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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Are you using Fedora Workstation? Have you installed "additional" multimedia codecs?
The issue with Fedora is that because of being backed by RedHat, they fear using some software for their licensing. So, to use features of your GPU you paid for, you need to install codecs from RPM Fusion.
This can be an hussle when big version updates of Fedora comes and you need to wait for RPM Fusion repo to catch up.
I've just started using Fedora recently and have been pretty impressed but I also ran into some of these annoying issues to start with. I wrote a super quick and dirty first run script to automate the things I use but maybe others will find it useful. I just added it to my GitHub if anyone wants to use it as well. I am not responsible if it wrecks your system.
I've been thinking of making one, thank you for beating me on time. I'll bookmark it.
Of course hope it's helpful. Feel free to open a pull request if you want to make any changes or add something
Yeah… I’m actually thinking of switching to Debian. Fedora’s very nice, but the licensing idiosyncrasies and linkages to RedHat kinda annoy me.
Also: I admit I’m lazy, and the Debian-flavored community is somewhat more pervasive and a tad easier to look things up for, simply because Ububtu is Debian flavored, and Ubuntu is one of the more prevalent distros (even if it is kinda “easy mode”).
I moved from Debian mainly because I kept breaking apt somehow. But I ~~was~~ saw people recommending it for desktop use, so maybe it got improved.
Edit: typo
Yeah this’d mainly be for my personal dev laptop. I’ve got a spare machine I might throw it on to test drive for a bit before I commit to migrating my system again, since I just did that for F40 (upgraded from Ubuntu LTS - again, lazy, but I did get fed up with snaps which is what led me to switch to fedora in the first place)
Could be I'm just lucky, but I upgraded Fedora desktop to 40 while still in beta, and never had any issues with codecs. As a matter of fact, I in every install I immediately install all codecs, as well as MS fonts, never had a single issue.
Haven't used Fedora in a while but I heard that this was done automatically now. Is that not the case?
Those codexes are patent encumbered
Fedora took away one of my biggest hobbies namely distro hopping. It's so good i haven't installed another Linux for 4+ years. Before fedora I would never use a distro for more than a couple of months. It's beautiful, it's solid and it's vanilla. Everything is shipped as the original developer intended.
Fedora Workstation here as well. Stopped my distrohopping for good. Even when I install the betas it seems very stable.
Tested the KDE spin on a spare laptop too and it seemed fine as well.
It's unfortunate that a lot of people are reluctant to try Fedora because the name sounds like a tips fedora meme
I happily use Fedora for workstation purposes but hate to admit I use it, so it's an accurate critique. It's a great operating system though, naming aside.
I want to fork Fedora and literally just change the name. Same thing with Mastodon and "toots".
Maybe Nobara is a good alternative for people who would care about that? Its pretty close to stock fedora AFAIK (I'm still a novice tho)
Pretty close yes, but honestly anyone who would write the distro off for that reason alone isn't serious enough about computing for it to matter which OS they pick. Only use Nobara if your main intention is gaming. Its not worth picking a niche distro unless you have a very good reason or thats part of the fun for you.
I’m looking at putting Fedora Silverblue on my laptop (it’s shared between myself and my wife) after an update went bad on EndeavourOS — context
From what I’ve seen it looks rock solid.
Maybe take a look at universal-blue.org, especially the Aurora (KDE) or Bluefin (Gnome), too. It's basically the same, but with some QoL stuff already added, like proprietary drivers and more already set up for you for a nicer experience.
I’ve just finished installing Silverblue on the laptop but will give Bluefin a shot. Thanks for the tip!
If you want a stock gnome experience from the ublue image (like the one you get from silverblue), look for the ublue-main image
AFAIK the uBlue stock image is even leaner than Silverblue. uBlue doesn't contain any pre-installed Flatpaks by default.
Wait doesn't ublue have the gnome apps installed as flatpaks¿? I have always rebased silverblue to ublue because I have had trouble with the ublue installer - some efi issues in grub
Assuming you're on Fedora 40: sudo dnf install dnf5
Yes, I'm on Fedora 40 and I can't recommend this enough! Also, enable fastestmirror and parallel downloads (and also defaultyes if you want)!
What's dnf5?
This seems to be default on 39
Fedora is not Red Hat per se, it is upstream. Red Hat is a few things in different spaces. For one is is a great source of documentation. Secondly, a sizable chunk of kernel code is developed and maintained by Red Hat. They are known for their zero down time kernel updating system among other things.
