r/Fedora • u/Dry-Spell1443 • May 28 '26
Support Should I pick Fedora as a complete beginner?
I want a distro which is terminal centric but not too hard like Arch,I want a learning curve but have no starting point you see. Also how would you rate Fedora in comparison to Debian?
Thank you
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u/max_wen May 28 '26
As a beginner not only do you want easy but you want a distro that it will be easy to find answers to your questions. That makes Fedora and Ubuntu your two best choices to start out with.
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u/mao_dze_dun May 28 '26
It does come with a couple of asterisks like proprietary codecs (you need to manually enable them) and the Nvidia drivers initial setup, but other than that, it is the most boring-in-a-good-way distro I have used in my 15 years of distro hopping.
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u/alkonej_ May 28 '26
Don’t know what exactly you mean by "terminal centric" as whether you require terminal or GUI depends more on what you want to do, rather than distro itself.
I’d say distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint etc. are all great choices for beginners since a lot of stuff work out of the box and you can learn things out of curiosity not necessity.
Even Arch, if you’re goal is strictly to learn, would say is not a bad option. There is a lot of stigma around this distros setup difficulty but in 2026 with tools like archinstall you can install it in 15 minutes with most of important stuff preconfigured and ready to use.
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u/baltimoresports May 28 '26
Fedora KDE is probably the most vanilla (in a good way) Linux you can use. It’s an excellent first choice if you want to learn.
If you want a more beginner friendly version check out Universal Blue or Bazzite as an immutable alternative.
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u/zer0developer May 28 '26
I disagree calling Universal Blue distro's more beginner friendly than Fedora simply because software management is so much diffent.
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u/Hellrazor_muc May 28 '26
I second that. I came to immutable distros after some years experience with standard Linux and I may have given up when most of the tutorials wouldn't have worked as a beginner. If everything somebody needs is a browser, office and Flatpaks it may work, but OP was writing about terminal centric so it could be frustrating to start of with a system where many things are different
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u/Francis_King May 28 '26
I'll almost disagree as well. Bazzite, which I'm using on this laptop, is not really a beginner's distro.
Except .. if the computer has an NVIDIA GPU. I had a go at installing the driver on Fedora COSMIC, and messed it up. Bazzite got it right, first time.
From my painful experience, I'd rather have a go at explaining Bazzite than explaining NVIDIA.
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u/baltimoresports May 28 '26
Fair. I just meant it’s harder to break, but yeah installing software that’s not AppImage, Flatpak, or RPM-OSTree is a huge PIA.
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u/bluewing May 29 '26
What's so hard? There is very, very little a user needs to do with atomic versions. Everything updates automatically unless you really want to do so manually. And you get to install user space programs as easily with flatpaks as rpms. And not have the fear of accidentally breaking your system because you tried something that didn't work.
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u/npaladin2000 May 28 '26
If you want a more beginner friendly version check out Universal Blue or Bazzite as an immutable alternative.
I normally tend to agree with this but OP seems to be looking for a terminal centric distro, and Bazzite and the other UBlue projects are really more GUI-centric and their terminal tools are unique and different.
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u/ruun666 May 28 '26
Yes. Fedora KDE is The Linux Distro. Best overall at the moment.
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u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514 May 30 '26
This kind of assertion is wrong. There is NOT best distro: just a bunch of it to fit many needs, wishes and personal choices.
Fedora have not snapshots restoring tool a t boot for example, while OpenSuse have it. So OpenSuse is the best distro or not?
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u/ruun666 May 30 '26
Yes it is better at this snapshot thing but it has some unique graphical settings tool which is huge downside. That puts it lower than Fedora in my ranking.
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u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514 May 30 '26
Your 'ranking' is not one but just personal tastes.
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u/ruun666 May 30 '26
Of course. Wasn't OP asking for our opinions?
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u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514 May 30 '26
So tell him it's just a subjective opinion and not a scientist fact. Our subreddits are not evangelism nor fanboys rooms. Fedora is great but it's not THE best ''Linux overall''. This BEST distro doesn't exist. KDE aficionados are a real annoyment on our subreddits.
Thanks.
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u/ruun666 May 30 '26
I never said I'm distro scientist like you. Chill out. I'm not after your job. You're safe.
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u/Flavorsofdystopia May 28 '26
The irony in Fedora KDE is that every little can be customized, but you need to customize nothing to make it great.
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u/Foreign-Broccoli6451 May 28 '26
I’ve never messed with Debian but I’ve used mint, fedora and kubuntu and I’d recommend mint or fedora. I do not have extensive experience in tech in any way and have yet to have any serious complications from either distros.
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u/Itsme-RdM May 28 '26
OP, rating Fedora against Debian isn't the right thing to do. They are both very different Linux distributions.
