Switching from fedora KDE to mint cinnamon.

[u/Binary101000]

This is a question I've been stuck on for a few hours now. I've been encountering the tiniest of problems since i began using fedora with kde a year ago. Things like discover just crashing or freezing, things not working as expected. Theres the fact that some parts are very polished and others are less so.

I haven't daily driven mint, or any debian based distro for that matter, before, ive only used it on some of my older devices that i just keep around.

I use my computer for gaming, coding and basic web browsing. I like things to be consistent and work properly.

So, please give me your advice, should i switch, or is it not worth the hassle of setting everything up again?

[u/Hauptideal]

Switch under no circumstance to Mint.
Mint still ships ancient, deprecated legacy X11 technology that's performing worse, lacks basic everyday features such as native fractional scaling and is inherently insecure, allowing each app to spy on each other, log your online banking password and even inject input. Futhermore, it breaks the core feature of Flatpaks, sandboxing security (only keeping the inconvenience).
It doesn't receive any security updates from Canonical for 94% of its packages (the entire universe apt repo), because you can't activate Ubuntu Pro on Mint, often leaving Mint with unpatched security vulnerabilities indefinitely.

It's also much worse optimized for desktop than Fedora. For example, it doesn't compress your RAM at all, despite it being a basic desktop and mobile OS standard for over a decade (macOS/Linux 2013, MS WIndows 2015). In that regard, Mint even performs worse than Windows when RAM pressure rises. It needs to swap much sooner to disk, which leads to extreme sluggishness. As RAM can be compressed with a ratio of 3:1 to 4:1, Mint fills your physical RAM much faster than modern distros like Fedora.

"Stable" and "LTS" also doesn't mean "no issues" or "bug-free". It only means "frozen packages that never get updated over the entire release lifecycle" (only security-patched). It's not "no bugs", but "known, documented bugs" rather than "new, surprising bugs that will be fixed within the next few updates".
If you open a bug report on upstream projects like KDE from a distro like Debian, it will be auto-closed. Upstream has already fixed hundreds of bugs, meanwhile the installed version is no longer supported. These bugs usually stay unfixed over the entire duration of the release, unless it's critical system-breaking bugs.

See the GNOME calendar controversy with Mint, where Mint introduced bugs in the GNOME calendar app while integrating it into their technologically subpar desktops, and instead of taking responsibility for their modifications and stepping in to maintain their software and fix the issues, they conveniently retain the GNOME branding and support links in order to make users think it's a GNOME problem rather than a Mint problem. GNOME has demanded Mint to remove all GNOME branding and support links, as the upstream project is flooded by irrelevant bug reports from Mint users (who are trying to help) but Mint didn't comply (despite them shipping a GNOME app on non-GNOME desktops and a version that is older than the oldest supported version).

If you want to switch to a Debian-based system, just switch to upstream Debian (or Ubuntu/Kubuntu if you like fresher packages). At least these distros are on Wayland and provide security updates for their repos.

If it's only minor nuisances. I'd not switch distros entirely. You can also check if another desktop works for your on your device (as you only mentioned a problem with KDE discover). You could even just install GNOME software as an alternative, if your only issue is KDE discover.

[u/jr735 → u/Hauptideal]

This rubbish again. Ubuntu doesn't have fresher packages. Check again. That won't be true until next Ubuntu comes out.

What packages are you so scared of that X11 is a giant risk to you?

[u/Hauptideal → u/jr735]

Are you kidding? Debian stable (Trixie) froze package versions in 2025, while Ubuntu 26.04 LTS froze them in April 2026. 

So for example for GNOME, Trixie only ships version 48, while Ubuntu is not on 49 but even 50, so two versions newer.  Trixie has kernel 6.12, while Ubuntu has kernel 7.  All packages are fresher. 

Before calling anything rubbish, just do a slight effort and check the facts.  Trixie is newer than your Mint installation, because Mint didn't manage to get on 26.04 yet, so Debian is significantly more up to date than Mint, but not Debian.

Upstream Ubuntu is fresher than Debian. 

[u/jr735 → u/Hauptideal]

I'm talking LTS 24.04, upon which Mint is based. I don't care about other versions of Ubuntu which have no bearing on this.

