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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Because people suggest distros based on their preference, not what is best suited in a given situation.
On one hand Mint is limited to X11 for now and surprise surprise “dealing with multiple monitors is horrible on Linux”. On other hand they’re on NVIDIA. This is close to not be the case, but X11 was a hard requirement for decades
Because Mint is popular among the crowd, and such challenges are also driven by the crowd. Better to see it as some social or meme dynamics, than to explain it with logical reasons. I also see more new users who use arch, because of the "I use arch BTW" meme.
As a Fedora Silverblue user I find it hard to recommend it to new users. It's not an issue with Fedora, but with the state of Linux desktop in general. At least with Mint/Ubuntu people can rely on social media and the community if they have problems. And Fedora is a more niche thing, and doesn't have a big crowd.
Moreover, I chose Fedora because of my experience, which allows me to have opinion what is better. But I don't think it's a good idea to explain the years of the Linux desktop drama to new users, when they are just doing the first steps or trying to feed their curiosity.
Wayland and nvidia dont mix. They are going to have a shit time, because some don't have "non-free" enabled and require editing configuration files. Fresh Mint broke or couldn't install the "newest" drivers on my friends computer, because of kernel version I assume. After that mess, the games lagged like crazy. Even worse on Wayland.
Installed Endeavour for my friend, because CBA setting up debian and "it just works". Arch as the first Linux though... What a mess.
I like the mint project, but I dislike how it's done
I don't suggest mint to anyone anymore. I rather suggest Fedora or PopOs
PopOS! and Endeavor are my two recommendations for newbies. The former for fresh to Linux folks and the latter for those with some experience.
I'm sure talking about the 30days challenge from Raid Owl and I have an idea of his conclusion. First he's a power user (not in the fact of tweaking and scratch in the file system), he needs a lot of stuff to work. And for someone outside of the traditional office work or maybe developing, Linux is hard to use for graphics works, so sure Linux Mint is not for this kind of people but you should always recommended it to "normal" people and beginner in Linux. Sure in this case his conclusion is wrong, he should have used Fedora, Arch or OpenSUSE, but that's it.
Which is why I ask people one simple question: do they plan to game. If they plan to game, I don't recommend them Mint. If they aren't, I recommend them Mint.
Isn't red hat enough reason to not use fedora?
No, for one Red hat has every incentive to support Fedora. Also Fedora does its own thing separate from Red hat. Red hat does have some control but the community elects leadership and the elected leaders are what control the project direction. Also Fedora has a lot of volunteer package maintainers that would stop working if there was a hostile take over.
Notice that the community has left Ubuntu which used to be the community go to. They no longer have a large community working on projects and maintaining software.
it hasn't been a problem lately, but for basically an entire year I was helping first timers through getting a more recent lutris for games because the one mint shipped was ancient and broken and on top of that the 32 bit wine dependencies were practically impossible to resolve for some games
I've played this game every year since 1998, and each year I try a wider range of distros. Long story short, EndeavourOS is the first distro that worked reliably and has by far the best support resources.
Oh, you need media codecs out of the box to watch pretty much anything in your browser?
That takes Fedora out.
OpenSUSE has probably the most confusing install interface for a noob you'll ever find. Which DE do I choose? What other software do I put in? How do I partition? Oh, I click a button here to make a user, or can I ignore it completely?
So much for OpenSUSE.
And don't get me started on Arch. You'd be way better off pushing a new user to Manjaro but everyone's got their panties in a twist about its devs.
Whatcha got now, big guy?
I always suggest Mint Edge edition, that has a newer kernel, not the default Mint. But I still suggest Mint, because simply, it's more user friendly than any of the other ones. It has gui panels for almost everything.
I'm not sure but, I always recommended Mint for it's ease of use, I tried fedora, didn't like it, will likely never use it again. First impressions are a pain cause if you fail the first impression you lose before you begin. It could be an amazing system but, it was a bigger pain to setup and get going plus had less resources for me to get started while using more lesser known tools that wern't easily transferrable from the previous systems I has tried.
For me, the systems I've installed Mint on for people, haven't had any problems at this current time. While I have never had an issue using Fedora myself(never been interested enough in OpenSUSE to keep with it when I've tried it), I'll never recommend Fedora in similar cases where I've installed Mint. The machines were older and the users aren't Linux enthusiasts. They just want a working machine to do basic tasks without breaking their bank to get a new machine when their Windows OS reached EOL.
However I can't confirm or explain why the people you say that are doing this challenge are having problems. I don't know their hardware specs and I don't know them so I don't know what they know about Linux.
(Please note, to all Mint users, I'm not saying Mint is only for non-Linux enthusiasts. I love how Mint is good for the non-enthusiasts and enthusiasts alike).