Linux

Mint.

You're working to his requirements, not yours.

Fedora is not for beginners.

Mint is.

I could go into more detail, but I'll leave it there.

From your post:

laptop he uses for university. He’s not a tinkerer and wants something that just works.

Mint:

Linux Mint is known for being very user-friendly and stable. Also easy to get help online.

Fedora:

have to install media codecs via terminal

university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora

less help on the web for Fedora than Mint.

Unless you're sure that screen stuttering is going to be a major annoyance, you know what I am going to suggest.

Mint is like 99% plug and play on most laptops, so I'd recommend they go that route.

I recommend Mint.

Chances are your friend's secondary laptop doesn't have extra resources for Gnome to run smoothly. Sad thing is nowadays Gnome is very heavy and bloated.

Also, he may try both distros live-usb. Maybe he don't care about Mint looking outdated. But if he does, you may try Fedora live-usb and check if university wifi works properly.

It's his laptop after all, so I believe your appreciations on the beauty of desktop environments are secondary.

As a fedoraman myself, I think Pop!_OS is a great option.

But are you doing this because your friend wants linux or because you want it? It's okay to recommend it but don't push it if they don't need it.

In general I would recommend any Debian derivate for beginners that just don't care about how their computer is operating. So if this is really just a question regarding eight Fedora or Linux Mint then I would say Linux Mint because it's a Debian derivative.

That's simply because chances are high stat you will at least find a Deb package for any proprietary software you might want to use. Making it "easier" for the user.

If you install the system for your friend you're free to change the Desctop environment to everything you want.

No questions it's mint, it runs and looks very good.

You would get less hassle with Mint. One thing that came to mind is the codec.

I’d say Mint.

Mint is planning to add experimental support for Wayland this winter, so he’s probably only 1-2 years away from full Wayland support in the DE.

Keep in mind "it just works" also includes the windows like workflow.

Even if Mint (Cinnamon) doesn't look as good as GNOME, you can always install another desktop environment.

I'd recommend fedora silverblue. You'll install all graphical packages via a Software store and you won't brick your system. Even if, you may just recover an old state. I installed media codecs via the software store, not command line.

Fedora is very beginner friendly too

Begin small, end big. That works for everything when learning something new. So, with that said, go for Linux Mint Cinnamon.

I begun my Linux journey with elementary OS which is more for macOS users. I was a Windows user so I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon. After a few years of exploring and learning, I am now using EndeavourOS.

Mint

I can’t really give a super useful opinion given that I haven’t really touched fedora, but I’ve been using mint for school for almost a year, highly recommend

I installed Mint on someone's old laptop at my Uni's lab (it's mostly for the field of environment and agriculture so nobody is an IT expert here), he didn't have any complaints and is actually falling down the Linux rabbit-hole, while others are considering switching to Linux too after seeing how it resurrected 2 old basically-defunct laptops.

I'd go with that, it is a trusty and reliable distro for newbies. I even know some greybeards that use it.

Then again as others pointed out he can try both from live USB. The important part is that you explain a distro can have everything another distro has with the right know-how and some patience, as well as how things work on Linux (for example: imstall programs using the package manager whenever possible). But again he isn't a tinkerer so stock Mint will work just fine with him.

I love Fedora but definitely Mint for a normie. Even then I question if you should install Linux at all since reliably being able to do what you need to do is priority one, especially for a student, and if he may be blocked in his work as a result I don't think it's a great idea.

Maybe stock Ubuntu?

It's pretty new. Has wayland and pipewire. You can just enable a checkmark in the installer to install codecs. Uses Gnome, so a non-Windows like workflow. Pretty sure Eduroam would work there, as many schools use Ubuntu by default.

At least at UVA, eduroam on fedora is possible, you might be able to adapt these instructions to your university if you end up on fedora http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/compfac/faq/linux-eduroam.html

As a few have already mentioned, a Debian based distro is a good choice, and you Mentioned vanilla Ubuntu isn't ideal do to prioritizing snaps, I would then suggest Pop!_OS or Mint. I like what System76 (Pop) is doing with their scheduler and the upcoming Cosmic DE (written in Rust and should see an alpha early next year).

Do mint, if you really wanna do fedora try Nobara

Have them check with their University if they do any Linux support. If they do - use one of the distros they support so they might possibly have KB articles about accessing University recourses from Linux.

Source: am Linux admin at a University that writes such documentation. I have seen exactly the Eduroam issue you mention and came up with an Ubuntu workaround for example.

ZorinOS? I saw no talk of it here and I haven't personally used it in a couple of years. It uses gnome and can be set to mimic the look of windows, mac, or just stock gnome. It looks super clean, modern and pro. It's easy to use and based on ubuntu. It was a just works distro for me.

https://zorin.com/os/