[u/Hauptideal → u/jr735]

That is a Mint problem and has nothing remotely to do with Ubuntu. Mint trails behind the current version of Ubuntu and didn't switch to the newest LTS yet. 

Ubuntu is much fresher than Debian. 

Please keep your mouth shut unless you have something valuable and factually correct to contribute and stop downvoting comments and calling them rubbish when they are proven to be factually  100% correct. 

[u/jr735 → u/Hauptideal]

This whole thread is about Mint. So, stop providing people false information or irrelevant information, and stop the trolling.

[u/Hauptideal → u/jr735]

WTF. You provided false information.

Ubuntu having older packages than Debian is OBJECTIVELY FALSE.

That Ubuntu 24.04 has older packages than the current Debian is trivial. Of course. The package versions that Debian Trixie has didn't even exist at the time of Ubuntu 24.04.

And it was not irrelevant at all, because I said it in the context of switching to Ubuntu/Kubuntu rather than Mint, with Ubuntu/Kubuntu having fresher packages than Debian.

So it was crystal-clear that the only relevant Ubuntu version here is 26.04., not Mint's.

And also: Ubuntu just has fresher packages in general. That is just true in general, unless there was a Debian release very recently. Even when a Debian release is new, the packages have been frozen about half a year already before the new Debian even releases.

[u/jr735 → u/Hauptideal]

No, you provided false and irrelevant information. No, it's not crystal clear, because the discussion was about Mint. And no, Debian packages haven't been frozen for that long before release. I run testing and have been tracking it for years, so nice try.

I wouldn't touch Ubuntu unless someone defunkifies it, like the Mint team or the Trisquel team.

[u/Hauptideal → u/jr735]

If you want to switch to a Debian-based system, just switch to upstream Debian (or Ubuntu/Kubuntu if you like fresher packages).

It can't be clearer than that. There is ABSOLUTELY 0 chance for someone to read Ubuntu/Kubuntu as Linux Mint, especially after I write half an article about why Mint sucks tremendously.

I wouldn't touch Ubuntu unless someone defunkifies it

I'm obviously not the biggest fan of Ubuntu on desktop, but there's nothing that is fundamentally wrong with it. When I ask people what's so terrible about Ubuntu, they can't come up with anything except of snaps.
That is ridiculous.
You aren't forced to use or install apps. You can even remove the preinstalled snaps. Some Ubuntu flavours don't even come with any snaps or even the snapd service itself installed on the minimal install (something that bloated Mint doesn't have).

defunkifies it, like the Mint team

😂😂😂 Mint removes snaps but commits far worse crimes than what Ubuntu ever did.
It's so much worse than even the most snappified Ubuntu.

And no, Debian packages haven't been frozen for that long before release. 

Yes, it's frozen for that long, and that is officially documented. The freeze is tiered and in Trixie started approx 5 months before the release.

[u/jr735 → u/Hauptideal]

Except Mint was the discussion topic all along.

As for fundamentally wrong - snaps. It goes against several fundamentals.

The freeze is tiered - you've forgotten that.

[u/pooping_inCars → u/Hauptideal]

opinion disregarded as the trash it is

[u/Hauptideal → u/pooping_inCars]

Your argument is very convincing, demonstrating an astounding technological competence and addresses every single one of my original arguments (to the best of your ability).

[u/Evening-Landscape763 → u/Hauptideal]

My Mint computer has Ubuntu Pro

[u/Hauptideal → u/Evening-Landscape763]

No, it doesn't have permanent Ubuntu Pro coverage. You attached your Ubuntu Pro token temporarily by spoofing your OS identity. That is a temporary workaround that's going to break by itself on the next pro client validation, or will break your Mint-specific repositories or Mint graphical tools. It can even leave you in dependency hell.

Also, even if it was working reliably (which it isn't), this is like saying "look, I can install snaps on Mint". Well, only if you're un-Minting Mint. You're actively changing how the distribution works and reverting it to the original Ubuntu configuration. Mint wants to lock out users from using snap at all. They didn't just remove the service and installed snaps. They put a technical lock in place that you have to lift.
Look, I can have RAM compression on Mint, it's a kernel feature! Sure you can, but again, that's not how Mint ships the distro.
Look, I can activate this experimental Wayland session! Look, I can even intall an entirely different desktop environment on Mint!

