Anyone using Fedora 40 as a secondary OS? My MacMini will always have EndeavourOS as my daily driver. But my laptop has been a test bed of sorts for various Linux distros after testing on a VM. Tried Solus recently and liked it. May go back to it in the future. Currently I’m using Fedora 40, Gnome 46. Went outside my KDE comfort zone. I even made a personal post-install routine. I’m REALLY liking Fedora now. I hadn’t used Fedora for probably around 5 years or so.
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I have been using Fedora for the last few years. I think I picked it up again somewhere between 32 and 34.
I have a love/hate relationship with it. I really liked it at first but over time I have become somewhat disenfranchised with it. There are still many things I like about it but there are also a growing web of frustrations for my specific use case.
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Everyone’s use case is different, for sure. In my specific user case, I’ve found no frustrations… yet. It’s been a few weeks, and so far, all is well. It took a short while to reacquaint myself with dnf and among the first things I did was enable RPM Fusion. But I’m quite happy so far with Fedora 40.
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I had Fedora 39 and later Fedora 40 installed alongside Windows 11 when I was still using it. Secureboot was still very important to me at the time and it worked with Fedora without any major adjustments.
But it was almost only used for test VMs of Windows 11 (Insider Canary/Dev/Beta/RP) and 4 Linux VMs (to test Linux distros). I had used Virtualbox there. Other than that, I only did a little browsing on the internet and some office stuff. So nothing earth-shattering.
It was okay for 7-8 months until I replaced both operating systems with EndeavourOS. That means I had no crashes or any problems with Fedora. Oh and I had used Xfce.
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I’m so far removed from Windows I’d get confused nowadays. I use Win 11 at work, only because I have no choice. I haven’t had Windows on a computer or laptop at home for at least a decade.
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It would have been nice if I had made the leap much earlier. I was always a bit scared of it and kept putting it off. Until Microsoft/Windows became too much for me.
Now I’m kind of sad about it, but at least I made the jump before Copilot/Recall. Now I’m just waiting for the Microsoft account to finally be closed.
Edit: Sry for the german before the edit. 
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I’ve been using Fedora as my primary for a short while, and I’m also having a love/hate relationship with it like @dalto expressed, most probably for different reasons though (mine I wouldn’t say is use-case dependent, though I’m not sure what exactly dalto meant by that anyway)
Here are my thoughts, in no specific order.
Those refer to Fedora as a Project in general, not just as a Desktop:
Things I like:
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It (mostly) does just work.
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Their procedures are very well structured, almost corporate, which can mean ideas and changes get more thought through and ironed out before hitting the repos.
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Considering #1 and #2, I don’t really miss the bleeding edge of Arch-based distros
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Their community feels like the embodiment of FOSS collaboration. So many talented and knowledgeable individuals that actively contribute upstream and interact with each other. And of course a bunch of technical discussions, that are directly relevant with the project, it’s workings, its plans, etc if you’re into that.
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dnfhas a couple of quirks, but is generally very pleasant to work with.
Things I dislike (some of them a lot):
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At times, RedHat IS 100% trying to push the envelope (eg: this abomination )
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(This is probably my biggest grudge) Their documentation is nowhere near the experience an Arch Linux user might be accustomed to. Furthermore, ask for help regarding the more in-depth information that is missing and you’ll realize that one or more of the following is true:
- Some docs are outdated (without indication), or incomplete
- Some docs are straight up wrong
- Sometimes, literally noone appears to know how X or Y “documented” tool actually works. The tool and its docs where inherited and abandoned at their state some time in the past, and everyone just uses the tiniest subset of it that they actually kinda-sorta manage to use without trouble (because for anything troubling, troubleshooting is impossible).
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They are trying to hit some sort of Number Of Platforms world record… So many different places and domains for discussions/issues/bugs/builds/chats/meetings/mirrors/stats. I can absolutely guarantee that a newcomer will be intimidated with trying to keep informed.
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Their procedures are very well structured, almost corporate… While I listed that same thing as a benefit, it also means that if something DOES pass the initial screening, a bug with the easiest fix can go months because noone wants to touch it. And when someone does eventually touch it, it has to pass through review processes, build processes, deployment processes, etc etc…
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Mirror configuration is EXTREMELY limited (almost non-existent), and the distro’s attitude towards it is very much “F*** you, we know better than you”.
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I’m using the KDE Fedora Asahi Remix on my Mac Mini M2 Pro, and it’s a great experience, minus the lack of ARM support for many applications.
For example, there’s no Bitwarden application which hinders the workflow, so for now I have to use the browser extension for passwords.
Hi Dalto,
Out of curiousity … are you using Gnome on Fedora?
What usecases have you found which don’t work for you?
