Hello everyone, I’ve recently been curious to try Fedora Linux. I’ve been using Linux Mint for a while now, and while I really enjoy Mint, I think it’s time to finally give something else a try. I want to go to a different distribution that will allow me to customize it more and have better support for GNOME and KDE.
Any information I should know before trying it out?
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Fedora is a GNU/Linux systemd distribution that’s designed to innovate constantly and change. They are at the forefront of the linux software stack. I’d call it the “year of the linux desktop” distro because they are at the head of so many things. They were the first to adopt wayland, pipewire, systemd and drop X11 session logins just to give you an idea.
Fedora offers two main variants. That being their workstation edition and spins (GNOME + alternative DEs) and their Atomic Desktop which is an operating system based on OCI image containers rather than mutable packages.
I’d recommend going the Atomic Desktop route first since the atomic model basically makes the system virtually unbreakable while also letting you customize it as much as you want. There are projects like Universal Blue that allow users to create their own images (akin to creating your own distro) and has what I argue the best batteries-included gaming distro in the form of Bazzite. If you use your Linux rig as a gaming machine then you should definitely check out Bazzite.
Bazzite does far too much. Out of the box, it “tweaks” GNOME in like 5000 different ways that are each their own unique pain in the ass to disable, and includes far too much bloatware for my taste, and includes like 30 different daemons that are nearly useless.
For my gaming rig, I ended up trying Nobara instead, which has its own set of problems (custom icon pack, some bloatware) but they’re relatively easy to fix (change icon pack back, put all the custom Nobara apps in one folder).
In the end I just went with regular, stock Fedora. No issues so far. I don’t really see the need for these gaming-focused distributions.
Gaming focused distros are designed to have all the software you’d want ootb even if you don’t need it and to also have a community dedicated to make gaming on Linux better with fixes and whatnot.
In your case, why even go with Fedora anyway? Why not NixOS if you’re concerned about unnecessary components in your OS and having other people decide what should be included in the distro or not?
I do have NixOS on my laptop. But that’s besides the point. My point is that Fedora ships a “stock” experience, whereas these gaming-focused distros ship their own stuff on top, some of which is bothersome and bloatware.
Why does Nobara ship its own updater? GNOME Software has one built in. Why does it ship a 3rd party icon pack, that just feels completely out of place? If it stuck to just kernel patches and whatnot, it would be a fantastic distribution. But no - it has to come with a patched Nautilus that breaks search, 9 different apps that do not at all integrate with the desktop, a custom icon pack, and a shitload of problems.
And don’t even get me started on bazzite. It took me half an hour just to undo all the dconf “tweaks” they do to GNOME - and that’s just the surface.
A lot of these gaming distros feel less like distros targeted towards general users, and more towards the creators’ personal taste.
I also would not recommend “trying atomic desktop first”. The fact is, as a newbie, you’re going to run into issues and problems and need to look things up, which means running commands. And a majority of guides are either for Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora/CentOS/Red Hat, and the normal Fedora commands just don’t work on Atomic Desktops. If you want to install anything other than a sandboxed GUI app, you’re going to have to deal with
rpm-ostree, which is a major hit-or-miss. Setting up Tailscale was a major chore, and I ended up having to set up a Docker (Podman) container for it.My problem with these sorts of atomic desktops is that they remove the traditional packaging solutions, which, let’s be honest, is justified. But the solutions they are replaced with are either incomplete (Flatpak) or nonexistent (how do I set up system daemons? CLI apps?).
TL;DR Atomic Desktops are more " hassle" than “stable”, just use Fedora Workstation.
Setting up Tailscale was a major chore, and I ended up having to set up a Docker (Podman) container for it.
Universal blue has images with tailscale included in their bluefin isos. Distrobox with rootful containers can install daemons. Rpm-ostree is not recommended to be used at all unless it is your last case option. Nix can be installed on atomic systems (using the determinate systems installer) as well as with home-manager support meaning that you don’t even have to use flatpak at all for your apps and can use any home-manager service you want.
You can use GitHub’s ghcr service to serve custom images to yourself using blue build that include all the packages you want.
But the solutions they are replaced with are either incomplete (Flatpak)
Explain?
nonexistent (how do I set up system daemons? CLI apps?).
Cli apps can be installed using Nix or Distrobox (a frontend to podman/docker/lily). System daemons can be installed in user mode, through a nix derivation, or layering if you really need to.
Yes you are not going to be able to compile a program from git and install it on your system’s root binaries, but that’s a feature not a bug.
Enable third-party repositories: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/rpmfusion-setup/
Install multimedia codecs: https://ostechnix.com/how-to-install-multimedia-codecs-in-fedora-linux/
Install dnf5, which is a faster version of dnf: https://dnf5.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dnf5.8.html
Fedora’s nice! I was on it for a long time before switching to a fork called Nobara, which is still just Fedora but with some tweaks for gaming.
I’ve never tried Mint but I know it’s supposed to give a Windows-like appearance. So maybe you’ll be more at home with KDE than GNOME, though both are great.
Another thing to remember is Fedora does minor updates pretty often but it doesn’t force you to update. It’s up to you to choose when to update it. I’m not talking about the full OS upgrade like going from Fedora 39 to Fedora 40 which happens every few months etc. So make sure to just do an update once a week or every coup of weeks or something. The OS will remind you, too so no need to worry.
Also, a big difference is apt-get is gonna change to dnf when you use the terminal to get packages. When you go online to find stuff to find apps to download or commands to run, you’ll need to find the Fedora specific versions or ask for them. A lot provide for both Ubuntu and Fedora but Fedora is smaller than Ubuntu, so you will see some things online that just don’t have any instructions for Fedora. So you’ll have to ask around.
Some resources that might be helpful - the Fedora subreddit and the official forum.
I also found a couple of videos on what to do after installing Fedora. They’re from a few versions ago but the advice seems sound - video 1 + video 2
Fedora itself doesn’t include any proprietary drivers or patent-encumbered media codecs, so you’ll probably want to check out the third-party RPMFusion repository. In my experience, Fedora has proven to be a pretty robust distro. I only left it for Gentoo because I needed to set things up in a rather peculiar way.
Make sure you get version 40 so you can use The Cube
