Fedora Linux cures my distro hop on my Dell preicison workstation running Intel® Xeon® W-2125 and nVidia Quadro P400 . Everything works perfectly
I've tried them all. Ubuntu, Manjaro, Debian, MX Linux, Mint....all of which has one or more fatal flaws that do not work in one of the scenarios limited Printer driver , unable Suspend/Sleep, lack of nVidia driver out of box, no VPN app, no wifi driver, no Google online accounts, LUKS encryption..
Fedora is the only distro that work for everything enabled with Nvidia proprietary driver
No more distro hop. It stops right here.
It's simply the BEST. 10/10
Version: 41 Rating: 8 Date: 2025-02-09 Votes: 0
My previous distro was PopOS. Although I think it's a great platform, I felt that they were getting behind on Gnome with most of their focus on Cosmic desktop. I tried Cosmic and believe it will be a great desktop env in the future, but I did not want to wait around for it to mature. The Cosmic team is making great strides, but not fast enough for me.
Before switching, I tested several distros on a VM platform and watched many reviews. Hence I decided to try Fedora 41-Gnome. I tried the KDE and although it's extremely configurable, I still like simple for my development environment. For me, Mr OCD, KDE will have me going down endless customization rabbit-holes. But it's nice they have many "spin" options.
During and just after installation, I just about ditched Fedora. I experienced several unexplainable problems that raised a red flag as to proceed or not. However, after updating and a little investigative work, I now have a stable platform. I am running a "mature" Asus Workstation motherboard with an AMD 16 core Zen 4 CPU along with 64GB or DDRAM.
For now, Fedora WS works for me although I may return to PopOS in the future. I had zero issues with Pop and I feel their documentation is best.
Many thanks to all for the reviews and feedback. Very helpful.
Happy hunting!
David.
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-02-09 Votes: 6
Fedora is overall the best distro with everyone having to live their lives approach without being overly complex to give reasons why Microsoft still dominates and lower distributions offer more disrespectful remarks on how to solve issues the distro developers should fix before release.
Nvidia drivers are painless to install with dnf, sound & wifi works since it is part of the godfather of Linux - Red Hat. So yes Fedora, Mint, and Ubuntu are where any newcomer wants to be and will ultimately stay or come back to since the distros actually have development internets instead of petty internal fighting.
Version: 41 Rating: 7 Date: 2025-02-09 Votes: 0
Fedora is OK, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone new to Linux. The installing might be a bit confusing and this release is a cutting edge rolling release. It might be great for newer hardware to get good support. But it also might include more bugs that may or may not affect you. I have always found it to be mostly stable but in the past I have had WiFi issues, and audio issues. Sometimes this is more about the hardware configuration since most laptop makers are solely concerned about Windows compatibility not Linux. I always recommend booting into a distro with USB drive and give it a trial test to see if everything works before installing. I tend to not use Fedora for two reasons. One is Wayland, and the other is the rolling release cadence of Fedora. I prefer a LTS release that provides a more stable but less cutting edge Linux experience.
Version: 41 Rating: 5 Date: 2025-02-08 Votes: 0
Fedora: A Playground for Red Hat, Not for Everyday Users
Fedora, backed by Red Hat, positions itself as the guinea pig of the Linux world. It’s where new technologies and features are tested—often at the cost of user convenience. While it’s cutting-edge, it’s not exactly “ready for prime time.”
First, the commitment to free and open-source software sounds noble, but it means basic things like media playback aren’t ready to go out of the box. Want to watch an MP4? Get ready to install codecs yourself, a task that’s more tedious than it should be. For something billed as “ready for everyday use,” Fedora makes you work for it.
The setup process isn’t much better. It’s not a simple, plug-and-play experience. If you want your system to actually function properly, be prepared to spend hours installing third-party software and fixing minor glitches. It’s great if you’re a developer or enjoy tinkering, but for a normal user? Not so much.
Then, there’s the constant updates. Fedora’s rapid release cycle means you’re always upgrading—sometimes breaking your system along the way. It’s like being a guinea pig in Red Hat’s lab: you get the latest and greatest features, but you also get the bugs and crashes that come with them.
And let’s not forget about stability. Fedora is often in a state of flux. Hardware support can be shaky, and some features just don’t work right out of the box. It's far from the polished, enterprise-ready experience you’d get with Red Hat’s other offerings, like RHEL.
In the end, Fedora is a great playground for Red Hat’s experiments, but not so much for the average user. If you love being on the bleeding edge, it’s perfect. But if you just want a system that works without hours of tweaking, you might want to look elsewhere.
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-01-16 Votes: 53
I entered the world of Linux about 10 years ago. The best distro for me was always Linux Mint which made my transition from Windows smooth and quite easy. Of course I was experimenting with other distros, but I always returned to Mint as most safe and reliable base. Some 5-6 years ago I bought Asus laptop with a new Wifi from Intel and I found that I started to lose connection frequently. This happened because the driver for this hardware was not incorporated yet. I tried many distos including Debian (which until now has a bug with this wifi card and often doesn't even detect it after reboot). The only solution I found was FEDORA! Which always supports most fresh hardware. It's amazingly stable and reliable. Well thought and not bloated with junk. Recently, I installed Cinnamon spin of Fedora and it's the best of two worlds : it has a Cinnamon desktop which I like more than GNOME and it is FEDORA which I like most among all linuxes. Everything works ideally! And after update the version of Cinnamon turned out to be even fresher than Linux Mint itself. Fedora deserves 10 out of 10!
Version: 41 Rating: 8 Date: 2025-01-12 Votes: 1
The install makes LUKS full disc encryption easy. My wifi printer just worked. The software is up-to-date without accumulating 'held back' packages.
Things that didn't work ootb:
I couldn't connect to Eduroam wouldn't connect and required a manual intervention in config files or removing a package. Fedora placed my swap on zram and hibernation was disabled by default. I added a swap partition and enabled hibernation, requiring manual configuration. I had to install nvidia drivers manually.
Limited repositories:
Fedora comes as a 'spin' that commits one to a particular DE. I installed KDE. However, there were things I missed from Gnome, so I wanted to install both but this required additional manual intervention of a 'hidden' group. I have been altogether unable to find a Xorg option to install, which I would strongly like to have as an option for compatibility reasons.
All told, I have Fedora running two laptops without any imminent plans to change and I would probably recommend it over others for a new user, but the limited repositories excluding Xorg make it very highly unlikely that I will stick with it in the medium-long term.
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-01-10 Votes: 21
Fedora stands out as a fast and reliable Linux distribution, catering to a wide range of users, from developers to everyday desktop enthusiasts. Its streamlined performance is immediately noticeable, with quick boot times, responsive applications, and efficient resource utilization. Whether you're running the GNOME desktop environment or working with its server edition, Fedora ensures a smooth and snappy experience.
Reliability is another hallmark of Fedora. Backed by the robust Red Hat ecosystem, it offers cutting-edge technologies while maintaining remarkable stability. Regular updates ensure you always have access to the latest features without compromising the system's dependability. Fedora's focus on open-source innovation also means you’re getting a secure and transparent OS that you can trust for both work and personal projects.
If you're looking for a Linux distribution that combines speed, reliability, and a commitment to open-source principles, Fedora is an excellent choice.
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-12-27 Votes: 0
Update from my review I did on Date: 2024-12-16. I switched to KDE desktop from Cinnamon. I still use Cinnamon Desktop to configure "Onedrive" and "Google Drive" with the Auto Startup app in Cinnamon after creating onedrive and google drive in Rclone.
I found KDE to be very responsive, and stable with Fedora 41. I also can configure the bottom panel to look like Windows 11 / Apple MAC OS desktop screen with all my goto Apps and with the Menu (Application Launcher) placed in the middle of the panel. I find this to be bvery practical and convenient if you use a mouse to select and opening apps.
Cinnamon is still very functional ... but compared to KDE looks less classy and polished.
When I used Redhat years ago,when it was still free, I used KDE desktop then. However I quit using KDE because on the other Linux distributions when using KDE were always less responsive and sometimes not as stable. Cinnamon was simpler and straignt foward to use and configure. Kde still requires a little adaptation moving from Cinnamon but I'm finding KDE to be a rock solid desktop for daily use with Fedora 41.
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-12-16 Votes: 40
So far do good. I moved off Manjaro recently. Manjaro was good but always became buggy and unstable after a few "rolling-releases" were made to it Thiis happened to me a few times so I decided to move on to something else. I used Manjaro at least 3 years. I did try to install Mint again, but always experienced the same install issue, Mint always installed great and always decteded my WIFI and connected on the install iso. But after the reboot the WIFI never would connect. Strange. So far Fedora has been fairly stable after the install. Not a bad installer to understand, fairly simple. I always use Cinnamon Desktop. Always liked using Cinnamon, it configures just as I want it to be. Installing WINE was a bit tricky but I got it to work. Not much else to say. I use to used Red Hat years ago when it was free. But that has been a while now, so picking up Fedora is like revisiting a old neighborhood I grew up in, but the houses have remolded and is much is nicer.
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-12-06 Votes: 69
best performance i ever get on Linux, im so happy to be user of Fedora 41, back in the day i was using Ubuntu 24.10, but for the latest and best performance Fedora 41 is needed, latest nvidia drivers, amd drivers, no problems, always stable and good, i liked it and im recommending it for who reading this, gnome 47 makes this UI better too, and latest almost latest linux kernel is best for my acer nitro 5 laptop which is pretty bad at linux support but new kernel makes this better you know, i liked it, i will recommend it to use
Version: 41 Rating: 5 Date: 2024-11-23 Votes: 0
I was excited about Fedora 41. Kinoite installed with ease and I loved the concept of an immutable distribution. All worked well for a month and I thought I had finally found a stable, reliable, favor of Red Hat for my Dell laptop. Then things started to go wrong. Fedora failed to run my HP printer, even though it could connect to, and recognize the printer. No problem. I don't do much printing anyway, Then Firefox stopped connecting to the internet. So I started using Chrome. Then Chrome began only connecting the internet sporadically, and finally not at all. Gone are the days when I would spend hours working on correcting problems with a linux distro I'm much older now and don't want to spend the time, So I installed Ubuntu Mate, and everything works fine, So long Fedora.
Version: 41 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-11-20 Votes: 8
I am truly excited after switching from Debian Bookworm to Fedora 41 as my daily driver desktop OS. I have been in the Debian/Ubuntu world since I switched from Red Hat 9, when they first went to the Fedora/Red Hat relationship. I gave up on Ubuntu when they started forcing snap packages (among other issues) and switched to Debian stable for a few years, but I don't like the idea of waiting forever for current software/firmware. I have been monitoring Fedora for a few years now, contemplating the switch, and I must say that with Fedora 41 push came to shove. Performance is snappy, the software/firmware is very up to date (almost cutting edge), and for the most part, everything just works. My only caveat is no X11 is included in the initial install (it can still be downloaded and installed from the repositories), so if you want a remote desktop connection you are SOL unless you revert to X11. I would be happy if someone could please correct me if I'm wrong.
Version: 41 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-11-16 Votes: 8
Fedora has made some marked improvements since the last time I used it, some years back. Nvidia installation is quite straight forward now. I like the 8GB default swap allocates (debian only does 1 GB). I also like, the feature when you type an app in terminal, which may not be available, it goes and searches for the app and return with a request to install the app. This is feature is very nice. For e.g. I typed cmatrix in terminal which was not installed previously, and it automatically searched, installed and even ran the app. Anaconda installer is a bit counter intuitive to understand and may not be the best for noobs especially when they dual boot, but its not that hard. I was able to trouble shoot without reading a doc, and I guess they going to update anaconda soon with a web version. All in all I think this is using as a daily driver. Fedora is an un opinionated. I used to love Ubuntu (still do) but with everything moving to snaps I find it a bit constraining for daily use especially when snap can run a jobs while you are running something else. Debian is equally good but software updates are slow, which may be a good thing for servers but for desktops there is no risk using cutting edge Distros. For eg. fastfetch is not available in debian repo
Version: 41 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-11-09 Votes: 30
The installation of Fedora 41 is straightforward as usual. As with previous versions, Fedora relies on Anaconda installation program. Anaconda is relatively easy to navigate for both experienced users and newcomers. Fedora offers a clear structure of the various steps in the installation process. Fedora 41 ships improved support for Secure Boot, which is particularly relevant when using NVIDIA graphics cards. One of the most notable changes in Fedora 41 is the switch to DNF5 as the default package manager. DNF5 is faster than DNF4: package installations, updates and upgrades are noticeably smoother and faster, even with large system updates. Particularly impressive is the improved speed when resolving dependencies and the lower memory utilisation, which increases the overall performance of Fedora 41. As far as the indispensable RPMfusion repository is concerned, there are minor syntactical differences between the DNF5 and DNF4 commands, but these are adequately documented on the website. KDE Plasma Desktop already presents itself as a stable desktop environment, but the most interesting thing is that (by popular demand) from the next Fedora 42, the KDE Plasma Desktop version will be officially supported, on a par with Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server.