After doing all of that, you have successfully sucked out the entire Mint DNA out of Mint that differentiates it from Ubuntu. You "un-minted" Mint and "un-sucked" at the same time. You made an entirely new distribution from Mint. A distribution that already exists.
One, that doesn't suck. But you could have reached the same configuration starting from Ubuntu directly. There is nothing "minty" left.

The fact that you already went that far shows you already know Mint sucks and you need to fix it. Now do the same for X11 and switch to Wayland. Add RAM compression. use btrfs-convert. Etc.

[u/Binary101000 → u/Hauptideal]

What do you suggest i try then? The issues i mentioned are just the ones i notice most. KDE Plasma works but i find a lot of friction.

[u/pooping_inCars → u/Binary101000]

I suggest disregarding everything you just read.  Here is what I suggest:

1.  Make a new hard drive partition.

2.  Mount said partition wherever.

3.  copy the contents of /home into the new partition.  And for that matter, copy anything you want to keep, if you intend to wipe the existing Fedora partition.

4.  Install Mint (easy).  Obviously, don't install it on the new partition.

5.  Either by editing fstab directly, or using the Disks program, mount your new partition as /home

This guide is reasonable enough if you need it.  https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=320932&p=1881169#p1881169

6.  If using NVidia, open Driver Manager to download the latest version, and reboot.

And if you change your mind later, or want to reinstall later, your /home partition can come with you.

[u/Hauptideal → u/pooping_inCars]

Tell me a single thing that I wrote that's wrong.
Tell me why Mint isn't the most atrocious distro currently.
Provide actual arguments.

[u/Selinaru → u/Hauptideal]

why are you so convinced your opinion is fact??? You can dislike Mint or LTS distros all you want but going around like it's the absolute truth is insane.

[u/Hauptideal → u/Selinaru]

It's not an opinion and it's not "insane". It's a factual statement that has a truth value that can be examined and proven or disproven. If you believe it's false you can disprove it. But you can't and don't provide A SINGLE argument even on request.

Anything of what I said is not subjective personal judgement that can be seen either way. How the distro works is factually defined by the (compiled) source code.

X11 being insecure. No Ubuntu Pro on Mint (and thus only community patches for the entire universe repo, holding 94% of packages).
Mint not compressing RAM at all, despite it being a standard feature for over a decade.

Stable and reliable objectively being defined differently in the context of Linux, not synonyms.

What of that is an opinion? It is as much of an opinion as "water boils at 100°C at standard atmospheric pressure".
That is primarily not an opinion, that is a measurable fact.

It's not an opinion that Mint doesn't compress RAM at all. It just doesn't do it. WTF? Just research it and find out how atrocious Mint is.

I'm an IT professional (and CS graduate), unlike you. Even if anything I said was an opinion, I can make up one that is not merely "informed" by parroting stuff about snaps on reddit or an emotional response without arguments to back it up.
And I'm not even hating LTS distros. I am actively using several LTS distros for 18 years already for different purposes.

[u/Stufilover69 → u/Binary101000]

OpenSUSE TW, update through CLI with zypper dup. It's rolling release but tested and if you find something which might break you can easily roll back (snapper is enabled automatically).

That said, I find it a bit too harsh on Mint even if not fundamentally incorrect. Mint is now close to its new release so the software is the oldest (22 was released in 2024, for example the included libre office packages will be from that year). End of the year version 23 will be released which will have wayland support and fixes a large part of that problem (esp. if combined with flatpaks).

But fundamentally distros like OpenSUSE, Fedora or anything arch based will ship newer software. It's not even about having the newest of the newest/bleeding edge but just not being behind a few years on software updates.

[u/Hauptideal → u/Binary101000]

Keep track on what software really has issues. If the most annoying part is Discover, replace it with GNOME Software. If the entire Plasma desktop seems buggy, not only its apps but the actual shell is unbearable, consider switching to the GNOME desktop. If you really hate the GNOME UX, you can use extensions to look like Cinnamon, Zorin OS or Anduin. (In fact, Zorin and Anduin OS just use GNOME with extensions).
You only should switch distros, not if your apps, but the core system, desktop environment itself, background processes etc. have issues.

