@Magnolia_ I drive Fedora on laptop without any issues, and I reaally like Wayland and Fedora. X11 still better for normal people. Also UI and UX similar on Mint to Windows

Trying different distributions is a must on using Linux, I still remember my first one, Mandrake, and is not a happy memory. Now Arch is my master, to get here It was not an easy or direct ride, I tried several ones through the years until I find the light ;)

I have no idea what this challenge is (I automatically assume it's some cringe when I read "challenge" also that pic is... what?), but you don't run Mint/Debian/Ubuntu if you have super-fresh hardware, like AMD 7000-series or Intel 14th gen and so on. in that case you have to go with Fedora or one of its derivatives (Nobara, Bazzite, etc.), because they have the newest kernels that allow this hardware to run OOB.

if you have a bit older hardware (like 2-3 years old), Mint or Debian is your best bet; Ubuntu if you have to, and only as a stepping stone. it's a solid base and if you use flatpak for everything (Firefox, Chrome, Lutris, Steam, etc.) you won't have issues with old packages and you'll get the best of both worlds - stability and supported hardware.

Fedora isn’t all that easy for a complete noob to install NVIDIA proprietary drivers

I don't understand why people don't go for something like ZorinOS or Nobara. Both work great out of the box with support for like everything.

I agree with @trolololol@lemmy.world here. Could you describe what issues are people having? What is their user profile (programmers, writers, ...)?

You think LM being "too old" is a problem for newbies? I've been running some distro or other since RedHat 5. I it took me 6 weeks of waiting for Fedora to sort out most of the issues, (and I STILL have some minor ghosting issues and I ain't no gamer), and 4 tries to get Fedora 40 to successfully take the nVidia drivers for the GTX1650 chipset in my laptop.

You think a new wannbe convert is going to put up with that?

Problems? 'old'? I seem to need a little clarification.

@Magnolia_
Cause Mint is an easy to use community distro.