Rafael "Zentro" Galvan

Why Fedora Is the Best Linux Distro for Both Beginners and Professionals

Unknown — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The current Linux discourse has been... start with Ubuntu if you're new! Use Arch if you want control!

But after spending time across both ends of that spectrum, I've come to a different conclusion:

Fedora strikes the best balance for both beginners and professionals.

The idea of "beginner" versus "advanced" distributions sounds helpful, but in practice it creates a weird trap. Ubuntu is often recommended because it's easy, but that ease comes with tradeoffs. It increasingly relies

Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3

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Lenovo ThinkPad T440p

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Lenovo ThinkPad X220

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A workhorse wrapped in simplicity — reliable, sturdy, and endlessly capable, the X220 is the laptop that just keeps going. </blockquote>
I bought this laptop at an eBay auction for $40 around 2022. I had also been looking at the T440p, but at the time I couldn't find any for less than $100. So, for a broke university student, the next best thing was the X220.
The laptop came configured with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, an unbranded 120 GB SATA SSD, a quad-core Sandy Bridge i5, and a rather horrific TN 1366×768 panel.
The first thing I did—and it was also my first time tinkering with a laptop—was upgrade the RAM. I managed to snag 16 GB of Crucial-branded RAM for less than $20 on eBay.
The rear hatch that exposes the DIMM slots is held in place by only two screws. The upgrade was quick and stress-free.
By this point, my laptop was running Fedora LXQt. Its first real test was for a project during my Real-Time Systems course using the
image here whatever
My next project was replacing the screen. I found a website called McDonnellTech that had several useful guides and pointers for the best upgrades specifically for the X220. The panel I chose was the LP125WH2(SL)(B3).
I also wanted to upgrade the battery. At most, it would last maybe 1-2 hours, and the battery health report showed less than 50% capacity. For the replacement, I went with the KingSener 9-cell battery.
At this point, I was quite happy with the laptop. Everything worked great—except the Wi-Fi card. The Ethernet port provided solid gigabit speeds, but I couldn't get anything above 50 Mbps on Wi-Fi, despite having gigabit home internet.
I went for the suggested modern replacement that supported Wi-Fi 5 speeds, but something stood out: I needed to install a version of the BIOS with the hardware whitelist removed.
So, I installed Libreboot instead.
...and it worked!
I now had a fully free laptop—no non-free firmware, Intel ME disabled, and no non-free software installed. Combined with the previous upgrades, it can power through 8-10 hours of work in a single sitting without overheating. This is nearly the perfect laptop.

Microsoft Lumia 640

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Microsoft Lumia 950

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Microsoft Zune HD

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Ahead of its time, elegant in design, and quietly brilliant, the Zune HD was a reminder that sometimes innovation isn't measured by popularity, but by vision. </blockquote>
Microsoft Zune HD playing Xtal by Aphex Twin
I purchased my Zune from a bid on eBay. I paid around $30 with the condition being "For Parts". However, plugging it in revealed it worked perfectly!
The body of the device is also nearly perfect, minus some scratches and scuffs that come naturally with use.
The Zune software, despite not getting updates for more than a decade, worked perfectly on Windows 10. Getting music on the Zune is super simple and easy, with the only drawback being that avatar backgrounds do not work anymore (although I am aware some passionate developers are out there trying to get this working).

Nokia Lumia 521

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Rigs of Rods

Unknown — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Software

Unknown — Sat, 05 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This serves as both a collection of (free) software I use and a way to convince you (yes, you!) to use that (free) software.

"Free software" means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, "free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer". We sometimes call it "libre software," borrowing the French or Spanish word for "free" as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.
— The Free Software Foundation </blockquote>

GNU Emacs</h3>

"People don't just quit emacs. They just die at some point."</a> GNU Emacs</a> is an extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor.
KDE Kate</h3> KDE Kate</a> is my cross-platform go to "VS Code". It's a fast multi-view text editor by KDE. It features many things that VS Code would while being native Qt and not an entire Chromium web browser.
Mozilla Firefox</h3>
Mozilla Firefox</a> is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The opinion on Firefox can be mixed, but in my own opinion... I think it's fine for now. It's the only non-Chromium web browser (and don't say Brave... that's also just Chromium) that I can tolerate.
Of course, if things with Mozilla or packaging of Firefox changes then my next go to would be LibreWolf</a>, a custom version of Firefox focused on privacy.
KDE Krita</h3>
KDE Krita</a> is another free project by the KDE project. It's an art program that's cross platform and easy to learn. I argue (while not being a very good artist) that Krita is an excellent alternative to Adobe, Clip Studio Paint, or PaintTool Sai.
Fedora Linux (with KDE Plasma)</h3>

Prior to using Fedora, Debian had been my daily driver on my laptop and desktop since almost 2014. I switched to Fedora midway through university when I got my ThinkPad T480s for the out-of-box experience... things just worked and I got used to DNF pretty quickly. When I also upgraded my desktop PC around the same time, I decided to start fresh with Fedora on that too (and of course with KDE Plasma). It's worked great for me since.

Rafael "Zentro" Galvan

Why Fedora Is the Best Linux Distro for Both Beginners and Professionals

Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3

Lenovo ThinkPad T440p

Lenovo ThinkPad X220

Microsoft Lumia 640

Microsoft Lumia 950

Microsoft Zune HD

Nokia Lumia 521

Rigs of Rods

Software

GNU Emacs</h3>
</p>
"People don't just quit emacs. They just die at some point."</a> GNU Emacs</a> is an extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor</strong>.</p>

KDE Krita</h3>
KDE Krita</a> is another free project by the KDE project. It's an art program that's cross platform and easy to learn. I argue (while not being a very good artist) that Krita is an excellent alternative to Adobe, Clip Studio Paint, or PaintTool Sai.</p>

Rafael "Zentro" Galvan

Why Fedora Is the Best Linux Distro for Both Beginners and Professionals

Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 3

Lenovo ThinkPad T440p

Lenovo ThinkPad X220

Microsoft Lumia 640

Microsoft Lumia 950

Microsoft Zune HD

Nokia Lumia 521

Rigs of Rods

Software

GNU Emacs</h3> </p> "People don't just quit emacs. They just die at some point."</a> GNU Emacs</a> is an extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor</strong>.</p>

KDE Krita</h3> KDE Krita</a> is another free project by the KDE project. It's an art program that's cross platform and easy to learn. I argue (while not being a very good artist) that Krita is an excellent alternative to Adobe, Clip Studio Paint, or PaintTool Sai.</p>

GNU Emacs</h3>
</p>
"People don't just quit emacs. They just die at some point."</a> GNU Emacs</a> is an extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor</strong>.</p>

KDE Krita</h3>
KDE Krita</a> is another free project by the KDE project. It's an art program that's cross platform and easy to learn. I argue (while not being a very good artist) that Krita is an excellent alternative to Adobe, Clip Studio Paint, or PaintTool Sai.</p>