This is the first distro with Gnome 3.18,Wayland and systemd ... And the new sat solver based package manager. And it works really very well.
There are liveusb (for macbooks as well) - really encourage everyone to give it a spin without installing. This is really the future of the Linux desktop.
The way this comment is phrased is a bit misleading. FC23 is not the first distro to have have access to each of those four things individually, and some of those things are not even new to this Fedora release. Systemd has been the default init system in Fedora for a couple years now, and DNF (new package manager) came in Fedora 22.
I did not realize at the time I posted, but this is kicking up quite a bit of storm. but I really enjoyed using the shiny new Wayland in F23 (where it is reasonably stable to the point of using it as a daily driver).
you are right, it is not the first release to have access to each... but IMHO the first release where everything works seamlessly. YMMV.
It might be time to switch to a package management paradigm that doesn't require SAT solvers.
For example, one in which packages do not conflict because they are installed in a directory for each package, and there is an "alternatives" mechanism for any global choice.
Daniel J. Bernstein, around the turn of the century, proposed a /package hierarchy (for package management without the need for conflict resolution) and a /command directory.
Their major problem was the idea that one had to register things with what was to most of the world just some bloke on another continent. But they had concepts like a hierarchical package naming scheme ("admin/", "mail/", &c.), self-contained build trees with versioned names, symbolic links to denote "currently selected version", and an "index"/"alternatives" directory full of symbolic links.
The /package directory sounds sort-of like what GNU Guix and Nix do. They have a "store" directory (say, /gnu/store) that works like a content-addressable storage system. All store entries are associated with a SHA256 hash that uniquely identifies the build. There's no SAT solver needed because package recipes precisely describe their dependencies, all the way down to the bootstrap binaries for the system. There's also no global /usr that prevents multiple versions of the same software from existing on the same machine in a sane way. Users can manage their own "profiles" which are symlink forests to a set of store items. Each user can choose their own set of software without needing root privileges to install it and without fear of breaking another user's environment. Furthermore, users can manage arbitrarily many profiles and even create temporary environments (perhaps in a Linux container if you're into that) to perform one-off tasks or hack on a new project without polluting any profiles. You also get transactional package upgrade/rollback.
I'm one of the Guix hackers, and we're about to make a new release announcement today, so I encourage you to check it out: http://gnu.org/software/guix
it would be interesting if you could talk about Nix, Guix and the 800-lb gorilla: click packages. incidentally, they just made an announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506188
I have been saying that we need a new package system like this and a new file structure. The need for terse folder names has been over for close to 40 years.
What and have the dependencies for each package in the package directory node_modules style? No thanks, at least not unless it is on a file system that deals with duplicate subtrees within the filesystem.
I prefer to just have the zlib-version without known buffer overflows, thank you. That will generally mean fixes are backported to a frozen api that is known to work wit a subset of packages (say 10.000 or so). No changes (except less undocumented behaviour/crashes) on security patching.
genuine question - how's the install experience these days ? I havent tried Arch in years, and the recent Twitch.tv's Arch centric "world's most frustrating distro install" hasnt helped much.
is there something cool that you get from Arch ? I mean, I pretty much installed Fedora over Ubuntu because I wanted bleeding edge Gnome and Wayland to play with.
The install experience is still entirely manual. However, the hardest part is deciding on the more contentious components, such as the choice of filesystem(s), partition scheme, and bootloader.
The actual install process is simply following the install guide, typing commands, and occasionally delving into the wiki to learn how to configure the more esoteric components, should you choose to use them.
Granted, this is far above what most normal people can or want to do, and that's fine. Other distros exist, with real installers, and they make mostly-sane choices for you.
> is there something cool that you get from Arch ?
- A system completely customized to your software tastes. You can do this with Fedora and Ubuntu after the fact, but you're not building those systems from the ground up.
- Unadulterated software. Arch keeps downstream patching to an absolute minimum. I'm running Gnome, not Gnome patched hundreds of times over to work with hundreds of external dependencies.