Originally I was considering Fedora for my daily driver (and EndeavourOS is my Development machine). In the back of my mind maybe an immutable like NixOS is more suitable for a daily driver. I’m in a wait and see mode.
brilliant, all it mirrored my experience more or less.
allow me to introduce three more:
5. They send too many mixed messages about the “outside” repos (copr +): we bless it, we disavow it, use with caution, use with abandon. I used it but I never felt sure how the mothership felt about it.
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Uncomfortable amount of ports open after install for a Linux Distro. I had to cement most of these up since defaults are a tad relaxed for me.
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It was hard for me to find a flagship experience or identity. Is it Gnome? Spins are a mixed bag. Budgie really lacks compared to Solus. But the immutable was slick. Stick with their officials imho. Cinnamon a lovely experience.
Solid. hard to break. Dependable.
All that said…all distros have a tension of outstanding and weird. And all users subjective 
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Been on Fedora for just about everything for the last 8 years or so. Flawless upgrades fro the most part from version to version. Completely stable, commercial rpm’s available, just about any application I could want etc. Love it. Currently running Silverblue on my laptop, Workstation on my gaming rig, Server on my server. All of them solid.
Yeah that is Workstation for you. Server is the exact opposite. The assumption is you are installing while in a trusted environment and if things are open you will be able to verify that the services you want are available, working, properly configured…then you start locking down the ports and if something breaks you know what did it. Rinse and repeat until you are satisfied. Server comes with just about everything closed.
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I am using KDE but my struggles are mostly DE agnostic. I have also used Workstation(gnome) though.
I don’t want to list out my issues without first acknowledging the things I do like:
- The 6 month release cycle with an additional 7 months of support is a really nice release cadence. You can update every 6 months at any offset you want. If you want bleeding edge, update right after release. If you want to wait until all the bugs are ironed out, update 2 months after release. Also, if you hate updates, you can skip every other version.
- Speaking of version upgrades, they work quite well. I don’t think I have had any significant problems. There was one upgrade a few years ago that needed a little massaging but that is about it.
- Fedora is a fixed release distro but they get pretty close to the bleeding edge at release time. This is a nice balance. You don’t have to worry about the challenges with rolling and libraries but you also aren’t using ancient software.
dnfhas some really nice features. History, rollbacks, transactions, swap, etc.- Fedora has a nice pace with kernel updates. They roll out quickly but usually get a bit more time and testing than they do on Arch.
My challenges are:
- It isn’t very friendly to non-free software. I use some commercial software and I have to jump through hoops to keep it working on Fedora.
- They take an unbelievably conservative approach to software patents which means that you will need to go outside their repo to get not only basic common codecs but software compiled with support for those codecs.
- Because of the above two points, most people end up needing RPM fusion. However, if you use a lot of stuff from there, you will start noticing update issues and conflicts because of timing discrepancies between the updates on RPM Fusion and the updates in the Fedora repos.
- I need access to an LTS kernel since Fedora moves fairly fast with kernel updates. However, this isn’t readily available. You either need to build or maintain it yourself or get it from a COPR.
- Given the software I use, I need to add a ton of 3rd party repos to Fedora and still need flatpaks.
- Contributing to Fedora is…complicated. They have a lot of bureaucracy to go through with their formal governance processes.
- The documentation is in a perpetually poor state.
- The security stance of Fedora is bizarre and inconsistent. Selinux is enabled out of the box but leave the firewall almost wide open. They claim to be secure but also favor usability over security in many cases.
- The privacy stance of Fedora is questionable. They have some telemetry enabled by default. Most of it isn’t what I would call intrusive but I concerned with how they are trending.
- The aggressive removal of the X11 session is problematic for me. I have some use cases that aren’t ideal with Wayland yet.
That being said, I do like Fedora. I am using both Server and the KDE desktop spin. I likely will stop using it as a desktop soon though.
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That is pretty strange honestly. They have gone out of their way to identify Fedora Workstation(gnome) as the flagship desktop experience. It is the only one on the main download page.
That is interesting since I am pretty sure that members of the budgie team maintain the budgie spin.
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yes, of course they do. but different DEs on different distros always have differences. I thought Endeavour’s integration was better than Fedora’s. I thought Ubuntu’s was over the top. Is that all in my head?
A yes or no wouldn’t surprise me at this point so I will leave it rhetorical
I had guessed it right in my reply then. I tried half their offerings. So easy to lose track.
edit: actually not in my head. Budgie traditionally has budgie desktop settings and budgie system settings. I’ve seen other distros abolish the system settings in favor of their own, but retain the desktop settings. Little things.
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Yeah, those are fair.
Copr I haven’t touched personally, neither would I ever exactly for the reasons you are describing…
The messaging is just too vague and confusing, I can’t even understand who is responsible for what, if there is review/screening at all, if it is endorsed or not, etc.
The biggest issue with software in my opinion, is the religious adherence to patents.
People love to suggest that Fedora is user/newbie-friendly, but in reality not even browsing works because of this stupidity…
RPMFusion I’ve strictly whitelisted the bare minimum packages I need for codecs.
