Fedora 37 and Mint 21

[MurphCID]

I am putting this here since it is Linux. Some observations on using both Fedora 37 Cinnamon and Mint 21. I have Mint on the Lemur Pro and HP Dev One, I have Fedora 37 Cinnamon on the Darter Pro and Galago Pro.

Installation:

Mint has the easier to use installer. Fedora uses the Anaconda installer and it is for a more advanced Linux user because there are less "hand holding" (not perhaps 100% accurate, but you get my drift). Mint Installer seems faster, and "cleaner" in terms of installation. Fedora is set as root, and you have to add a user and then add that user to the wheel group to be able to "sudo". Not wrong or bad, but not something that your new user would be confident on.

Configuration:

Both are running Cinnamon, the latest version so it looks good on both. The nice thing about Fedora Cinnamon vs say POP!_OS Cinnamon is that the Fedora has the Mint icon set, and you get something other than the nasty Aidwaita tan icons. Almost identical to Mint's implementation of Cinnamon. Themeing is almost the same in both. Icons are sharp and clean.

For the most part getting it set up and running is pretty close, Fedora seems to want you to use terminal a bit more for things, but not terribly so. Then there is the issue of updates and installing software.

Installing software/updating:

Mint is what I consider ideal. Flatpaks available in update manager, right click to uninstall, just nice and clean. Synaptic if you want it, same as terminal installations.

Fedora: Their update manager looks like Synaptic and is dog slow. Just not anywhere close to Mints software center. It crashes on me a bit more than I would prefer. Flatpaks and RPM Fusion: you get SOME flatpaks in their repos, but to really get things properly you have to go into terminal and manually add the Flatpak repos. Same with codecs, etc, you have to go into terminal and manually add RPM fusion repos. For a new user/less experienced user a less than ideal experience. Probably the least good thing about Fedora, you can still see that they have a preference for terminal. For example to install the latest Flatpak version of Libreoffice you need to use the terminal to tell it to go get it.

Updating from old to new releases: Mint makes it painless via GUI, Fedora the GUI is less capable, they want you to do it via terminal. A win for MInt here.

Software installed:

Pretty much the same as Mint with the Cinnamon version. Newer kernels, much newer kernels. Right now on 6.0.9x kernel. But Fedora is a semi-rolling release so they have more up to date kernels. For the latest and greatest LIbreOffice you need flatpak versions. Easy to do in Mint, less easy in Fedora. Not hard, just not as clean and fast. Software repos see above. The newer kernels are good on 11th and 12th gen Intel processors, especially the 12th generation ones. The Fedora kernels seem a bit more optimized than the Ubuntu OEM ones for some reason.

Function/Use:

Pretty much the same. Both are really stable, Fedora seems to have done something to give better battery life, especially with TLP enabled. I am not sure what that is. Neither has any major issues that I have found so far. I am hard pressed to make a definative statement that one is better than the other for daily use. Some of the "dnf" terminal commands are different than the "apt" ones. For example the command: "sudo apt remove --purge package name" in Fedora is: "sudo dnf remove package name" since the purge command does not seem to be used. Just little differences. I like how Fedora terminal works, there seems to be more information provided when installing or removing packages.

Overall, neither is bad, both are very good. Mint is "easier" for new users/casual users. Fedora is for more advanced users who probably want to end up working on Red Hat server systems. Both are very usable on the desktop, with again the edge going to Mint. The Server bones of Fedora show in their installation, and how the system works. Their implementation of Cinnamon is the best out there other than Mint. Mint has more GUI tools, Fedora is more terminal centric. Fedora needs a lot of work on its software center, which reminds me of Synaptic a great deal, as well as its handling of Flatpaks and other repos. Fedora seems to have that "magic sauce" when it comes to power management, I am not sure what they have done, but on laptops I seem to be getting much more battery life. It could be the kernel. Fedora is constantly pushing out updates, even more so than Mint. Kernel updates are fast and regular.

Will I leave Mint? Heck No! Will I use Fedora on the two newer laptops since it seems to be better optimized for their hardware? Yep. Cinnamon is in my opinion the best desktop out there.

[deepakdeshp]

I found this link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Is_Fedora_For_Me
Linus the guru of gurus uses Fedora.

[Pjotr]

I found this link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Is_Fedora_For_Me
Linus the guru of gurus uses Fedora.