- A huge and well-maintained repository of unofficial software packages. Again, you get this with the popular distros, but Arch has a very decent canonical experience compared to them. I personally did not like dealing with PPAs to get user-packaged software on Ubuntu, for example.
- Current software. I run mainline kernels and the latest open-source graphics drivers with what I consider to be a reasonable testing buffer. What I consider reasonable is most likely not what others consider reasonable.
I have no idea, I installed my current Arch 3 or 4 years ago and kept it updated since then. I do not remember it being difficult at the time.
"is there something cool that you get from Arch ?"
Everything is up to date, I love the package manager and the AUR (the user contributed "packages" in the form of instructions to build a package) w/ devel packages (ie you can easily install git versions of some software.) I use yaourt as a front-end. I use it to manage configuration files (and manually merge upstream config files with my locally modified files.)
The distro feels lightweight (I'm not using any DE, only Xmonad, so that may help), and there's not too much "magic", in the sense that you can easily find everything in config files. It kinda feels like a BSD system in that regard.
I'm learning Haskell and lots of up to date packages are available in Arch, I would not be surprised if Arch is one of the most popular distros among Haskell devs.
The Arch wiki has every bit of information you need for the initial setup, then reading Arch's website main page before a "big" update should be enough (they post instructions for important migrations there, when the upgrade could require some manual intervention.)
It really depends on how you define "experience". For me, I like the manual installation procedure like everything else on Arch. Sure, it is not "easy". But the point is that you are taught to do things with standard Linux tools, save the package manager and a few straightforward shell scripts.
Arch doesn't give you all sorts of fancy, "automated", distro-specific tools to make your life easier, because easy life is a temporary illusion in the fast-changing -- and by consequence, always broken -- world that is Linux desktop. Automated tools that made you life easier yesterday will likely make your life harder tomorrow, due to all the changes in upstream software these tools try to hide. Keeping such tools up to date will require continued interest in the development, something Linux desktop community never really succeeded to deliver.
Arch just puts you in the real, wild landscape of Linux desktop. It may not be comfortable at first, but that's how Linux desktop is.
I went back to Fedora from Arch on desktop because Arch is tough to install. I have servers/workstations running Arch, CentoS and actually notice a lot of times the Fedora packages are often updated faster than Arch packages now. Also CentOS/Fedora give you selinux whereas Arch does not have that. (I'm not trying to rag on Arch at all, just stating my recent experience.) My servers running Arch I plan to migrate to CentOS 7 for selinux and more enterprisey updates. Also I need to use ZFS with some servers in the future and I believe there is a fairly easy way to do that with CentOS. Actually it looks like this is easy to do with Arch, too. The arch wiki is amazing.
Wayland is quite good in Fedora 23 now. The GNOME Maps app works now (it uses 3D) on my Radeon R9 290x. It didn't work in Fedora 22. I'm running Wayland now as my daily driver.
Arch gives you a PAX/Grsecurity kernel which makes your system orders of magnitude less insecure than what CentOS gives you. You can use Grsecurity RSBAC features if you need access controls. In terms of security though, Fedora is getting better since it is defaulting to hardened packages but no hardened kernel.
Arch is not too difficult to install. Granted, if you don't have much free time, then better to spend it doing something else. The first time I installed Arch was five years ago. I had no idea about the Linux shell or command line, yet the manuals were quite good that I managed go do it with no problem.
I personally love Pacman. For some reason, Ubuntu always ends up creating conflicts that I can't manually resolve (when installing things outside of the official repositories). I never get those issues with AUR. If you have time, give it a try; otherwise, don't lose sleep over it. You always have Manjaro (albeit I think it uses different repositories) or Antergos (not sure about this, either. I remember reading about a distro that used the official Arch repos, but can't remember the name).
Give Manjaro a shot! It's Arch with a GUI installer. So if you don't have the time to do a full manual install it's so worth it and super fast. Give the XFCE iso a shot and you will be impressed. I ran Arch for years and recently had a build a new machine and went with Manjaro.
