I am currently running Xubuntu on all my systems but there are so many things that feel rather unstable/buggy - I am sure it is not all Xubuntus/Xfce’s fault, but my knowledge is limited so I just attribute it to that.

Therefore, I am currently considering switching to Fedora. I feel like it is time trying out a new desktop (KDE) and a more up to date kernel. I am not entirely sure what I am hoping from this post, but maybe a “yea, it is worth it” would ease my mind a bit.

Also, I am a bit unsure how to easily move between them (programs and data).

To name a few of the bugs I encountered in the past:

  • When connecting screens, quite often the created profile is ignored, screens get disabled, overlapped, … By applying the profile multiple times eventually you can overcome this issue
  • Dell specific: Webcam does not work, system sometimes freezes after closing the laptop lid even if sleep mode is deactivated
  • Certain shortcuts are bugged (WIN+Left works, WIN+Right doesn’t. When you reset WIN+Right, it works until the next restart)
  • rhubarbe@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
    2·
    2 days ago

    My experience with fedora was the opposite of robust. I’ve tried multiple times over the last decades, my last experience is fairly recent (a couple of years ago) but always disappointing: hardware issues, minor but annoying bugs, etc.

    And KDE Plasma has always been neglected by the core team. So clearly not the right distribution for OP.

    • EchoDelta_9@programming.dev
      1·
      2 days ago

      Ah, okay. I do concede that -historically- Fedora wasn’t robust, no. They weren’t shy about breaking changes, which even led them to be referred to as Red Hat’s test bed distro by the community and beyond.

      However, for (at least) the last 5 years or so, Fedora’s direction has changed significantly. I’m not entirely sure what prompted this change, but it has definitely been a welcome one. For example: most recently, Fedora has somewhat even formalized this new approach with their new initiative.

      Basically, Fedora wants to be innovative like they’ve always been known for. But, this shouldn’t come at the cost of alienating your own user base. Thus, the proposal details how these two perspectives can see eye to eye with each other.

      As for KDE Plasma; again -historically- it has been a second-class citizen on Fedora; at least, compared to GNOME. But, KDE Plasma has since been promoted. There’s no meaningful difference between the two variants when it comes to how Fedora regards them. Even the website alludes to this:

      • rhubarbe@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
        1·
        1 day ago

        Thanks for the additional context. I may have misunderstood the announcement 5 years ago as I remember reacting very negatively to that news. Are they still defaulting to flatpak for new apps?

        • EchoDelta_9@programming.dev
          1·
          1 day ago

          Sorry, perhaps I should have been clearer:

          I may have misunderstood the announcement 5 years ago

          I didn’t reference any 5 year old announcement. If you didn’t imply that anyways, then please consider sharing the 5 year old announcement.

          Are they still defaulting to flatpak for new apps?

          Did Fedora ever default to flatpak for new apps 🤔? For Fedora Atomic, sure. But I don’t recall traditional Fedora ever doing so. This isn’t Canonical that re-installs an .deb installation as a snap.

            • EchoDelta_9@programming.dev
              1·
              23 hours ago

              This became a lot longer of a writing than I expected. My apologies*. So, without further ado.

              I got confused with CentOS changes in 2000: https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/

              It eroded my trust with anything Red Hat-related. And the acquisition by IBM in 2019 had already damaged its image.

              Ah okay. Thanks for clarifying! I remember that the pushback was real on that one. But, I’m not sure if it was justified. If anything, I’d say that people had a knee-jerk reaction to it and it soon after became a ‘toxic’ environment in which reasonable discourse was (almost) non-existent.

              However, Gordon Messmer[1]’s piece on this suggests that CentOS was everything but what was idealized by the community. As such, being converted to CentOS Stream might have been a positive change.

              Anyhow, honestly, I’m not well-versed with RHEL(-clones). So feel free to dismiss anything I’ve said 😜.

              Moving on… What’s perhaps important to note is that Fedora’s relation to Red Hat is a curious one. For example, Fedora defaults to Btrfs for its file system while Red Hat has deprecated it for quite a while now. Furthermore, while Red Hat seems to go pretty hard on Image Mode, Fedora didn’t even block a major update (until very recently) if some bug impacted its atomic variants very negatively. So, basically, Red Hat’s priorities =/= Fedora’s priorities.

              But, having said all of that, I do respect your choice to not trust anything Red Hat-related. Perhaps, I would have done so as well, were it not for the fact that I’ve been daily driving Fedora(-derivatives) for quite a while. Yes, I admit that I’m probably biased 😅.

              Last time I tried Fedora (around last year), anything installed via the “software” app in GNOME defaulted to a flatpak install.

              Interesting. I literally did a fresh Fedora install within a VM and the results have been interesting:

              • If it catches (!) that the package is available within any non-flatpak repository, then it will prefer the .rpm install by default. Examples include Steam and GNOME builder.
              • However, if for some strange reason the .rpm package is not picked up, then it does default to flatpak. And it’s not possible to select the .rpm package within the GUI either. Even though sudo dnf install <package name> does work as you’d expect 😅. Examples include Neovim.

              I wonder if you had to deal with the above shenanigans last year as well. Or, perhaps, it was even worse for some awful reason. Anyhow, there’s more truth to it than I expected. Though, I’d argue it’s probably some bug or otherwise unintended behavior.

              If you’ve read all of my ramblings, then I’d like to thank you for the effort 😊! Have a good one, fam!

              1. Yeah, yeah; he works at Red Hat, so you might be rightfully skeptical whether he can even be unbiased. However, he has build so much good will through his community efforts that I’m absolutely giving him the benefit of doubt. Though, please feel free to disagree with me on this. ↩︎

              • rhubarbe@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
                2·
                21 hours ago

                I did read everything and I appreciate your writing! I might give Fedora another try at some point but I’ve stopped distro-hopping for a while now. Manjaro on my laptop for 7 years, Debian on servers, I’m a happy man.

                • EchoDelta_9@programming.dev
                  2·
                  18 hours ago

                  I did read everything and I appreciate your writing!

                  Thank you so much! I appreciate it 😊!

                  I might give Fedora another try at some point

                  It’s a big honour that you’re even reconsidering your stance on Fedora. Thank you! But, honestly 😜, I wasn’t interested in proselytizing Fedora or anything. I wanted to better understand your stance and perhaps[1] learn something in the process.

                  I’m a happy man.

                  I’m glad to hear you are 😊. Have (another) good one, fam!

                  1. Which I did, so thank you 😊! ↩︎