Yes, but that's probably mainly because Fedora picks up the latest kernels so quickly. Not unimportant for the leader of the kernel team.

Fedora is nice (I still remember fondly the beautiful graphical artwork in Fedora 7), but it has one very important drawback. Well, two actually. Short support and bleeding edge. Not for people who want a system with years of reliable and predictable behaviour.

[deepakdeshp]

I found this link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Is_Fedora_For_Me
Linus the guru of gurus uses Fedora.

Yes, but that's probably mainly because Fedora picks up the latest kernels so quickly. Not unimportant for the leader of the kernel team.

Fedora is nice (I still remember fondly the beautiful graphical artwork in Fedora 7), but it has one very important drawback. Well, two actually. Short support and bleeding edge. Not for people who want a system with years of reliable and predictable behaviour.

+1.

A very good comment especially about the latest kernels available so quickly in Fedora. Along with that the supreme kernel maintainer and his contributors must be having their own way of testing the kernels. After all it is used by all Super computers and countless mission critical applications. The mind boggles at the sheer size of kernel with more than 30 million lines of code a d many commits.

https://ubuntu.com/blog/an-overview-of- ... l-patching

[Portreve]

I found this link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Is_Fedora_For_Me
Linus the guru of gurus uses Fedora.

I don't like that page. No, I don't like it at all.

To understand better whether Fedora is suitable for you, ask yourself the following:

• Do you want the latest stable software, produced and maintained by a growing community of FOSS contributors?
• Do you want a platform that features technologies that use or become the next generation of standards?
• Are you OK with moving your computer's OS a minimum of about once a year to use these technologies?
• Do you care about sustainable progress in software freedom and innovation?
• Are you interested in becoming part of a community of contribution and helping drive innovation in FOSS by contributing code, documentation, translation, administration, or otherwise participating?

I really dislike promotion via the use of fallacy. At a minimum, these questions are guilty of "begging the question", and some trip over straw man arguments. It is even worse when it's done by a group who ostensibly are "the good guys".


“Do you want the latest stable software, produced and maintained by a growing community of FOSS contributors?”

Are they suggesting they have the lock on FOSS contributors? Are they suggesting only their community is growing?


“Do you want a platform that features technologies that make use or become the next generation of standards?”

Fedora isn't the only distro which puts out new stuff. Canonical has, Linux Mint has, Debian most definitely has, and lots of others, too.


“Do you care about sustainable progress in software freedom and innovation?”

What in the world does that word salad even mean?


“Are you interested in becoming part of a community of contribution and helping drive innovation in FOSS by contributing code, documentation, translation, administration, or otherwise participating?”

I'm not sure if this is a fallacy, but this isn't really a good reason for picking a distro, since you can absolutely do this using pretty much any distro out there.

[MurphCID]

I only use it in the Cinnamon version, and so far it works well enough for my purposes. Mint is more stable for the long term, Fedora for the short term. Also my report represents only my use case for Fedora and Mint.

[Portreve]

Fedora, back when it was first an off-shoot of RedHat, was a very cool distro. Not very stable, but then few distros were. Nevertheless, it was a favorite of mine at the time. However, ever since Mark Shuttleworth poured a ton of money into a fork of Debian, and then Clem & Co. forked Ubuntu, honestly, I really can't find much of a use for Fedora any longer. It isn't as friendly and intuitive as both Ubuntu and Linux Mint are, and to me feels simply clunky.

[The Muffin Man]

I booted up Fedora 37 in a VM then promptly shut it down. I didn't "get" Gnome 43.

[MurphCID]

I booted up Fedora 37 in a VM then promptly shut it down. I didn't "get" Gnome 43.

No! That’s why I use Cinnamon, never Gnome. Use the cinnamon spin, it’s not terrible.

[BenTrabetere]

Fedora is nice (I still remember fondly the beautiful graphical artwork in Fedora 7), but it has one very important drawback. Well, two actually. Short support and bleeding edge. Not for people who want a system with years of reliable and predictable behaviour.

You forgot dnfdragiora. I have to disagree with "short support" and "bleeding edge." While I despise Discourse forums, I find the one for Fedora is active and responsive. I find Fedora to be a nice compromise between LTS and rolling release - stable, but frequent updates.