Is anyone running Arch on a 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13"?
I've seen conflicting reports of things working and not working, which is making me hesitant to try (I want to dual boot Max OS X)
Worked fine. The Arch wiki has pages dedicated to Macbooks if you need help.
The only issue I had with macbooks was the wifi card was not detected by the installer after booting from USB. It works fine after installing a package using pacman once you get internet. So I always keep a cheap $10 Netgear USB wifi for installs which always works by default.
Most people who have issues with installing Arch are almost always just new to Arch or Linux. I had a lot of issues starting out with Arch but after the first 6 months learning curve I rarely had issues.
I have been using it for over two years now on a daily basis, across multiple Macbook and Thinkpads models and custom desktop build. It has been very stable and though most software versions are often 1-2 yrs ahead of Debian/Fedora.
I actually had way more problems while using Fedora for two years prior than I ever did with Arch. The Arch package library (AUR), wiki, and pacman provide a very strong foundation for using Linux as a desktop.
I had a painful experience a while ago trying to install Arch on my mac. It kept freezing up, so I had to give up as I had a load of other things to do.
I would really like to have another bash at getting Linux going on it.
systemd has been the default init system for most distro's for quite a while now. Gnome is just one of the many desktop environments (and I wouldn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole). Wayland is nice though, and it's nice to see it reach the level of maturity to become the default display server on a popular distribution.
Two questions: a) does using Wayland in Fedora 23 offer the ability to scale the UI across different DPI monitors in a consistent way in Fedora 23? And b) am I going to get significant problems with Wayland on applications such as VirtualBox (running Windows inside it), terminal emulators Tmux, etc, and of course, browsers (Firefox?)? Ie is it usable without too much compromise?
not right now. I think multi-monitor support is broken right now. In fact, FYI - the version of X in F23 is bleeding edge and does not supporting binary nvidia drivers (yet)
True, this comment was meant for a lot of people (like me), who are asking why Fedora? Most people only know of Ubuntu and probably hate systemd . This is a cool showcase for all of them
The other day I was considering switch my mom's PC from Windows to Linux. She is the type of user who do almost everything on the browser (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Photos, YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, read stuff), off the cloud maybe some MP3, photos and documents; I mean, no command lines, no read tutorials to do something, no annoyances, easy to give up on something with too much steps.
I was considering installing the distro Elementary OS or Ubuntu. Do you think that Fedora can be a good option too? Which of the three is best for that user case?
A thing to consider is that her laptop is a bit old, from 2005-2010 I think. I remember that has 2 GB of RAM. She upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and say that now runs faster than before. The new OS shouldn't run slower than Windows 10.
I'm on a decision paralysis because on Elementary OS I see most simplicity (OS X in mind), in Ubuntu more speed and trust that is not going to crash (large user base), and now I discover Fedora and see that can have a good mix of both.
As an elementary OS contributor _and_ Fedora user, I guess this is my time to shine, hu?
It really depends on your use case. I've heard quite a bit positive feedback about elementary OS for "computer illiterate" (parents, old people, etc). It seems to "just work" for them after installation (bear with me I really can't judge about "ease of use" after years with Linux) and it's running on Ubuntu LTS versions. You're running apt-get to install security fixes, the current version of Firefox/Chrome and fixes provided by the elementary OS team, and that's basically it.
Fedora on the other hand is "the latest hot thing". It has by far the best GNOME3 integration and it previews technical features worked on by Red Hat and GNOME. It also features recent kernel versions which might be important for new-ish hardware. All that is quite awesome for technical-minded people like me. I'd like to say "it's unstable", but in my experience, it's not. I did not do the 22 -> 23 transition yet though. You have to do some additional work for the frequent new versions (backup everything in case it breaks, try the transition, etc). You also have to fiddle around with GNOME addons, font rendering and media codecs (RPMFusion as third-party provider) to make it usable as "personal computer" IMHO.
In the end it's up to you. I do believe your mom will be able to work with both (you'll need to tweak GNOME a bit IMHO, but that's up to discussion I guess), but you'll have to deal with different administrative workloads.