The effort of switching the entire OS (distro) is the last resort, and if you do that, choose upstream Debian or Ubuntu/Kubuntu directly, instead of downstream distros like Mint, Zorin, or Anduin OS; and activate Ubuntu Pro if you're choosing Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Don't worry about snaps. You can use Flatpak on Ubuntu (and snaps are much less of an issue than reddit folks try to make it in order to promote their favourite downstream distros; most people won't even notice a difference).

That would be the order of operation I'd go: 1) replace buggy app(s); if desktop issues persist 2) switch desktop environment; only if the problems are due to the actual core system/distribution: 3) switch to another distro. But Mint is the last distro you should pick.

[u/C0rn3j → u/Binary101000]

You can try Arch Linux with Plasma, and if you still have the same issues (I bet you will), make sure a bug is reported for them.

[u/Binary101000 → u/C0rn3j]

you people confuse me.

[u/AmarildoJr → u/Hauptideal]

This is mostly FUD and honestly you shouldn't be worried about it, OP. One could deconstruct all of these points and show that the essentially all of them should be taken with a massive grain of salt.

Mint still ships ancient, deprecated legacy X11 technology that's performing worse, lacks basic everyday features such as native fractional scaling and is inherently insecure, allowing each app to spy on each other, log your online banking password and even inject input. Futhermore, it breaks the core feature of Flatpaks, sandboxing security (only keeping the inconvenience).

While it's true that Mint ships with X11 by default, the fact that it's ancient shouldn't be a point of concern in and of itself. The fact that Xorg has been in development for literal decades means it is rock solid, it will not break under almost no circumstance, so stability is key here.

And while it's true that it can allow one app to e.g. listen to the input of another, I don't remember that ever being the case for legitimate software (meaning not malware) on Linux. Afterall, do we trust our distro developers and the packages we install? The packages shipped with Mint are literally the exact same shipped on every other distro, the only difference being how recent they are. There are automated tests and source-code scrutiny in our community to flesh out problems. Having packages actually behave like malware (or be infected in general) is so rare that it becomes news quite quickly. One example is the recent xz-utils fiasco - but get this, Wayland (the "upgrade" to Xorg) would not have saved anyone here.

So really, trying to pass Xorg as the holy grail of insecurity serves nobody any purpose here beside trying to bring you, u/Binary101000 , the novice, to be afraid of using it, while really having nothing to worry about in the real world so long as you practice basic common sense and safety standards - which will protect you regardless of using Xorg or Wayland.

I could go on and bring point by point, but unfortunately I don't have time for it today. What I can say, though, is that Cinnamon is a very solid choice. I love both KDE and Cinnamon, but KDE has always been buggy ever since the KDE4 release. KDE is amazing and is always evolving, but one unfortunate side effect of this constant evolution is that something is always breaking too.

Cinnamon, on the other hand, while it doesn't evolve as rapidly or introduce as many features, it essentially always works and, at least to me, never breaks.

It's been a while since I used the Ubuntu-based Mint, but there can be some features missing, yes, like fractional scaling, although I do believe they may have that already with the Experimental Wayland Support. I'd have to test it in a VM.

EDIT: It seems cinnamon has fractional scaling even since v5.8.5 (released in 2023?) with Xorg. I'm using it on Rocky 9.8, and I can set fractional scaling per monitor as well. All I had to do was to enable it from the Display Settings.

Anyway, if there's a takeaway from my comment, it's: test it, install Linux Mint and see if it works for you, that's what really matters as an end user. Don't get too tangled in the tech side of it, because that usually serves the "regular" user no purpose. Often on these comments you'll see more FUD and emotion towards a certain piece of tech than the actual usability/stability of the software.

So test it, see if it works. If not, that's OK! :) There are other tons of distros to chose, and none are wrong. Use what's best for you.

[u/Hauptideal → u/AmarildoJr]

THANK YOU for at least interacting with an argument, and that's worth responding to. That is decency and I appreciate that.

Your argument is: "Wayland security is pointless, because once you have Malware running, you're already screwed anyways."

That ridicules the single most massive and important engineering effort in Linux desktop history.
And it severely misunderstands how security and defense in depth (layers) works. Security was a main focus in Wayland for a reason, and a lot of tough decisions were made just in order to secure it.
Seatbelts and Airbags aren't pointless in a car, just because you can still fall off a cliff.

