5 Things Fedora Could Do Better

[@TheLinuxCast]

I wasn't planning on another Fedora video so soon, but my plans for the video today changed. File complaints below or follow me on Mastodon: fosstodon.org/@thelinuxcast

[@vladimir_fomin90]

for me linux mint cinnamon better, everything works out of the box, no dancing with a tambourine

[@GambiaTech]

in fedora 39, dnf5 will be written in C++ and it will be incredibly fast Edit: Thanks for 23 likes :D

[@sharkuel]

Thought that was planned for 38, actually.

[@whomperbg]

@@sharkuel The target was 38 but it looks like the new target is 39

[@jimmyrichards5595]

What’s it written in at the present?

[@GambiaTech]

@@jimmyrichards5595 Python

[@alternatuber6698]

@@whomperbg Then when 39 arrives plans can change to 40 Lol.

[@ricardog.s2505]

Every Fedora user knows that DNF obviously means "Definitely Not Fast"

[@TheLinuxCast]

Truth

[@themroc8231]

The thing that annoys me the most with dnf is that when you do a search it does not tell which applications are installed locally and which are not. It's not that big a deal but it's something that should be really easy to implement and the fact that they haven't done it makes it look like they don't care. Hyprland is supported in the OpenSuse repos. If you just want to give a spin to play with it might be the easiest non-Arch way to do it .

[@TheLinuxCast]

I also wish it gave you the versions in dnf search, that'd be awesome.

[@themroc8231]

@@TheLinuxCast Like, how long have they been working on DNF, a decade? They couldn't find the time to implement that? REL and Fedora are big distros, and these are very basic, simple and obvious functionalities that everybody else has been able to provide for years now..

[@HappyCupsInc]

I just found this out, pretty dumb since I’m used to pacman. Dnfdragora is what you gotta use I guess

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@HappyCupsInc I don't know what that is. But I'll go Google

[@TheChadWork2001]

Let's say you want to search for zsh and set off it is installed or not. Type: dnf search zsh && dnf list installed | grep -i zsh That would show zsh search results and show it by itself in red text if it is installed.

[@ArniesTech]

Fedora is indeed a fantastic distro. To me as a German 🇩🇪 OpenSUSE takes the same spot 💪😁

[@JTCPingas]

openSUS

[@xperience-evolution]

openSUSE is way better than Fedora.

[@folksurvival]

@@xperience-evolution Why?

[@xperience-evolution]

@@folksurvival Out of the box way better performance (battery especially). Out of the box Snapper. Easy to role backe (within 2 Minutes). Not a test environment for SUSE enterprise while Fedora is just that for RHEL. Package manager has more Programs. Easy to configure everything with Yast. It is more up to date and still more stable. Newer Kernels and newer DE Versions.

[@xperience-evolution]

@@folksurvival oh and not updates during boot like Windows.

[@louparker1187]

First, thank you for the honesty and the variety of your podcasts. Simply refreshing and informative. If I can add my own request of the linux community. I used windows for years and finally saw the light about ten or more years ago because windows was a money pit for a tweaker. Anyway, found Manjaro KDE and was a happy user for years. Switched to Gnome last year going from Fedora to PopOS! It seems more often the helpful blogs are written for Deb and not RPM or Arch. Settled on PopOS! If the linux community could concentrate on the different software drivers that are made specifically to take advantage of components of motherboards, GPUs, CPUs and lighting. Just upgraded my MB, CPU and case and I can't get the lighting, MB features etc working the way I want them even though I am using some opensource apps. WIN11 is a POSoftware, but can coordinate stuff better. PopOS! works the best with my stuff. Thanks for everything.

[@ahafeezs]

Perhaps it's a good video idea comparing fedora vs opensuse tumbleweed.

