I am trying out Fedora for multiple unrelated reasons (use RHEL at work, new config, it might be more optimized) and I noticed a number of concerning caveats, even in mind with the fact that I already use RHEL:

  1. Software support seems lacking. I have a growing number of software neither the repo, nor rpmfusion has. In any other case I would need to use copr for installing community maintained packages. However copr feels relatively abandoned and unreliable. That mainly comes down to packages being undiscriminately displayed without download stats or upvote status (unless you look them up one by one). Also a large part of packages are incompatible because they were made specifically for Fedora 38 with no 39 fixup in sight. Rpmfusion is weirdly empty, I expected it to have majority of the stuff I need so I dont inevitably have to rely on copr. I already had to download executables from upstream.
  2. Install Groups. They are not getting listed properly! It only lists the most basic meta groups. This is combined with the lack of actually being able to search for groups and you got yourself a lot of random groups you wont find unless you start looking it up online.
  3. Xorg wiki page. Ex fucking cuse me?! Did I mistype something, because I clearly remember trying to use one of the most popular and allegedly well put together distros. At this point why even have a wiki page?
  4. base-x group contains everything needed for running Xorg. I will actually eat my hat if you can tell me I can find that info without stackoverflow. Cant search for the group, nothing is documented about it.

I would agree with the sentiment that I could technically write the documentation and package all the things I need in copr, but Im having serious doubts if this “platform” developed by the same guys who dont document it is actually worth the hassle.

I guess the positive thing to say about it is that it performed better for gaming than my Arch install, and I had done zero optimisations on it yet.

  • Grimm665@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    Sorry you’re having a rough experience, I came from Arch to Fedora and found it a much easier environment to just relax into, and for me relinquishing the extreme control and maintenance Arch gave me was freeing.

    That said, I never dove deep into Arch, only had to use a few AUR packages, and never built my own pkgbuilds. Fedora doesn’t have a strong competitor to this, if you’re used to doing these things in your system, you will find Fedora lacking. I haven’t had any issue finding the software I need in Fedora repos so clearly my use case is simpler and Fedora fits me better in that regard.

    I haven’t had issues with install groups, but then again i don’t really use them. I guess they probably aren’t that great or else i’d use them more. Still, hasn’t been a big issue.

    Idk why you have an issue with xorg, if you want Wayland Fedora supports it out of the box and was one of the first to do so, switching to it should be easy. Wayland is still missing support for key things, for example Synergy clients just flat out don’t work, so having xorg support is still valuable, at least to me.

    Overall it sounds like you’re missing the power of Arch. That’s understandable, Arch is more flexible and arguably more powerful if you’re willing to spend twice the time maintaining it. Fedora has saner defaults and is set up as a more well-rounded system out of the box, but if it’s built in a way that isn’t useful to you and you feel like you have to bend it to your will, Arch is probably the better option.