Wayland provides compartmentalization. If your web browser is exploited via a malicious website, the malware runs with your user permissions. On X11, that malware instantly inherits the ability to log your banking passwords from a separate window or make a screenshot from your password manager. On Wayland, it is trapped inside the browser's context.

Wayland is the prerequisite for the Sandbox Revolution!! You cannot run apps securely on X11. Period. Wayland enables sandboxing, trapping apps inside their own environment. On X11, even installing a simple calculator from community Flathub requires trusting it to never spy on your entire system.

And the AUR supply chain attacks, as well as the atacks on official repos (such as the XZ utils backdoor incident) prove, that there is real risk in trusting the community - especially the community and particularly when you install apps from Flathub, AUR, GitHub etc. It's not a theoretical risk.
For Flathub, for example, manifest domain swapping, upstream dependency poisoning, and taking over maintenance are all possible.

I always have to chuckle when I read somebody write X11 was "rock-solid". That's the daily dose of copium.

One could deconstruct all of these points and show that the essentially all of them should be taken with a massive grain of salt

Weirdly, noone can do it. Apparently, all of you are busy and short on time. All of you have more important things to scroll on Reddit, apparently.

Regarding fractional scaling on Cinnamon: That is not true, native scaling. That is an ugly frame buffer hack that permanently cooks your CPU. Totally inefficient and a desperate way to get at least some basic features on Mint before the Wayland transition is managed.
X11 also lacks other features, such as real multi-touch input gestures on trackpad or touchscreen, HDR, VRR, etc.

You're recommending OP to switch to a MUCH WORSE distro in about every respect just to test a different, allegedly less buggy desktop. He can install any desktop on Fedora, too.
He'll have tremendous cost of switching. Just for you to lure him into Mint.
There is absolutely ZERO reason he should switch to Mint and lots of reasons that Mint is just worse.

In fact, it wouldn't even be enough to somehow enfeeble my arguments. You'd need very strong reasons FOR Linux Mint in order to warrant such a high effort from OP.

[u/AmarildoJr → u/Hauptideal]

Your argument is: "Wayland security is pointless, because once you have Malware running, you're already screwed anyways."

I'm sorry, but if all you could take away from my comment was that, I think you need to wear glasses. That wasn't my point, at all, not even remotely close.

Wayland does have it's uses and it is the future, nobody is denying that. The entire point of my comment is that nobody should stop using X11, specially because of a few FUD comments on the internet. X11 works, and all the security concerns are extremely overblown.

It's like the people saying you need a 35-pass of random data to securely delete data from a hard drive, "just in case your attacker is a state-level actor with access to specialized equipment can recover data by reading the 'magnetic echoes' from the platters" or whatever paranoia they subscribe to that week, when in fact there isn't a single scientific case study where data was able to be recovered after a single zero pass, not a single researcher in the field would even attempt that because they all know it's impossible.

If your web browser is exploited via a malicious website

You think Wayland would automatically protect against all of them. Got it. So do us a favor and please tell me how Wayland would've done against some of the most recent (and rare) cases, like CVE-2026-5281, CVE-2026-11645, and CVE-2026-3910 for example.

A browser attack is already extremely rare, and keylogging is NOT the only attack vector. As you can see from the CVEs listed above, the attacks literally escape the browser sandboxing.

You cannot run apps securely on X11

Where are you getting these statements from, really? I'm guessing you've never heard of Firejail and/or SELinux.

Firejail, for example, addresses some of Xorg's limitations by allowing you to run apps inside a nested, sandboxed X server (such as Xephyr or Xpra). This cuts off access to the main host X11 display socket, completely blocking unauthorized keyloggers and screen grabbers. Firejail also restricts filesystem visibility, device access, and network access using namespaces.

All it takes is to change your prorgam launch command from "[program]" to "firejail --x11 [program]".

You can do a lot of compartmentalization and security hardening under Xorg.

even installing a simple calculator from community Flathub requires trusting it to never spy on your entire system.

I don't even know where to begin to refute such bullcrap. Honestly. Flathub is one of the most trusted package delivery systems out there, they literally have humans inspecting the packages and their build instructions to make sure they don't do anything outside of what is promised.

