From what I’ve seen here, I gather that Fedora 35 is expected to provide the smoothest experience on FW, and from the internet in general I get the impression it’s a pretty brilliant OS.
I’ve only been using linux for about a year and a half, and it’s been Mint all the way. I’m getting quite comfortable with it, but I’m far from being a power user.
I don’t have as much time to learn a new OS as when I first made the switch from Windows. I would love to hear people’s thoughts on things like:
Would it be a steep learning curve to switch to Fedora?
Would it be more or less time consuming than any extra configuration or troubleshooting involved in using Mint on FW?
Is the experience between the two on FW significantly different?
(Am I asking for trouble by asking questions like the last one?)
I get there’s a degree of subjectivity in this, so all opinions very welcome, especially with explanations.
OK. In my impression, your conflict is smooth experience in FW vs learning curve.
The main differences between Fedora and Mint are
Fedora: RPM based, Upstream distro, one the streams is Fedora → CentOS Stream → Red Hat Enterprise Linux → CentOS, Rocky Linux, and etc
Mint: Debian based, Downstream distro, the stream is Debian → Ubuntu → Mint
Would it be a steep learning curve to switch to Fedora?
It depends on what you are doing on Mint and using the Mint or Debian specific features. If you have used apt, apt-get, dpkg commands in Mint, you need to learn the equivalent commands dnf, rpm in Fedora.
Would it be more or less time consuming than any extra configuration or troubleshooting involved in using Mint on FW?
I am a long term Fedora user and developer, and also was involved in Debian community, and used CentOS.
In my opinion, it’s important how easy to report and fix a trouble. The steps to fix it is different between upstream and downstream distros. I am biased. But if you want to fix or repair your software trouble communicating in a community by yourself like you did here, I would recommend the upstream disto like Fedora. If you want to use Linux disto as just a user, downstream distro might be good. But a small issue that you want to fix might not be fixed in a downstream distro. This is a downside of downstream distro and stability.
For people who prioritize the stability in Fedora, I would recommend using older stable version (the latest stable version Fedora N - (1 or 2)) than the latest stable version or development version called Fedora rawhide. That means continue to use Fedora 35 even after Fedora 36 or 37 will be released.
Is the experience between the two on FW significantly different?
Yeah, before the Fedora 35 End of Life (EOL), people can upgrade to Fedora 36, keeping the latest stable Fedora N - 2.
We say maintained for ‘‘approximately 13 months’’ because the supported period for releases is dependent on the date the release under development goes final. As a result, ‘‘Release N’’ is supported until four weeks after the release of ‘‘Release N+2’’.
The commands to upgrade to Fedora N are always same and easy. Here are the commands.
From a developer standpoint sticking with some based on Ubuntu will be the most helpful. It seems like Pop OS is the way to go these days if that is your goal.
Fedora is kind of the future in stable testing. Fedora does not do bleeding edge, but has a goal of bringing the most current to the user, so long as the current is stable.
Like many have echoed, if you don’t have a specific reason to move to Fedora, Mint is just as stable on the Framework.