In my opinion the Ubuntu LTS basis of eOS can be annoying for someone needing the latest packages, but is quite a boon for someone who just wants the computer to function and be predictable.
With Fedora, a new version comes out every 6 months and you receive updates for around a year. Elementary seems to release a new version roughly every two years and at least the Ubuntu LTS basis receives updates for much longer (~4-5 years, depending on the release time of eOS).
So I think that unless you want to upgrade the installation regularly (which is something that an inexperienced user probably should not do on his/her own, since a lot of things can potentially go wrong), choosing something with a longer support window is a good idea.
I don't have eOS as a daily driver (I've got the Pantheon desktop on top of Ubuntu as a chroot environment on my Chromebook and a full Elementary VM on another laptop), but I've been playing with it for some time.
One thing that really irks me about the OS is the designers' reluctance to actually let you customize anything. For instance, the lack of a minimize button really bothered me, and I ended up having to install a third-party program called elementaryTweaks just to restore that functionality. The designers have outwardly refused to incorporate any of that and have repeatedly defended the decision to not give us a minimize button:
Well to be honest, you're not completely wrong. elementary OS _is_ trying to make as much decisions as possible for the user - To make it "just work". I agree that this is annoying to people accustomed to tweaking their system or desktop. No doubt. elementary OS is - at least partially - targetted at people with minimal technical knowledge. And there _are_ some design decisions I might not really agree with. The minize button, well, uhh ... I didn't get it back via elementary-tweaks on my machines, but I understand people missing and re-activating it.
Now here's the thing though: There's a different between Apple's walled-garden and elementary OS. You are very much able to tweak your elementary OS setup in any way you want. It's Linux after all. It's your system. We try to discourage tweaking a newcomer's system via commands learned on a blog post because they're old, outdated or plain wrong / bad. elementary-tweaks was not maintained at all for a long time as well. And there are quite a bit customizability options out there hidden in dconf. That's what elementary-tweaks is a frontend to after all, basically.
I understand it's a bit frustrating to not see the customizability in a Linux distribution you're used to from others. You're not exactly the target audience for elementary OS and I'm sorry for that.
And to be honest, there's another spin to it: More customizability means more features maintained in the source code. And quite frankly, sometimes we're really short of developers (I'm not contributing anything at all currently as I'm kind of busy with my apprenticeship). If nobody is going to maintain a new feature, it's not going to be in the code because it will break one fine day and it's adding work to the "to-fix" list.
So who is the target audience, if you don't mind my asking? Because from my perspective, I am someone who likes the idea of Linux and is not afraid to get his hands dirty, but at the same time is generally disappointed with most Linux distros insofar as their GUIs usually feel like an afterthought. So something with a nice frontend but the ability to nonetheless tinker and throw up a terminal when I need to sounds ideal. That is the attractive element of ElementaryOS, to me: an attractive frontend and a Linux backend. I could always go for Cinnamon Mint, I guess, but eOS certainly did seem to buck the trend as far as distros go.
The idea of the easy-to-use "just works" setup for the non-tinkerers, on the other hand, starts to resemble Apple; unfortunately, I don't think you can out-Apple Apple. That's their thing. The "stunning," almost condescendingly simple GUI that people "not good with computers" flock to. It's almost as though your target audience is my mother, or the people on whose behalf I will install this OS onto their aging desktop/laptop because they found re-learning Windows 8.1/10 too confusing.
I've started vastly prefereing eOS for my family members not because of technology, but because the bundled eOS applications have greatly stripped down functionality and UI - I've noticed that the dock with essential apps coupled with simple interface of "Files" makes people more comfortable.
To be fair, GNOME is heading the same direction. And I love it! A lot of Linux users are unhappy with this trend because it takes away features they use. But it's great to click through very intuitive and easy-use applications to do common tasks and everyday use. I don't need any manuals for GUI applications because their UX is so great! If I need to do something more complex, I'm just switching to Terminal. It's a symbiosis I really enjoy, even as an "power user".