I have a distro hop system, and for the past couple of months I have spend most of my time rotating between Fedora and Manjaro. I am using the Cinnamon spins for both, and I really like them. Upgrading from Fedora 36 to 37 was very easy. The only thing I truly dislike about Fedora is dnfdragiora - IMO, it sucks dead bunnies through a bent straw.

I think Pamac, the Software Manager for Manjaro, is on par with Mint's Software Manager and Update Manager.

[Pjotr]

I have a distro hop system

I'm far too lazy for that.

Which is why I only use LTS. Five years of support is what I like best.... Although I must admit that in reality, on most of my systems, I do a fresh clean installation of a new Mint series every two years.

But I'm also a system administrator for some friends and family members, and on their computers the lifecycle of Mint more or less approaches its maximal life span.

[exploder]

I have gotten more conservative over the years. I enjoy tinkering with systems but I am not too crazy about fixing things that should just work. Mint, just works! It's fast, looks good, and only one very minor issue on one system that in no way interferes with it's daily use. I do like Gnome Shell. I have poor sight and really like the app grid it uses, easier to see. I can see the mint menu icons but they are kind of tiny, so I just put shortcuts on the panel for now.

I used Fedora Core many years ago. If you want the latest Gnome Shell, Fedora is for you. It takes far less of my time and effort to use Mint though. I can have Mint running in good order in about 15 - 20 minutes. I look at the way Mint is developed, development is transparent, you can always see what is going on and being worked on.

Mint was one of the first distros to create it's own desktop environment because of all the things originally changed in Gnome. I think of Mint as the Toyota Corolla of OS's! Cinnamon is where it is today because it was incrementally improved over time rather that constantly starting fresh. The complaint I see most is that Mint looks old. Well, I guess some did not read this.

Cinnamon is a Linux desktop that provides advanced innovative features and a traditional user experience.

The desktop layout is similar to Gnome 2 with underlying technology forked from Gnome Shell. Cinnamon makes users feel at home with an easy-to-use and comfortable desktop experience.

Cinnamon is exactly what the description says it is! You can make it look just about any way you like and most people do just that! Mint developers are approachable too! They genuinely care about the user base and the quality of what they release. I really like that Mint does not follow Ubuntu's development decisions, I have a page and a half of fixes I apply to a fresh Ubuntu install, no need for that with Mint.

Nothing against Fedora but Mint has better tools that avoid breakage with NVIDIA drivers and WiFi adapters and other distros do use these tools for that very reason! I genuinely feel Mint offers a VERY high QUALITY solution built with ease of use as a priority.

[Hoser Rob]

... Are they suggesting they have the lock on FOSS contributors? Are they suggesting only their community is growing?...

What would you expect? Is the Mint bumf any better? No.

I don't really like Fedora personally but I'd consider it on really new hardware. Though I'd reinstall something more Debianish as soon as it was compatible.

Fedora is the FOSS version of Red Hat. As far as developers go, there is Ubuntu, Red Hat, and then everyone else way behind. A lot of Debian developers are actually Red Hat employees.

[MurphCID]

You forgot dnfdragiora. I have to disagree with "short support" and "bleeding edge." While I despise Discourse forums, I find the one for Fedora is active and responsive. I find Fedora to be a nice compromise between LTS and rolling release - stable, but frequent updates.

[edit]The only thing I truly dislike about Fedora is dnfdragiora - IMO, it sucks dead bunnies through a bent straw.

I think Pamac, the Software Manager for Manjaro, is on par with Mint's Software Manager and Update Manager.

dnfdragora is bad, really bad. I will disagree slightly with you about Pamac, I think it is better than dnfdragora but not on par with Mint's update manager, I would put it close to POP!_OS updater. But I do completely agree that the Cinnamon spins of both are excellent. I use Fedora on my two newest systems since for some reason those systems had issues with Mint. Darter Pro- No USB-C/thunderbolt support, and Galago Pro, 12th Gen Intel chipset.

[MurphCID]

Once Mint 21 gets the 6.1 kernel, I might move back on both laptops, or I might stay on Fedora for one of them. I updated the HP Dev One to the OEM 6.0 kernel this morning before i headed to the coffee shop.

[Portreve]

Just kind of fooling around with Pop!_OS in a VM. Meh. I can't wait to see what they do when they replace the underlying Gnome 3.x (and good riddance).