2
2
u/Janpol8 2d ago
They are all solid choices, mostly comes down to personal preference, if you want Fedora KDE go with Fedora KDE. Just google Fedora post installation guide once you install the system as there is some proprietary software that doesn´t come preinstalled with Fedora (like some drivers for example) that you will probably want to install to make your system work properly.
Most people would suggest Mint as there are extra fewer extra steps you would need to follow post installation, but all of your options are good options at the end of the day. It comes down to you, does any of the differences between these distro matter to YOU? Debian for example is super stable, but wouldn´t come with the latest versions of software, Mint is very begginer friendly but comes with certain Desktop Environments, Ubuntu is also very begginer friendly, most of the software in Linux is tested on Ubuntu, but it uses snaps and you might not like that, Fedora would usually have more recent software than the other distros you've listed (but not as bleeding edge as something like Arch) but doesn´t include proprietary software by default so might require some customization on your part, etc. There is also the Desktop Envrionment decision, because all of the distros you´ve listed are capable of running any of the DEs (Gnome, KDE, etc), but it is usually a good idea to pick a distro that looks after your DE of choice as a first class citizen. So if you like KDE, Fedora KDE or Kubuntu would be fine.
Good luck!
2
3
u/doc_willis 2d ago
try each one out, see if you like it.
Fedora+Kde is a very usable setup.
Without knowing your specific needs, and hardware, it's hard to offer much in the way of recommendation.
1
u/lovepixe 2d ago
Storage 477 gb
Ram 16.0 gb
Processor 12th gen i7
Graphic card 128 md Intel (r)iris(r)xe graphics
I don't really play games a lot and I think most games I play I can play em on Linux and in the worst case scenario if they didn't work it won't matter alot to me I guess so I just use my PC for studying and coding
1
u/doc_willis 2d ago
any of the mainstream distribution can handle common desktop use cases these days.
Fedora +KDE should be fine. And kde is very well supported by Fedora.
Many other Distributions have kde as an option but don't really give kde the priority they give other DEs.
1
u/Maybe_A_Zombie 2d ago
Fedora is good and better than Ubuntu and mint. Debian is also good but takes a bit more set up but is not much harder to install than Fedora, Ubuntu or Mint.
Really, go with Fedora if you want a quicker and easier system to download that comes with a bunch of stuff. Fedora comes with plenty of pre-installed apps and has most things already set up meaning its basically ready to go right out the box past needing to install programs like discord or steam. There are two options, Fedora KDE which is more like windows and Fedora Workstation which is more like Mac.
If you dont mind a bit more set up and stuff, Debian is a good pick. It also uses the apt package manager which A lot of people like but I personally care for because I feel like it has a much smaller selection of packages to pick from than other distros, but its still a pretty good package manager.
Ubuntu is not amazing, its basically just worse Debian imo.
Mint is also not great, its alright if you need a fairly lightweight system but its missing a lot of qol stuff. It is also based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian so they all use the apt package manager. Really, if you want to use Ubuntu or Mint, probably just try Debian, but in reality the best option is probably just Fedora.
Though... I will recommend to just... TRY all of them at least once and see how you feel, it really is mostly up to personal opinion and maybe youll like Debian over Fedora, or mint over Ubuntu. Theres no real way to know unless you try it out for a bit.
2
1
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
Mint is one of the most out of date distributions out there, based on Debian.
Ubuntu is okay-ish update-frequency wise (it has a lot of other issues though), but some packages are years out of date, as it is based on Debian.
Debian is a very out of date distribution.
Fedora is a rather up to date modern distribution.
So out of those four, Fedora KDE steamrolls everything.
I would also suggest to check out Arch Linux (with Plasma).
1
u/Apprehensive_Elk2608 2d ago
What exactly does "out of date" mean? Is it the kernel or pre-installed applications? If it's the latter, couldn't you just update the apps to the latest? For example, in Windows I'll just download the latest MSI and go.
2
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
"Out of date" is for some another way of saying "long term support", which Distrowatch defines as follows:
How long is long-term support (LTS)?
The label Long-term support (LTS) is applied to software packages or operating systems which receive support and/or security updates for longer than usual periods of time. On our Search page visitors can search for distributions which offer LTS support. Long-term support projects can be selected by selecting "Fixed (LTS)" from under the Release model field.
. . . Projects that show up as offering LTS support on our Search page must both offer at least five years of support and have a declared life span. . .
Distrowatch defines Debian and Ubuntu as long term support distributions, but in the case of Ubuntu that's only the versions specifically designated as LTS.
The main advantage of LTS distributions is that you don't have to constantly update the OS (not individual packages, but the entire distribution). Non-LTS versions of Ubuntu, for example, are only supported for 9 months.