Version: 41 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-10-30 Votes: 16
I use Fedora for a long time because it always is supporting the latest hardware and it is reliable - I don't recall any hangup at all. With the recent update I noticed that all GUI programs are starting up with a noticeable delay, and booting time is a bit up vs Fedora40. I didn't make a fresh installation, but used #dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=41 which worked out smoothly. This is why I discounted one from 10 rating. Everything looks great. Although I didn't noticed anything new particularly worth mentioning.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-10-23 Votes: 23
I was using Kubuntu 23.04 when I tried to update it to 23.10. After the update, it could not boot. I was furious because the reason I chose Kubuntu in the first place was its stability. Then I moved to Fedora. It is newer, but in my experience, it is more stable than Kubuntu. I have been using it for one year, and it has NEVER broken on me, not even once. On top of that, you get the newest KDE. If you want to use the newest KDE without sacrificing stability, then this is the distro to choose. Absolutely the best.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-10-17 Votes: 32
Fedora 40 Workstation is recommended for those who want to try out GNOME in its purest form (for recent PCs). Fedora 40 KDE and Fedora 40 LXQt are also suitable for older PCs. I use Fedora 40 LXQt and I think it is the best implementation of LXQt 1.4.1 around. Fedora's strengths (apart from the GNOME desktop environment) are: vanilla versions of alternative desktop environments, recent software with a good level of stability, research and development in the Linux field, excellent documentation, rpm package format (slow, but more affordable than deb package format). Fedora is extremely interesting, and is unfairly undervalued among Linux users (that prefer "less reliable but all-included-out-of-the-box distros").Don't forget that - in the Linux world - Debian is the pillar of stability, while Fedora is the pillar of innovation.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-09-23 Votes: 13
This distro has a fast development team with management of the released , even on design. Good repos and tested area with the good community areas for issues. I tested from 2006 , I used a lot of distro: debian, ubuntu, gentoo but this is the only one with a good and new packages and team development progress. The distro comes with many builds ways - some custom fedora linux distros named Fedora Spins for device hardware type. As any linux disto you can have some gaps but these are under development every day.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-09-20 Votes: 12
Fedora 40 is a solid choice for users who seek a cutting-edge Linux distribution that balances innovation with stability. Best KDE spin I have tried, and has implemented sane defaults. KDE Plasma gives you a sleek, responsive interface that’s lightweight yet packed with features, allowing you to tweak almost everything to fit your workflow. In my opinion, the KDE implementation beats both Ubuntu and Opensuse. The distro has also been rock stable for me, even though it received so many updates that you would think it was a rolling distro.
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-09-15 Votes: 8
Fedora was the first Linux distribution I ever tried about 8 years ago. I spent a lot of time swapping to different distributions, seeing what was different about them and what made them special. Ultimately, I realized that most distributions aren't that different for a surface level user like me. So now I am back on Fedora on my laptop and I can't find much to complain about. There's a few packages missing from the repos that I would like, and I'm personally not a huge fan of using flatpak. But other than that, there's really not much I can say. Great distribution for someone that just needs a laptop to do word processing and listen to music.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-08-26 Votes: 18
Fedora is one of the best distros I used so far. It is super stable but unlike other stable distro you got more updates and more new software versions in the repos. Besides from that you can build your own custom fedora iso with kickstart. I think fedora is one of the best overall distros for all people out there. The only things i experienced that was bad on my machine was thr long loading time when i restarted to install an update and that a lot of software you need to develop android apps is missing in the repos.
Its like windows over linux, i installed it today, The updates are the same as in Windows, you have to restart your computer to update it, and it takes more than 30 minutes to update, then the performance of Blender is terrible, both in RPM and in Flatpak, in both the system did not know how to manage the memory and closed automatically. Access to the store is very slow and clumsy, and during installation it was the slowest OS I have ever installed, unfortunately a terrible experience...........
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-08-08 Votes: 4
It's same as Windows for me. I can play games on Steam. But just 4 of my games doesn't work because of kernel based anti-cheat systems. And by the way i installed the KDE Plasma spin. Because it looks like Windows. And you can customize it however you want. You can play games that are on Epic Games with Heroic Games Launcher. I tried it with XDefiant and Rocket League. Fortnite doesn't work on Linux. I can play games like GTA 5, DOOM Eternal, and Forza Horizon 5. And i can use my Xbox Series X/S controller with Bluetooth as well. But don't forget to enable RPMFusion and install Multimedia Codecs. And install Nvidia drivers if you have a Nvidia GPU. Since i have an AMD GPU i don't need it. You should try it if you don't do anything special on your PC like video editing, playing specific games that don't run on Linux. If you don't like it then you can remove Fedora and install Windows again.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-07-21 Votes: 21
Loved it after some considerable effort works flawless and is fast.
Need to install a clipboard Like Pano,
Need to install extentions,
Vanilla Gnome is good but Extentions should be enabled by default.
Cantarell font is outdated, Try Roboto,
Package manager is good has most suff.
Docs and Instructions for most Developer setups of Apps and DBs are really good.
Been using since Fedora 34, had been a really great exerience,
Also I love the Wayland gesture supports, switching apps with 3 finger swipes
instead of workspaces would be really great, 4 finger swipe for workspace would be optimal choice.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-07-10 Votes: 62
On my testing, Fedora 40 was the fastest Wayland desktop I've ever used on my computers.
My machines run as windows manager de Xorg because Wayland always proved to be slower... Till this day. When I was using Wayland thaughting I was using X and thincking how fast things where running.
Apps are responsive, and quick to open and GNOME software is working faster now.
I like GNOME very much but never used it as much as KDE due to the package manager looking to be slower. But now it is preety much as resposive if not faster.
10 out of 10!
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-07-04 Votes: 17
I'm using destkop edition and server as well. There is nothing better - cockpit on server is amazing, even better that paid solutions.
Everything you need is here flatpaks are amazing. I need at least 250 words to submit my review so w will copy and paste something found bellow
I would define Fedora 40 Workstation as the distribution that drives GNU/Linux development. It has extensive hardware support, extensive documentation and a wide choice of software (with RPMfusion enabled). Moreover, it is the distribution that comes closest to the concept of 'recent, but sufficiently stable software'. Try it and see.
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-07-03 Votes: 11
Fedora Workstation 40 features GNOME 46, the latest version of the GNOME desktop environment. Key updates include a notable upgrade of the Files app, introducing new features and enhancements. The 'Settings' app and other core apps have been refined for better usability. Other features: Linux kernel 6.8.5, Wayland Communication Protocol 1.23, Libreoffice 24.2.2, Gimp 2.10.38. EOL May 23, 2025 (suported for 13 months).
I would define Fedora 40 Workstation as the distribution that drives GNU/Linux development. It has extensive hardware support, extensive documentation and a wide choice of software (with RPMfusion enabled). Moreover, it is the distribution that comes closest to the concept of 'recent, but sufficiently stable software'. Try it and see.
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-06-30 Votes: 8
I previously reviewed the GNOME immutable flavour of Fedora 40 (silverlight). Now for the KDE (kinoite) equivalent.
After installation there is a near-vanilla KDE. The only obvious customisation I can find is a Fedora theme and boot screen. There is a good set of KDE Applications installed without running wild; the only one I disagree with is Elisa for music, which would be far better served by Haruna.
I was GNOME Man for years but am very impressed with KDE 6, which is astonishingly fast on my machine and has smoothed off a lot of the previous rough edges: for example, the System Settings are much more logically arranged than before and the edit mode for the desktop, panels and widgets is a model of clarity, which previous attempts certainly weren't.
Discovery is used for updates and comes with two flatpak repositories (Flathub and Fedora's own), the kinoite tree and the lvfs firmware repository pre-configured.
Big updates are quickly made available. I got KDE 6.1, KDE 6.1.1 and the 6.9 kernel (from 6.8) in short order and, at present, there seems to be a mesa update almost daily.
A previous observation is even stronger here - Discovery gives no indication at all of what is in the kinoite daily update, so I do a "rpm-ostree update" from the command line which lists the updated packages. It will probably require changes to Discovery to fix that, but it should be done as blind updates are a bad thing.
I gave silverlight 7. Kinoite gets 9; it is even more polished than silverlight and the 1 off is because immutable builds will not be for everyone - that said, I found it easier to find instructions on how to insert (non-flatpak) applications into the build now.
Version: 40 Rating: 6 Date: 2024-06-27 Votes: 1
The newest Fedora is the closest thing to a cutting-edge, generic Gnome environment that you can get. Apps are updated frequently and hardware is recognized pretty near perfectly. It's certainly very satisfactory in that regard.
Unfortunately, because of the antics of RedHat to monetize RHEL at the expense of free alternatives, I'm moving away from the RedHat tree entirely, back to the Debian lineage. Give me a Debian descendant with apt and flatpak (but not snap) and I'm fine. (Something without systemd would be a plus, but I'm not wedded to that requirement.)
As my old boss used to say, it takes a lot of effort to gain a customer but one second to lose one. Fedora has lost me. Not their fault, of course, but RedHat now leaves a bad taste and taints distros associated with it. I'm happy to try something else.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-06-18 Votes: 1
Running Asahi Fedora remix 39 gnome version on a Mac mini M2, never been so happy. It's stable, fast, and developer friendly. Installed gnome shell extensions and gnome tweaks. Flathub is a great source for Linux software. Really likes Fedora distro now. The only issue I met is ibus for Chinese keyboard is not working completely, e.g. If I press Shift key, the input method is confused, and always output English characters, even though I press Shift key again, it will not go back to Chinese status.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-06-12 Votes: 33
The cleanest and most reliable distro for my use case (latest gnome, as vanilla as possible; integrated graphics; no hassle dual boot with other OS). I appreciate that it comes with little to no bloat or customizations, and that it is easy to get up and running. Also, that it is close enough to bleeding edge. It also feels well supported and looks like updates will keep on coming in for a long time - which is an unknown for smaller projects that peak my interest (e.g. Vanilla OS).
A little boring, but maybe that's a good thing haha.
Version: 40 Rating: 1 Date: 2024-06-10 Votes: 0
I don't know what has happened to Fedora, and Linux in general, in 2024 nor am I technically proficient to solve these issues, but every linux distro I have tried on a my laptop in 2024 crashes. Fedora 40 crashes, Mint crashes. There is no longer any consistency between themes which each app not adhering to theme choices, particularly window managers. Adwaita is has horrendous contrast ratio and the text is blurry, even after installing font tweaks, causing eye strain. Memory consumption is higher with lower performance, video codecs that worked flawlessley in the past no longer work or work with glitches in rendering. I installed Fedora 28 to see if it would run on a modern laptop. Surprisingly, not only did it run but ran faster and the font rendering and themes were consistent. I have been using Linux since 2004 and I believe Linux has gone downhill both in customization and usability since around GNOME 3 was introduced - ever since then all we've had is more fragmentation. Probably my biggest gripe with Linux is the touchpad driver "libinput" which replaced synaptics. Ever since then every laptop I have installed Linux on with the default libinput driver has been erratic and unstable. Replace it with synaptics and it's perfect, more so, in fact, than Windows Precision drivers. Why this degrade in performance and usability?
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-06-07 Votes: 2
I wanted a distro that I could install onto a USB flash drive and be bootable between my laptops without touching Windows at all, and start up without turning off Secure Boot, and not involve too much mucking around in the BIOS. Unlike various other distros I tried, Fedora handled these requirements with ease (the only issue I encountered is the Fedora installer wanted the flash drive to be unformatted or it would say there's no room).
So I'm writing this now from Fedora which is running happily off my flash drive without bothering the Windows harddrive or hanging during startup and shutdown. When I'm finished I just unplug it and take it to whatever computer I want to use and there it is.
I really wanted to like the default Gnome but just can't get into it. I get where they're coming from with a minimalist aesthetic but it always leads to some annoyance or other when you want to do things your way. Of course you can customise to some extent via Gnome shell extensions, but manipulating the desktop environment via browser extensions just seems an odd way of doing things.
But don't worry, Fedora has you covered here with different "spins" of their distro... all the main desktop environments are available as spins. I ended up going with the KDE (currently version 6) spin. At the time of writing KDE 6 can feel like riding an easily-startled horse but I love it.
Whether you're new to Linux or tired of distro hopping and looking for somewhere to land, I can happily recommend Fedora.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-05-29 Votes: 9
After using severeal apt-based distributions for many years I returned to Fedora. It's hard to regret this decision. On my newer hardware those distributions struggle a bit, I had some errors especially during using Gnome. I think that LUKS encryption had some contribution to periodic slowdowns. And then I gave Fedora a try. It's like changing the car to newer one :) Everything runs smoothly, dnf is surprisingly a lot faster than apt. Probably newer kernel also contributed to resolving issues with slow disk operation despite the encryption still in place. Tested on the same disk drive as previous systems.
Now KDE under Wayland. It works just great. Encouraged by that I have installed KDE to my very old laptop and it is still smooth and responsive. Of course there are limits which I cannot cross without a performance penalty but in comparison with my previous linux distro the positive change is just big.
One of the disadvantages is that I had to install also RPM Fusion repository to have some things available here.
There's no docker in the standard repository, but podman is still great.
Tested standard desktop edition as well as atomic one :)
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-05-23 Votes: 6
Installed on a Thinkpad X280, everything works fine out of the box, including Wayland and Pipewire. Gnome is not my cup of tea, but, with the help of some extensions I could customize it to my liking.
A couple of points for improvement:
- OneDrive through Gnome Online Accounts has some issues (but they're working to fix those)
- gstreamer1-vaapi is not installed by default; when done (manually) it allows Gnome Wireless Displays to cast with good framerate to a TV on the same network.
Once these two points are solved, my vote might go up to 10; I am not sure what more to ask to a Linux Distribution.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-05-15 Votes: 14
Fedora 40 is an exceptional operating system that stands out for its impressive functionality and performance. The sleek and intuitive interface, combined with robust features, makes it a joy to use for both everyday tasks and more advanced operations. The community-driven philosophy behind Fedora ensures continuous improvements and innovation, keeping it at the cutting edge of technology.
One of the highlights of Fedora 40 is its stability and reliability. It handles multitasking with ease, providing a smooth and efficient user experience. The software repository is extensive, offering a wide range of applications that cater to all needs. The integration of the latest technologies ensures that users have access to the best tools available.
Although the installer can be a bit challenging for newcomers, once past that hurdle, Fedora 40 delivers an unparalleled user experience. The system is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor it to their specific requirements. The commitment to open-source principles and security makes Fedora a trustworthy and ethical choice for both personal and professional use.
Fedora 40 is a top-tier operating system that combines performance, innovation, and a user-centric philosophy. It’s an excellent choice for anyone seeking a reliable and versatile OS. Highly recommended!
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-05-12 Votes: 9
One year in Linux and one year of distro hopping. Ubuntu Budgie, Pop!, Debian 12, Sid, Trixie, KDE Neon, Tumbleweed KDE and Hyprland, Arco Hyprland. Finally landed in Fedora and it is the perfect place for me and Hyprland. I did install Budgie DE as a companion environment. All of my hardware, favorite apps and Hyprland toys work very well in Fedora 40. This has been an outstanding experience. Stable. Hassle-free.