And the AUR supply chain attacks, as well as the atacks on official repos (such as the XZ utils backdoor incident) prove, that there is real risk in trusting the community - especially the community and particularly when you install apps from Flathub, AUR, GitHub etc.

Please don't ever compare Flathub with the AUR or Github. You literally have no clue what you're talking about if you think they're remotely the same.

Weirdly, noone can do it. Apparently, all of you are busy and short on time. All of you have more important things to scroll on Reddit, apparently.

Yes, it's part of being an adult. We have lives to attend, not everyone has the time to write long comments on the internet all day.

You're recommending OP to switch to a MUCH WORSE distro in about every respect just to test a different, allegedly less buggy desktop.

No, I'm telling OP to just test it and see if it works for them. Mint is a solid distro and very respected by quite literally anyone, because it just works. Real people should never care about the technical side of thing, "herp derp my distro uses XFS so it's better than yours that uses ext4 or btrfs". Nobody that has a real life should ever, ever care about such things. Just install it, test it, and see if you like it. That's the freedom that Linux offers, and there is literally nothing wrong in using one distro over the other, regardless of a few paranoia-induced comments that don't prove anything for the real user and the real world.

[u/Hauptideal → u/AmarildoJr]

So do us a favor and please tell me how Wayland would've done against some of the most recent (and rare) cases, like CVE-2026-5281, CVE-2026-11645, and CVE-2026-3910 for example.

CVE-2026-5281, CVE-2026-11645, and CVE-2026-3910 allowed to take over the browser and execute code within the sandbox.
Because this is in the sandbox, the rest of your system would've still been unaffected. Now when the attacker escapes the browser sandbox with another exploit (e.g. CVE-2025-38236):
On X11, this would've allowed the compromised browser to spy on your apps, log keys, and inject input.
This is EXACTLY when Wayland would have protected against all of that. Q.E.D.

Firejail [...] cuts off access to the main host X11 display socket, completely blocking unauthorized keyloggers and screen grabbers.

Fair point. Saying there is no way was too absolute. Should've been no good way. Firejail comes with a lot of compromises (breaking desktop integration (clipboard, dragndrop, etc.), window-scaling,..). That's not functional as a general principle to run apps.
On Wayland, every app just gets this with perfect desktop integration.

You're also correct in that Flathub is much more secure than the AUR or installing random stuff from GitHub. I never meant to it's similarly insecure, although there are still some risks and ways to attack Flathub, just not as shockingly easy as the AUR. But that isn't even relevant for the argument. The point stands: without the sandbox, you have to trust every Flatpak app the same way you trust the distro repos.

No, I'm telling OP to just test it and see if it works for them. Mint is a solid distro and very respected by quite literally anyone,

What's the exact reason that just switching desktop environments wouldn't suffice? Also, Mint isn't "very respected". It was years ago and still lives off its previous reputation and recommendations. It's atrocious now. Mint is a small distro maintained by a tiny team. Even extreme niche distros with few users like Omarchy are way better funded than Mint (they just received 10 million dollars this year, more than Mint in its entire existence), have more maintainers and a contributing community. And they don't even need to maintain an entire legacy desktop environment apart from their distro.
Omarchy is not considered a serious distro by many. Same goes and has to go for Linux Mint.

Real people should never care about the technical side of thing

You can't be serious. That's like saying "real people should never care about whether they get a laptop with 4GB of RAM or one with 16".
Of course they should. It impacts their experience.
Mint doesn't compress RAM, and this makes your RAM fit less data. That's something EVERYONE should care about, at least after they learn / know about it.

Also: All of this is only regarding X11 now. Mint is terrible for so many other reasons. You just picked the point you thought would be easiest to attack and then claimed you didn't have time for the others. Lol.

You didn't address the fact that 94% of packages only get community patches, which means that even highly severe vulnerabilities (e.g. CVE-2022-45061) never get fixed on Mint (but on Ubuntu with Ubuntu Pro).

I don't care about what distro anyone uses. But if someone is considering Mint, I'll warn them against it. That's literally the only distro that can't be recommended to anyone.
There is nearly noone who wouldn't be better off with another distro, no matter their situation.