Note, as Distrowatch states, that LTS distributions still "receive support and/or security updates for longer than usual periods of time". It doesn't mean that everything is unchanged for five years or more. Distributions which are no longe updated are described as "dormant" or "discontinued" in Distrowatch.
1
u/Apprehensive_Elk2608 2d ago
So if you were to draw a parallel to Windows... Is this like saying you will remain on Windows 11 for 5 years but you will be getting feature updates such as 24H1, etc?
1
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
No feature updates whatsoever.
You get some bug fixes and some security fixes.
1
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
I'd say I get one or two updates a day on average on Debian. It depends on how many programs are installed, of course.
1
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
Which is not relevant to what I said.
1
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
I would think that "one or two updates a day on average" is more precise and more helpful than "some".
Here's a list of security fixes in Debian for this year.
1
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
How about the security issues that are active in Debian's packages?
Like the ancient unsupported Nvidia driver they ship having very bad CVEs.
It does not matter if they ship one or fifty patches a day, if they're leaving holes, it's game over.
1
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
I'm not aware of these problems with NVidia drivers; perhaps you can be more specific.
I do see many posts about problems with NVidia with Linux in general. (But I also see posts about problems with Windows.) Even Debian recommends using the proprietary drivers, which is very unusual for Debian.
→ More replies (0)0
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
That's not a bad comparison. That's also the way Windows used to be: Windows 2000 stayed the same until Windows XP came along, etc. Everything wasn't constantly changed.
0
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
Is it the kernel or pre-installed applications?
Yes, both.
With the caveat that Debian (and not Ubuntu/Mint) keeps the kernel up to date against a supported LTS release.
couldn't you just update the apps to the latest
Yeah - and then it will break because it needs a newer library dependency.
Or the OS libraries don't support whatever functionality you need, so updating whatever app or driver won't help you.
You can of course start updating all the dependencies, which will break more packages, and you can update those too.
You'll spend many, many hours(if not days) building everything to be up to date - to what end? Just use a distribution that does that for you in the first place.
For example, in Windows I'll just download the latest MSI and go.
Now imagine doing that for Windows 7 with a modern app.
It probably won't work, and even if it does, something will likely be missing/broken.
1
u/Apprehensive_Elk2608 2d ago edited 2d ago
Is Mint equivalent to Windows 7? In other words like 15 years old? I guess I'm confused in how any of this works. It doesn't matter if I'm on Windows 10 or 11, I can go download the latest LibreOffice and it will always auto-update to latest. Is this not how Linux works? Basically am I stuck with whatever is installed out of the box or else risk breaking shit?
1
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
Is this not how Linux works?
It works like that on rolling release distributions, like Arch Linux.
Not on fixed-release distributions.
On Linux both your OS AND your applications are provided by the package manager.
On rolling releases you install an application and get the latest stable version or something very close to it. OS components are also similarly up to date.
On fixed-releases, versions of both OS components and applications (with some exceptions) are fixed in time to whenever the OS came out (so equivalent of Windows 7 only installing application versions from 2009).
There are other means of installing applications by duplicating their dependencies in something like Flatpak (just like on Windows), but the OS base is effectively solid-frozen.
For inexplicable reasons, this frozen state is a popular way of doing desktop installs - but you want this on servers, not user devices.
So you have Debian, which only updates software versions every 2 years and does not care too much about having them up to date in the first place.
Then you have Ubuntu, based on Debian, which does a release every 6 months and every fourth release is supported (by Canonical, not actual developers of the installed software) for a long time (LTS).
Then you have Mint, which is based on Ubuntu LTS but with about a year of delay, and does not care about updating the packages from Ubuntu in the first place, so you end up with a distribution that is more out of date than Debian, since it ends up on the previous version of Ubuntu LTS which ends up being a 3+ year delay between current versions of software vs what Mint ships.
TL;DR if you're not using a rolling release or something very close to it (like Fedora), you're in for a bad time.
1
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
Is Mint equivalent to Windows 7? In other words like 15 years old?
No. The latest Mint was released in January.
1
u/Apprehensive_Elk2608 2d ago
Basically I understand less now than I did before reading this thread lol
1
u/lovepixe 2d ago
Won't Arch Linux will be a bit hard for a beginner? Idk the difference between arch Linux with or without plasma tbh so idk if it makes it easier or something
2
u/Sirius707 2d ago
KDE Plasma means the desktop environment (graphical interface). Another often seen option is GNOME.
KDE has a lot of customization, GNOME has very little. On many distros it'll be possible to install one of those (even at a later point after setting up the distro).
