
Fedora 30 - paride5745
https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-30/
======
sandGorgon
Fedora and the Dell XPS laptop are the current best of breed developer
machines. Top notch keyboards, brilliant OS and a futuristic architecture
(Silverblue - all containers all the way down).

My compan has a couple hundred cheap AMD ryzen laptops with Fedora giving
macbook pros a run for their money! I spend about 500$ on them (which includes
a SSD). Its the world class desktop OS for the developing world!

~~~
harrygeez
I'd love to share your enthusiasm but until we get macOS-level consistent
touchpad gestures, rock-solid stability, instant wake from suspend without
draining battery consistently, great GPU drivers, ...(I can go on), it is
difficult to proclaim that.

I love developing on Linux too, and I really want it to be the best, but it's
just not there yet.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Mac OS supports exactly one line of hardware. So let's pick exactly one line
of Hardware to run Linux so it's a fair comparison. I nominate either
thinkpads or Dell XPS. Now then, in a _fair_ comparison...

> consistent touchpad gestures,

GNOME has this.

> rock-solid stability,

Yep.

> instant wake from suspend without draining battery consistently,

Has that even been a problem this decade?

> great GPU drivers

I defy you to claim that _great_ GPU drivers exist on any operating system,
but as long as you're not using Nvidia Linux is perfectly good.

~~~
igneo676
Ugh, I just wish there was a slick laptop like the Dell XPS line that both
supported Linux AND had a Radeon (or just not-nvidia) graphics card.

I've been looking for a viable contender and it appears that it just doesn't
exist

~~~
keypusher
Purism makes very nice Linux laptops with Intel graphics chips.

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pojntfx
Love this, switched today! Definitely the most easy to use distro out there
and, especially in the case of Silverblue, the most modern by far (containers
only!).

~~~
tapoxi
Silverblue is pretty incredible, but after a month of using it (Fedora 29) I
did hit the occasional RPM I couldn't install because OSTree didn't support
layering packages to that directory. It's also weird about third-party repos.
I also wish more software was available as a Flatpak - unfortunately Ubuntu's
mindshare means more developers are aware of the proprietary Snap format.

I'm super excited about it though and will keep using it every month, it
finally solves the dependency problem most distributions run into.

~~~
padraic7a
Not to trn this thread into an argument about formats but snap isn't a
proprietary format at all. It's a squashfs file with some metadata.

]and congratulations to Fedora!]

~~~
tapoxi
My problem with it is that there's no concept of a Snap repository, like
Flatpak. Snap is intrinsically tied to Canonical's Snap store.

~~~
simion314
The fact that the Canonical store is hard-coded n the source code of the
package manager does not make it proprietary, I suggest you use the actual
facts and not FUD, proprietary has a clear meaning so let's not make it vague,

~~~
vetinari
The central store controlled by Canonical is pretty central tenet of snap
design. If you start removing it, you can pretty much switch to entirely
different packaging/delivery/sandboxing system.

~~~
simion314
First of all I did not contradicted this, I just want to use the correct
terms. So please use proprietary,free software, open source, open format, open
standard as it is correct and not as you like to promote your preferences.

Just think about it, your full argument is FUD because you try to imply that
some open source code is proprietary when in fact it is not.

On the other topic, did Debian or other big distro submited a patch to include
support for configuring third party stores, did they submit test code for the
changes and it was rejected? If yes please link that instead of the FUD.

~~~
vetinari
I wasn't the OP, so accusing me of FUD is somewhat misguided.