I am very disappointed with the way the GNOME UI has had features removed.
gedit was always very intuitive and easy to use, but then they decided that such ease of use and intuitiveness was too confusing/distracting, so reduced the GUI even further to be completely useless: https://blogs.gnome.org/nacho/2014/01/15/gedit-has-a-new-fac...
I am all for reducing complexity where necessary, but removing GUI elements to force additional clicks to get to any commonly used tools (where is the toolbar? where's the save button?) is foolish, particularly under the guise of "reducing distractions".
The speedometer in a car is not a distraction - it's a feature. As is the rev counter, the accelerator pedal and brake.
But if we apply the GNOME feature-cull approach to a car's cockpit, all we'd have is the glass in front of us, and possibly a steering wheel (debatable).
Nobody needed a manual for the toolbar in gedit - they knew what the save button did. It did not need reducing in complexity, as it wasn't complex in the first place.
Having said this, I will give this new F23 release a go, but you guys lost me as a GNOME3 user after the forced simplification and feature-removal since GNOME2. I hung on with GNOME2 for as long as I could. Of course, nobody cares what I carry on using so it's only a problem for me :-)
Now, this isn't meant nastily only a disappointment at the reduction in features/useful UI elements for no apparent reason.
Switched my mum to Xubuntu over two years ago, so far I've had two support calls (down from about one/two per month plus totally breaking it fairly regulary with Windows).
Xubuntu has been exceptionally stable for me, my mum is on 14.04 (which was the last LTS) since she doesn't do anything exotic, I'm on 15.04 and will likely move to 16.04, I tend to avoid the x.10 before a LTS as they shove lots of stuff in to make the LTS release so I'd suggest 14.04 or 15.04 with a view to upgrading to 16.04 at some point early next year.
Some have an infatuation with constantly trying out distributions that I don't understand. They are the ones who compile your software, so you need to trust them. On my personal PCs I've run Debian since almost 20 years (has it really been that long..?). It needs to work, all the time.
For parents and other relatives I've installed Ubuntu, though. Mostly because it's seen an incomparable amount of third party support. Spotify, Chrome, and some other tools publish Ubuntu repositories, so those things Just Work.
You can then set up them with whatever desktop you find useful, but the farther you stray from vanilla default the more you risk things to break on upgrading, and you're the one doing the support. How do you know something called "Elementary" can even be upgraded? That it'll be around in five years? I briefly look at Mint, as it was essentially Ubuntu, but they don't support upgrades at all.
So I'd say install Ubuntu or Fedora, and go with what you know and what has the most users. Do all the upgrades yourself when you have time for it. They're usually straightforward, but might inform the user of things or ask questions a casual user is not prepared to understand.
My parents use linux mint, which has a familiar feeling desktop (cinnamon) if you come from the windows world. It has a big enough user base in it's own right, and being an ubuntu (and derivatively debian) based distro, it's easy to find help on issues.
aside: a useful accessory for a mixed OS environment where a not-overly-tech-savvy couple want the ability to transfer files between Linux Mint and Win machines via a router live is an app called Dukto
heaven forbid the neighbor typing a to-do list on a linux laptop by the pool would have to physically get up and show the list to her mate who's web surfing on Win8 in the air conditioned den :-) And a lite samba server would not have been a good solution in this setup. Dukto transfer rate appeared to hover around 25MB/s.
My mom moved from a Mac Mini (PPC) to an old Core2Duo with Fedora not too long ago, and I'm pretty happy with the result. As I got her to use Chrome before, anything browser based wasn't a big switch, but I was worried a bit about moving on from iPhoto. But shotwell is pretty great in that regard, being a bit of a clone in the first place...
I don't see a big advantage in Elementary when it comes to simplicity. GNOME itself ain't exactly overloaded with options, it's just that E tries very hard to appease the Mac folks. So it's mostly aimed at already computer literate minimalists, more than the computer semi-literate. I'm also not too excited about the support, even compared to other alternative desktops.