With this success on my HP EliteDesk with i5 CPU and 16 gb RAM, I did duplicate the experience on an ASUS 17 inch Intel i7 notebook, with 16 gb RAM, HP 15 inch TouchScreen notebook with an old AMD A4 CHIP and 8 gb RAM, and an old Dell i5 desktop (12gb RAM) with excellent results. No problems.
Tumbleweed is very good and so is Debian. But, this Fedora 40 experience tops them all. Impressive.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-05-10 Votes: 4
Soon after Red Hat killed CentOS, I walked away from Fedora. I tried Ubuntu again, and came to the same conclusion: too much bloatware. I also tried Debian and loved it, but being the bad user I am, I broke it beyond repair, and since I had to reinstall it from scratch, I moved on to Arch.
And I broke it too.
And then I got bored.
And so I decided to give Fedora a try. Sericea worked well, but it seemed more of an afterthought than anything else. As soon as Fedora 40 was released, I went straight to Silverblue, which blew me away! It's a very well thought of product where everything works. I had several post-installation issues, which I was unable to resolve; because I didn't want to give up on it, I installed Silverblue 39 and upgraded it to 40.
As I was going through the documentation, I saw something curious: if I wanted to, I could board the time tunnel and go back to 2017 to try Fedora 27. Hmm… I could also jump to the near future to try Silverblue Testing or Updates, or towards the far future and get my hands on Rawhide. All of that, without breaking my system? Count me in!
I have more pressing matters to tend to, so I decided to remain in 2024 with Fedora 40 Silverblue. Unless something terribly bad (or awesome) happens, I'll stop distro hopping.
Which doesn't mean I can't do desktop environment hopping. In fact, I converted my laptop to Sway, which I prefer, and might convert my desktop to Kinoite (KDE/Plasma), depending on my wife's preference. I know for a fact that I can still do dwm and hyprland, in case I wanted but, as of now, I have everything I need.
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-05-07 Votes: 2
I've always been a little leery of Fedora, but I have to say, it's gotten a lot better since I last used it.
Easy to install, well documented, a ton of packages. It works with all my hardware, AMD Radeon, Intel Wifi, Broadcom NIC, SoundBlaster audio, everything just works striaght out of the box. No special repos, no special packages to install. It just works.
I was a little afraid of using a rolling release with newer packages on it, but after a week or two, I haven't had a single problem with it.
Version: 40 Rating: 8 Date: 2024-05-03 Votes: 1
Easy to install and use. It can be an excellent alternative to distributions such as Mint, Ubuntu, which are recommended for the first adventure with Linux.
Fully foss, however, you can run non-free repositories for, among other things, video codecs. DNF package manager works ok. unfortunately fedora makes it impossible to choose init, it is tied to systemd. The software in the repo is extensive and new. Errors in my service did not occur. Spin KDE plasma is not for low-performance computers 4GB is too small.
Version: 40 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-05-02 Votes: 6
Thinkpad users here. My device is certified for both Ubuntu and Fedora.
Ubuntu always has an issue that forces me to troubleshoot. Fedora has never caused me such issues.
No matter what DE I use, KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc.. It works so well whilst being a rolling release with very frequent updates.
If you are looking for a stable distro frequently updated. Fedora is the one!
I only wish developers would prioritise RPM packages as much as they do DEB.
Excited for the future with Fedora. Worth a spin!
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-05-01 Votes: 12
Another excellent release by the Fedora Project.
As time passes on more and more, I've come to believe the fact that Fedora stands to serve both big Desktops with the utmost care and polish, unlike OpenSUSE Tumbleweed which ships outdated or abandoned apps by default on GNOME, or neutering KDE applications like Kate or Dolphin, or their mediocre PackageKit implementation breaking things every once in a while. Fedora generally packages things well and sticks close to upstream.
The Workstation side of things might be more boring this time around, but the KDE spin is easily the best Plasma 6 distro out there now, bar none. Don't let the live image fool you, Frameworks, Qt6 and Plasma are all fully up to date (after you update anyways), and while Fedora isn't a rolling distro, it always strikes a great balance between bleeding edge and other stable distros. There's also a good reason why many important figureheads within KDE and GNOME daily Fedora on their main machines. (hint: it's a great distro)
Even though "leading edge" is what OpenSUSE Tumbleweed claims itself to be, Fedora is what I'd consider "leading edge", with first class treatment of Wayland on both desktops, excellent communication between itself and upstream alongside fantastic integration (as far as a project could go without actively applying in depth patches and breaking things anyways), and the courage to actively seek giant, beneficial changes (perhaps a little early sometimes.) before any other distro is what I'd truly consider "leading edge".
Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It's not as user friendly as Ubuntu or Mint in regards to Codecs or Nvidia drivers (this one *especially* sucks if you don't read instructions right), and no, it doesn't hold the same hip kid status as Arch, but if you ignore all the FUD, and look for yourself, you'll find what I consider to be one of the best Linux distros out there, and wow, is it as good as it gets for one. (unless you find yourself obsessed with the idea of a rolling release...)
Version: 40 Rating: 1 Date: 2024-04-30 Votes: 0
The worst version of Fedora since I don't remember!
Nothing works here! Laptop sleep doesn't work, nVidia driver doesn't work, copy/paste middle mouse button doesn't work!
I'm thinking about reinstalling version 39 because version 40 is a misunderstanding! I have some idea about configuration and navigating the Linux ecosystem, a person who wants to start their adventure with Linux after installing Fedora 40 will already finish it! For the first time I am disappointed! I do not recommend updating the installation for the next two weeks because it is a beta version
Version: 40 Rating: 1 Date: 2024-04-27 Votes: 1
The installation menu options are not visible. To address the issue, I opted to start from the Fedora-Everything-netinst-x86_64-40-1.14 version. I managed to install it, but after having the basic Fedora installation, the menu option windows appear blank again, rendering them unusable. I tried it with both X11 and Wayland from Fedora's startup options. This has never happened to me with other GNU/Linux distributions. I encountered a similar issue with Fedora Workstation 39 as well.
I do not recommend this distribution.
Version: 40 Rating: 2 Date: 2024-04-24 Votes: 1
Another testing distribution release for Red Hat.
Something like Arch or openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma has already newer versions of Plasma, KDE Frameworks and Qt, despite the Fedora KDE Spin was released today!
Unlike Fedora openSUSE TW and Arch care about what the user base wants - not what Red Hat wants to test for their future enterprise releases.
By the way: Fedora's disk I/O speed is very poor compared to other distributions.
And installing working Nvidia drivers is a mess.
If you want to use something like Fedora at least use Nobara…
1 extra point for reasonably good design.
Version: 40 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-04-24 Votes: 0
I'm on 40 since beta.
* Everything is flawless except the OEM bluetooth adapter which is a Linux kernel issue that should be fixed in 6.10 later this summer. I'm too lazy to compile in a patch. I'm simply uing a USB bluetooth adapter for now.
* Geekom IT13 with the Gen 13, i7 CPU and 32GB RAM.
* I love flatpaks
I also tried Silverblue 40 which is very good except it seems to want a reboot for a lot of installs and updates. Windows users should feel right at thome. Silverblue makes me love flatpaks even more!
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-04-20 Votes: 2
I've been using Fedora Workstation for around a year at this point (since version 37) and it definitely it stopped my distro hopping, I tried many distros and Fedora is the only one that I ended up returning to for a long period of time, so far I haven't encounter any problems
And that was on my desktop, after dabbling around many distros in my main laptop I also ended up switching up to Fedora (it was my original plan but the battery life wasn't as good as Ubuntu) but now the battery life is amazing as maybe it was the older kernel at the time, but because I wanted to try something different I settled on KDE (so my desktop has GNOME and my laptop has KDE) and the experience has been a perfect 10 out of 10 again
For me, along with Debian, Mint and openSUSE are the simply the best, but the crown goes to Fedora, keep doing an amazing job Fedora Team!
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-04-19 Votes: 0
I have an instance of Fedora on VirtualBox since version 36. Every time the new version came out, I upgraded it and to this date, there has not been any issues. I have installed the newer versions separately as well, and the experience has been great. I have used i3, awesome, Gnome, LXDE, OpenBox and they all work great. I have opted to DM's and use i3 and Awesome now. This is not to say the others are not good.
I love the fact that I get the latest of pretty much everything as soon as they come out and most of the time they are solid.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-04-18 Votes: 1
Disk configuration in the installer (confusing) is the only miss in this overwhelmingly impressive Linux offering. I am using Hyprland and Budgie environments. And, all is well. My favorite apps are available with the exception of OcenAudio and Waterfox, but both were accessible elsewhere. OcenAudio's CentOS RPM worked fine. The Fedora RPM did not. Waterfox offers a fine compressed edition which works great in Hyprland and Budgie. After distrohopping in my first year in Linux loading Ubuntu, Pop, LMDE, Debian12, Sid, Trixie (I really like Debian---but no Hyprland yet), OpenSuse, Arco 'B' and a few others, Fedora is checking all the boxes. It is running on an old iMac, HP EliteDesk, HP TouchScreen notebook, and a Dell Optiplex. Smooth distro.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-04-15 Votes: 0
This is my first fedora distro on kde installed. I can say it works quite nice and I didn't notice any major brake ups. So I'm pleased my first usage of this system is without any problems, than I'll keep using it as long I see it usable.
- Simple installation
- kde working without problems or hickups
- easy updating
- after installation you must edit conf file to add more simultaneously downloads because default is set to one
- there should be another software shop except discover on kde because I need to use terminal to install from repositories and discover for flatpak installation
inner
Overall it is good system stable and reliable for fedora beginner like me.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-04-13 Votes: 1
Pros:
- It feels strong, secure and elegant.
Cons:
- Slow booting
- dnf is very slow. I had to install dnf5 and make it default. Untill F41.
- Not quite beginner friendly yet, I would say.
- It would be better to have some sort of app center with the option to click and install exp: codecs,...
- To install timeshift you need to consider the changes before the install by changing the labels: @ for /, and @home for /home.
- snapper should come by default with the OS and enabled on the grub as in opensuse.
- There should be some app like TuxedoOS (TUXEDO Fan Control app) to control the fans. Fortunately, it can be can be borrowed and installed on fedora.
- KDE should be the default for fedora.
Excellent OS indeed. Keep it up!
Version: 39 Rating: 4 Date: 2024-04-08 Votes: 1
Not working out of the box in Acer Nitro 50 at all. Many issues with wifi, printer, sound...
Somethings were workinf fine untill it started not to work, for example.
I know, and understand, that I have to learn how to do somethings to fix easy problems in my computer, but I don't want to start with a new OS dealing with issues, becase I am not a persos who studied things related to computers: My studies are related to Human sciences. I need a useful computer to work, so I installed finally Ubuntu, who is working really good for 3 months right now: 0 Issues.
I hope the commom people will be able to use Fedora in a near future.
Version: 39 Rating: 8 Date: 2024-04-01 Votes: 1
How do you rate a distro as important and influential as Fedora? I mean, it is what it is, which encompasses good and not so good elements depending on your viewpoint on things like systemd or Gnome. It does what it sets out to do, pretty consistently now for a long long time. As a Plasma user, I've been pleasantly surprised over the years at just how well put together their implementation of Plasma has been, and 39 (the last hurrah for Plasma 5 on Fedora) is no exception. It all just works, and for a distro so laser focused on Gnome/wayland that's pretty impressive.
Dislikes? Well, I'm still not big on dnf. Does the job, but it could be a lot friendlier, and there really should be a decent gui that's not an app store wannabe - gnome-software and Discover are both inadequate for many tasks. And back when I had throttled Verizon internet I had real problems with dnf not being able to complete updates. 75k/s was a pretty extreme level of throttling, but still...
Other than that? Nothing really. Fedora is a nice option if you want up to date software with a corporate flavor of stability and you don't mind doing the upgrade thing every so often. I'll probably keep 39 installed until EOL, just for Plasma 5.
version 40
just installed and very solid . love the simplicity layout . everything worked off the bat. the installation was a breeze, installed a long Mint on the same HD just had to shrink volume and installed and mint was still their on the grub , ran some updates work as should , installed kaffine worked with my TV tuner card no problem , I really like this distro . The simplicity and the layout in my opinion beast window and mint that I have currently installed , a great OS for a person that's not a computer wizz like grandma and grandpa I would point them in this direction, I highly recommend this version , the new KDE Plasma 6 looks beautiful and simple!
Version: 14 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-03-11 Votes: 6
"What are your thoughts on Fedora?"
A Unix user since 1985, on maniframe, VME10, PDP11, SUN & IBM workstations
Used Redhat & Fedora since the 20th Century, also use other Linuxes : Suse, Ubuntu, and several more.
Of all the distros I used, Fedora is not the most user friendly, but has great qualities:
* The most usable,mostly with robust and functional MATE Desktop
* The most up-to-date repositories, excepted for plublishing (Latex etc... are oudated)
* The most reliable on use of local network with HP and Brother printers, but not user's friendly therer=.
Documentation : one of the best... sor far, Manjaro is getting there too, now.
RPM package managers, from CLI, now DNF4 and DNF5 : excellent, but GUI is a far cry fron OpenSuse Yast, I really like the history, the undo, a published API, there... and OpenSuse now offering DNF !
What Fedora could do better ?
* Obviously make it easier to use for "non nerds". Especially the installer.
* More and better "group install" for complex to install Web Server apps, like say for example "Drupal","Wikimedia"
What dos not work well:
GRUB 2,is a sorry mess, I am glad the systemd boot (for UEFI) is being offered now.
Meta package for Latex (the old hack still works!)
Installer:
* Anaconda works, but is difficult to use for "non nerds" (and even nerds!)
* BTRFS needs better support, and the default kernel needs to be compiled to support meta-data (it does NOT)
* Grade on Distrowatch: Fedora is not rated at the level it deserves, because it is in my view under-documented and therefore under-understood. I could blame myself for not helping, but I admit not liking the user's group, too focused of frivolities over substance
KDE6.0.0 on Wayland with Nvidia card hardware video acceleration in the browser works very well for me.
However, it already works fine in the old KDE5.27.xx.