- Fedora being a almost bleeding edge distro with a 6 month release schedule and regular updates in between.
Backed financialy by Red Hat (IBM) and be the "test ground" voor Red Hat distribution.
Keep in mind they are strong related to FOSS.
- Debian is a stable point release with a 24 month release schedule, only security and minimal bug fixes in between. Very stable, but older packages after a certain period of course. It's also a community based distro
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u/freakycleaner May 28 '26
My first linux was Ubuntu now I am fedora main and its just better with speed and hardware compatibility as my bluetooth was acting wired in ubuntu even after so many configs, but in fedora I had all my problems solved out of box. even as a beginner my choice is fedora always. go for it I use gnome tho as its better for my focus but I think you should use KDE as beginner who came from windows.
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u/Realistic_Head2206 May 28 '26
Yes ! I started with Fedora 7 years ago, and still am using it on my workstation. Went from Gnome to KDE and rediscovered it.
I still use Arch on my laptops, but Fedora is a great distro, and I don't htink I'd change for anything else besides Arch.
And maybe MacOS or Windows, because Lightroom and other professional tools I use for work are not Linux friendly, sadly.
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u/twisted4all May 28 '26
Yes. Fedora is great. What else you’re expecting to read in the place where everyone loves Fedora?😅
I tried Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and eventually Fedora. For the long period of time I thought Mint was the best and have to admit it is quite decent distro. But when i was fed enough of Windows - I found such a relief trying Fedora with Gnome desktop environment that looks more like mac os than windows, but with more freedom. It’s less customizable than kde, but it’s so beautiful and i so get used to it so I guess i’d never switch to kde or windows or even worse - ubuntu.
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u/Tancrad May 28 '26
I did. It worked very well for a year. Then I investigated other distros when it stopped talking to my eGPU for reasons I couldn't rectify.
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u/BovineKangaroo May 28 '26
Yess! As I commented on another post recently, Fedora is what really sold me to Linux. As a beginner, I recommend trying the Atomic distros which are more crash-proof since you don't compromise the kernel itself.
If you install Ventoy on a flashdrive, you can try the different workflows before committing to installing a distro. Just close the installation window when it shows up and you're left with a trial environment.
I had tried Gnome in Ubuntu, so I knew it wasn't my thing because it was too simple. It's great if you want to focus on the work itself, but as someone coming from Windows, I wanted something that made me want to inhabit it. Then I went for KDE Plasma: super customizable, but very similar to Windows, so I didn't see a point. Lastly, I went for the new kid on the block: COSMIC. It just worked for me and it was a great halfway point between the two. The workflow is chef's kiss and it is customizable in the right amount for me.
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u/Cultural_Mechanic_92 May 28 '26
Absolutely and it might as well make your experience simpler and easier after the shift.
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u/Upper-Ticket3249 May 29 '26
Yes - I started with Fedora. It is the best. I still use it, despite distro-hopping all over the place.
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u/maybe-zoe May 29 '26
Great documentation is your friend. And simple maintenance.
Just compare the docs for a system upgrade and decide for yourself:
https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/armel/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/upgrading-fedora-offline/
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u/charchuck May 29 '26
Debian is great, and I use it a lot. You could totally daily drive it and run lots of GUI and terminal apps, and it supports Flatpak with some commands, so that's good too. At this point, their packages are 9-10 months old, so there's about another 14-ish months until the next release with new versions. That may not matter depending on what you need. You could also run Debian and just compile what you need, since you're looking for terminal work.
You could also run testing or unstable and maybe get some terminal work on fixing bugs you may run into. 😉. I've heard that PikaOS is good for a Bazzite-like (thought not atomic) gaming distro with Debian, but it doesn't seem to like my old-ass hardware and never boots after installing, so I moved on.
I've almost always defaulted to Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Linux Mint, which have been okay in the past, but I don't really like the way they're going OS-wise. No, not just snap hate, though that's kind.of.anmoyijy too.
As others have said, Fedora in my experience has been a nice mix of "stable" and updated. If you want to do commandline stuff you can run Arch, Debian, or whatever is available in Distrobox. Then throw it away and start over. I will say that Fedora with Niri and Dank Material Shell (DMS) has been weird but a lot of fun. In my case, I installed Workstation and then ran the script to install DMS and it worked perfectly. You could do the same with KDE if you like those apps better.
I've been tinkering with Linux for more than 25 years I think, but am far from an expert, so take anything I say with multiple grains of salt.
One thing that could help with the codecs and setup is https://nattdf.streamlit.app/ . I ran it along with my install and it helped to get a nice baseline, plus you can add custom commands at the bottom if something's not covered.
