There are plenty of up to date distros out there that are approachable enough for new users: Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweek, Manjaro, etc. But I guess Ubuntu is probably the default distro for new users, I started there too. And I find reasonable that newcomers would prefer an LTS, as it sounds better when you’re exploring new land (but then you’re definitely more exposed to new hardware not being supported/bad drivers).
Rolling release distros do have problems with drivers though, especially proprietary Nvidia ones. Source: used both Manjaro and Tumbleweed, both died in less than a year to Nvidia driver updates.
I’ve never used nvidia so I don’t know about this. What I hear is that the situation is better now that it was years ago, but I’m pretty sure it’s still miles better on the AMD side. Just roll with whatever, it works.
I do find Fedora to be a nice balance between stability and update frequency. It’s not rolling release so you’ll be waiting a while for the very newest updates, but the yearly releases do a good job at getting the latest features. I have also never had a Fedora installation outright break due to a package update.
I am nervous because of Fedora’s ongoing affiliation with Red Hat (they’re by far Fedora’s biggest sponsor), since their now parent company, IBM, definitely seems to be making profit driven decisions over ones that benefit Linux and Libre software as a whole, and I imagine Red Hat has a lot of leverage over a small, nonprofit (AFAIK) organization like Fedora.
Just roll with whatever, it works.
Just curious, do you mean just roll with works or that all the rolling release options you mentioned seem to work well with Nvidia stuff nowadays? I might have to try going back to Tumbleweed or Arch if it’s the latter.
Just roll with whatever, it works.
Just curious, do you mean just roll with works or that all the rolling release options you mentioned seem to work well with Nvidia stuff nowadays? I might have to try going back to Tumbleweed or Arch if it’s the latter.
Sorry, I wasn’t really clear. What I meant is that on the AMD side you can roll with whatever distro you want, even bleeding edge, it has never failed me and you still have all the latest greatness. You’re not stuck on kernel versions.
That’s not to say it can’t be done with Nvidia, but I don’t have any experience with it.
In other words, Ubuntu creates a bad name for linux? Call me surprised.
I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve used it for around 2 years, that was what made me learn most basic things. I could probably have started with other distros, but 7.04 just worked for me.
Then if someone is curious they could always try out other options, but I think most people need a system that “just works”, and Ubuntu isn’t bad at that.