Distribution for advanced users? So that's Fedora.
I have used many distributions. Like:
Linux From Scratch
Gentoo
Ubuntu
OpenSuse
and many others but...
Only with Fedora did we remember that I had somehow become more comfortable in recent years and already had a problem with the installation.
- Distributions are starting to use the Calamares shared installer.
However, there is something crazy about this Fedora installer. And you will find it in the section, disk partitioning.
Very unintuitive thing. Which also leads to dead ends. Then you have to restart the installer and start over. But there is still some time left before the release of version 40.
Or is it simply given by Fedora and her politics?
Nothing will be easy! Your Fedora/RedHat. For byznys only!
+ Installation of additional drivers and packages went well. Including RPM Fusion.
DNF is a great thing.
+ KDE6.0.0 on Wayland with Nvidia card hardware video acceleration in the browser works well for me.
(You need to change your browser settings, exec settings and install few packages.)
However, it already works fine in the old KDE5.27.xx.
+ It just works. So good that it's RAW.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-02-24 Votes: 23
Many things have been said about this distro (see previous comments). In use, over the years, I remember two points:
- Great stability with the latest version of the software, even if there is a latency compared to Arch and Tumbleweed (but in return, more tests in general of the system, tests shared by the community). Over 12 years Fedora is one of the distros that have crashed the least for me (a one-off problem in two years)
- Less emphasized, but important for planning ahead: transparency of exchanges within the Fedora Project while many distros are opaque. Ideal for projecting yourself into work, associative (many sites detail current projects + Fedora Magazine, online)
Fedora has flaws: If Gnome and KDE are well integrated, the others (notably XFCE) are dry in their Vanilla form (which certainly pleases some users).
The biggest flaw remains the difficulties with Nvidia drivers. Fedora works very well with AMD. With Intel (my case) it's at the top. But don't use it without investigating thoroughly if you have NVIDIA drivers. Whatever the community (in which I participate) says, it often underestimates this problem.
Apart from NVIDIA you can go for it: there aren't tons of gadgets like MX Linux, when you open FEDORA the presentation is very sober. But this distro lasts over time, without breaking, while innovating!
Here is my opinion, as honest as possible.
(NOTE : 10 me concernant, 9 à cause de NVIDIA serait plus juste, mais pour moi cela reste la meilleure n'utilisant pas NVIDIA)
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-02-21 Votes: 0
Fedora is the Queen or King of Stability. Recently I gave a try to a 'more highly rated' distro and after I installed chrome the system broke up. Ooops! With Fedora this never happens - you simply can't break it - it works super reliably. It's as easy as Ubuntu, but more reliable and without any hidden surprises. Good for newbie and professional programmer. Highly recomend not to look at the 'ratings', but give a try to the distro backed by RedHat/ IBM. Especially if your hardware is new - Fedora has the latest software avail.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-02-15 Votes: 14
I've been daily-driving Fedora Workstation Edition for quite some time. It's surprisingly stable (as in not breaking) despite being on the leading edge. Gotta love how Flatpak was pre-installed as well. All I needed to do was installing the Flathub repository file, and I was good to go. All my hardware works OOTB, although I've been intentionally avoiding Nvidia for years.
Can't wait to see DNF5 on Fedora 40 or something. Once it's on, Fedora along with Mint is arguably the best and most polished Linux distros you can get today. You can't go wrong with either one of them.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-02-09 Votes: 7
The biggest visible change comes with the inclusion of GNOME 45. This latest iteration of the popular desktop environment brings a revamped Activities button, improved multitasking features, and various visual polishings. Reviews on GNOME 45 itself are mixed, with some praising its intuitiveness and others finding the new workflow less familiar.
While the surface may seem familiar, Fedora 39 packs a punch under the hood. Numerous internal updates, ranging from kernel improvements to updated software packages, promise better performance, security, and compatibility. While these aren't immediately noticeable changes, they contribute to a smoother and more robust experience.
Reviews highlight positive developments for accessibility. Support for patent-encumbered codecs and easier access to proprietary software like Google Chrome make Fedora 39 more user-friendly for newcomers. However, some users report issues with the official Chrome repository.
Users generally report a smooth upgrade process from previous Fedora versions. The familiar installer and configuration tools ensure a hassle-free transition.
While many appreciate the stability, some find Fedora's bleeding-edge approach too fast-paced. Users seeking rock-solid, unchanging environments might favor distributions like Linux Mint.
Fedora 39 emerges as a solid, stable release with exciting developments simmering beneath the surface. It caters to users who value a reliable platform for development and power usage, while offering improved accessibility for newcomers. While it may not be perfect for everyone, its focus on stability and internal improvements earns it positive nods from the community.
Version: 39 Rating: 8 Date: 2024-02-08 Votes: 1
I've to admit while I use Fedora for some years, 38 and 39 were probably the most rocky ones I had, mutter and gnome-shell seem to decrease in stability with each major update until they fix it up again. Maybe the Fedora-Release is too close to the Gnome releases to work out those issues.
Usually a month after release it's fine. I'll have to consider to update later in the release cycle I think.
Nvidia is always a mess - but that's hardly fedoras fault, since 535 and 545 were probably the most messy releases we got in quite some time. Due to fedora really being up-to-date on the kernel side there is not even an option to use 535 now since there once again is an issue with the 6.7 kernel and 535 nvidia driver compilation... a Nvidia classic. And 545 really has issues with Wayland, they managed to make it worse by trying to fix the sync.
Still hope nouveau and NVK will be properly usable in a few years.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-02-01 Votes: 18
Fedora since I started using it on a daily basis never failed me by freezing, hanging or with problems with Wifi or graphics card. Not a single time as far as I can remember. I tried a few others from the top ten distros and only Ubuntu was more or less comparable to it. Other distros may glitch from time to time, or often, may have very outdated kernel which prevents to work my new laptop wifi, e.g. or other software which is way old.
Fedora is very reliable and solid from inside, and slick outside. Easy to install and update.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-01-18 Votes: 2
I tried Mint - too many snaps and flatpacks.
Manjaro - problems with the AUR repository.
EndeavorOS, Garuda, MX Linux - unstable driver problems.
Fedora KDE Spin - the best I've found, all drivers easy to find and install, works stable and fast. Booting is a bit slower than Arch or Ubuntu-based distributions, but acceptable. I use it as a basic system in my daily work.
Thanks to Fedora, I stopped jumping around distributions - and finally found the best one that was right for me.
I chose and recommend KDE Spin because I don't like GNOME... it lacks many elements of customizing the system to your needs.
Version: 39 Rating: 3 Date: 2024-01-17 Votes: 2
I have to admit that I'm still sad about my time spent with Fedora 39. I have used Fedora for the last 10 years and never has it been such a mess. This is the first time that I actually lost files I had on my laptop. It completely crashed after an update and took down the entire system so hard that it became unable to boot. After this dissaster, I installed Silverblue and I'm not happy at all. Slow and still shipping handicaped Firefox without codecs with numerous unnecessary apps out of the box. I finally switched to openSUSE Aeon as a result. It's just a better system that Silverblue.
Suggestions for Silverblue:
- abolish your version of Firefox and provide the one from Flathub with full codecs,
- remove unnecessary bloat (numerous GNOME apps and Boxes),
- trim down the running services... battery life is not great,
- rpm-ostree is waaaaay slower that transactional-update,
- replace toolbx with distrobox. It's on a whole new level of excellence.
Overall, 3 out of 10.
I'll stay on openSUSE:
Version: 39 Rating: 1 Date: 2024-01-16 Votes: 1
I've never abandoned an installation before it finished until now.
I used the netinstall of the Everything ISO and selected the Deepin choice. Holy cow! Everything is a great word for this ISO because that's exactly what it was installing! It was running for almost two hours and the progress bar hadn't even gone up to the quarter point. It was still configuring! I don't think that Windows 10 takes this long to install-- and it takes forever.
Whoever designed the installer needs to find another job. This is just awful.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-01-01 Votes: 0
Pros: Fedora 39 XFCE worked out of the box with dual boot next to Windows 11 on a new Lenovo Ideapad Slim1 while other more popular distros failed to detect the wifi module or had problems with the browser or failed to boot. It is light weight, contained is a small .iso file. The installation process is straight forward. Fedora runs fast and the desktop is well designed, displaying the essential apps in the panels. The App manager is basic but has links to lot of useful software. There is a lot of support on the Net.
Cons: An Office suite has to be downloaded and installed to get started on documents. Some apps like Firewall are better displayed in other distros.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-12-27 Votes: 5
Silverblue is the definition of awesomeness. My wife even noticed that I've stopped distrohopping. It gets the jobs done and I love the fact that it's immutable and always on the edge. What more could you ask? I've found all the apps I normally use in Softwares as flatpaks. The only thing that could maybe make me hop is if there's a Fedora immutable version of the COSMIC DE from System76 once it's ready. But for now, I'm a happy camper! Once you go immutable you never go back! Thank you very much to all the devs behind Silverblue you guys rock!
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-12-24 Votes: 23
Pros:
-easy to use
-easy and fast installation
-stable and fast, very reliable and secure from the box.
-pure Gnome (or other popular desktops)
-backed by big US company
-very fresh and broad software choice
-latest HW support
-no hidden pieces of software or services added
Cons:
- I don't know why but Ubuntu boots noticebly faster on the same HW. It would be nice if Fedora beated it in speed.
Otherwise, Fedora is the most prefereble distro of all I was using. I stopped touching Microsoft Windows for many years because Linux if free, fast, secure and without countless glitches of th most popular OS :-)
Good luck to all and many thanks to Fedora developers for excellent work!
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-12-23 Votes: 1
Fedora Silverblue 39:
Pros:
- Cutting Edge Software Base, Read only
- Mondern Hardware Support (Tested with AMD CPU and AMD RX 7600)
- Vanilla Gnome Experience
- Flatpaks only, Flathub is your Repository of joy
- Super Rockstable
- Easy to use, understand
- Easy Recovery, Just Reboot
- Updates, Just Reboot
- Major Upgrades, Just Reboot
- Gaming out of the box Experience
- Better than Ubuntu
Cons:
Its a little bit diffrent in use.
Fedora Silverblue is a Gem and should be on #1. Everybody who likes Gnome, give it a try.
You will not regret it, trust me.
Thank you so much.
Version: 39 Rating: 6 Date: 2023-12-20 Votes: 0
I redo my Onyx (Fedora 39 Budgie immutable version) review because the issue which caused it not to update after initial install was finally fixed ... after about 7 weeks.
So I switched to it and, on installation, there was a huge update of about 800 packages when first running "rpm_ostree update". As ever, Fedora coped - it is built to have a large turnover of packages. A more typical daily update - the tree is centrally updated at about 0200 GMT - is 20 packages.
All my previous comments (about Budgie standard version and GNOME immutable version) apply, but there are a few quirks with Onyx.
First, it is even more pared down than the Budgie standard version - the only applications provided are Firefox (120, not ESR), GNOME Terminal, GNOME System Monitor, GNOME Disks, GNOME Software, Onboard, gedit, fileroller and nemo (5.8). So even if you want to watch a video, read a PDF or view an image, you will have to install flatpaks; mpv, evince and loupe fill in the gaps here.
Although the very minimalistic take on Budgie (10.8.2) is the same as the standard version (the only additions being the very appropriate materia light and dark themes, and the two standard Fedora wallpapers) there are a couple of minor quirks. First, Night Light must have it on and off time set manually; the option to set it based on your location has no effect. Also, the option to edit the login screen appearance, which is otherwise solid black, doesn't work; it does on the standard version.
I reduce my score to 6. I was tempted to increase it from 7 because immutability is so well implemented and the constraints it imposes on what can be installed are minor in the end, but leaving Onyx incapable of being updated for weeks was poor and gave the false impression that immutable distributions are less, rather than more, insecure than standard ones.
Version: 39 Rating: 6 Date: 2023-12-18 Votes: 0
Stable, good looking and up to date.
but on two devices and two fresh installs i can not copy large files from a USB SSD (NVMe) to my system without having the transfer speed drop to zero and just writes a couple MB every 10 seconds.
copying my personal data (5.5GB) takes around 10 seconds on windows, 10 seconds in tumbleweed, 10 seconds in arch,manjaro, ubuntu and Mint.
here it takes more than 5 hours. workarounds from the forums don't work, others complain about the same issue and it just does not work.
fix that and i'll come back.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-12-08 Votes: 3
I am running the KDE version on my main machine for a week now.
Ryzen 5800X3D
RTX 3070
32GB RAM
Fedora seems to be almost perfect for me. I installed Proton, Lutris, Wine etc. and I can run almost any game perfectly fine. After adding the RPM Fusion repository the NVIDIA driver could be installed with Discovery with a single click.
The system is rock solid. No flickering because of Wayland whatsoever. Theming is perfect in all the apps I'm using and all programs, even Microsoft Teams are using the right fonts out of the box.
Before I was running the KDE version of Garuda and in comparison Fedora is miles ahead.
This is definitly a 10 out of 10. Great experience!
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-12-03 Votes: 9
Of course there are a few annoyances still (the installer is less intuitive and more fidgety than Ubuntu's, or almost any other distribution, particularly when partitioning the drive) but Fedora has an otherwise pleasant, predictable quality to it. It is still leading- if not bleeding-edge, so you don't have that FOMO on newer software versions. Generic Gnome is my preferred interface anyway, so basic Fedora suits me fine. I can set up a new box fully, with add-ons and configuration, in half an hour. All in all, it's a pretty darned pleasant experience.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-30 Votes: 20
I don't love Fedora.
I don't like Red Hat.
Just being honest here…
There is a time to discuss politics, religion, and other sensitive subjects, but then there is a time when you have to swallow your beliefs because you need the right tool for the job.
This is where Fedora Sericea comes to the rescue!
I need an immutable distro to protect me from my evil self. My evil self loves to break my software. My evil self prefers to install a third-party package instead of what's on the distro. Finally, when I need to use my computer, there is a lot of garbage, leftover installation and configuration files, and a lot of unsupported and obsolete software. It really is a requirement for me to use an immutable distro.