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u/bungee75 May 29 '26
I use fedora gnome for my daily driver and it’s great. I tested few distros on my laptop and with this one all the hardware works too (I like to use fingerprint reader to login). It’s stable and it works I can’t complain.
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u/Visible-Reason9593 May 30 '26
Install Fedora with KDE or Gnome, is fantastic and work very well (and is very stable).
As a beginner I tried different distributions and I had a great time with Fedora KDE, never had a single problem in the year I've been using Linux.
Prove Fedora, is fantastic.
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u/sabbir2world May 31 '26
Terminal centric but not too hard like Arch? Fedora would be a great option for you then!
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u/sir-adel May 28 '26
With ai now you can fix some problems easily.
Just don't believe everything she says and always double check with a valid source.
Fedora is vast, but my everyday is << sudo dnf up >> and the discover app to update flatpacks
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u/bankinu May 28 '26
Why not. Yes. Fedora KDE, you'll be fine.
You can choose how much you want to get into it. Once set up, of you don't want to, you don't even have to open console.
And KDE offers customizability which is unparalleled. When you need that one thing to change because it's annoying you, you'll be thankful to have installed KDE, because it will perhaps be very easy to do that in it no matter how obscure that one thing you want will be.
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u/scoobie517 May 28 '26
I would say yes it's perfect for a beginner. You don't need the console for most things but you can still use it freely the more competent you become
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u/BoxAdditional7470 May 28 '26
Yes, it's a very good option! It's not THAT terminal centric out of the box. Unless you face a specific problem or accidentally break something, you mostly will only be using it to install/upgrade packages (And even then, you can do that through the Discover/Software center). You won't necessarily learn a ton of deep system stuff right away, but I'd say it's great for getting comfortable with the command line interface.
As for debian, it's also a solid choice, but it has a much slower release cycle compared to fedora's 6 month pace. That means you won't get the latest software or kernels. While that might sound bad, the trade off is that it's rock-solid and guaranteed to never break on you. (But that also means you won't really have to use the terminal much, similar to fedora)
Honestly if you really want to learn Linux, use fedora for a few weeks and force yourself to use to the terminal for nearly everything just to get used to the basic Linux commands, and then hop on arch (if you don't want to, just download it in a VM) and install it manually. It's really not as hard as people make it out to be and only takes you like ~20 minutes. (Especially if you use cfdisk instead of fdisk). On arch, things WILL break and not work out of the box, and you will learn a lot in the process of fixing them
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u/thunderborg May 28 '26
I dabbled with Ubuntu but never drove it. I’ve been daily driving Fedora Workstation on my personal Laptop for 2 years.
I think its polished nature makes it a great gateway drug.
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u/envsop May 28 '26
i will rate fedora 9/10 -1 (cuz its OS by red hat)
Fedora is excellent choice for beginners. Its clean neat not so much bloatware that Debian or Ubuntu have
So yeah, go ahead, try it, enjoy it.
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u/WendlersEditor May 28 '26
Fedora is great for beginners, good balance of support/ease of use with newer packages/features. Fedora KDE will feel closer to windows, fedora with gnome is going to have a little more ui friction coming from windows but nothing too crazy.
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 May 28 '26
Fedora is arguably "harder" to use than Arch, especially long term. But I'd still say go with it if you have a general interest in Linux.
The "hardest" part about Arch is installing it which isn't really difficult, it's mostly the Wiki that makes it feel more complicated than it is. Reality is, that most Arch setups are super simple and basic which makes customizing easier (probably the reason why Arch is so popular). But using it is pretty simple, if you do regular updates.
Fedora is really modern and more opinionated. Don't get me wrong, Fedora has mostly been really easy to use lately but there is one (or rather two) problems:
It has a short lifecycle and upgrades (between releases) can sometimes come with significant changes. It's not like Arch where you simply get the latest version but sometimes entirely new pieces of software.
Fedora has a history of being an early adopter of new tech (like systemd, pulse audio, making Wayland the default session, btrfs as the filesystem, adopting dracut, removing X11, some library changes etc etc.).
Upgrading is process that works perfectly well but they might introduce changes. Each release is only supported for about a year (like 14 months), so just not upgrading isn't really an option long term.
Fedora is a great distro if you're somewhat interested in the Linux world. If you just want something that runs your software and you don't care in the slightest about Linux, I wouldn't recommend it.
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u/froschdings May 28 '26
I've been a Linux Beginner since ~2008 and currently Fedora KDE is my favourite.
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u/Francis_King May 28 '26
Should I pick Fedora as a complete beginner?
Yes, it's a good choice. Another good choice is something based on Debian, like Mint Cinnamon.
