Fedora is the new Ubuntu - Fedora Long Term Review

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00:00 Intro
00:37 Sponsor: 100$ off your own Linux, or gaming server!
01:29 What does THAT mean?
02:03 Fedora Pushes Toward the Future of Linux
04:19 The Excitement Factor
05:22 Fedora keeps stability while being current
08:06 Fedora has the default experience
09:46 Fedora has a big community
10:27 Parting Thoughts
11:42 Sponsor: Get your Linux laptop or desktop with Slimbook
12:07 Support the channel

Just to be clear, when I say that Fedora is the new Ubuntu, I mean that Fedora now occupies the place that Ubuntu used to have in terms of Linux distributions. It's a GOOD thing.

One of the things I really enjoy about using Fedora, is that they push the Linux desktop towards the future. Some call it bleeding edge, but it's not. It's cutting edge: you don't get the absolute latest, but you get the best that's also stable.

Fedora was among the first to adopt Wayland, the first to adopt Pipewire, to push Flatpak, portals, the first mainstream distro to push immutable filesystems in Fedora Silverblue.

This drive towards modern tech was what Ubuntu was doing back in the day: they were implementing the latest versions of GNOME, adopted newly developed programs at the time, like Banshee, or F-Spot, they pushed to have better driver integration, and more software available.

Using Fedora, I got that same excitement I used to get when I was using Ubuntu: every 6 months, there's a new drop of amazing updates. You get more modern technologies, you get improved security, you get new features right as they're being released, and you get that sense of really taking advantage of all that new stuff the Linux community talks about.

Fedora is a "current" distro, which means that you get the latest release of all the interesting stuff, like the desktop environments, the linux kernel, the graphics drivers, or wayland. And they do this without sacrificing stability.

Fedora, in my experience with it, has been rock solid. In general, I didn't have many problems with any Linux distro that I daily drove, but all of them tended to exhibit small issues after a while.

My experience with Fedora has been fantastic thanks to this: Flatpak is wonderfully integrated in the GNOME Software app, it's all a one click install, all updates are handled there, I just never think about my system anymore, I just use it. That peace of mind is something I never truly achieved with any other Linux distro

Another thing I really like is that Fedora has the DEFAULT experience. They ship the desktop as is, without any meaningful extensions, themes, configurations, or tweaks.

It's just productivity central. GNOME, for me, doesn't need anything else than the default experience. It is extremely efficient once you wrap your head around how it works, and providing me with a crutch, like an always visible dock, or desktop icons, would just compromise that productivity.

Moving to Fedora also had me learn a few things, especially how to use dnf. I didn't need to use it, but I wanted to; and since I was a lot more familiar with APT, I had no idea what I was doing.

Turns out, Fedora has a huge community as well, something Ubuntu has had since it began, so it's another checkmark next to my "Fedora is the next Ubuntu" checklist

[RustyLoaf]

I feel like having vanilla GNOME is one of Fedora's strongest advantages over other distributions. I absolutely use extensions, but I'd rather be the one choosing them and having a clean install out of the box. My extensions are just, like, hiding the top bar unless I'm in the overview, adding a middle click to close windows in the overview, a couple minor menu tweaks, things like that. I don't want my distribution to hack a Start menu or persistent dock paradigm onto a DE that's fundamentally not designed for it and is, frankly, much better than other DE's strictly because of its overview paradigm.

[totomaiden]

This all started on Fedora 32, since then it went from meh, to surprisingly good, to the best distro for EVERYONE. Coders, scripters, everyday users, whatever you want to do, Fedora is for you. Hats off to Fedora and their developers, every release they set the bar higher for everyone

[ozrencupac]

They just need an installer that humans can use and its going to be perfect

[kevinbreen]

I couldn't agree more. Linus from LTT kept knocking Fedora as a meme but he really missed out on a stable user friendly distro. Personally I use arch but my wife and mother are both using fedora and I'm debating about switching back as I'm getting a bit tired of random things breaking and like you said... most things have an RPM or flatpak version nowadays.

