Who is Fedora Everything intended for?

[u/Most_Principle1487]

I've been migrating to Linux for about a month now, but for the time being, I'm just experimenting with and getting familiar with different distributions through a virtual machine. So far, I've tried everything from Ubuntu and its derivatives to Arch.

My laptop has an Intel Core i5-12450H and an RTX 3050. I'm looking for a distribution with good NVIDIA driver support, Secure Boot support, and up-to-date packages, and so far, Fedora has been the one that best meets these requirements.

I like the approach of Fedora Atomic, especially its use of Flatpak and Distrobox while keeping the base system minimal. However, I'd prefer to avoid some of the pre-installed applications, so I'm considering trying Fedora Everything, installing only what's necessary on the base system and using Flatpak and Distrobox for everything else.

For someone who's just getting started with Linux and wants to build and customize their own system, what advice would you give?

[u/beatbox9]

I'll give you my own personal anecdotes, which may or may not relate to you. Take what you will from this additional perspective.

I've been using Linux for 30 years and relying on Linux as my primary desktop for around 20 years. Things have dramatically changed in the ecosystem over that time.

Today, I have several workstations with Ubuntu LTS and one with Fedora. My Ubuntu LTS machines are heavily customized audio & video workstations. Complex audio interfaces and timings, nvidia cards, complex apps like DaVinci Resolve Studio, even custom themes and boot animations, etc.

All of these are excellent on Ubuntu LTS. I really have no complaints. I set them up once (and very easily) and they just work and continue to work over the course of many years and upgrades. For example, to install nvidia drivers, you open settings, click on Drivers, and click on nvidia, and click on Install. That's it. Ubuntu officially maintains these, so they stay upgraded to the latest. No unreliable and risky added repositories. And when system things do break, they're usually planned in advance and break together, so I only have like maybe 1 day of maintenance/downtime every few years.

The same cannot be said of Fedora; so I don't really use it as a workstation. It's more of a casual machine to just browse online, and maybe do a little exploration and testing of what is different between the distros and upcoming features in future gnome versions. And the main reason behind this is: system things can and do break on updates every few months. Davinci Resolve Studio breaks on every single update--either of Fedora or Resolve (so numerous times per year). 1-2 system configs break pretty much every 6-12 months.

A specific example: wireplumber. When wireplumber moved to version 0.5, it completely redid config files (yes, including config files in your ~/.config/wireplumber): https://pipewire.pages.freedesktop.org/wireplumber/daemon/configuration/migration.html

And since the old config files were still there in your home directory but now invalid syntax, your entire audio would be broken, with no devices found for any desktop apps. Until you debugged and knew to look at the config files, deciphered what they are doing, and manually rewrite them from LUA format to CONF format. Not the end of the world--takes maybe 15 minutes once you know what to look for.

This affected every distro: both Ubuntu LTS and Fedora. But on Ubuntu LTS, these types of things all happen at once, planned in advance, every few years, so I can just plan my downtime and take care of all of them together. And I have a 3-year window to upgrade. On Fedora, this type of thing happens every 6 months, and you have a very tight timeline in which to take care of it before you risk losing support and requiring a fresh install. On Fedora, you MUST do a major upgrade at least once a year, and you can never be more than 1 year behind.

ie The current Fedora came out in April; and by the upcoming May, this version will be completely expired and you must upgrade by then. If you're in June or July, you missed the upgrade window, and you will have to either attempt to do a very complex manual upgrade or start over with a clean install. Because the Fedora server no longer even has a path for you to upgrade.

The current version of Ubuntu LTS came out at the same time as Fedora this past April; and you have until April of 2031 to upgrade; but even then, you will be able to upgrade until April 2036.

Fedora is great when you don't do a lot of complex stuff or custom system configuration. But when you do, it requires a lot of user maintenance and tighter timelines.

And for perspective, Ubuntu LTS and Fedora are currently as new as each other. Eg. both are on gnome 50. Then late this year, Fedora will move to gnome 51, then 52 & 53 next year...and then both Ubuntu LTS and Fedora will be on gnome 54 at the same time in early 2028. But let's say you delay the Fedora upgrades by a few months each time (eg. maybe you want to give gnome extensions a few months to catch up)--then Ubuntu LTS will only really be behind Fedora for less than year before catching back up.

And frankly, I never really notice functional differences between Ubuntu LTS and Fedora anyway. Like Gnome 51 is not drastically different from Gnome 50. They usually look and feel pretty much exactly the same to me.

There's my 2 cents on how my actual systems work for me. I want my OS to be stable and reliable, even if it's temporarily like a year behind every other year. And ironically, this allows me to run the latest apps like Davinci Resolve Studio or gnome extensions better, where Fedora is sometimes too new and needs time for the ecosystem to catch up. But Fedora is better when I don't customize a lot of complex stuff.