After doing my research, I found lots of immutable distros, but they either lack the necessary solidity, or otherwise simply don't support the software I need. I saw great comments about OpenSuse, but as of the time of this writing, their Gnome installation is still a release candidate.
Contrary to my ideals, I installed SilverBlue and (WOW!) I was beyond impressed. It just worked! Flawlessly! I loaded everything I needed on it, and it begged for more. My evil self tried to break it, and it denied all attempts. Kudos!!!
My problem with Gnome is that it's too mouse intensive, and for my day to day usage the keyboard is my friend. That's why I prefer a tiling window manager. Sway, i3, and dwm, just to name a few, are second nature to me. Fedora Sericea was quick to install and configure, and (knock on wood) has been serving me very well.
I'll talk politics and religion some other time. Right now I just want to enjoy my new old computer.
Version: 39 Rating: 7 Date: 2023-11-23 Votes: 12
As per my previous review, I installed an immutable version of F39 on my second machine ... and it was GNOME (Silverblue). My intention to install immutable Budgie (Onyx) failed, as explained later.
What does "immutable" mean? To simplify and probably horrify the purists, it puts the whole operating system under source code control. The operating system is read-only; to update it, it is checked out and made read-write, the updates downloaded then merged into a new snapshot of the OS, then the old snapshot is retired and the machine reboots to the new snapshot. If the reboot fails, the operating system automatically rolls back to the last good snapshot. (It is also possible to boot to previous snapshots from the boot screen).
Making the operating system read-only and knowing exactly what files and folders are in it are clearly huge security improvements in themselves, but there are trade-offs.
The big one is (not) installing RPMs, except by a laborious and tacitly discouraged process of inserting them into the snapshot; RPMs and an immutable system are contradictory as an RPM, on installation, would attempt to add and remove files from the read-only folders! So the immutable system's updater is not dnf/yum, which doesn't exist; it is rpm-ostree. I was nearly stuck because I had to install restic in order to restore backups, but solved that by downloading a binary from restic's Web site and putting it into my home folder.
Hence the default "installation package" is flatpaks; even some standard GNOME applications are flatpaks and I have over 40 flatpaks installed already. Fortunately, somehow, the problems I have had elsewhere where some flatpaks are prone to crashing are not seen here. Interestingly, Firefox is not a flatpak (although there is nothing stopping you installing Mozilla's flatpak) so, when it is updated, it is evidently inserted into the build. The real GNOME basics (nautilus, gnome-terminal and similar) are also insertions.
Update feels different from traditional Fedora as all the action takes place before reboot - pressing the Update & Reboot button in GNOME Software results in a pause of several minutes while the new snapshot is created, then the reboot switches to the new snapshot instantly. It would be useful to have some visual indication of how the snapshot creation is going; the information is there as rpm-ostree update gives a wealth of feedback on the command line.
Unfortunately, the F39 Budgie immutable version (Onyx) is broken - for some reason its updates stop on 3 November (three weeks back at the time of writing), which negates the whole point of immutability (a more secure operating system). I tried twice then gave up and switched to GNOME (Silverblue).
The rating is difficult. I say 7 because, although the technology is superb, I suspect that the constraints on what can be installed will be too much for many home users.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-11-21 Votes: 4
Silverblue 39 user here, tried it a few years ago and had some problems with some flatpaks not working properly or not at all so put it on the backburner for a while and waited for flatpaks to mature and be more consistent. I believe that moment has finally arrived, I started using SB again 6 months or so ago on 38 and recently rebased to 39 and very pleased with the outcome, everything just works like intended now. I used regular Fedora over the years and always liked it but several times ran into problems due to the way Fedora repackaged certain software and ended up having to reload a couple of machines which I dont want to take a chance on having to do every 6-12 months. Silverblue is bulletproof and the future of Linux. Many thanks to the Silverblue team!
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-20 Votes: 1
I once left a very negative review on Fedora, due to some pretty major issues I had with the system. Fortunately, with the release of Fedora 39 (I am using the KDE Spin) it has come to be the most polished distro I've used yet. Full disk encryption worked perfectly (both OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Debian 12 failed to do this for me) and everything has worked exactly as expected. The only reason I'm giving it a 9/10 is because of dnf being a fairly slow package manager, which will be fixed by the time the dnf5 rewrite is released. There is an abundance of documentation to be found on the internet regarding Fedora and the repos are good enough. I wish the codecs issue was fixed and more software was packaged in the base repos.
Overall, 9/10. Very cool, Fedora project.
Version: 39 Rating: 7 Date: 2023-11-18 Votes: 1
I was Fedora fan for so many yers until all these encoder decoder codecs problems coming up.
Still I give it a try. bam... disappointed/
1. codecs installation still problematic , sometimes VLC not working, sometimes MPV.
2. when reboot, got DRM hang. I am not even using nvidia-driver... odd./
3. the whole instataion process is a mess, very bad user experience.
I got the same problem as the other user finally setting up evertyihing and ran smoothly, but bam
update then crash....
I am switching back to Manjao / Ubuntu as my defacto distro.
bye bye Fedora... instead of making flashing shiny distro, get the basic done first...
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-14 Votes: 11
Upgraded from F38 to F39. It went smoothly without bricking, though I still backed up my data just in case. Strangely enough, I didn't get the new Loupe, and my Bash prompt is still not colored. Not a big deal since I can fix these myself, just something that I think worth mentioning.
Overall, a premium experience that even proprietary operating systems failed to deliver. GNOME 45 is the one that stole the spotlight for me. If DNF5 was here as well, it would have been perfect. In any case, Fedora is a solid distro that is dependable for production machines.
Version: 39 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-11-13 Votes: 8
I don't know why I hesitated to Install Fedora for so long. It is truly the OS that saved my aging iMac 27in (late 2015). I tried other distros and they all presented various problems: either the sound card wasn't recognized or the video card wasn't working correctly. At any rate, everything worked great, and out of the box.
I just installed Gnome Tweaks to get the minimize/maximize buttons. No big deal! Works like a charm. The boot time is impressive, and I've had no issues with waking up the computer from suspend.
This is the distro that finally made me stop distro-hopping.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-13 Votes: 5
I installed Fedora 39 KDE Plasma on my laptop because it was able to auto install around my Veracrypt'ed Windows 11 on the same NVMe. The Ubuntu installer did not automatically recognize its existence. Everything works and dual boots. Sure I could have manually installed around the Veracrypt'ed Windows, but I'm lazy. Manjaro will also recognize the Veracrypt Windows, but using Manjaro is like driving in the wrong lane at 100 mph. Fedora 39 is pretty much the same ole, but at least everything I want to install just works.
Version: 38 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-13 Votes: 1
A solid and stable release. I upgraded easily from Fedora 37 and this weekend upgraded to Fedora 39. Everything worked for me out of the box in F39. In F38, I had to apply a couple new packages for the wifi (Atheros) card to work properly. I'm using an older Dell Inspiron 3000 laptop, maybe five years old. I've been a Fedora user for a long time, perhaps 15 years. I mostly use it for productivity but also do some sound recording and synthesis on there, and Pulseaudio and JACK have definitely come a long way since the early days.
I also really like the Fedora community. Its pretty easy to get involved as a volunteer community member. Lots of bright people to work with who are enthusiastic and fun.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-11 Votes: 4
I switched from Ubuntu Budgie to the Fedora Budgie spin. Really, this is the perfect implementation of Budgie, which is no surprise as the principal developer of Budgie is heavily involved.
On the usual install you get a Budgie desktop with no frills and a single bottom bar. The only additions are the two Fedora standard wallpapers and the Materia theme, which is oddly well suited to Budgie - it just looks right. The dark mode is, for once, pure black. There are no additional applets so you don't get the weather applet and similar which Ubuntu Budgie has.
Budgie is not a complete desktop - it has even fewer helping applications than xfce - so a combination of Gnome (Terminal, Calculator, Software gedit and others), MATE (atril, Eye of MATE), xfce (ristretto) and Cinnamon (caja) applications support it. These form a harmonious whole. Firefox, Thunderbird and LibreOffice are the "big three" of browser, email and office applications. As with vanilla Fedora, Software handles dnf updates straight off and Flathub flatpaks after the installation of one repository.
I have only found one bug - the Night Light doesn't find the location, even though location permissions are enabled, so the on/off time must be set manually.
A surprise was that, after starting, there were nearly 600 updates. This was presumably because the build for the gold ISO was frozen some time before the actual release. Fedora coped as it always does - it is built to cope with large, sudden uplifts. Another surprise was that there were two kernel updates in the first three days.
Really, all this is great. Budgie has certain limitations (the desktop is basic, with the contents static - to move something to or from the desktop you have to use caja, the split between Budgie Desktop Settings and System Settings is clunky and it takes too many mouse clicks to change the wallpaper to an arbitrary image) but it is fast, gets out of the way and is a masterpiece of good defaults; after install I could have used it with no reconfiguration whatsoever. If I were installing GNOME, I would feel obliged to install various extensions to fix some of its design choices which, collectively, would take its behaviour close to Budgie's. So why not just start with Budgie?
Fedora is Fedora - the Anaconda installer is awkward and, as noted, the pace of updates can be taxing - but I always feel it is the best engineered Linux distribution. I have never had disasters (machine booting to a command prompt after an upgrade, for example) and, as far as I know it is the only non-rolling release which keeps up with the point releases of GNOME applications and others.
Budgie has an ambitious roadmap (move to Wayland, with huge changes invisible to the user) and, in honour of that, I will try the immutable version (Onyx) on my second machine.
Version: 39 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-11-07 Votes: 25
I've been a Fedora guy for a while now. I'm also an unapologetic distro-hopper, but Fedora is what I always come back to when I get homesick usually around the time a new Beta shows up). 39 is no different - it's clean, user friendly, and stable even in beta The installer (Anaconda?) is the same as always, with it's oddly placed continue buttons and such I've kinda otten used to it over the years). All the updated stuff works the way you want it too, and while I wish they'd updated DNF already, the current version is quick enough once you tweak it's configuration a bit. It's not APT or Pacman zippy, but it's also more comfortable to use than either of those, at least in my opinion.
I use the Gnome version, and the new Gnome 45 is fantastic.Robust, stable, and beautiful. I run it mostly extension free (I can't live without Caffeine and Alphabetical App Grid), and it just gets better every version. The new look for FIles is great, even if it seems a bit wasteful of screen real estate at first, it's actually a significant improvement from an organization or usability perspective.
In short, this version of Fedora is great, but there's nothing earth-shattering here. If you disliked Fedora in the past, nothing present in 3 is goging to change your mind. But for us long-time Fedora users, it's yet another in a long line of stable, performant updates. And for us Gnomies, it's even better than that.
Version: 38 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-10-30 Votes: 9
Fedora is a good os, i like this because is Modern, clear and facility. Many years ago, i has mint as my default system but actualy i use fedora my favourite. The 'feel' of the distro helped me to just focus on my work for school and not get distracted. I liked that a lot. For some reason, the computer it was on ended up dying. I really don't know if it had anything to do with Fedora. But, that was really the best experience I had with Fedora. Everything I want to do on Fedora almost always works out of the box, and even when I find a bug in a Fedora package I can usually find a fix from the documentation available online from Fedora or the upstream project whose software is packaged by Fedora and propose a solution, and the Fedora package maintainers are professional and quickly fix the bug, which explains why Fedora is such a high quality distribution
Version: 38 Rating: 2 Date: 2023-10-22 Votes: 2
I tried Fedora in college (ages ago) and I liked it a lot. At that point, it was using the old GNOME desktop. It was pretty fast on my somewhat cheap laptop and I liked how everything felt very focused and linear (that's the best way I have to describe it). The 'feel' of the distro helped me to just focus on my work for school and not get distracted. I liked that a lot. For some reason, the computer it was on ended up dying. I really don't know if it had anything to do with Fedora. But, that was really the best experience I had with Fedora. Since then, I've periodically come back to the distro to give it a try, but I've found it much buggier and less stable (and I'm not talking about the rawhide releases). This latest version (and a few before) I tried and there were so many issues with the package management GUI. The installs kept getting irreparably damaged. Before I had even updated everything after a fresh install this time, it basically broke itself. It was unusable. I'm not even doing anything wild or crazy here. Most of the software I use isn't particularly on-the-bleeding-edge or demanding in terms of resources. So, it's not asking much for it to work without an issue. Honestly, I've rarely had such a bad experience with a distro. It really did a 180 from the stability and precision I used to get the feel of when using it. It's a shame. It was great for focusing and getting things done.
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-10-18 Votes: 7
Another one of my gnome fedoras. To think that I used to jump around distributions. Ultimately, I chose two: tumbleeed and fedora. It's been like this with the fedora for several years. Once a week or two updates via software. It still works flawlessly and responsively on a 12-year-old laptop. I wholeheartedly recommend it, especially to people who use a laptop to review news, e-mail, banking, social security, etc. I also like Opensuse and Tumbleweed, but I find the fedora more comfortable to use.
Version: 38 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-10-08 Votes: 11
Fedora 38 is a great distro, I'm a minimalist and I like how it's not weighed down by lots of bloat. It's got just what it needs to help you instantly get you doing every day tasks and provide a nice smooth user experience.
- Installation was simple and straightforward.
- Leading edge enough to be current but not bleeding edge to the point of instability.
- Works from the get go, no fiddling with it to get a fresh install up and running.
The one thing I subtracted a point for is the software and update experience. The official + fusion repo's just don't have an impressive number of apps available. Also, downloading updates from the official repo is slow.
This is a great option if you're looking for a up to date distribution that's also stable enough to use as a daily driver out of the box.
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-10-07 Votes: 2
I have done some distro hopping since last year to find the best option for my use cases, trying out about four or five other distros and Fedora is the winner and has earned its place as my primary free license open source operating system for both server and desktop and a rating of 10 out of 10 in this review. I first installed Fedora 36 over a year ago both on a server and the workstation edition on a desktop system with the Gnome desktop environment and have been able to upgrade both systems smoothly without any problems through two major upgrades so far.
