this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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Fedora works the same as suse in that regard and I'm gonna be honest it's not a huge secret. If you search "what to do after installing fedora" there's 300 listicles and "install nonfree repos" is like #3 after change hostname and update your system, and they just give you the commands/tutorial for all that. I imagine suse is much the same.
Though I do think Fedora now has an "install nonfree repos" checkbox on install, but it wasn't like that until like ver 40.
It's not a big issue for someone technically inclined, but we often lose sight of how much of a barrier things like that can be for a more average user, who is also completely new to Linux. It's not going to leave a good taste in their mouth to have to figure this stuff out right off, compared to Windows where it just works. That's not to mention the increased difficulty of installing the Nvidia driver in either Opensuse, Fedora, or even standard Debian. To someone who has never had to install a new repo or use the command-line, it's likely going to feel daunting and a big step back compared to windows, even if to us it's no big deal.
At the end of the day, Mint just doesn't have those problems to solve, and doesn't really have many practical downsides for most users, which makes it the ideal on boarding experience with the least friction, and thus the highest chance of a new user sticking with it.
Unfortunately that option only provides some non-free codecs, I still couldn't play some video files when I tried it. I recall it took installing the VLC Flatpak (and ensure it's not a Flatpak from the Fedora flatpaks repo, which bring their own problems), before I could finally play certain videos, but I already knew enough to even try that. A newbie probably wouldn't know that the flatpak version would have its own codecs bundled in, and would have to do further research to figure out why a video isn't playing even after enabling the non-free codec option in the install.
I really wouldn't have described myself as technically inclined when googling "what to do after installing fedora" lol. I'm in the generation in between "never touched a computer because old" and "never touched a computer because iPhones," so maybe that alone puts me above average, but within my age group I'm far from the best. I was also completely new to linux (android doesn't count). I did however figure out how to copy/paste a few lines into the terminal and hit "enter" and "y" a few times though, windows also has copy/paste functionality so that transferred over.
Mint is cool too, though. I just ended up going with Fedora and then FedoraKDE, and the extra modicum of setup with walkthroughs was easy (because of the walkthroughs mainly, but my point is they're very visible.)
Interesting you still had codec issues though, I've installed fedora a bunch of times over the years now and never once had that issue on regular vlc after running
All of which I just copied and chained together from such a tutorial because of course I can't remember all that (though I have a cleaner version in my "new system" script by now. I was just lazily providing an example instead of actually making it one pretty command, irl the newbie would simply run one after the other without the &&s anyway but you get what I mean). I'd be curious to know what still won't run after all that, if you happen to know.
I would say being willing to troubleshoot, find adequate directions, implement them, and even figuring out how to chain those commands together, would make you fairly technically inclined. At the very least it would make you unusually open-minded about learning and trying new things (being here on lemmy further points to that).
Well maybe but also I hope not lol.