Why I recommend Fedora Workstation to new GNU/Linux users
Written on 07 Mar 2025Currently, I am working on a guide on how to switch to GNU/Linux for Windows and macOS users. This is a precursor to that guide that will answer a somewhat common question I get. What is the best distro to start with?
Usually when I am teaching people how to use GNU/Linux, my go-to distro is Fedora Workstation. Many others will suggest Linux Mint, and while I don’t think that is a bad option I think that there are some pretty good reasons for starting out with Fedora Workstation instead.
Fedora Workstation comes with the GNOME desktop environment, which is at this point (whether you’d like to admit it or not) simply the most polished and complete desktop environment there is on GNU/Linux. It has the best ecosystem of graphical applications, the best support for accessibility tools, and among the most complete Wayland sessions of any desktop environment. At the end of the day, most applications on the GNU/Linux desktop are designed with GNOME first in mind or at least as a consideration. GNOME also receives the most monetary investment compared to any other desktop environment. I’m not saying that GNOME is the best desktop environment for everyone, but GNOME is effectively the flagship desktop environment of GNU/Linux and the desktop that is overall the best suited to the general public.
Fedora itself is a very good base in general. It’s both very stable and up to date. Fedora has one of the largest distro userbases which also means that almost all software available for GNU/Linux is available for Fedora. It also provides GNOME the way the developers intended it. Some distros (such as Ubuntu) add things on top of GNOME which are often unneeded and just make the experience more cumbersome. Fedora at this point provides the best GNOME experience out of the box overall, with it being up to date and easy to use.
In short, GNOME is the most widely supported desktop environment on GNU/Linux and Fedora Workstation provides the best GNOME experience compared to other distros. That is why Fedora Workstation with the GNOME desktop environment is my go-to when converting people from Windows or macOS to GNU/Linux.