On the other hand, the design of snap, despite the code being open source,
does not mean that the system (system as a collection of code, network
services, network effects, network control, bizdev relations, etc) as a whole
is non-proprietary. For similar story, see also: Android.

~~~
simion314
This is still false. Android is open source, see the forks. What is not open
source is the services on top. The development process is not open for Android
but you did not provided any fact to show contribution was not accepted by
Canonical.

You are complaining that an open source tool is not using your preferred
thing, you want snap to point to a Debian store, get the source, replace the
Canonical store url with a Debian store, then create the store backend and
implement the APIs.

Do you have any complaint about the Canonical store? Did they censored your
favorite thing or your issue is that you can't just from principles.

Edit About my FUD accusation, maybe you should not get involved in a comment
where I correct the OP about him spreading FUD in a vague attempt to protect
him. The comment thread was not about what format is better is all about what
proprietary means and not have fanboys use the terms wrong.

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Sir_Cmpwn
The Fedora 30 image has been available on builds.sr.ht for CI for several
weeks now :) you can use it as fedora/latest and fedora/30.

[https://man.sr.ht/builds.sr.ht/compatibility.md#fedora](https://man.sr.ht/builds.sr.ht/compatibility.md#fedora)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
... I'm in love. When did sr.ht get this good?

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
It always has been ;)

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ilovecaching
Too bad they didn't get Sway 1.0 package in time for Fedora 30. That's the
issue with non rolling releases, you miss the train and now we have to wait
months.

I also tried out Silverblue, but it was super unpolished, not a lot of
documentation, and there's rpms I couldn't get installed that I needed for
work.

Fedora is still my favorite Linux distro for just getting things done. Red Hat
is a focal point for kernel and systems developers so you know you're getting
no frills quality.

~~~
fnux
You can use the following COPR repository from the Sway SIG in the meantime:
[https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/sway-sig/sway-
desk...](https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/sway-sig/sway-desktop/)

------
webaholic
This is good distro for developers by developers. I wouldn't suggest it for
everyday users though. There are too many beta quality bugs since it uses
really bleeding edge releases.

~~~
soulofmischief
If the 6-month release cycle is too frequent for you as a desktop user,
consider using RHEL/Centos. In general Red Hat's distros are top-notch and
easier to reason about than other distros.

~~~
Longhanks
What? The software in CentOS' official repositories is horribly outdated (aka
'stable', which is why it runs on many servers). Why should a desktop system
run CentOS? I'd rather recommend Ubuntu or one of its descendants. They also
have LTS versions, if stability is a concern, but are not as outdated as
CentOS.

~~~
soulofmischief
Fedora is too cutting edge and CentOS is too outdated? Ok then, go off to
Canonical land where everything falls apart outside the most common use cases
and your entire desktop experience changes every couple of years.

Fedora isn't cutting edge compared to actual rolling release distros so if
that's still too much for you then RHEL or CentOS should be enough.

~~~
0815test
Debian works just fine, IME - better than Ubuntu LTS provided that the
hardware support is OK. Even OpenSuse is a nice middle ground.

~~~
soulofmischief
Debian was nothing but trouble for me. I found myself in opposition to too
many of their design choices and some packages to be too outdated. At the end
of the day it lacks the polish and moddability I've come to expect from
Fedora.

------
jazoom
I first tried out Fedora a few weeks ago. It was a terrible first impression
because there were banner ads in the installer. They were relevant to Fedora,
but still, they were banner ads sticking out like a sore thumb. I've never
seen anything like that when installing a Linux distro before and it was a
major turn off.

Yes, I got it from the official website. Yes, I checked the hash.

The impression probably would have been a lot different if the messages were
delivered in a format that didn't look exactly like banner ads on the WWW.

~~~
m4rtink
The banner ads will likely not be in the new release, but for a different
reason. The top-level screen where they are shown no longer hosts any
configuration screens during default (Fedora Workstation) live installation
and only two screens on network installation, which will also be soon moved to
the previous "summary" top-level screen.

Due to this the "adds" might look out of place as the rest of the screen is
empty. At the moment it is unclear if they will be replaced by some new bigger
artwork or just by a bigger and more fancy installation progress reporting.

~~~
y4mi
Uh, I only remember some highlights for some of the bundled software...
Something like "if you need a office suite, libre office is available in the
store" ...

Are you seriously complaining about that? Or is it something else I just
didn't see yet?

Because if it's the former, I sure hope you're not using MacOS, Ubuntu,
centos, opensuse or windows either to name a few. They do the same thing after
all.

------
eu
I guest it’s time to upgrade to Fedora 29 now.. :)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I get why you're getting downvoted, but staying one release behind a certainly
a way to avoid bugs, and if you're on 28 then this is definitely a good reason
to bump up to 29.

------
twa927
Can someone say if the font rendering is improved compared to previous
releases? This might sound like nitpicking but it's the thing that kept me
from switching from Ubuntu, which generally has superb font rendering.