[@TheLinuxCast]

It's already in the works.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

I'm glad they're apparently fixing the annoying settings with systemd starting up and shutting down non critical processes where it takes up to two minutes.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

I basically agree with everything here. Thankfully unfiltered flathub is in F38 and DNF5 (the fast package manager rewrite) will be in F38 as an option and in F39 as the default. All of this is being addressed, basically. :)

[@AhmedFaisal13]

Let me tell you about something that Fedora did great for me just yesterday. I'm a Star Trek Fleet Commander player with accessibility issues as I say always. So I play it on Windo$e and use the sec. monitor as a magnifier. But strangely with AMD drivers instead, the second monitor keep flashing like crazy. So I said: why not Fedora? I downloaded the launcher and ran it with Wine.. Flawless victory! Worked like charm, even the funny scroll mouse zooming is no more! The shadows looks little poor when it set to very high, but this is an open source driver issue of course. But I'm a happy person now 😍

[@dan79600]

The worst thing about Fedora is dnfdragora. It’s the Gui dnf package manager included in all the Fedora spins. It’s so slow and awful I can’t believe anyone uses it.

[@AyaWetts]

yeah... I don't use any spin because of that. I get normal Gnome Fedora, then if I want another Desktop, I install it too and keep Gnome on there. Its a much better experience...

[@learningbird9940]

I agree with most of what you said about Fedora. I would add another rant that is many advances Fedora pushes are seen only in the Gnome (Workstation) version and may take 2, 3 or more versions to go to the spins and labs derivatives.

[@databug]

for me a big reason for me not to switch to Fedora is software availability or discovery. I have a list of software that is either not in their repos or not on flathub. The list has about 10-15 packages on it. These packages are all available on Arch based distros often even in the main repos. I get why they keep proprietary stuff out of their main repos but the non free repos should be a little fuller with the common software.

[@johnmekansi1230]

Do you mind mentioning some of them?

[@OcteractSG]

The speed of zypper and dnf depends partly on location. In the part of Oregon where I live, for example, dnf is the slower package manager. Anyway, updating one’s system on Fedora is still far better than on Windows. Yes, both often require a reboot, but I’m never forced into it with Fedora.

[@milohoffman274]

add fastestmirror=true to /etc/dnf/dnf.conf and it will automatically calculate the closest mirror.

[@stephenwilson0386]

Forced reboots are one of the main issues I have with Windows, apart from the privacy issues and feeling like I'm the product being sold. I had a Windows 10 install that had issues with some update it kept trying to install, it would fail over and over and have to revert the changes. Finally I sat down at my computer one day and Windows wouldn't boot at all and didn't show up in my BIOS boot menu. Thankfully I had a Linux install and could copy my files and reinstall, but that sort of thing where Windows literally nukes itself because it's so determined to update and reboot drives me insane. These days I keep it around for a couple of games and working in Excel, otherwise Linux covers all of my needs.

[@YrmiZ]

Point 3 I agree. I think they should promote Spins equally and not like now when they almost hidden.

[@AyaWetts]

As to nvidia and RPM Fusion... when I installed normal Gnome Fedora last, it was very easy. During install it asked me if I wanted access to non-free repositories (it needs better explanation of what that means though. I think most people would hit NO as they think that means they have to pay money)... I hit yes, and then when on the Desktop the first time, I opened Gnome Software Manager, and searched Nvidia, and saw the driver and clicked install and everything was great. When I tried the KDE Spin though, none of this was given to me and the software store didn't see it and I had to google things on how to install... it was much easier with Gnome. They should really work to have very similar experiences with spins.

[@krishna-tiwari1]

Not just the settings of dnf but also the dependency management is bad as far as I have used. It installs all sorts things when one tries installing packages. For an example I was installing i3, it was pulling many perl things upon further inspection it was installing urxvt and those perl things were for urxvt. Other is xorg xserver package is dependent upon feh. I don't know if it annoys anyone else than me.

[@HappyCupsInc]

I don’t think fedora really needs to be beginner friendly… they don’t have to do it all. Leave that to other projects like ultramarine and nobara, they’ll probably do it better anyway since that’s their raison d’être.

[@carlandersen7096]

Hi great videos you make. I miss you trying out Garuda Linux. Not the blotted Garuda KDE Dr460nized. But e.g. Garuda MATE. I myself have made some videos about Garuda, but Danish is not as widespread as English. And I'm not good at English

[@TheMetaldudeX]

I like fedora but I think a lot of the small issues are resolved out of the box with nobara.

