The testing branch is at most 3 weeks old. I get new software, not the newest. Kde plasma has a auto update function that works on bootup. (though I usually go into sleep mode and therefore update often by hand.)

Yes debian is pretty plain and empty but once configured it works. Sure I would recommend Mint to people who don’t like to configure. However the Mint(debian) version is lacking a lot and there is no testing branch you can safely run of.

Just to clarify, I’m not trying to stand up for Red Hat in any of the following, just explaining the relationship between Red Hat, CentOS, and Fedora. My stance on Red Hat has historically been neutral, but recently is erring towards negative after the IBM aquisition. My stance on Fedora has always been positive.

Probably because of what happened to CentOS.

Red Hat bought out CentOS in 2014. They took over their trademark, hired their development team, and placed Red Hat developers on the CentOS team. CentOS was downstream of RHEL, so Red Hat had an invested interest in it, since it actually resembles RHEL.

That’s an important distinction: CentOS was downstream of RHEL, and could be used to replace it in enterprise applications. Fedora is upstream of RHEL, and not suitable for enterprise applications (too many package and kernel updates, everything changes frequently, short term release lifetime, etc.). When CentOS was discontinued in favor of CentOS Stream, it no longer had the same value in enterprise use as RHEL, and its competition to RHEL was mostly eliminated. Again, the most important distinction there is that CentOS competed with RHEL, which is why Red Hat took it over and killed it.

Fedora is entirely community managed and developed, with FESCo being community-elected and making decisions in the interest of the community, not in the interest of Red Hat. Red Hat sponsors Fedora, but that relationship is merely financial. It provides money to the Fedora Project because RHEL is downstream of Fedora, and benefits from its continual development. Fedora does not compete with RHEL, so Red Hat has no interest in controlling Fedora, nor could they if they wanted to with the way the project is managed.

Who owns the Fedora trademark?

Red Hat, of course. But again, Red Hat does not have the means to control the development of Fedora, and they would get nothing but backlash from trying, and gain nothing from it. If Red Hat tried to take over Fedora and were somehow successful, the project could easily be forked and rebranded, with the community currently managing it taking over the new fork and developing from there. Fedora would become stale, and Red Hat would have to manage it entirely, which they clearly don’t want to do in the first place. The only significant difference would be that the new Fedora fork would not be sponsored by Red Hat, and development would slow down as a result. But again, this has nothing but disadvantages for Red Hat. Red Hat benefits from the Fedora Project’s active development, and since it doesn’t compete in their market, they get nothing from destroying it.

How independent is Fedora really?

That depends on what aspect of independence you question. Red Hat has no control over the development of Fedora, as that is managed by FESCo. So in that way, Fedora is completely independent. FESCo and the Fedora Project have no interest in developing for Red Hat; they develop for the community. Of course, Red Hat still benefits from that development regardless, but RHEL specific development is handled by Red Hat, not the Fedora Project.

Financially, the Fedora Project is quite dependent on Red Hat. That’s where the vast majority of their funding comes from. That funding is given to the Fedora Project because its development is mutually beneficial for both the Fedora community and Red Hat. That fact won’t change anytime soon. The testing, bug fixes, security patches, and feature upgrades from the Fedora community are incredibly valuable for Red Hat, and without a consumer desktop platform to test those changes, Red Hat would be greatly disadvantaged.

I am not saying anyone should avoid Fedora, I can just understand why someone would.

Personally, I can’t. At least I certainly can’t understand if their reasoning had anything to do with Red Hat or IBM. The Fedora Project is independently developed, and does not seek to satisfy the interests of either of those companies. I can understand someone not liking how frequently the kernel is updated, but then again, you don’t have to update immediately if you don’t want to. I can understand someone being apprehensive because there is some software available on Ubuntu or Debian, but it isn’t released for Fedora. I can understand someone not liking the dnf package manager; it is quite slow. I can understand someone not liking the folder structure of Fedora over Debian based operating systems. But I cannot understand someone disliking Fedora because they hate Red Hat or IBM. As fas as the end user is concerned, Fedora has essentially nothing to do with Red Hat or IBM. Yes, RHEL is downstream of Fedora, but that doesn’t affect Fedora in anyway, it’s downstream, not upstream. Fedora is, always has been, and always will be a community driven project that only has the interests of the community in mind. The Fedora Project doesn’t care about what Red Hat wants or does with RHEL, as it doesn’t affect Fedora in the slightest. CentOS was destroyed because it competed with RHEL (or at least Red Hat believed that it did), and Fedora does not. Fedora is as removed from Red Hat as Debian is removed from Canonical (Canonical sponsors Debian, if you don’t understand the context there). But you don’t see people going around saying not to use Debian just because Canonical sponsors it. If you don’t like Red Hat then don’t use RHEL, CentOS, or any of their downstreams, but don’t falsely associate the development of Fedora as being at risk of influence by Red Hat.

Anyone who avoids Fedora because they dislike Red Hat or believe it is at risk from Red Hat is misinformed at best.

Tumbleweed is stable enough

The distro is meant to run on a PC which is mainly used by non tech sawwy people. […], so they become familiar with Linux more.

In this case I always suggest trying out Linux Mint. It is not “too heavy” and not “too specific/niche”. It’s a good all-purpose distribution for desktops/laptops where basic maintenance can be performed by the user.

I dont see how e.g. arch would be super hard to maintain.
There is a nice GUI program for installing programs and updates. (like many modern distros)
If you dont want to set everything up, go with Endeavour or Garuda.

I find rolling release to be easier to maintain and keep up to date than non-rolling.
Specially if you want up to date packages for desktop use.

If it will be used by non-tech savvy people, why do you care about snap and IBM? Do the people care about that?

My mom and grandma are using Manjaro. With grandma I’m the only one doing the updates of course, but with mom she usually can do it herself just using pamac-tray. If that fails a phonecall is usually sufficient. Once in a few years I have to come and do something by myself

And when that happens I work with a distro that just works, instead of some broken crap
EDIT: I tried having Mint on their computers. Big mistake, it’s as broken as Debian and Ubuntu

EDIT: Xfce is very nice in such cases. It looks familiar for them while being manageable for me

can be a bug in your bios too