In this video, I reveal why Microsoft ended Windows 10 support in October 2025? The answer is simple: they want to rob you of your digital sovereignty. They won’t be happy until each and every one …
In this video, I reveal why Microsoft ended Windows 10 support in October 2025? The answer is simple: they want to rob you of your digital sovereignty. They won’t be happy until each and every one …
Because there’s no global list of what will and won’t work so no way to know if Mint will be overall better or worse and I am completely disinterested in distrohopping.
Opensuse tends to require more knowledge and manual setup for everything to work as expected, as an example, installing the Nvidia driver, common patent encumbered video codecs, and other commonly used software requires a third party repository to be installed first. Mint does not, it all just works out of the box.
Fedora works the same as suse in that regard and I’m gonna be honest it’s not a huge secret. If you search “what to do after installing fedora” there’s 300 listicles and “install nonfree repos” is like #3 after change hostname and update your system, and they just give you the commands/tutorial for all that. I imagine suse is much the same.
Though I do think Fedora now has an “install nonfree repos” checkbox on install, but it wasn’t like that until like ver 40.
It’s not a big issue for someone technically inclined, but we often lose sight of how much of a barrier things like that can be for a more average user, who is also completely new to Linux. It’s not going to leave a good taste in their mouth to have to figure this stuff out right off, compared to Windows where it just works. That’s not to mention the increased difficulty of installing the Nvidia driver in either Opensuse, Fedora, or even standard Debian. To someone who has never had to install a new repo or use the command-line, it’s likely going to feel daunting and a big step back compared to windows, even if to us it’s no big deal.
At the end of the day, Mint just doesn’t have those problems to solve, and doesn’t really have many practical downsides for most users, which makes it the ideal on boarding experience with the least friction, and thus the highest chance of a new user sticking with it.
Unfortunately that option only provides some non-free codecs, I still couldn’t play some video files when I tried it. I recall it took installing the VLC Flatpak (and ensure it’s not a Flatpak from the Fedora flatpaks repo, which bring their own problems), before I could finally play certain videos, but I already knew enough to even try that. A newbie probably wouldn’t know that the flatpak version would have its own codecs bundled in, and would have to do further research to figure out why a video isn’t playing even after enabling the non-free codec option in the install.
I really wouldn’t have described myself as technically inclined when googling “what to do after installing fedora” lol. I’m in the generation in between “never touched a computer because old” and “never touched a computer because iPhones,” so maybe that alone puts me above average, but within my age group I’m far from the best. I was also completely new to linux (android doesn’t count). I did however figure out how to copy/paste a few lines into the terminal and hit “enter” and “y” a few times though, windows also has copy/paste functionality so that transferred over.
Mint is cool too, though. I just ended up going with Fedora and then FedoraKDE, and the extra modicum of setup with walkthroughs was easy (because of the walkthroughs mainly, but my point is they’re very visible.)
Interesting you still had codec issues though, I’ve installed fedora a bunch of times over the years now and never once had that issue on regular vlc after running
sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-base && sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugins-bad-nonfree gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-nonfree && sudo dnf install lame && sudo dnf install ffmpeg gstreamer1-plugins-libav && sudo dnf install libdvdcssAll of which I just copied and chained together from such a tutorial because of course I can’t remember all that (though I have a cleaner version in my “new system” script by now. I was just lazily providing an example instead of actually making it one pretty command, irl the newbie would simply run one after the other without the &&s anyway but you get what I mean). I’d be curious to know what still won’t run after all that, if you happen to know.
I would say being willing to troubleshoot, find adequate directions, implement them, and even figuring out how to chain those commands together, would make you fairly technically inclined. At the very least it would make you unusually open-minded about learning and trying new things (being here on lemmy further points to that).
Well maybe but also I hope not lol.
i haven’t actually used tumbleweed or fedora except for booting a liveusb, but based on this thread, it’s a lot more complicated than mint, mint is really just install and use. the most “complicated” part is finding the stuff i want from the software manager, and maybe tweaking things to your liking. oh and if you have an nvidia card, you have to select the driver version you want to use in the built in driver manager
Well there’s “spin up a live usb and do some testing before your baremetal install” which is a crucial step that many ignore. But due to the nature of not being a proprietary OS installed by manufacturers who test things, instead being mostly up to the community to make things work, you’ll likely always have to do a little set up, or just buy a system76 with linux preinstalled and it’ll be closer for those who just can’t be bothered to do things for themselves.
I’m not complaining about my experience, I’m saying I don’t think Linux is ready to be a replacement for many Windows users.
You clearly agree because you say “spin up a live USB and do some testing”.
Idk I don’t think windows users are as mentally handicapped as both we and those windows users themselves like to pretend, I think they’re just lazy.
Excluding like the elderly and stuff who barely know more than a pen and paper, and seemingly now children who have never used anything but an iphone, but like, average people? I’d expect they can “learn things,” yes. Tbh windows isn’t as “just works” as advertised either and they likely already have to learn something every now and again (though then again every fix for windows after 8 seems to boil down to “reinstall it loser” so maybe not.)
The culture of immediacy has been such a detriment on our society.