[@arxaaron]

Nice fair handed and rant free observations. Just working my way back into full on Linux as I escape from Apple's "M" weaponized walled garden, so even specialized distro evaluations like this are helpful.

[@deno1122]

I might have to run it again

[@denizkendirci]

i actually like pacman syntax better, i don't have to type full words "-S" is much more shorter than "install"

[@jheitz223]

Is DNF faster than YUM?

[@gerbenwelter9197]

Thank you for making this video. Fedora is indeed an excellent distribution but not perfect but some of the points you raise are just off the mark. Fedora doesn't include propietary software because they are Open Source purists (they do care about FOSS a lot). Fedora is bound by Red Hat's legal department. As a distribution Fedora can't include propietary software on their install media or in their official repositories. During or after installation you can opt to install propietary software (Nvidia, RPM Fusion, etc) to get a better out of the box experience but the packages will come from other sources. Also Fedora had to remove the codecs from their Mesa packages because otherwise they would leave themselves open to litigation by patent holders. Being part of Red Hat makes them a big target. DNF might be slower than other package managers but I don't regularly compare speeds and for me it's fast enough. Speed depends on hardware, internet connection and mirror speed so YMMV. I know DNF doesn't rebuild initramfs multiple times during an upgrade like APT sometimes does. Finally it's not fair to harp on COPR because some (by your own admission) esoteric packages are not available. COPR is a public package build system that enables users to package and provide software as a repository that is not present in other repositories. If no one puts in the time to package software (which might have their own build challenges) you won't find it. For packages that do exist in COPR there is no quality control. It's just a public build service which happens to also serves as a public repository with some search functionality.

[@raderator]

I like watching these reviews cuz it reminds me how happy I am with Zorin Core.

[@joshua_lee732]

IMO Fedora should stick to Libre software. There's no other distro with the userbase Fedora has that promotes open source. And really setting up rpmfusion isn't really that hard.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Discover can be a hard thing for new users.

[@joshua_lee732]

@TheLinuxCast yeah but should Fedora have a button on their website that says "GET YOUR PROPRIETARY STUFF HERE!" That's the question.

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@joshua_lee732 No, but a tool that leads to the Nvidia drivers wouldn't be out of the question. Especially now that Nvidia works better with Wayland than ever before, more Nvidia users will be trying Fedora out.

[@themroc8231]

I think Debian must have a userbase comparable with Fedora's, possibly even superior.

[@folksurvival]

Debian.

[@OmarSuarez81]

Nice video ! 👍

[@jaimeh9903]

Love your videos. Can you tell how you make your yt video thumbnails?

[@TheLinuxCast]

I just used gimp. Nothing special.

[@deultima]

I never liked Fedora until I started using GloriousEggroll's version called Nebora. It's basically a modified version to make it more user-friendly and optimise gaming performance. You get all the 3rd party & proprietary packages not normally included with Fedora like WINE dependencies, codecs & NVIDIA drivers. Flatpak and its repository are enabled by default along with the RPMFusion repos. You also get a kernel with select zen patches and a bunch of other gaming-oriented fixes. It's great, but I still love my Arch. I run EndeavourOS on my laptop because, I love my Arch & AUR and, unfortunately my laptop doesn't like Fedora/Nobara 37.

[@donpeer4477]

Have you checked out the Fedora Games spin that's in Fedora Labs?

[@deultima]

@@donpeer4477 No, not yet. I will have to check it out.

[@plutorocks1]

Fedora lacks a GUI configuration tool like Yas2 of openSUSE. This tool is incredibly useful and esp in an enterprise environment.

[@gbknight432]

Dnf stands for, Definitely Not Fast. :) I prefer Nobara Linux nowadays.

[@patrickmclaughlin6013]

We used to call it dependency hell. Life is a circle.

[@fullmetalarmourr8167]

The Mesa thing is a deal breaker making Fedora only usable on Intel. There is RPMFusion freeworld but those will break your update eventually went so bad I had to install Kubuntu insread.

[@DashieTM]

In the fedora 37 beta, flathub was enabled but filtered. The most frustrating experience ever, and something that a new user will likely just quit over.

