Fedora is now the default Linux recommendation, and Ubuntu did this to itself

https://www.xda-developers.com/fedora-becoming-default-linux-recommendation-ubuntu-fault/

by bundie • 3 months ago

33 63 3 months ago

andsoitis• 3 months ago

Recommended by whom?

d3Xt3r6• 3 months ago

Recommended by João Carrasqueira, a "Lead Windows Editor" at XDA[1], who "has been covering the tech world for over 7 years, with a heavy focus on laptops and the Windows ecosystem".

Clearly an expert on Linux distros, as you can see.

[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/author/joao-xda/

grim_io5• 3 months ago

XDA is a normie consumer site, beware conflating consumer with professional recommendations.

ChocolateGod5• 3 months ago

A few of the recent XDA posts about Linux are shitting on game developers for not supporting anti-cheat on Linux, claiming it's a simple switch and they're bad for not doing it.

So not an expert on Linux by any means.

PaulKeeble• 3 months ago

Ubuntu has fallen out of favour with quite a lot of Linux recommender sites and reviewers and its mainly about flatpak and Gnome, but also gaming support by default. Other Linux distributions do things better now for the influx of gamers to Linux and with SteamOS being on Arch a lot of Arch deriatives are becoming increasingly popular. I don't think its Fedora picking up users, its Cachyos and Bazzite.

slau• 3 months ago

Isn’t Bazzite based on Fedora?

esperent• 3 months ago

What are the specific issues with gaming that you're claiming Ubuntu has?

I've been using Ubuntu for a few months, and I have complaints - lots of them. But gaming isn't one. I just installed the apps I needed and they worked.

ChocolateGod5• 3 months ago

Linux distributions shouldn't ship with Steam installed and imho bundling it makes a bad precedent.

Steam should be easy to install (whether from a store like Flathub) instead.

chocochunks2• 3 months ago

Why? With Bazzite and similar that's kind of the whole point of them existing. Just installing Steam from Flathub or the repo is not going to get the same level of integration (gaming mode, etc.). Bazzite works really well on my PC handheld and I don't think a generic distro with Steam added after the fact would be the same. Id you want a distro without Steam bundled there are lots of those.

lccerina• 3 months ago

It's a quid pro quo from Valve. They are investing profusely in Linux ecosystems, and the distro-devs are following that. Meanwhile Epic Games still lacks a first-party app on linux, and users need to pass from Lutris, Heroic etc...

hollerith2• 2 months ago

I don't think its Fedora picking up users, its Cachyos and Bazzite.

OK, but Bazzite is derived from Fedora (by way of the Fedora Atomic Desktops project and the Universal Blue project).

CodesInChaos• 3 months ago

How well does Fedora handle proprietary software nowadays? For example the Nvidia driver, Steam, Rider or video codecs. I negatively remember their patent paranoia regarding elliptic curve cryptography.

My favourite feature of Manjaro (and presumably Arch) is how easily I can install almost any software from a single package manager (which supports the official repos, flatpak and AUR). While on Mint I had to mess with custom package sources, or install individual vendor provided packages which lacked auto-update.

mono442• 3 months ago

there's a third party repo called rpmfusion for that

d3Xt3r6• 3 months ago

There's still a bit of manual work involved to install the codecs (and proprietary drivers if you need em), which is why I would never recommend vanilla Fedora to a newbie - but Fedora derivatives exist to address that issue.

Ultramarine[1] is one such easy-to-use derivative, and for gamers there's Nobara[2] and Bazzite[3] (an immutable distro).

[1] https://ultramarine-linux.org/

[2] https://nobaraproject.org/

[3] https://bazzite.gg/

red-iron-pine5• 3 months ago

i've never really understood what bazzite offers that stock fedora does not. like steam works out of the box just fine on plain ole fedora 41, and my AMD card is supported without issue. runs CP2077 flawlessly.

literally, steam out of the box is just adding rpmfusion repos, which you're probably gonna do anyway if you want stuff like vlc or other tools

ChocolateGod5• 3 months ago

Just use Flathub on Fedora for anything proprietary including codecs. Leave dnf/rpm for system software / updates.

Nvidia is pretty simple, you can either enable the driver via the UI or just follow the rpmfusion guide.

fduran• 3 months ago

Fedora may be becoming the default for desktops, not for servers (Debian possibly the default for servers).

nineteen9992• 3 months ago

Fedora is upstream for RHEL, which is absolutely dominant in the server space some sectors that require enterprise support.

d3Xt3r6• 3 months ago

Actually on servers RHEL is still the default (43% server OS market share), followed by Ubuntu at 34%, Debian at 16% and SuSE at 11%.

https://commandlinux.com/statistics/linux-server-market-shar...

marysol52• 3 months ago

Enterprises love RHEL because of the paid support, even if they never use it, it's "there".

mkj• 3 months ago

They're talking about billions of dollars of market share, so how does debian get a mention being free? I'm suspicious of their methodology.

At least the infographics down the bottom are obviously full of slop

roryirvine• 3 months ago

No sources cited, and the supposed author churns out multiple articles a day on Linux, gambling, and AI content strategy.