And with GNOME extensions & tweaks, it's quite easy to adapt to different usage patterns, e.g. if someone really wants desktop icons, a fixed dock or a taskbar.
I was really surprised about how easy it went. Definitely recommend it. And if something goes wrong that you don't know anything about (odd hardware probs, software you're not using yourself), it's always easier to find help for Fedora and Ubuntu distros and default desktops.
Someone should really make a distro spin intended for relatives and friends, where everything just comes ready with remote support, desktop sharing etc.
Upgrade the laptop with an SSD if you haven't already. If you do that at the same time when you switch to Linux, it will boost her experience and trust.
I'm thinking about this as well. My mother uses Windows 7 with Firefox, Thunderbird for mail, LibreOffice and Windows Photo Gallery. I think Ubuntu LTS with the Unity desktop is the best choice. Mint is an option.
In my experience Fedora/Centos is much more work installing applications. That may be my lack of experience with using Centos for desktop. If it's only about the browser, it won't matter much, and then your experience is leading.
I have a Lenovo laptop with 2GB RAM and Ubuntu 14.04 installed on SSD. It stalls many times. You need 4GB RAM. It will work on that laptop, but with issues, probably the same issues she has now. Better buy a new cheap laptop and make sure it has at least 4GB RAM.
Be careful with UEFI - it can cause many headaches when you want to install Linux. It took me more than a month to get it working.
Last tip: Try to find a laptop that has a proven record to work with Linux. Not all laptops qualify, have a modified motherboard or graphics card etc. The old laptop can be tested with a live stick.
Upgrade the PC (SSD or more RAM) I think is not an option, because if she/I spend any money/time on that is better to buy a new one, buy individual parts on my country is a little bit expensive.
+1 to Ubuntu on my list :) I will try with the Live CD/Stick if the PC qualifies.
I'm not sure if you are aware, but Linux allows you to run any desktop as a liveUSB. This means that you plug a specially created USB drive (that take 5 minutes) into your PC and boot from the USB drive. You get to try out the Desktop for as long as you like and it does not touch the OS that is installed on your hard disk. Its a great and addictive way to try out a lot of different Linux flavors!
I gave up on fedora around 17 I think after it broke again for no obvious reason. (I'm not a expert sysadmin but I have been running Linux servers in production since 2009 and used Linux workstations on and off since 2003-ish.)
Happy to hear if anyone knows if stability has improved since then.
Fedora is a nice desktop distro, but the versions are supported for 18 months and that's really inconvenient. Upgrades to the next version have improved, but is not as smooth as Debian/Ubuntu (in my experience).
Installed Ubuntu 11.10, had no tech calls since...
Now I would rather advice to go Debian w/ Mate desktop. Debian testing is stable and very reasonable, Mate seems golden middle between XFCE/GNOME/Cinnamon.
CentOS, OMG other option to evaluate, this is getting crazy. Thanks for your suggestion.
I have to set priorities on each OS to test, I don't have too much time to install/test different distros. Also I don't want to make her try many distros and have to experience different learning curves, she will hate me and say "fuck off with your nonproprietary software and bring me back to Windows 10" hahah.
I'm a fairly recent convert to Fedora from Arch, and I don't think I'll ever go to another distro as long as they keep up the good work. I even suggest Fedora to anyone who wants to try out Linux because Fedora is easy to install, doesn't come with a bunch of extra stuff you don't need, dnf is a great package manager, and the default software is the latest stable version. Perfect for people just coming on board, I think.
I just downloaded 23 and it worked like a charm. I'm not sure how much this upgrade affects me, but it is nice to see how nothing was lost (maybe it is my illusion, but programs seem to load a bit faster?). Good job to everyone who commits to this project.
While I wish Fedora was a rolling release, I'm happy that the upgrade was easy and didn't take very long.
> I'm a fairly recent convert to Fedora from Arch, and I don't think I'll ever go to another distro...
as a fairly long time arch user, may you please describe areas where you find arch to be deficient w.r.t fedora ? i haven't tried using redhat for while, but when i did earlier, i just found rpm, and later yum, to be quite cumbersome to work with. thanks !