[@AyaWetts]

yes, I found that frustrating when I first ran into it... only took a little searching to find how to enable full access though.

[@hotwings9382]

My issue with dnf or it could be a Linux issue in general? But I've seen differences with documentation for apt looks better. Installing MySQL from terminal in dnf might give u incomplete modules.

[@NatePick]

Been a PopOS Fan since 2 years ago. 🤣

[@TheLinuxCast]

😎 but Fedora is better. Lol 🤣

[@NatePick]

@@TheLinuxCast Naw, PopOS > Fedora

[@BUDA20]

you need to fight their way on many things

[@oldcodger]

The need to specially configure partitions to use Timeshift for system backups has been keeping me away from it.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yeah, the non-standard btrfs subvolumes is annoying af. Who knows why @ and @home is not good enough for them?

[@ari-mcbrown]

I still do it through the cli. But fedora actually added the “non-free” nvidia drivers to the software manager. It’s fairly painless actually I love Fedora Copr, but you’re right, it’s slow. I use Google search to find stuff on the copr site

[@ari-mcbrown]

@@Edinburgh1000 I can only agree with that statement... :(

[@folksurvival]

@@Edinburgh1000 I don't think the intention/purpose of Fedora is to be a user friendly or beginner's distro as Mint is.

[@coffeedude]

Hey! Sorry for being off-topic but are yoy still using awesome? I saw the video you posted a month ago and was hoping for an update :)

[@cor0ner]

Arch - This is the WAY

[@BUDA20]

and... using an Arch base distro will solve pretty much all of those issues, like EndeavourOS

[@AyaWetts]

and add many more issues... lol

[@caparazo3488]

Ohhh, is that Arch tempting you again?

[@rishirajsaikia1323]

It's opensuse and void that's tempting me to leave arch.

[@caparazo3488]

@@rishirajsaikia1323 How come?

[@rishirajsaikia1323]

@@caparazo3488 Stability. Arch packages are untested. It is not the maintainer's fault though. The release model of Arch Linux is to ship bleeding edge untested packages.

[@tonystorcke]

Torch the installer.

[@cejannuzi]

Lack of apps. Repository hell. Slow download times. HARD PASS.

[@TheLotw]

For most people most of your points are meaningless. If someone is running Fedora they want stability and their system to just work. That being said Fedora is shooting themselves in the face by not including drivers, etc that are not open source. That thinking is what is holding Linux back. Most users DO NOT CARE AND JUST WANT THEIR HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE TO WORK. The removal of the Codecs for AMD/Intel is stupid as the license is given when you BOUGHT THE GPU, hence why it works perfect on nVidia. Do you really think nVidia would do it without that permission? I love Fedora and switched from Arch to it. In fact all my machines but 2 run Fedora. My server cause I dont want to have to reset that back up and my main PC which is running Nobara (which is based on Fedora) but fixes a lot of the problems with Fedora, like GPU video playback, encoding using AMD GPUs in OBS and other software, Blender GPU rendering working, etc. Free and open source is great, but to most people IT MEANS THEIR PC IS NOT GOING TO WORK RIGHT.

[@HDR95]

I'm going to be a devil advocate here, Fedora is an American company.... And their copyright law is, well let's just say better safe than sorry.

[@TheLotw]

@@HDR95 That maybe true but the hardware encoding is already paid for otherwise it would not be in the GPU. Also Windows and OSX both have it and Both are American companies. So if it was an issue it would have been used against MS 1st as they have the most users that they could get money for.

[@HDR95]

@@TheLotw you said it yourself, Windows is huge market, Nvidia won't be stupid enough to offend such large market and it's not even accounting the may or may not exist under the table dealing. As big as Red Hat is they ain't near powerful enough to rival Windows. Look here, I and probably most people won't know the exact true reasons, but US Copyright Law is a convenient excuse. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

[@ari-mcbrown]

@@HDR95 cough*h265*cough

[@milohoffman274]

I will say that DNF Is MUCH faster and on par with apt etc, if you add "max_parallel_downloads=10" to /etc/dnf/dnf.conf