[nootums]

Been using fedora since fedora 32, and it has been an amazing experience.
The biggest hassle I faced was the extension support when gnome went from version 3.38 to 40, I had to wait months, or find a replacement for most of the extensions I used.
Other than that, It has been great. Having nothing but a small bar on top is so much better for my productivity.

[dstinnettmusic]

Those Ubuntu 10.10 clips gave me nostalgia and reminded me of why I used to love it so much. I loved Unity too.

Good for Canonical for being able to turn a profit, but maybe it would be better if they exited the desktop space. Or make Ubuntu Desktop a full community project.

[nategraham]

I agree 100%. I've been on Fedora KDE for several months and I feel like it's my new long-term distro; no more temptation to distro-hop! It's great for users, and it's great for developing on top of. And the KDE version is not a second-class citizen! The worst feature is the installer, but hopefully you'll only have to see it once...

[JeffGeerling]

After building my first desktop PC in 20+ years, and trying Ubuntu first... I ultimately went with Fedora 35 + Windows 10. Fedora's been working great, and the most annoying thing so far (which is completely surface-level) is that OpenRGB requires a bit more work to get it running on Fedora.

And sometimes other packages assume you use a Debian derived OS, and you have to compile or manually install something on Fedora.

[geetube]

I like this channel a lot. The exact stuff I want to know in order to move to another distro as my daily driver is covered here. I wish I had more time to experiment with more distros but as a freelance web dev time gets scarse 😞, however I agree and share these feelings of Ubuntu and after using it for years I'll move to fedora and feel excited about the experience of working on it full time and see how it goes. Thanks for that!.

[quasigod]

I've been saying this for a while. Fedora is my new goto recommendation for new users. It "just works*" more than Ubuntu far more often for me. Flatpaks by default is also good for letting new users avoid the terminal.

[johannesdnaliew]

You speak exactly from my soul. I've been using Fedora for a few years and the system runs and runs. I don't have to fix anything all the time.

I would only change three things about Fedora:

Flathub directly integrated
Offer RPM Fusion completely as a third-party source.
Installer also for beginners (but they're already working on that).

[juliensaab]

In my experience Fedora is one of the best distribution. I like the default features, the look and feel, and the stability. Especially when developing applications, the performance is perfect. But, the only issue that I faced is some libraries being incompatible when working with machine learning. Ubuntu has a bigger community when talking about ML, which comes in handy when I get stuck on something related to libraries and packages dependencies.

[eugenek]

It's nice to see a healthy competition and constant progression among Linux distros. I've been off Windows for a number of years now using Linux Mint and I love it!

[OscarRobbing]

I 100% agree with everything you said here. Fedora is awesome because its not bleeding edge but is current. Provides stock desktop and apps instead of bloated messes. And uses the godly Flatpaks by default along with Wayland, Pipewire, etc. It's like legitimately my ideal distro.

Fedora's only weakness is its installer. If it adopted the Elementary/PopOS installer it would be god-tier.

[killermonkey]

Two years ago, i hopped from Ubuntu to Fedora after finally having had enough of outdated Ubuntu repos, and I never looked back. And like you said, despite the cutting-edge mentality, Fedora has been rock-solid for me since day 1.

[Hobbitstomper]

Both Fedora 36 and Ubuntu 22.04, which both will be released in April, include GNOME 42, which itself was released on March 23. I'm glad to see Ubuntu devs are starting to prioritize the implementation of the latest GNOME versions. It's probably thanks to distros like Fedora that give Ubuntu a little wakeup call and make them compete harder.

[stephenreaves]

Don't forget that Fedora Server with Cockpit is also an amazing experience! Makes me wonder why people got all mad about the CentOS switch (I mean I know why they got mad, but still)

[DenzilFerreira]

Been on Fedora since 27, upgraded all the way until 35 and looking forward to 36. Welcome to Fedora fam!

[_MrSnrub]

Glad to see Fedora getting the love it deserves. Fedora is amazingly stable for a semi-rolling release style distro, and it has been amazing for gaming.

[paulg]

Btw "typing the name of the app I want" is usually just typing 2 or 3 letters of the name .The shell learns your commonly used apps and will highlight those selections.
Also you don't even need to know the name: "ph..." will bring up a selection of photo related apps such as shotwell and GIMP