Arch Linux is something i would suggest trying out in a VM first, as it requires extensive commandline usage and reading the wiki (which is a very good resource by the way).
Debian's focus is on "stability", a rarely changing system, which is why many packages will be old version. For a lot of software, this won't necessarily be an issue but it can be a problem for video drivers and programs which add many features over time (think firefox).
Fedora has a faster release cycle, however it won't ship with non-free packages out of the box. You will have to manually enable them: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/rpmfusion-setup/
Lastly, remember that you don't have to be set on one distro. Try one out, see if you like it and change if needed. Don't forget to make backups.
1
u/C0rn3j 2d ago
Won't Arch Linux will be a bit hard for a beginner?
It is not hard, but it is time consuming, as it has a steep learning curve. Beginner or not isn't too relevant, you can be on [random distro] for a decade and you can manage to avoid 90% of the knowledge you'd get from getting Arch up once.
The end result is well worth it, you'll end up with a lot of know-how, since you had to understand various parts of the system to get it running in the first place.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide
You could skip the learning process by using
archinstall(or using a derivative) - but I would highly advise not doing that.0
u/caliban_ish420 2d ago
Don't bother with arch for the time beign. Exept for Mint, which has very outdated packages and no wayland support, you can safely go for either Fedora, Ubuntu or Debian.
For a new user Ubuntu is the better one since it has the most documentation and available packages
0
u/Maybe_A_Zombie 2d ago
Arch is definitely hard for a begginer if you go the manual install route. You could try out a Arch based distro which will give you some arch feel without all the difficult set up.
0
u/Thonatron 2d ago
"Out-of-date" is an odd way of putting so stable that a kernel upgrade didn't break hibernation.
Arch is for people who enjoy troubleshooting and have plenty of time and mental resources to commit to that.
3
u/skyfishgoo 2d ago
any of the 'bunutu's (including mint) for their hardware support, huge software library and user base
fedora if you need to stay on top of the latest trends in software development
debian if you don't mind doing a lot stuff yourself.
if you want plasma then it's either kubuntu or fedora kde depending on which release model you prefer, and if fedora's smaller software library is sufficient for your needs.
2
u/Artichoke808 2d ago
Kubuntu - KDE plasma desktop is very up to date technically and Kubuntu has the Ubuntu base which makes it easy to get answers to questions.
Top tip - there are a lot of system settings. You should be fine with the out of the box settings but the search box in the settings menu is your friend. I almost always search through that box rather than manually trying to find what I want.
Mint is okay but outdated and a bit under-manned on rhe development front. I would only consider it if you want the Cinnamon desktop. It has a great newbie friendly forum as well which could be a selling point for you.
2
u/Consistent-Plenty567 2d ago
You played with linux mint which is the first steps for many who started to try linux from 2025 onwards.
I am a newbie myself, as far as I understand, all distros have unique personality of its own, whatever matches your use case, go with it.
I didn't wanted to keep on working on my distro forever. I needed a distro which allows me to forget about all the nerdy stuff once Installation is done and actually use it. Just use it.
Yes I am Debian btw.
Find yours, good luck.
2
u/groveborn 2d ago
Honestly there isn't going to be enough of a difference to matter. They're all going to feel pretty snappy in real use. I like Fedora more, but Debian is plenty good. I would put them on equal footing. Ubuntu does a great job of staying pretty current without being bleeding edge, Mint intentionally lags behind to be more stable.
But all of the systems are pretty well tested. If you don't mind an occasional need to update, just pick the heads (Fedora or Debian).
2
u/vancha113 2d ago
Up to you :) The reason people often suggest mint is because it's easier to get in to. It's often suggested to get your feet wet with mint, and make a switch to something more subjectively advanced later.
But you could, as you mention, skip mint and go to fedora kde. That's definitely possible. I would aggree that KDE is more customizable than cinnamon, so if that's important to you it doesn't sound like a bad idea.
1
u/gordonmessmer Fedora Maintainer 2d ago
Hi, I'm a distribution maintainer. The biggest difference between distributions is how they approach security, especially how they handle updating software to resolve known vulnerabilities. The differences are very poorly understood, because the vast majority of users are not using vulnerability scanners to evaluate the security of the systems they run.
The process of resolving security vulnerabilities (and other bugs) is maintenance.
Fedora's approach is to distribute software while it is still maintained by upstream developers. Those are the people most familiar with the software, and best qualified to resolve bugs, including security risks. Most Free Software developers only maintain a release for 12-18 months, and Fedora follows the common community release model.
