I’ve been using Debian-based distros most of my adult Linux life, but I read recently that KDE has a better experience on Fedora than Kubuntu, so I want to try it out.
I already know that I won’t be able to use apt, but what other differences should I expect with fedora?
The do not have an LTS release? What is upgrading like? When should you upgrade if you want stability?
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I already know that I won’t be able to use apt,
… You can. Could hijack it with Bedrock Linux, and
brl fetch <any distros using apt>or import <any distros using apt>. Of, if that’s too non-trivial a system change, perhaps just Distrobox? It’d let you use apt too right? (I don’t know, I’ve never used Distrobox since I already use Bedrock). Or could go really wild, and make it like PCLinuxOS, and have apt handle your rpms. Or just alias the commands to make it familiar.What should I expect switching to Fedora?
Smugness.
Hey there!
I used Mint for the last years and it is my main distro for Desktops for more than a decade with the exception of Manjaro for a couple of years. Since I wanted to try KDE, I was looking for another Distro for my new notebook.
I really like Debian based distros, because I’m very familiar with it. And I do like Ubuntu. I do not like all of Canonicals desicions, but have to admit, that they do a lot of good stuff for the linux community too.
Still, there were some reason why I did not want to use Kubuntu. I also wanted to have up to date software and kernel and therefore Debian itself was out. Time to look for a new distro.
After trying Nobara, Auroora, openSUSE Tumbleweed and PikaOS and finding some super anoying stuff in all of them, I thought I should give Fedora a try. That should have been the obvious choice in the first place, but I think I wanted something more “special”.
And what should I say? It just works. Installation and setup was easy, all my hardware was detected, I got used to dnf super quickly and I’m super happy with it. It has only been a week and therefore I have no long term experience, but my first impression is, that it is a super clean and well defined distro. I’m super positive that it will be solid choice for a daily driver.
Have faith in flatpaks
I usually wait for a month or two before upgrading to the latest version, but haven’t had any troubles.
First thing I do is enable rpm nonfree per this documentation
https://rpmfusion.org/ConfigurationAnd the second is to switch to ffmpeg and add some HAC as per this documentation
https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/MultimediaIf you run an newer Nvidia card you might wanna grab some drivers too, see
https://github.com/devangshekhawat/Fedora-43-Post-Install-Guide?tab=readme-ov-file#nvidia-driversswitched to fedora coming from windows and ubuntu. I update when I feel like it (every one to two weeks). It is largely rock solid and the only times i had Trouble was because of xone, which I installed via the source and then forgot to remove/update for quite a while.
dnf and apt are quite alike, took only a short while to adjust and now i like it as much if not more.
The KDE Plasma experience is very nice. I can fully recommend Fedora
Thank you for your recommendation and sharing your experience with dnf!
I was using Fedora because someone recommended it, and the rolling release model broke stuff for me multiple times so I am no longer using it (liking release models specifically based on Debian more).
I thought rolling release was like arch where you are always on the bleeding edge, bit Fedora has releases every 6 months. Is that not what it means?
I’m not 100% on this but it just upgrades to the next release which would be a dist upgrade on Debian I think. Too far away from that currently so apologies if incorrect.
The fact remained, it broke my setup several times, which Debian based distros never did. But I am based to Debian anyway (but for good reason as the package management is the best / working it in data centers for decades - but let’s not go into that).
Consider a Universal Blue image instead.
Chromebook easy Fedora out of the box experience. Batteries, Bells and Whistles included.
Easy peasy rollbacks and upgrades.
No more needing to manually add RPM Fusion just to get working hardware acceleration for Media in Firefox or to install Steam. Or extra steps for Nvidia drivers.
I started on Fedora KDE 32 eventually migrated to Fedora Kinoite 38 and have been a happy Bazzite enjoyer ever since. 🎮🐧🥹
Baked in #Distrobox, #Homebrew and #Bazzar Make installing and exporting
.rpmor.debfiles painless. Integrated Homebrew and Flatpak installers for installing apps.And super useful and convenient #ujust commands you won’t find on Fedora.
Can even Fork/Make your own Image, or checkout some Community images.
George made a Project Bluefin LTS image. Or you can also be more bleeding edge with
testingbranches.Developer Experience images are also available.
💯 this.
I’ve tried Fedora multiple times and to be honest I’ve always found it to be a pain in the ass. The out of the box experience is also severely lacking for the average user who just wants a modern operating system with all the apps and codecs pre installed and ready to go.
These days, any laptop or desktop machine in my house gets Bluefin, while gaming/media devices get Bazzite.
You may find that some multimedia format doesn’t play properly out of the box. If you’re into pirated movies, you should know that HEVC (H265) as well as EAC3 are affected.
There are workarounds, but would need some manual steps.
Better in what way? What are you unsatisfied with?
I use KDE on Debian and I have zero complaints.
The main things I don’t like are when random stuff is broken.
This doesn’t happen that much on my Kubuntu laptop, but it did happen on Ubuntu Studio, which had a combination of Wayland and NVIDIA drivers.
In my upcoming project I plan to use the KDE big screen interface, so I would prefer to get the most up-to-date and most tested packages, so unfortunately that leaves out Debian.
Most up-to-date and most tested are opposites.
Exactly. That’s why I’m not using Debian in this situation. I’m thinking that fedora will strike a better balance for what I’m trying to achieve.
I don’t want the most bleeding edge KDE neon rolling release distribution because that’s hardly tested at all.
Why would KDE work better on Fedora than any other distro?
I saw this in a video comparing Linux distros, I assume that reason is that KDE developers might work more closely with fedora developers to get their updated packages in the repositories and get them tested before the releases are made. And what I’ve heard, Ubuntu does that more closely with GNOME and fedora does that more closely with KDE, but I don’t really know anything.
I have Fedora KDE on a few mini-pc’s as well as a Framework 13 laptop, I love it. I used to use various Debian-based distros for many years before this as well.
I love Fedora’s up-to-date packages and kernel. It’s not quite a rolling release like Arch but it’s far better than the older than dirt Debian stuff. Yes, I know why Debian is the way it is, but I have discovered that I like being more current than that these days.
There is no LTS release, Fedora aims for two major releases a year. It’s pretty seamless since underlying packages and kernel are already current.
Give it a whirl, you will enjoy it :)
as others have said KDE is going to work the same on Fedora as it does on your current Kubuntu system. You may be thinking “oh Fedora KDE, it must be really good on that” no that’s just how Fedora does things. I mean they have Fedora Sway and it doesn’t mean that Sway is superior on THAT version of Fedora. it just how they roll with their distro. Like say you install CachyOS as an example and during installation it presents you the option to install pretty much EVERY DE and WM in existence. Feodra simply doesn’t give you that option during install, you need to figure out which one you want to use before downloading the specific ISO for it.
So is it a better experince? it’s the same experience honestly.
I hear what you’re saying, it’s just that I’ve heard different: that kde Fedora gets a lot of testing, and up-to-date packages earlier than kubuntu. Those sound like good reasons to try it out.
It uses DNF which has its own set of features compared to APT. In general I think DNF is much better although it does have more overhead.
You also could look into Fedora Atomic https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/kinoite/
Atomic desktops use overlays instead of packages which means you get a much cleaner system at the expense of some flexibility.
You might have to learn about working the SELinux, since Fedora uses it. There are some things, like enabling custom systemd units, that require steps that aren’t needed on Debian to comply with the extra security settings.