Everything I want to do on Fedora almost always works out of the box, and even when I find a bug in a Fedora package I can usually find a fix from the documentation available online from Fedora or the upstream project whose software is packaged by Fedora and propose a solution, and the Fedora package maintainers are professional and quickly fix the bug, which explains why Fedora is such a high quality distribution. The package manager, dnf, is so much nicer looking in the messages it prints to the terminal, with the the information about the packages to be installed or removed formatted nicely in columns and color-coded; this is so much better than many other package managers and demonstrates a commitment to a pleasant user experience by the Fedora developers.
The amount of help online from third party sources is not as great as what is available for some other distributions, but I find the information available from official Fedora websites such as ask Fedora and Fedora discussions to be sufficient. There are useful articles highlighting new features from the Fedora developers and power users, and there are many other interesting and innovative things Fedora is doing such as teaming with Asahi to create a Fedora Asahi special interest group to bring Fedora workstation to devices that use Apple silicon and providing an immutable flavor of Fedora Workstation which is currently branded Silverblue. In my opinion, Fedora is a great place to be to learn about the latest innovations in the open source software world.
Pros: Excellent technical quality, very responsive to bug reports, and innovative.
Cons: Six month release cycle results in dealing with the hassle of more frequent major upgrades than some competing options, not as large a repository of software as some other popular distributions.
Version: 38 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-09-30 Votes: 0
Fedora 38 has worked like a charm on several architectures I own...ie Macs to mini-PCs. I recently installed a variant -, Fedora MATE-Compiz simply because the compositing features of the desktop cube work for me personally in the way of application switching.( Bear in mind that some distros have dropped or are in the process of dropping support for Compiz).
I started using Linux over twenty-five years ago in the form of Redhat 9....and things have gone full circle,,,after the superb experiences with Mint, Ubuntu, SuSE,PC-BSD and many other worthy Open-Source projects.
Fedora is great starting point for those who want to use a stable Linux for general purposes and perhaps beyond that.
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-29 Votes: 2
Looking for an OS that you can install and use and not have to fiddle with it in order to get a complete OS desktop experience? Fedora is a great choice.
If you just want to install an OS and get on with your day instead of tinkering and wasting days on "system mechanic" nonsense, this is the OS to go for.
It's up to date, reliable and has very solid software selection/repos.
Fedora uses the latest in kernel versions and packages and so it offers a very up to speed software ecosystem.
Honestly I'm not sure what else one would want from a Linux distro, Fedora pretty much checks all the boxes.
Not everyone want's to edit config files and customise things in order to get a standard desktop experience. Not everyone has time for this kind of thing. Most people just want to get things done and want the OS to stay out of their way and work for them and not against them.
So yeah if you value your time Fedora is an excellent pick.
The only thing that would be nice to see is a full-on rolling release from Fedora for those who like this sort of thing. Currently the versions change every 6 months and although updating is straight forward it would be even better of we just had a pick at a rolling release vs the 6 month release cycle version.
It "kind of" is due to the ease of upgrades but it's not exactly a rolling release model if you really want to call it one.
Other than that I can't really complain about anything here.
Give it a shot and use it for 6 months and for your own opinion, I don't imagine you will encounter any major drawbacks.
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-15 Votes: 0
XFCE spin (not the ugly and un-usable Gnome4 version).
Zero problems to report. XFCE is a simple, usable desktop.
Python3 is a fantastic programming environment.
gcc is a fantastic propgramming tool (and clang is also pretty good).
ssh allows me to manage other F38 machines (either on the LAN, or across internet connections).
People complain about X-Windows, but it works fine locally and across the internet (see previous line).
LibreOffice works fine, both with native file formats, but also with RTF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX.
I'm a fan of Chromium....no complaints.
A couple of older Windows programs are running perfectly using WINE.
Nothing - nothing at all - to complain about!!
Version: 38 Rating: 5 Date: 2023-08-31 Votes: 0
Fedora version 37 works better...
Above all, do not install the extension for the "Dock" because this extension causes lots of bugs in the apps... "Steam" works badly.
"Firefox" which is preinstalled also has a bug...
Even selecting the fastest download repositories "Fedora" is slow...even "Ubuntu" is faster.
On the other hand, fortunately, the utility which makes it possible to create a boot stick to install a new Linux does not bug it... I'm going to install something other than Fedora now....
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-29 Votes: 1
I have been avoiding Fedora for a while because I haven't felt the need of installing it
However I recently had a small problem with my Ubuntu install (nothing major) and I thought it was the perfect excuse to distrohop to Fedora, and I fell in love instantly
Everything just works, I think I have only used the terminal once, everything is friendly and smooth, amazing experience and even the gaming experience has been amazing
Writing this after a couple of weeks with Fedora and I think I found my new daily driver, updates are done automatically, flatpak OOTB, very little maintenence and if you have any problem you can just rollback
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-23 Votes: 10
Runs beautifully in every way. MacBook Air 2012. The Gnome version has given this machine a new lease on life. From the installation, which ran flawless, to day to day usage which is superb. It must be noted that the software center and flatpaks is smooth and impressive right out of the box.
I have not added any extensions to the installation, just wanted everything as the devs intended. I only changed the wallpaper and even that is stock. The standard LibreOffice suite does it's job as intended. I have not encountered any glitch or bug after 2 months of day to day usage.
I run updates weekly and these have all run smooth. Great OS, thank you Fedora!
Version: 38 Rating: 1 Date: 2023-08-20 Votes: 4
Red Hat 9 was our daily driver at the university back in the days, so I naturally come back to Fedora once in a while and... always get disappointed, removing it after a couple of weeks if not days.
This time with Fedora 38, I couldn't even get it to start. The installation went fine on my setup (separate boot, system on lvm-on-luks), the boot loader finds the kernel, and from there nothing works. Fedora is not asking for the luks password but I got no error message about the root partition not being found, so I guess it crashed very early. No busybox, no initramfs login, just a couple of messages that make no sense and a "press enter to reboot". No way to fix it and no clue about what went wrong. Bricked to the bones. Also, Fedora left some apple garbage files on the root of my ESP. Why? I'm not even using a Mac.
I have no doubt this distro works out of the box for many people, but such problems often show up with Fedora. This is not a distro made for people. This is Red Hat's playground where unpaid employees (us) waste their time beta-testing things for them. I've waited for 20 years for Fedora to become something, to care about its users, to mature a non-toxic community. I now give up.
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-08-04 Votes: 24
I've been with fedora with gnome for a few years now. I actually forgot I was using it. All updates flawless. I update once a week or two weeks. And to think I used to jump around distributions. My laptop is 11 years old! It moves lightly, responsively, without heating. I don't play games, I use only the Internet, mail, gimp and website. I can't say anything bad about the fedora, just a revelation. Previously I used debian, mint, manjaro, ubuntu and a few more but finally settled on fedora permanently and I'm not complaining. The printer is also trouble-free hp laserjet p1102w.
Version: 38 Rating: 6 Date: 2023-08-04 Votes: 0
It was just sort of buggy for me with things like Control center launching then instantly crashing. Gnome control crashing when I was not using PC. I get its a cutting edge sort of distribution but I have also read that it was pretty stable which has not been my experience using what I consider rather vanilla type hardware that was easily detected and showed no signs of issues. That just leads me to assume the OS is just unstable which is disappointing. I was hoping that Fedora would be a keeper in terms of running a Linux operating system. But Its back to trying some other distro's to find that one that holds promise of uneventful computing.
Version: 38 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-07-31 Votes: 3
I worked with many distributions of Linux except BSD. Fedora is the best for me. because:
1) Edge of technology
2) The newest of Gnome Version installed for that
3)Good software manager
4)Terminal command like Redhat
5)Easy installation without swap
6)Preinstall VPNs and Proxies
SO I suggest install Fedora for test once at the minimum and enjoy that. Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and owned by Red Hat. Fedora Linux contains software distributed under a free and open-source license and aims to be on the leading edge of such technologies
Fedora Linux cures my distro hop on my Dell preicison workstation running Intel® Xeon® W-2125 and nVidia Quadro P400 . Everything works perfectly
I've tried them all. Ubuntu, Manjaro, Debian, MX Linux, Mint....all of which has one or more fatal flaws that do not work in one of the scenarios limited Printer driver , unable Suspend/Sleep, lack of nVidia driver out of box, no VPN app, no wifi driver, no Google online accounts, LUKS encryption..
Fedora is the only distro that work for everything enabled with Nvidia proprietary driver
Fedora is OK, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone new to Linux. The installing might be a bit confusing and this release is a cutting edge rolling release. It might be great for newer hardware to get good support. But it also might include more bugs that may or may not affect you. I have always found it to be mostly stable but in the past I have had WiFi issues, and audio issues. Sometimes this is more about the hardware configuration since most laptop makers are solely concerned about Windows compatibility not Linux. I always recommend booting into a distro with USB drive and give it a trial test to see if everything works before installing. I tend to not use Fedora for two reasons. One is Wayland, and the other is the rolling release cadence of Fedora. I prefer a LTS release that provides a more stable but less cutting edge Linux experience.
Fedora is overall the best distro with everyone having to live their lives approach without being overly complex to give reasons why Microsoft still dominates and lower distributions offer more disrespectful remarks on how to solve issues the distro developers should fix before release.
Nvidia drivers are painless to install with dnf, sound & wifi works since it is part of the godfather of Linux - Red Hat. So yes Fedora, Mint, and Ubuntu are where any newcomer wants to be and will ultimately stay or come back to since the distros actually have development internets instead of petty internal fighting.
My previous distro was PopOS. Although I think it's a great platform, I felt that they were getting behind on Gnome with most of their focus on Cosmic desktop. I tried Cosmic and believe it will be a great desktop env in the future, but I did not want to wait around for it to mature. The Cosmic team is making great strides, but not fast enough for me.
Before switching, I tested several distros on a VM platform and watched many reviews. Hence I decided to try Fedora 41-Gnome. I tried the KDE and although it's extremely configurable, I still like simple for my development environment. For me, Mr OCD, KDE will have me going down endless customization rabbit-holes. But it's nice they have many "spin" options.
During and just after installation, I just about ditched Fedora. I experienced several unexplainable problems that raised a red flag as to proceed or not. However, after updating and a little investigative work, I now have a stable platform. I am running a "mature" Asus Workstation motherboard with an AMD 16 core Zen 4 CPU along with 64GB or DDRAM.
For now, Fedora WS works for me although I may return to PopOS in the future. I had zero issues with Pop and I feel their documentation is best.
Many thanks to all for the reviews and feedback. Very helpful.
Fedora: A Playground for Red Hat, Not for Everyday Users
Fedora, backed by Red Hat, positions itself as the guinea pig of the Linux world. It’s where new technologies and features are tested—often at the cost of user convenience. While it’s cutting-edge, it’s not exactly “ready for prime time.”
First, the commitment to free and open-source software sounds noble, but it means basic things like media playback aren’t ready to go out of the box. Want to watch an MP4? Get ready to install codecs yourself, a task that’s more tedious than it should be. For something billed as “ready for everyday use,” Fedora makes you work for it.
The setup process isn’t much better. It’s not a simple, plug-and-play experience. If you want your system to actually function properly, be prepared to spend hours installing third-party software and fixing minor glitches. It’s great if you’re a developer or enjoy tinkering, but for a normal user? Not so much.
Then, there’s the constant updates. Fedora’s rapid release cycle means you’re always upgrading—sometimes breaking your system along the way. It’s like being a guinea pig in Red Hat’s lab: you get the latest and greatest features, but you also get the bugs and crashes that come with them.
And let’s not forget about stability. Fedora is often in a state of flux. Hardware support can be shaky, and some features just don’t work right out of the box. It's far from the polished, enterprise-ready experience you’d get with Red Hat’s other offerings, like RHEL.
In the end, Fedora is a great playground for Red Hat’s experiments, but not so much for the average user. If you love being on the bleeding edge, it’s perfect. But if you just want a system that works without hours of tweaking, you might want to look elsewhere.
I entered the world of Linux about 10 years ago. The best distro for me was always Linux Mint which made my transition from Windows smooth and quite easy. Of course I was experimenting with other distros, but I always returned to Mint as most safe and reliable base. Some 5-6 years ago I bought Asus laptop with a new Wifi from Intel and I found that I started to lose connection frequently. This happened because the driver for this hardware was not incorporated yet. I tried many distos including Debian (which until now has a bug with this wifi card and often doesn't even detect it after reboot). The only solution I found was FEDORA! Which always supports most fresh hardware. It's amazingly stable and reliable. Well thought and not bloated with junk. Recently, I installed Cinnamon spin of Fedora and it's the best of two worlds : it has a Cinnamon desktop which I like more than GNOME and it is FEDORA which I like most among all linuxes. Everything works ideally! And after update the version of Cinnamon turned out to be even fresher than Linux Mint itself. Fedora deserves 10 out of 10!
The install makes LUKS full disc encryption easy. My wifi printer just worked. The software is up-to-date without accumulating 'held back' packages.
Things that didn't work ootb:
I couldn't connect to Eduroam wouldn't connect and required a manual intervention in config files or removing a package. Fedora placed my swap on zram and hibernation was disabled by default. I added a swap partition and enabled hibernation, requiring manual configuration. I had to install nvidia drivers manually.
Limited repositories:
Fedora comes as a 'spin' that commits one to a particular DE. I installed KDE. However, there were things I missed from Gnome, so I wanted to install both but this required additional manual intervention of a 'hidden' group. I have been altogether unable to find a Xorg option to install, which I would strongly like to have as an option for compatibility reasons.
All told, I have Fedora running two laptops without any imminent plans to change and I would probably recommend it over others for a new user, but the limited repositories excluding Xorg make it very highly unlikely that I will stick with it in the medium-long term.
Fedora stands out as a fast and reliable Linux distribution, catering to a wide range of users, from developers to everyday desktop enthusiasts. Its streamlined performance is immediately noticeable, with quick boot times, responsive applications, and efficient resource utilization. Whether you're running the GNOME desktop environment or working with its server edition, Fedora ensures a smooth and snappy experience.