I'm also a long time arch user, who switched to fedora half a year ago. All in all both distributions are great, but one area where fedora has an edge is selinux support and delta updates. One area where arch has an edge is better font rendering using infinality-bundle by bohoomil.
I just find it easier to setup and maintain, really. Philosophically, they are similar, with Fedora being minimal, but you get things like gcc, python, and other items by default, which is nice. Fedora doesn't come with LibreOffice, games, or anything like that.
I only used yum on CentOS, and I thought it was okay. Fedora now comes with DNF which is pretty close to pacman.
Don't get me wrong, I like Arch a lot still and have no complaints, but I felt like Fedora struck a nice middle ground, and is, by default, very close to how I set up my Arch system anyways, even closer with the LXDE spin.
edit to add: I still use the Arch documentation for just about everything. That's one area that no one can say Arch is deficient on.
>the default software is the latest stable version
That's debatable. I don't consider the latest upstream versions "stable", no matter what they think - I've been using Linux long enough to know this the hard way. I think for people new to Linux (and for people experienced in Linux that don't like bugs too) a more conservative distro like Ubuntu LTS or Debian works much better in the long run.
If I come to linux to try a new way of doing things and get the benefits like a package manager. When I read a blog about some cool new release of software like docker or node and I want it. If `<package manager> install <software>` doesn't get me that and I have to arse around finding sources to add. I'm not saving any effort than just going to get some msi from a website.
Agreed. I used to use so-called "stable" distros for the longest time because that's what our installed software was supported on. But when I couldn't use the latest and greatest development tools (emacs for instance), it became really annoying doing my development. So I switched (from RHEL/CentOS) to Fedora for my day-to-day development. I can't say I've run into any show stopper issues, our software and the supporting software run just fine on it and I'm a happier, more productive developer.
It's been quite awhile, but, IIRC, glibc incompatibilities in particular as well as other general libraries that weren't easy to build and compile. I make use of a ton of packages that require other current components that weren't available on "stable" releases. Changing hasn't presented any stability problems, so, for me, Fedora has been a good, stable distribution that still lets me use my tools.
EDIT: Please note, my experience may or may not relate on CentOS7 or RHEL7, this was more CentOS 5 and early 6 versions where I ran into issues.
Last time I tried Fedora was the previous version and I found it impossible to install codecs. You have to add third-party repository (rpmfusion), the problem I'm having is the way the repo is authenticated - http website points to a pgp key signed by one Corey Sheldon who appears to be only self-signed, so there is no way to establish chain of trust.
I could download the key from multiple sources but I don't feel I should have to and more than that, I don't trust people who to some degree rely on security theatre, which http page pointing to a lonely public key essentially is. It's no better than downloading over plain http and my slight OCD compels me to refuse to do that.
I realize this is more a rant about rpmfusion than Fedora, but then I feel essential support for playing various media files should be included within desktop OS.
I'm really impressed with Fedora 23. My only gripe is the horrific sub pixel rendering. I'm waiting for rpmfusion to come out so I can install an alternative font rendering engine.
It's also lacking netbeans in the repo which is kind of a hassle for me.
Same. Installed 23 yesterday but my god the fonts are horrible and I couldn't find a quick fix (and didn't have time to try and hack things in). Shame as Ubuntu Gnome looks great out of the box.
Also as someone very new to Fedora is there a crash course on DNF? Funny how lost I felt without apt-get.
Have been bitten by docker upgrade from FC21 to FC22 and docker-fig upgrade on FC21 from fedora package. I have faced problem ranging from docker daemon refusing to start, failed to run container, and SELinux alarm ringing every now and then. Not the best developing experience.
Switched to Elementary(Ubuntu based distro) combined with docker repo now.
In my opinion, FC is more suited to lightweight work (email, word, spreadsheet).
