Linux admin with 20 years experience, looking for "beginner" distro [Solved, the real beginner distro was the Debian I've used along the way]
Linux admin with 20 years experience, looking for "beginner" distro [Solved, the real beginner distro was the Debian I've used along the way]
I'm over tinkering with my OS. So I'm looking for a distro that "just works" out of the box for my laptop. Also I want to test an "easy" distro I can install for my grandpa.
I don't care for immutability, declarative config, being fully FOSS or having the newest stuff. I don't want snaps, or a software center that relies on them. So no Ubuntu.
What I do want (ideally out of the box):
Important:
- as few annoying visible bugs and crashes as possible (looking at you, Ubuntu)
- Wayland support
- good package selection, so no independent fringe distro
- fluid YouTube videos, streaming, pre-installed codecs
Less important:
- ideally with Gnome
- encrypting the hard drive from within the GUI installer
- nice font rendering (used to be a problem, but I guess not anymore)
- installing Steam with a button press
- pre-installed sane-airprint and sane-airscan (automatic setup of my networked printer-scanner-combo)
You get the idea. The usual stuff (low-end gaming, browsing, streaming, printing, scanning) should just work. I don't have any hardware that poses a problem.
From what I've read, Mint doesn't yet support Wayland and doesn't ship with video codecs anymore. (Or am I wrong?)
What are the other options? Is Zorin king of the block now? Is Manjaro good now?
Thanks for any and all input.
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So you're calling for Fedora
I didn't consider Fedora cause last time I used it it did have a strong FOSS focus and put barriers in your way if you wanted non-free software.
Is that not the case anymore? Does it come with a GUI software center for rpm and flatpak? I've been on Debian and Arch so long my knowledge of other desktop distros is severely outdated.Fedora asks you to enable third party non-foss repos like Steam and Chrome, but still you have to manually enable rpmfusion. Plus idk if new install of Fedora ships codecs pre-installed.
Fedora comes with Gnome, so it has Gnome Software Center installed by default. Mostly of packages from Fedora is also Flatpaks from Red Hat's server (not Flathub). They also has Flathub enabled by default
About RPM, I don't know if Gnome Software Center is able to handle it, cause I don't use Fedora myself. But at least you may try and see
Mostly of packages from Fedora is also Flatpaks from Red Hat's server (not Flathub)
That's not true. Fedora used to have a Fedora flatpak repo but now they simply ship with flathub enabled by default.
About RPM, I don't know if Gnome Software Center is able to handle it
Yes, it can