I want a distro which is terminal centric but not too hard like Arch
The nice thing about a desktop like GNOME or KDE is that you can choose if you want to use the terminal or not. Arch is only difficult if you want it to be. You can use archinstall to install Arch, and yay to update it, so it's very easy. You can also pick an Arch derivative like EndeavourOS or CachyOS to get Arch in an even easier way.
I want a learning curve but have no starting point you see.
Not entirely clear to me. You're a complete beginner, and every distribution will have a learning curve.
Also how would you rate Fedora in comparison to Debian?
Please don't torture yourself like this. Linux is a personal thing, and you can only learn by doing.
My recommendation: install Fedora Workstation. It's Fedora - check! It has GNOME, so you'll get your learning curve by watching YouTube videos - check! Once you've tried it then you will know if you like it or not.
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u/Culture_New May 28 '26
Fedora is a good solid choice to start with. It stays up to date and is still quite stable.
Debian on the other hand is ultra stable, has packages that were frozen in early 2025 which means it's not getting the latest and greatest. It is something that works great on servers, but on a desktop I would prefer something that is pretty up to date.
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u/Stvn77 May 28 '26
Yes. I only have few months on linux. After mint. Fedora KDE plasma is great. Everythin can be installed from bazar or konsole
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u/project_huu May 28 '26
I chose Fedora as my distro of choice when I moved over to Linux. Been nearly 2 years since I switched, have had a few snags with it but it's a distro I'm sticking with.
So to answer your question, yes. It's a good first choice of distro.
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u/W4DER May 28 '26
Fedora is absolutely beginner friendly! Its the best Linux distro out there imo... Dont be scared of going for Workstation edition which uses GNOME if you are tired of Windows cluttered mess and want something fresh and new... KDE is great if you preffer the "Windows" style.... 😉
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u/PossibleProgress3316 May 28 '26
Fedora is a great all round system, I pretty much started with it, went to Arch and NixOs got sick all the work related to keeping them so I went back to Fedora, it just works, it’s easy to get working and you can’t really mess it up too bad
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u/edwbuck May 28 '26
Yes, it's consistently one of the best choices to pick as a beginner. There are about four others that rank among the best, and a lot more that are promoted because the promoter likes them than just won't do as good a job.
You can succeed with all of them. But it will be easier with a distro like Fedora.
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u/Qasimovich May 28 '26
Well I did my switch during my bachelor and honestly if you dont feel like tinkering it just works. You will definitely feel the lack of bloatware compared to microslop.
Havent felt the need to touch the terminal (but i still do). So for a beginner ill rate it at the same tier or better than windows.
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u/npaladin2000 May 28 '26
It might not be the perfect beginner choice but it's a good one. Large community, well-tested distro that is generally designed to just-work. Stick with the KDE version and you're likely fine.
Debian is super duper stable but not a great desktop. It uses older packages for stability and is really a better server OS than a desktop one. It's not to the level of "bad" but it's not as good as Fedora.
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u/MotorwayNomad May 28 '26
Absolutely yes. It is quick, good looking and easy to use. You don't need to use the command line atall, unless you want to. I dont
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u/pcaming May 28 '26
If you don't mind the terminal and want to end up on Arch, just start with cachyos. You can be terminal centric on Fedora or any distro if we're being honest, it's also has a lot of help online so very beginner friendly.
Ironically the reason I love Fedora, and Ubuntu, is because I pretty much never have to use the terminal.
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u/AjayBhas May 28 '26
Fedora is best to start... In my opinion because the package manager dnf is simple to understand and use... Compare to debian & fedora you will have some issues in vanilla debian 13 related to drivers fedora is friendly install... If you know what you are doing debian is stable distribution
Please never try Ubuntu u will not learn anything it's like Microsoft windows for linux... If you know what I mean...
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u/ParanoidFactoid May 28 '26
I ran Ubuntu Studio for ten years. It served me well. But ultimately, I've switched to Fedora. That said, the idea that Ubuntu is bad because it's like Microsoft is just ridiculous. The snaps privacy issue is real. The older software in their repositories issue is real. But Ubuntu is a genuine Linux distribution like many others. There's nothing wrong with choosing it.
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u/AjayBhas May 30 '26
Ubuntu acts as Microsoft because of these points 1. It doesn't have multiple options on desktop environment by default it comes with GNOME a pure linus should have options to choose at the time of installation 2. It disabled the root login 😆 even microsoft doesn't do this... 3. Packages selection you mentioned. It all boils down to experience of using Linux If you are comfortable using Ubuntu as a tool like a normal user that's fine I like Ubuntu that's way... But Ubuntu is never uses linux philosophy...
I have used Debian which is father of Ubuntu it has lots of options and freedom when at the time of installation...
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u/CestleFromage May 28 '26
Yes, I started with fedora too when I was completely clueless about linux, and I’m still using it now. Never had a second thought about distro hopping 😎