Can anyone comment on current status of using Fedora (or maybe even Linux in general) on sleep/suspend/hibernate? I remember the last time I tried it being a hit or miss and was painful to get working consistently.
For reference, I'm using Retina MacBook Pro Mid 2012 (10,1), but I was unsuccessful on my Dell Latitude E Series (the exact model escapes me at the moment) also and gave up.
Suppose I just want to use my Nvidia card in GPU mode (i.e. monitor only connected to Intel integrated video), does the X.org version still impact me? Or does the 'nvidia' proprietary driver somehow pull in Xorg dependencies even when not displaying anything?
I've been using the KDE spin for a long time but this has me concerned - https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2015-October/0... especially what he has to say about F23 - "the Fedora 23 KDE Spin (which is now final or almost final) is easily the worst KDE Spin we have ever released:"
I feel his pain with packages. I'm running Debian 8.2 here, and the number of packages that Qt has been split into is just overwhelming. I ended up downloading Qt's official binary distribution. Now I know at least that I a) have all the bits and pieces, and b) where they are.
I've found that it's best to wait for the folks making vague, outlandish claims to clarify and provide proof of those claims, rather than wasting time guessing what those claims might be. :)
Of course it is, otherwise what incentive would NSA have to develop it in the first place? :)
Also, people who laugh at every conspiracy theory could use one or two good history books about 20th century to see how much conspiracies really DID HAPPEN in the past.
I'm sorry, I genuinely don't recall having a disagreement with you or anybody else here.
I'm fairly surprised at your tone, this comment was directed at the (predominantly) macbook community here. I haven't even mentioned one distro vs the other.. So in fact I'm now interested at what distro do you run.
Its always interesting to talk about a great desktop Linux experience.. Maybe on par with osx. I don't care which Linux as long as its some Linux. The sat solver based package manager was a very serious engineering effort, to resolve circular dependencies among packages, etc. That is also an interesting thought experiment for people who might not know about it. That's a feature that I believe is made redundant by static package managers like Click packages.
In fact, I will gladly argue with anybody on what I feel is the true future of Linux - desktop Android!!!
you are take a fairly innocuous statement like "Probably another reason not be scared of systemd ;)" and convert it to " assertion that I shouldn't be "scared of systemd" is extremely dismissive."
your five solid reasons include "systemd's scope continues to creep", "The Systemd Cabal continues to assert..." and continuous comparison with OpenRC that I have admitted that I'm not qualified to comment. Yet, Debian's CTTE was qualified and they rejected OpenRC in favor of Systemd. I havent made a statement like "why anyone would ever ask for technical details". I said it doesnt make a difference to me, because I'm getting a much better experience on systemd anyway.
My current comment had nothing to do with the superiority of systemd - it was an attempt for non-Linux users to try out Linux. Look at the other comments on this post - most people do NOT know linux can be used as a liveusb.. and espcially on macbooks.
Please do not take an attempt to get people to try out a cool Linux desktop and make it into a systemd vs openrc war.
> My current comment had nothing to do with the superiority of systemd...
Agreed. I never said otherwise.
> Please do not take an attempt to get people to try out a cool Linux desktop and make it into a systemd vs openrc war.
I did no such thing. If I had had other examples of your habit of making statements about the technical superiority of a particular thing, then either failing to back them up with concrete examples or walking back your assertions with the statement "Oh, well the technical side of that doesn't even matter to me anyway.", then I would have used them. :)
It's a pity that you mis-read my request for technical details about the technical merits of Fedora's new SAT-solver based package manager dependency resolver as a commentary on the state of Linux init systems.
> ...you are take a fairly innocuous statement like...
Context is everything, friend. :)
To the remainder of your comment:
* If you're not familiar with other examples of a given class of software, then you're not qualified to make unqualified statements that a particular instance of that class of software does something better than all the rest.
* Microsoft's Office Open XML format is an ISO standard. That doesn't mean that it is any good or that the process that standardized it is without flaw. :)
There are liveusb (for macbooks as well) - really encourage everyone to give it a spin without installing. This is really the future of the Linux desktop.