Reliability is another hallmark of Fedora. Backed by the robust Red Hat ecosystem, it offers cutting-edge technologies while maintaining remarkable stability. Regular updates ensure you always have access to the latest features without compromising the system's dependability. Fedora's focus on open-source innovation also means you’re getting a secure and transparent OS that you can trust for both work and personal projects.
If you're looking for a Linux distribution that combines speed, reliability, and a commitment to open-source principles, Fedora is an excellent choice.
Update from my review I did on Date: 2024-12-16. I switched to KDE desktop from Cinnamon. I still use Cinnamon Desktop to configure "Onedrive" and "Google Drive" with the Auto Startup app in Cinnamon after creating onedrive and google drive in Rclone.
I found KDE to be very responsive, and stable with Fedora 41. I also can configure the bottom panel to look like Windows 11 / Apple MAC OS desktop screen with all my goto Apps and with the Menu (Application Launcher) placed in the middle of the panel. I find this to be bvery practical and convenient if you use a mouse to select and opening apps.
Cinnamon is still very functional ... but compared to KDE looks less classy and polished.
When I used Redhat years ago,when it was still free, I used KDE desktop then. However I quit using KDE because on the other Linux distributions when using KDE were always less responsive and sometimes not as stable. Cinnamon was simpler and straignt foward to use and configure. Kde still requires a little adaptation moving from Cinnamon but I'm finding KDE to be a rock solid desktop for daily use with Fedora 41.
So far do good. I moved off Manjaro recently. Manjaro was good but always became buggy and unstable after a few "rolling-releases" were made to it Thiis happened to me a few times so I decided to move on to something else. I used Manjaro at least 3 years. I did try to install Mint again, but always experienced the same install issue, Mint always installed great and always decteded my WIFI and connected on the install iso. But after the reboot the WIFI never would connect. Strange. So far Fedora has been fairly stable after the install. Not a bad installer to understand, fairly simple. I always use Cinnamon Desktop. Always liked using Cinnamon, it configures just as I want it to be. Installing WINE was a bit tricky but I got it to work. Not much else to say. I use to used Red Hat years ago when it was free. But that has been a while now, so picking up Fedora is like revisiting a old neighborhood I grew up in, but the houses have remolded and is much is nicer.
best performance i ever get on Linux, im so happy to be user of Fedora 41, back in the day i was using Ubuntu 24.10, but for the latest and best performance Fedora 41 is needed, latest nvidia drivers, amd drivers, no problems, always stable and good, i liked it and im recommending it for who reading this, gnome 47 makes this UI better too, and latest almost latest linux kernel is best for my acer nitro 5 laptop which is pretty bad at linux support but new kernel makes this better you know, i liked it, i will recommend it to use
I was excited about Fedora 41. Kinoite installed with ease and I loved the concept of an immutable distribution. All worked well for a month and I thought I had finally found a stable, reliable, favor of Red Hat for my Dell laptop. Then things started to go wrong. Fedora failed to run my HP printer, even though it could connect to, and recognize the printer. No problem. I don't do much printing anyway, Then Firefox stopped connecting to the internet. So I started using Chrome. Then Chrome began only connecting the internet sporadically, and finally not at all. Gone are the days when I would spend hours working on correcting problems with a linux distro I'm much older now and don't want to spend the time, So I installed Ubuntu Mate, and everything works fine, So long Fedora.
I am truly excited after switching from Debian Bookworm to Fedora 41 as my daily driver desktop OS. I have been in the Debian/Ubuntu world since I switched from Red Hat 9, when they first went to the Fedora/Red Hat relationship. I gave up on Ubuntu when they started forcing snap packages (among other issues) and switched to Debian stable for a few years, but I don't like the idea of waiting forever for current software/firmware. I have been monitoring Fedora for a few years now, contemplating the switch, and I must say that with Fedora 41 push came to shove. Performance is snappy, the software/firmware is very up to date (almost cutting edge), and for the most part, everything just works. My only caveat is no X11 is included in the initial install (it can still be downloaded and installed from the repositories), so if you want a remote desktop connection you are SOL unless you revert to X11. I would be happy if someone could please correct me if I'm wrong.
Fedora has made some marked improvements since the last time I used it, some years back. Nvidia installation is quite straight forward now. I like the 8GB default swap allocates (debian only does 1 GB). I also like, the feature when you type an app in terminal, which may not be available, it goes and searches for the app and return with a request to install the app. This is feature is very nice. For e.g. I typed cmatrix in terminal which was not installed previously, and it automatically searched, installed and even ran the app. Anaconda installer is a bit counter intuitive to understand and may not be the best for noobs especially when they dual boot, but its not that hard. I was able to trouble shoot without reading a doc, and I guess they going to update anaconda soon with a web version. All in all I think this is using as a daily driver. Fedora is an un opinionated. I used to love Ubuntu (still do) but with everything moving to snaps I find it a bit constraining for daily use especially when snap can run a jobs while you are running something else. Debian is equally good but software updates are slow, which may be a good thing for servers but for desktops there is no risk using cutting edge Distros. For eg. fastfetch is not available in debian repo
The installation of Fedora 41 is straightforward as usual. As with previous versions, Fedora relies on Anaconda installation program. Anaconda is relatively easy to navigate for both experienced users and newcomers. Fedora offers a clear structure of the various steps in the installation process. Fedora 41 ships improved support for Secure Boot, which is particularly relevant when using NVIDIA graphics cards. One of the most notable changes in Fedora 41 is the switch to DNF5 as the default package manager. DNF5 is faster than DNF4: package installations, updates and upgrades are noticeably smoother and faster, even with large system updates. Particularly impressive is the improved speed when resolving dependencies and the lower memory utilisation, which increases the overall performance of Fedora 41. As far as the indispensable RPMfusion repository is concerned, there are minor syntactical differences between the DNF5 and DNF4 commands, but these are adequately documented on the website. KDE Plasma Desktop already presents itself as a stable desktop environment, but the most interesting thing is that (by popular demand) from the next Fedora 42, the KDE Plasma Desktop version will be officially supported, on a par with Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server.
I use Fedora for a long time because it always is supporting the latest hardware and it is reliable - I don't recall any hangup at all. With the recent update I noticed that all GUI programs are starting up with a noticeable delay, and booting time is a bit up vs Fedora40. I didn't make a fresh installation, but used #dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=41 which worked out smoothly. This is why I discounted one from 10 rating. Everything looks great. Although I didn't noticed anything new particularly worth mentioning.
I was using Kubuntu 23.04 when I tried to update it to 23.10. After the update, it could not boot. I was furious because the reason I chose Kubuntu in the first place was its stability. Then I moved to Fedora. It is newer, but in my experience, it is more stable than Kubuntu. I have been using it for one year, and it has NEVER broken on me, not even once. On top of that, you get the newest KDE. If you want to use the newest KDE without sacrificing stability, then this is the distro to choose. Absolutely the best.
Fedora 40 Workstation is recommended for those who want to try out GNOME in its purest form (for recent PCs). Fedora 40 KDE and Fedora 40 LXQt are also suitable for older PCs. I use Fedora 40 LXQt and I think it is the best implementation of LXQt 1.4.1 around. Fedora's strengths (apart from the GNOME desktop environment) are: vanilla versions of alternative desktop environments, recent software with a good level of stability, research and development in the Linux field, excellent documentation, rpm package format (slow, but more affordable than deb package format). Fedora is extremely interesting, and is unfairly undervalued among Linux users (that prefer "less reliable but all-included-out-of-the-box distros").Don't forget that - in the Linux world - Debian is the pillar of stability, while Fedora is the pillar of innovation.
This distro has a fast development team with management of the released , even on design. Good repos and tested area with the good community areas for issues. I tested from 2006 , I used a lot of distro: debian, ubuntu, gentoo but this is the only one with a good and new packages and team development progress. The distro comes with many builds ways - some custom fedora linux distros named Fedora Spins for device hardware type. As any linux disto you can have some gaps but these are under development every day.
Fedora 40 is a solid choice for users who seek a cutting-edge Linux distribution that balances innovation with stability. Best KDE spin I have tried, and has implemented sane defaults. KDE Plasma gives you a sleek, responsive interface that’s lightweight yet packed with features, allowing you to tweak almost everything to fit your workflow. In my opinion, the KDE implementation beats both Ubuntu and Opensuse. The distro has also been rock stable for me, even though it received so many updates that you would think it was a rolling distro.
Fedora was the first Linux distribution I ever tried about 8 years ago. I spent a lot of time swapping to different distributions, seeing what was different about them and what made them special. Ultimately, I realized that most distributions aren't that different for a surface level user like me. So now I am back on Fedora on my laptop and I can't find much to complain about. There's a few packages missing from the repos that I would like, and I'm personally not a huge fan of using flatpak. But other than that, there's really not much I can say. Great distribution for someone that just needs a laptop to do word processing and listen to music.
Fedora is one of the best distros I used so far. It is super stable but unlike other stable distro you got more updates and more new software versions in the repos. Besides from that you can build your own custom fedora iso with kickstart. I think fedora is one of the best overall distros for all people out there. The only things i experienced that was bad on my machine was thr long loading time when i restarted to install an update and that a lot of software you need to develop android apps is missing in the repos.
Its like windows over linux, i installed it today, The updates are the same as in Windows, you have to restart your computer to update it, and it takes more than 30 minutes to update, then the performance of Blender is terrible, both in RPM and in Flatpak, in both the system did not know how to manage the memory and closed automatically. Access to the store is very slow and clumsy, and during installation it was the slowest OS I have ever installed, unfortunately a terrible experience...........
It's same as Windows for me. I can play games on Steam. But just 4 of my games doesn't work because of kernel based anti-cheat systems. And by the way i installed the KDE Plasma spin. Because it looks like Windows. And you can customize it however you want. You can play games that are on Epic Games with Heroic Games Launcher. I tried it with XDefiant and Rocket League. Fortnite doesn't work on Linux. I can play games like GTA 5, DOOM Eternal, and Forza Horizon 5. And i can use my Xbox Series X/S controller with Bluetooth as well. But don't forget to enable RPMFusion and install Multimedia Codecs. And install Nvidia drivers if you have a Nvidia GPU. Since i have an AMD GPU i don't need it. You should try it if you don't do anything special on your PC like video editing, playing specific games that don't run on Linux. If you don't like it then you can remove Fedora and install Windows again.
Loved it after some considerable effort works flawless and is fast.
Need to install a clipboard Like Pano,
Need to install extentions,
Vanilla Gnome is good but Extentions should be enabled by default.
Cantarell font is outdated, Try Roboto,
Package manager is good has most suff.
Docs and Instructions for most Developer setups of Apps and DBs are really good.
Been using since Fedora 34, had been a really great exerience,
Also I love the Wayland gesture supports, switching apps with 3 finger swipes
instead of workspaces would be really great, 4 finger swipe for workspace would be optimal choice.
On my testing, Fedora 40 was the fastest Wayland desktop I've ever used on my computers.
My machines run as windows manager de Xorg because Wayland always proved to be slower... Till this day. When I was using Wayland thaughting I was using X and thincking how fast things where running.
Apps are responsive, and quick to open and GNOME software is working faster now.
I like GNOME very much but never used it as much as KDE due to the package manager looking to be slower. But now it is preety much as resposive if not faster.
I'm using destkop edition and server as well. There is nothing better - cockpit on server is amazing, even better that paid solutions.
Everything you need is here flatpaks are amazing. I need at least 250 words to submit my review so w will copy and paste something found bellow
I would define Fedora 40 Workstation as the distribution that drives GNU/Linux development. It has extensive hardware support, extensive documentation and a wide choice of software (with RPMfusion enabled). Moreover, it is the distribution that comes closest to the concept of 'recent, but sufficiently stable software'. Try it and see.
Fedora Workstation 40 features GNOME 46, the latest version of the GNOME desktop environment. Key updates include a notable upgrade of the Files app, introducing new features and enhancements. The 'Settings' app and other core apps have been refined for better usability. Other features: Linux kernel 6.8.5, Wayland Communication Protocol 1.23, Libreoffice 24.2.2, Gimp 2.10.38. EOL May 23, 2025 (suported for 13 months).
I would define Fedora 40 Workstation as the distribution that drives GNU/Linux development. It has extensive hardware support, extensive documentation and a wide choice of software (with RPMfusion enabled). Moreover, it is the distribution that comes closest to the concept of 'recent, but sufficiently stable software'. Try it and see.
I previously reviewed the GNOME immutable flavour of Fedora 40 (silverlight). Now for the KDE (kinoite) equivalent.
After installation there is a near-vanilla KDE. The only obvious customisation I can find is a Fedora theme and boot screen. There is a good set of KDE Applications installed without running wild; the only one I disagree with is Elisa for music, which would be far better served by Haruna.
I was GNOME Man for years but am very impressed with KDE 6, which is astonishingly fast on my machine and has smoothed off a lot of the previous rough edges: for example, the System Settings are much more logically arranged than before and the edit mode for the desktop, panels and widgets is a model of clarity, which previous attempts certainly weren't.
Discovery is used for updates and comes with two flatpak repositories (Flathub and Fedora's own), the kinoite tree and the lvfs firmware repository pre-configured.
Big updates are quickly made available. I got KDE 6.1, KDE 6.1.1 and the 6.9 kernel (from 6.8) in short order and, at present, there seems to be a mesa update almost daily.
A previous observation is even stronger here - Discovery gives no indication at all of what is in the kinoite daily update, so I do a "rpm-ostree update" from the command line which lists the updated packages. It will probably require changes to Discovery to fix that, but it should be done as blind updates are a bad thing.
I gave silverlight 7. Kinoite gets 9; it is even more polished than silverlight and the 1 off is because immutable builds will not be for everyone - that said, I found it easier to find instructions on how to insert (non-flatpak) applications into the build now.
The newest Fedora is the closest thing to a cutting-edge, generic Gnome environment that you can get. Apps are updated frequently and hardware is recognized pretty near perfectly. It's certainly very satisfactory in that regard.
Unfortunately, because of the antics of RedHat to monetize RHEL at the expense of free alternatives, I'm moving away from the RedHat tree entirely, back to the Debian lineage. Give me a Debian descendant with apt and flatpak (but not snap) and I'm fine. (Something without systemd would be a plus, but I'm not wedded to that requirement.)