Not sure I'd put any weight whatsoever on those figures!

(and how would they even compare a commercial offering with something like Debian that doesn't even have popcon enabled by default?)

joe2006• 3 months ago

Why do you think Debian for servers only ? Did you use Debian SID or Testing as a desktop ?

9999000009992• 3 months ago

Backed by IBM/ Red Hat a US based company.

I trust the German government to have more respect for privacy rights at this point.

So I use Open Suse Tumbleweed. It’s been pretty stable , although with nvidia you have to do a bit more.

whatevaa• 3 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47318830

Suse is up for sale.

9999000009992• 3 months ago

I don’t imagine the German government will allow it to be sold to a non EU entity.

But there’s always NixOS.

red-iron-pine5• 3 months ago

well then to Arch it is

rowanG0775• 3 months ago

I still don't understand how people can run Debian/Ubuntu. Every single time I have tried my environment in the span of a few months turns into a wet ball of mud with various levels of breakages. It's honestly astounding how bad it is. Once in a while I install a newly released version and naively think "Surely this problem is now fixed". But no, it's terrible.

nineteen9992• 3 months ago

Back in the 1990's I was fond of it for the community spirit, the attention to detail, the way things "just worked" even it had a particular take on some things. Over time it felt like it became burderned with design-by-committee decisions, maintainers leaving and abandoning packages faster than they could replace them, and just a bit too political.

joe2006• 3 months ago

I have used in my life many different Linux distributions: Slackware, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian (professionally or privately). My private choice is the only one not driven by marketing: Debian.

You have three main Debian releases:

  SID (if you need to be as close as possible to upstream versions)

  Testing (the same as above but a few days after SID)

  Stable (you sacrifice the latest software versions for insane stability)

Which one did you use ?

And please don't mix Debian and Ubuntu.

Canonical is commercial company driven by profit (and CEO's bonus).

Debian is driven by community and (mostly) engineers.

rowanG0775• 3 months ago

I used Stable and SID. The reason I mixed Debian and Ubuntu is because I perceive the root of shittiness to be apt and how it can, and often does, poison your system.

marysol52• 3 months ago

I've lived on Debian since day dot, never really had an issue. Biggest gripe with Debian is that it's /too/ stable!

grim_io5• 3 months ago

If you use a Linux desktop professionally, it's only a matter of time until you hit that one GUI app that you need, that is only supported on Ubuntu.

I prefer Tumbleweed, but the sane choice remains Ubuntu.

d3Xt3r6• 3 months ago

Distrobox exists for that very reason. No need to ruin your main OS just to run one app.

grim_io5• 3 months ago

Distrobox is great for cli apps and stuff not touching mesa/drivers.

It's very awkward or unusable otherwise.

bcjdjsndon3• 3 months ago

that is only supported on Ubuntu.

So much for that Linux ecosystem compatibility, Linux apps not even compatible with other linuxes!

grim_io5• 3 months ago

It's a packaging problem.

A vendor used to the Windows ecosystem might find it natural to support only one Linux distribution.

sharperguy• 3 months ago

Both Arch and Nix solve this by making it very easy to write packages that work around the compatibility issues. When I used to use ubuntu and mint it was a lot more common to run into these types of issues.

aitchnyu• 3 months ago

For brand new hardware, Fedora gets the niggle-free experience faster than Ubuntu. 5K screens are treated as two separate devices "under the hood", many Ubuntu software didnt honor the abstraction, hence the monitor layout, notifications, taskbar etc were treating each half as a full monitor.

bcjdjsndon3• 3 months ago

Are they both still a nightmare to setup and/or use?

eowln• 3 months ago

I doubt Canonical cares much about the desktop segment, at least the segment that doesn't pay. They seem to be focusing on servers. Or at least that's what it seems to me.

solarkraft• 3 months ago

There's also the fact that Ubuntu ships with the GNOME desktop environment, and really only GNOME.

This is a feature. Standardization is what makes „Works on Ubuntu“ a stable target.

I also dislike Snap and the various other Ubuntu anti-features, which is why I recommend Pop OS - at least I did when it was a light weight Ubuntu fork, it may not be anymore.

This is just a rando‘s opinion, so it may not be based on that, but my intuition from a few years ago is that Debian/Ubuntu still has a reliable lead in the availability of software packages, especially less popular ones: You’ll almost never find something that doesn’t work on Ubuntu, for other distros this happens sometimes.

Has this changed? Maybe with the widespread adoption of Flatpak this is not much of an issue for consumer apps anymore?

red-iron-pine5• 3 months ago

yeah PopOS has been getting kind of weird lately

aarond0623• 3 months ago

Also kind of a weird complaint given how tied to Gnome Fedora is. Yes there are other spins but Gnome is the default DE.

7bit• 3 months ago

Who cares about that random opinion.

m-p-3• 3 months ago

I do appreciate what Fedora does, particularly on the subject of immutability.

OStree and Bootc are great mecanisms that are based on existing concepts (git and OCI containers). IMO that is a great step towards stability and security.

Fedora is now the default Linux recommendation, and Ubuntu did this to itself

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