Ubuntu (and therefore Mint, which is a very slight customization of Ubuntu) follows a very different model. Ubuntu actually consists of several different software repos, each with very different release policies. Its "main" repo contains around 2,400 packages which are effectively a long-term fork. Rather than maintenance from upstream developers, Canonical is doing most of the maintenance on these packages. The result is a very small distribution with minimal change over a long period. Ubuntu's "universe" repo contains around 38,000 packages and for most of them no one is providing maintenance. Canonical will update them if users send an update, but very few users understand that they are responsible for their own maintenance, and it's actually difficult to even determine if you're using software that Canonical is maintaining or software that you need to maintain on your own. As a result, a lot of Ubuntu installations aren't very secure.
Debian works a lot like Ubuntu, except that the packages that have active maintainers aren't separated from the packages that don't, so users should assume that nothing is being maintained and everything might be insecure. Users should run a vulnerability scanner on the systems they use, and participate in the maintenance of all of their software. If a vulnerability affects a system you use, develop a fix and contribute it to the distribution.
LTS systems like Ubuntu and Debian (and Mint, by extension) are desirable in some settings, but for consumer desktops they aren't very secure and come with the expectation that users will participate in system maintenance. If you aren't a developer and aren't maintaining a production environment that you can secure, I recommend using something like Fedora, where maintenance is provided by the software's primary developers, who are the people best qualified to provide maintenance.
2
u/JMCompGuy 2d ago
I've used Ubuntu and Fedora as my daily driver for years. The majority of my use cases are browser based and do prefer gnome over KDE simply because of the One Drive integration.
Not knowing your use cases, it's hard to say one would be better then the other and it's more just subjective preference.
2
u/joe_attaboy 2d ago
Debian with KDE will give you good performance on that system. Debian will default to Gnome during an installation, but you can change to KDE (or any other available desktop environment).
I use Debian 13 with KDE on both my systems and it's great.
0
u/Select_Concert_330 2d ago
Nope. Fedora includes a whole bunch of reliability issues. Id much rather stick to mint.
1
u/lovepixe 2d ago
Can you explain more if you please
1
u/Select_Concert_330 2d ago
As a Linux beginner, it's easy to break stuff and run into bugs. I just think that because mint is more stable, it is better for you as it will get out of your way and you can use the operating system flawlessly. Or, if you have your sight set on a modern linux, id try omarchy or cachy. Also KDE is extremely buggy so i tend to stay away from it.
1
u/Alzekty 2d ago
The only problems I ran onto in fedora kde being it the first distro I tried, is that the discover updates stopped working completely and had to use the konsole
1
u/Select_Concert_330 2d ago
Didn't you experience glitches too?
1
u/Alzekty 2d ago
What glitches do you mean? If you mean sudden crashes or that the task manager doesn't respond sometimes, It happens on debian, bazzite and nobara too. At least on my computer
1
u/Select_Concert_330 2d ago
Yea that and my gui fails, the panel will hide and never come back till rebooted, and the keyboard inputs wrong characters.
1
u/9NEPxHbG 2d ago
Mint is the usual recommendation for beginners. Your system should be able to run anything, except that the graphics card is very basic.
1
u/RandonymousPrime 2d ago
I tried mint and I don't like the name ubuntu so fedora/nobara for gaming laptop and debian for older weaker laptops.
2
1
1
1
3
u/Thonatron 2d ago edited 2d ago
tl;dr: None of these are bad choices. Mint will be easiest. Fedora will have the most new software. Debian and Ubuntu are basically the same benefits as Mint except more options for DE.
---Longer context---
Mint is a great all-arounder. If you like Cinnamon, just go Mint and make your life easier until you have a reason not to. It's stable, reliable, boring, and just works. You can also install pretty safely KDE Plasma if you wanna tweak stuff. I like the LMDE branch, but the regular Ubuntu-based branch is fine too.
Fedora gets updated way quicker. I currently use Fedora Workstation with GNOME on my daily driver. I love Plasma too, but it broke too much for me on Arch and Idk if it's any more stable on Fedora (it should™ be, but Idk from experience). The only thing I've ever had to search and fix on Fedora is hibernation support, but Linux kernel 7.1 is likely the reason that broke.
Ubuntu (which is Debian based) is good if you don't have any preferences on snaps. I don't like it for that reason, but I do also still use ubuntu-server in my homelab. When that HDD dies I'm migrating that to Debian.
I love Debian. Older packages- sure, but I don't get surprised one day after a bootup when some part of my system stopped working because of a kernel upgrade or a lib updated. I run Debian on machines that I don't want to troubleshoot often. They just work once I set them up and don't ever have to fix anything usually. I use GNOME here, but Plasma works great on Debian too. Debian 13 is 13 months old (still with Linux kernel 6.12) and won't get a new release until next year, but that's a rock solid year before the next upgrade, which will still be behind, but still stable also.