As my old boss used to say, it takes a lot of effort to gain a customer but one second to lose one. Fedora has lost me. Not their fault, of course, but RedHat now leaves a bad taste and taints distros associated with it. I'm happy to try something else.
Running Asahi Fedora remix 39 gnome version on a Mac mini M2, never been so happy. It's stable, fast, and developer friendly. Installed gnome shell extensions and gnome tweaks. Flathub is a great source for Linux software. Really likes Fedora distro now. The only issue I met is ibus for Chinese keyboard is not working completely, e.g. If I press Shift key, the input method is confused, and always output English characters, even though I press Shift key again, it will not go back to Chinese status.
The cleanest and most reliable distro for my use case (latest gnome, as vanilla as possible; integrated graphics; no hassle dual boot with other OS). I appreciate that it comes with little to no bloat or customizations, and that it is easy to get up and running. Also, that it is close enough to bleeding edge. It also feels well supported and looks like updates will keep on coming in for a long time - which is an unknown for smaller projects that peak my interest (e.g. Vanilla OS).
A little boring, but maybe that's a good thing haha.
I don't know what has happened to Fedora, and Linux in general, in 2024 nor am I technically proficient to solve these issues, but every linux distro I have tried on a my laptop in 2024 crashes. Fedora 40 crashes, Mint crashes. There is no longer any consistency between themes which each app not adhering to theme choices, particularly window managers. Adwaita is has horrendous contrast ratio and the text is blurry, even after installing font tweaks, causing eye strain. Memory consumption is higher with lower performance, video codecs that worked flawlessley in the past no longer work or work with glitches in rendering. I installed Fedora 28 to see if it would run on a modern laptop. Surprisingly, not only did it run but ran faster and the font rendering and themes were consistent. I have been using Linux since 2004 and I believe Linux has gone downhill both in customization and usability since around GNOME 3 was introduced - ever since then all we've had is more fragmentation. Probably my biggest gripe with Linux is the touchpad driver "libinput" which replaced synaptics. Ever since then every laptop I have installed Linux on with the default libinput driver has been erratic and unstable. Replace it with synaptics and it's perfect, more so, in fact, than Windows Precision drivers. Why this degrade in performance and usability?
I wanted a distro that I could install onto a USB flash drive and be bootable between my laptops without touching Windows at all, and start up without turning off Secure Boot, and not involve too much mucking around in the BIOS. Unlike various other distros I tried, Fedora handled these requirements with ease (the only issue I encountered is the Fedora installer wanted the flash drive to be unformatted or it would say there's no room).
So I'm writing this now from Fedora which is running happily off my flash drive without bothering the Windows harddrive or hanging during startup and shutdown. When I'm finished I just unplug it and take it to whatever computer I want to use and there it is.
I really wanted to like the default Gnome but just can't get into it. I get where they're coming from with a minimalist aesthetic but it always leads to some annoyance or other when you want to do things your way. Of course you can customise to some extent via Gnome shell extensions, but manipulating the desktop environment via browser extensions just seems an odd way of doing things.
But don't worry, Fedora has you covered here with different "spins" of their distro... all the main desktop environments are available as spins. I ended up going with the KDE (currently version 6) spin. At the time of writing KDE 6 can feel like riding an easily-startled horse but I love it.
Whether you're new to Linux or tired of distro hopping and looking for somewhere to land, I can happily recommend Fedora.
After using severeal apt-based distributions for many years I returned to Fedora. It's hard to regret this decision. On my newer hardware those distributions struggle a bit, I had some errors especially during using Gnome. I think that LUKS encryption had some contribution to periodic slowdowns. And then I gave Fedora a try. It's like changing the car to newer one :) Everything runs smoothly, dnf is surprisingly a lot faster than apt. Probably newer kernel also contributed to resolving issues with slow disk operation despite the encryption still in place. Tested on the same disk drive as previous systems.
Now KDE under Wayland. It works just great. Encouraged by that I have installed KDE to my very old laptop and it is still smooth and responsive. Of course there are limits which I cannot cross without a performance penalty but in comparison with my previous linux distro the positive change is just big.
One of the disadvantages is that I had to install also RPM Fusion repository to have some things available here.
There's no docker in the standard repository, but podman is still great.
Tested standard desktop edition as well as atomic one :)
Installed on a Thinkpad X280, everything works fine out of the box, including Wayland and Pipewire. Gnome is not my cup of tea, but, with the help of some extensions I could customize it to my liking.
A couple of points for improvement:
- OneDrive through Gnome Online Accounts has some issues (but they're working to fix those)
- gstreamer1-vaapi is not installed by default; when done (manually) it allows Gnome Wireless Displays to cast with good framerate to a TV on the same network.
Once these two points are solved, my vote might go up to 10; I am not sure what more to ask to a Linux Distribution.
Fedora 40 is an exceptional operating system that stands out for its impressive functionality and performance. The sleek and intuitive interface, combined with robust features, makes it a joy to use for both everyday tasks and more advanced operations. The community-driven philosophy behind Fedora ensures continuous improvements and innovation, keeping it at the cutting edge of technology.
One of the highlights of Fedora 40 is its stability and reliability. It handles multitasking with ease, providing a smooth and efficient user experience. The software repository is extensive, offering a wide range of applications that cater to all needs. The integration of the latest technologies ensures that users have access to the best tools available.
Although the installer can be a bit challenging for newcomers, once past that hurdle, Fedora 40 delivers an unparalleled user experience. The system is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor it to their specific requirements. The commitment to open-source principles and security makes Fedora a trustworthy and ethical choice for both personal and professional use.
Fedora 40 is a top-tier operating system that combines performance, innovation, and a user-centric philosophy. It’s an excellent choice for anyone seeking a reliable and versatile OS. Highly recommended!
One year in Linux and one year of distro hopping. Ubuntu Budgie, Pop!, Debian 12, Sid, Trixie, KDE Neon, Tumbleweed KDE and Hyprland, Arco Hyprland. Finally landed in Fedora and it is the perfect place for me and Hyprland. I did install Budgie DE as a companion environment. All of my hardware, favorite apps and Hyprland toys work very well in Fedora 40. This has been an outstanding experience. Stable. Hassle-free.
With this success on my HP EliteDesk with i5 CPU and 16 gb RAM, I did duplicate the experience on an ASUS 17 inch Intel i7 notebook, with 16 gb RAM, HP 15 inch TouchScreen notebook with an old AMD A4 CHIP and 8 gb RAM, and an old Dell i5 desktop (12gb RAM) with excellent results. No problems.
Tumbleweed is very good and so is Debian. But, this Fedora 40 experience tops them all. Impressive.
Soon after Red Hat killed CentOS, I walked away from Fedora. I tried Ubuntu again, and came to the same conclusion: too much bloatware. I also tried Debian and loved it, but being the bad user I am, I broke it beyond repair, and since I had to reinstall it from scratch, I moved on to Arch.
And I broke it too.
And then I got bored.
And so I decided to give Fedora a try. Sericea worked well, but it seemed more of an afterthought than anything else. As soon as Fedora 40 was released, I went straight to Silverblue, which blew me away! It's a very well thought of product where everything works. I had several post-installation issues, which I was unable to resolve; because I didn't want to give up on it, I installed Silverblue 39 and upgraded it to 40.
As I was going through the documentation, I saw something curious: if I wanted to, I could board the time tunnel and go back to 2017 to try Fedora 27. Hmm… I could also jump to the near future to try Silverblue Testing or Updates, or towards the far future and get my hands on Rawhide. All of that, without breaking my system? Count me in!
I have more pressing matters to tend to, so I decided to remain in 2024 with Fedora 40 Silverblue. Unless something terribly bad (or awesome) happens, I'll stop distro hopping.
Which doesn't mean I can't do desktop environment hopping. In fact, I converted my laptop to Sway, which I prefer, and might convert my desktop to Kinoite (KDE/Plasma), depending on my wife's preference. I know for a fact that I can still do dwm and hyprland, in case I wanted but, as of now, I have everything I need.
I've always been a little leery of Fedora, but I have to say, it's gotten a lot better since I last used it.
Easy to install, well documented, a ton of packages. It works with all my hardware, AMD Radeon, Intel Wifi, Broadcom NIC, SoundBlaster audio, everything just works striaght out of the box. No special repos, no special packages to install. It just works.
I was a little afraid of using a rolling release with newer packages on it, but after a week or two, I haven't had a single problem with it.
Easy to install and use. It can be an excellent alternative to distributions such as Mint, Ubuntu, which are recommended for the first adventure with Linux.
Fully foss, however, you can run non-free repositories for, among other things, video codecs. DNF package manager works ok. unfortunately fedora makes it impossible to choose init, it is tied to systemd. The software in the repo is extensive and new. Errors in my service did not occur. Spin KDE plasma is not for low-performance computers 4GB is too small.
As time passes on more and more, I've come to believe the fact that Fedora stands to serve both big Desktops with the utmost care and polish, unlike OpenSUSE Tumbleweed which ships outdated or abandoned apps by default on GNOME, or neutering KDE applications like Kate or Dolphin, or their mediocre PackageKit implementation breaking things every once in a while. Fedora generally packages things well and sticks close to upstream.
The Workstation side of things might be more boring this time around, but the KDE spin is easily the best Plasma 6 distro out there now, bar none. Don't let the live image fool you, Frameworks, Qt6 and Plasma are all fully up to date (after you update anyways), and while Fedora isn't a rolling distro, it always strikes a great balance between bleeding edge and other stable distros. There's also a good reason why many important figureheads within KDE and GNOME daily Fedora on their main machines. (hint: it's a great distro)
Even though "leading edge" is what OpenSUSE Tumbleweed claims itself to be, Fedora is what I'd consider "leading edge", with first class treatment of Wayland on both desktops, excellent communication between itself and upstream alongside fantastic integration (as far as a project could go without actively applying in depth patches and breaking things anyways), and the courage to actively seek giant, beneficial changes (perhaps a little early sometimes.) before any other distro is what I'd truly consider "leading edge".
Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It's not as user friendly as Ubuntu or Mint in regards to Codecs or Nvidia drivers (this one *especially* sucks if you don't read instructions right), and no, it doesn't hold the same hip kid status as Arch, but if you ignore all the FUD, and look for yourself, you'll find what I consider to be one of the best Linux distros out there, and wow, is it as good as it gets for one. (unless you find yourself obsessed with the idea of a rolling release...)
The worst version of Fedora since I don't remember!
Nothing works here! Laptop sleep doesn't work, nVidia driver doesn't work, copy/paste middle mouse button doesn't work!
I'm thinking about reinstalling version 39 because version 40 is a misunderstanding! I have some idea about configuration and navigating the Linux ecosystem, a person who wants to start their adventure with Linux after installing Fedora 40 will already finish it! For the first time I am disappointed! I do not recommend updating the installation for the next two weeks because it is a beta version
The installation menu options are not visible. To address the issue, I opted to start from the Fedora-Everything-netinst-x86_64-40-1.14 version. I managed to install it, but after having the basic Fedora installation, the menu option windows appear blank again, rendering them unusable. I tried it with both X11 and Wayland from Fedora's startup options. This has never happened to me with other GNU/Linux distributions. I encountered a similar issue with Fedora Workstation 39 as well.
I do not recommend this distribution.
I'm on 40 since beta.
* Everything is flawless except the OEM bluetooth adapter which is a Linux kernel issue that should be fixed in 6.10 later this summer. I'm too lazy to compile in a patch. I'm simply uing a USB bluetooth adapter for now.
* Geekom IT13 with the Gen 13, i7 CPU and 32GB RAM.
* I love flatpaks
I also tried Silverblue 40 which is very good except it seems to want a reboot for a lot of installs and updates. Windows users should feel right at thome. Silverblue makes me love flatpaks even more!
Something like Arch or openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma has already newer versions of Plasma, KDE Frameworks and Qt, despite the Fedora KDE Spin was released today!
Unlike Fedora openSUSE TW and Arch care about what the user base wants - not what Red Hat wants to test for their future enterprise releases.
By the way: Fedora's disk I/O speed is very poor compared to other distributions.
And installing working Nvidia drivers is a mess.
If you want to use something like Fedora at least use Nobara…
I've been using Fedora Workstation for around a year at this point (since version 37) and it definitely it stopped my distro hopping, I tried many distros and Fedora is the only one that I ended up returning to for a long period of time, so far I haven't encounter any problems
And that was on my desktop, after dabbling around many distros in my main laptop I also ended up switching up to Fedora (it was my original plan but the battery life wasn't as good as Ubuntu) but now the battery life is amazing as maybe it was the older kernel at the time, but because I wanted to try something different I settled on KDE (so my desktop has GNOME and my laptop has KDE) and the experience has been a perfect 10 out of 10 again
For me, along with Debian, Mint and openSUSE are the simply the best, but the crown goes to Fedora, keep doing an amazing job Fedora Team!
I have an instance of Fedora on VirtualBox since version 36. Every time the new version came out, I upgraded it and to this date, there has not been any issues. I have installed the newer versions separately as well, and the experience has been great. I have used i3, awesome, Gnome, LXDE, OpenBox and they all work great. I have opted to DM's and use i3 and Awesome now. This is not to say the others are not good.
I love the fact that I get the latest of pretty much everything as soon as they come out and most of the time they are solid.
Disk configuration in the installer (confusing) is the only miss in this overwhelmingly impressive Linux offering. I am using Hyprland and Budgie environments. And, all is well. My favorite apps are available with the exception of OcenAudio and Waterfox, but both were accessible elsewhere. OcenAudio's CentOS RPM worked fine. The Fedora RPM did not. Waterfox offers a fine compressed edition which works great in Hyprland and Budgie. After distrohopping in my first year in Linux loading Ubuntu, Pop, LMDE, Debian12, Sid, Trixie (I really like Debian---but no Hyprland yet), OpenSuse, Arco 'B' and a few others, Fedora is checking all the boxes. It is running on an old iMac, HP EliteDesk, HP TouchScreen notebook, and a Dell Optiplex. Smooth distro.
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