~~~
old-gregg
It's not nitpicking at all. Readability of text is hugely important,
especially if your job is to read text on computer monitors all day.

Also, I saw this in the news a while ago:
[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-C...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-
ClearType-Subpixel-Font)

... so it looks like it's enabled, but not configured? If Fedora's freetype
contains all the patches, perhaps the Reddit thread above is obsolete now?

~~~
twa927
> Also, I saw this in the news a while ago:
> [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-C...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-C..).

Hmm, that's interesting, so this is the same ClearType algorithm as the one
currently used in Windows 10? I actually hope Linux distros won't switch to
Windows-like antialiasing, I definitely prefer Ubuntu's antialiasing (Windows'
fonts are too thin an pixelated for me).

~~~
abtinf
Have you tried using the built-in ClearType Tuner to tweak the rendering to
your liking?

~~~
twa927
Yes, I run it several times, but each time the effect wasn't noticeably
better. And I would prefer to have an option for an explicit configuration of
the rendering properties (like "hinting: slight/medium/none") instead of going
through a series of sample screens, because this is getting really tiresome
after a few passes...

I recently switched to a 4K/24" monitor and I actually cannot say that the
Windows fonts are pixelated, but they are still too thin. And the larger fonts
don't look good - as if the hinting was completely disabled for them.

------
reacharavindh
[https://github.com/silenc3r/fedora-better-
fonts](https://github.com/silenc3r/fedora-better-fonts)

~~~
clircle
Can someone comment on how these compare to Ubuntu fonts?

------
bluedino
I've been using F30 through the beta, it's been great (I've been away from
Fedora since 21? or so)

Using both the default and KDE spin in VM's and on Lenovo laptops.

Ubuntu is much more 'polished' in feel and appearance, but (especially the KDE
spin) Fedora feels so much faster or maybe just smoother.

------
lprd
I'm on a Macbook Pro and would love to try this out. Aside from installing on
bare metal, would VirtualBox be the second best option?

~~~
bubblethink
Virtualbox is your only option. You will not get (good) bare metal options at
all with apple hardware made in the last few years.

------
cozzyd
Cool, I guess I'll upgrade from 29 in a month or so once other people have
figured out any potential upgrade issues :)

------
_zachs
Thoughts on Fedora vs Arch? I've been using Arch on my Thinkpad for a while
now, no major complaints, but forgetting to mount my boot before a `sudo
pacman -Syu` (full system upgrade) always gets me.

P.S. I know that this is a non-issue...a simple alias would prevent future
woes.

~~~
0815test
Arch is not quite a real-world-usable system IMHO, it breaks way too easily if
you're not constantly updating it, which means that at some point you'll have
to reinstall from scratch. Debian Testing/Unstable just tends to work better
(for a rolling distro) in my view.

The Arch vs. Fedora comparison is not very sensible given how different the
update models are... if you're ok with Fedora's update schedule it can be a
fine choice.

~~~
dpwm
> it breaks way too easily if you're not constantly updating it

I sometimes go as long as a few months between updates on my desktop – and
that's been running Arch for some years now and hasn't needed a reinstall from
scratch.

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na85
Has Fedora got sane upgrade paths yet? Last time I used it was Fedora 14, and
the recommended way to upgrade was a wipe/reinstall from scratch. There was no
supported upgrade-in-place path.

~~~
ksplice
It has, a long time ago. I have been using Fedora since (I believe) version
23, now on 29. The system is heavily customized (with a lot of the relatively
core stuff (like firewalld) ripped out), and I haven't had a single problem
with the upgrades.

~~~
tokai
My experience have been similar. 24 to 30 beta on my desktop without a single
issue.