Fedora is excellent. However, it is very different than Ubuntu by design. Fedora is primarily useful for entry level users that intend on only running software that is regularly kept up to date and maintained. You will start running into problems with software that is not kept up to date. There are relatively easy tools like distrobox, toolbox, and podman that can run most software regardless. The exception to this comes with the GPU. If you are running a GPU, you're likely getting updates in Fedora with will break your older projects entirely. This is because Fedora is constantly updating the Linux kernel. Fedora is pushing out these updates constantly and looking for problems that might pop up. These issues get fixed and down stream to Red Hat to make it rock solid.
Ubuntu is based on a much longer term stability with even longer term LTS versions. This means the kernel and dependencies are frozen in time at a specific state. If you want to write some custom package that never gets broken when a dependency is updated, Ubuntu is the goto distro. You must be aware that, on Ubuntu, the native packages are largely out of date. You can add a ppa to the sources list in aptitude so that you get the latest packages, but these should be used only in special cases. If you want to be up to date, use the proper distro for the task.
This context is more important for servers where you want to deploy a project using a bunch of apps and packages. Once it is working, it should stay working for however long the LTS kernel is supported.
Fedora updates the kernel because maintaining backports is engineering-intensive, Ubuntu backports fixes into their kernels. I don’t think Fedora kernels affect Red Hat much at all, Red Hat does extensive back porting into a set version and their stable kernel often has hundreds of releases of the “same” kernel version.
I wouldn't call it a dangerous opinion, Ubuntu is a great starter distro and was probably top dog back then, it is just that their recent actions have been not liked by the Linux community.
I personally fell in love with opensuse tumbleweed w/ kde 6, but I do want to give fedora a try at some point as well.
Here I am on Fedora wanting to try Tumbleweed
DNF is getting rewritten in C++ for next release to make it as fast as pacman
it's literally Ubuntu (But better) in every way except no snaps.
That would be Debian, friend.
Debian is awesome but only if you don't care about having the newest features and updates.
True. I can't understand why anyone would choose having the newest features over stability. But each to their own.
Not just newest features, newest documentation, bug fixes, and optimizations as well. When I started with Linux, I had many issues that were further exasperated by finding answers for newer versions of software. Nowadays my servers run debian!
This looks like a fallacy in the argument. Ubuntu is generally known as being very stable as well, they tend to avoid breaking changes over the lifetime of a release and there are LTS releases to boot.
It's a case of personal preference, but Fedora+KDE is superior than Fedora+Gnome.
I've been using fedora since 2016 and love it. Switched to the KDE spin 2-3 years ago and love that even more. It's the right balance of fully-fledged OS while still letting me tinker. I don't have time for Arch-level setup BS, and distros like Mint and Manjaro and Ubuntu felt too clunky and restrictive to me.
I'm on Linux from way back when Mandriva was badass. Because of work I spent many years on Windows, from 95 to Windows 7. Returned to Linux in the Form of PopOS and Linux Mint.
Fast forward to today, been running Fedora or a spin for the last 2 years, with the eventual distro hop only to land back on Fedora.
My wife and I both run Fedora Gnome on our work PCs, Bazzite on my gaming laptop, and my 10 years old daughter runs Nobara on her laptop.
All in all, Fedora is always where I come back to. No regrets.
I'm happy with it except for the inability to hibernate out of the box. Same for most distros though I think?
What do you think of Fedora? So far I enjoy the stability combined with near-arch levels of getting new updates!
I switched away from other distros to Fedora (KDE spin), and am happy here.
Do I wish they were better open-source citizens, yes, of course! But they're still allot better than Microsoft/Windows close-source solution.
And as far as the distro goes, its nice to have solid support for hardware, and a good rolling release cycle that doesn't brick my OS, and that has quick support for gaming, etc.
If you're the type of person who wants a Windows alternative OS to use as just a tool for gaming/business first and foremost, and not to tinker with the OS for fun (unless they want to), Fedora is the best, and what we all should be proposing to others when they ask about moving to Linux.
Its been solid for me for few years now
I recently switched to Fedora after roughly two decades of using Ubuntu (started with Warty Warthog), Debian and their derivatives. Feels oddly comfortable, and strangely nostalgic having started using in Linux with Red Hat 24 years ago. I think both Ubuntu and Fedora have their issues, as well as their strengths. It just boils down to what issues and strengths are most important to you.
I am on Fedora. Beware fedora has SElinux enabled. That can cause you issues if you follow a guide written for Ubuntu.
I distro hopped. i mainly used pop, but I had poor performance with gnome so I started hopping again. And after using arch and opensuse, but after several updates causing issues, I moved to Fedora mainly to try atomic distros. After loving Kinoite and bazzite, I put fedora KDE on my main machine and I don't see myself leaving.
Some people say it's "evil" since some drama with RedHat or something? I actually never looked into that drama and it's probably overreaction of someone but has anyone heard of it or an idea what it's about?
I like it enough that I've been using it since Fedora Core 1.