As for identity, I think the messaging is extremely clear that Gnome (Workstation) is the flagship.
What I think you are describing in terms of the confusing status of the rest of DEs, is partly the effect of RedHat and the Gnome zealots integrated in RH’s (and, by extension, Fedora’s) workforce/workflow. They build walls around anyone who tries to improve the status of other environments to equate them with Workstation.
On that last point, in my personal subjective opinion/experience, you can just follow anything and everything Neal Gompa touches and you’ll find pure gold. I’m not sure how much of it is causal vs simply correlational, but wherever he is active I see things I like.
P.S:
Also a couple of things I forgot to mention on my original post (maybe I’ll edit to add them):
dnf has a couple of little quirks, but has been a pleasure to work with in general.
If only the distro didn’t have that “I know better than you” attitude when it comes to mirror configuration…
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I freshly installed Fedora-Jam_KDE - Edition (version 40), that’s fedora with preinstalled and -configured programs for music. After the installation, the updater told me on first boot to update 6.1GB, and at the second boot the installation took >30minutes. But now everything works, there are no flatpaks installed. I mean flatpaks were installed in a previous version of fedora, maybe 37/38 with GNOME-desktop, so it could just be the Jam-KDE-configuration which has no flatpaks.
For my printer (Canon MG 3550) the system asked which driver to choose (CUPS+ Gutenprint or CUPS+ Gutenprint Simpliefied), I installed both. The scanner just works, LibreOffice is fine.
My only problem is, like in previos version before, sometimes the system installs software without a sudo password or root privileges:
friedrich@crashieAnaconda:~$ sensors
bash: sensors: Befehl nicht gefunden...
Soll das Paket »lm_sensors« installiert werden, welches den Befehl »sensors« bereitstellt? [N/y] y
* Warten in Warteschlange...
Die folgenden Pakete müssen installiert werden:
lm_sensors-3.6.0-18.fc40.x86_64 Hardware monitoring tools
Mit Änderungen fortfahren? [N/y] y
* Warten in Warteschlange...
* Warten auf Legitimation...
* Warten in Warteschlange...
* Pakete werden heruntergeladen...
* Daten werden abgefragt...
* Änderungen werden getestet...
* Pakete werden installiert...
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0: +48.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0: +47.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1: +48.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
radeon-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1: N/A (crit = +120.0°C, hyst = +90.0°C)
acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1: +51.0°C
friedrich@crashieAnaconda:~$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0: +48.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0: +45.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1: +49.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
radeon-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1: N/A (crit = +120.0°C, hyst = +90.0°C)
acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1: +51.0°C
friedrich@crashieAnaconda:~$
This behaviour is only when the system says “hey, would you like to install this…?”, it does not happen when I type “htop” for example:
friedrich@crashieAnaconda:~$ htop
bash: htop: Befehl nicht gefunden...
Ein ähnlicher Befehl lautet: 'top'
friedrich@crashieAnaconda:~$
So, I don’t want to save any passwords or online-accounts at my fedora installation. Maybe the system is too convenience for me.
I have been using Fedora pretty much since 2003 when Red Hat became RHEL.All in all it has been a pretty good system.The last few years it seems to have gotten a lot better.For me rpmfusion is the first thing i make sure is enabled if I have to reinstall.One thing I like is most of the developers working on Fedora also work for RHEL.On the downside and maybe it is just me but it seems RHEL/IBM is slowly creeping in dictating what Fedora can and can not do.As i have gotten older I do not like to reinstall and change systems like I did several years ago.I do really like EOS and have been using it as a guest in virtualbox for several years now with very few issues.My Fedora system is almost 5 years old now so I really want to build another system without nvidia and install EOS as it is a very good and fast system.I will say that Fedora 40 with KDE seems to be very stable so it seems they put a lot of work into it this time.
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I’ve been giving serious consideration to switching. Nobara just worked right out of the gate but their community rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know how much secret sauce they put into it over baseline Fedora. My experiences with Ubuntu variants have been not great. Mint was the only one I liked but it’s on a really old version of the kernel. Like my laptop doesn’t work because its so old and lacks drivers. And when I use a modern kernel, it kernel panics on boot.
Nothing against EOS, been liking it. But I did the Plasma upgrade and it would no longer boot into DE. Reinstalled, 2 days later same thing. I’m sure there’s a way to fix other than reinstall but its easy and I have a set routine. I think it has something to do with HDR. But yeah, so now I just don’t upgrade as soon as something is available, planned on maybe once a month. Which got me debating, well if I’m not going to be bleeding edge, why be on Arch? Right now I got dev projects I need to get done and futzing around with an upgrade gone sideways isn’t in my want-to-do list.
Quite a lot. They list it all out on their page.
Be warned, this can be a terrible idea…
And especially after the xz fiasco I’d advice against it.
Unless you actively follow CVEs and run updates to patch them timely on an exception (to your schedule) basis.