5 ms·

I've been feeling a pull towards Fedora lately away from Ubuntu, especially because there's apparently better hardware support for Framework laptops. Does anyon

by jjice 2y ago

I've been feeling a pull towards Fedora lately away from Ubuntu, especially because there's apparently better hardware support for Framework laptops. Does anyone have experience for migrating from Ubuntu to Fedora? Package reinstallation isn't an issue for me, but wondering if anyone has some general tips for migrating everything between distributions, especially with different parent distros.

wirybeige 2y ago
Moving between distros I usually just have files I care about like documents and music on their own drive so I don't need to worry about moving them. As for moving from Ubuntu to Fedora, there are more steps to getting non-free software/codecs/drivers working on Fedora, you will need RPM Fusion for that. There are relevant How-Tos provided by RPM Fusion and other sources for installing NVIDIA drivers, ffmpeg (non-free), and more.
- jjice 2y ago
  Having all my actual files separately stored from my system files just makes so much sense. Good call. Right now they're mostly relegated to a few directories, but I'm not positive, which is part of the headache I'm worried about with a switch. Having them completely separate and symlinked is a great call.
- fanatic2pope 2y ago
  I believe these days the "extra steps" amount to just clicking an option box to allow third party repositories during install. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/workstation-working-group/third-party-repos/ https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/workstation-working-gro...
  - wirybeige 2y ago
    It enables only a small selection of RPM Fusion as your link shows, ofc flathub gets around some of the need for RPM Fusion, like video codecs, as long as everything else your using is a flatpak (and uses the applicable runtimes).
oaththrowaway 2y ago
I floated between Mint and Pop_OS for years, and now I'll probably never leave Fedora Silverblue. It's awesome. I just use different toolbox/distrobox for different things I need. Most of my dev work is in a Ubuntu distrobox and I use mostly Flatpaks for everything else.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  For those who have heard of Bazzite, the frontrunner in gaming/home theater Linux distros, it's based on Silverblue.
  - oaththrowaway 2y ago
    I'm actually using a customized version of Universal Blue that Bazzite is also based on. Very slick setup
nurettin 2y ago
I was pleasantly surprised to find official cuda repositories for fedora 41 for compiling llama.cpp. If you need such specific repos, make sure fedora supports them before switching.
treve 2y ago
I switched about 2 years ago using my Dell XPS 13. No hardware issues and everything is just a bit less buggy. I wrote about it back then: https://evertpot.com/switching-to-fedora/ https://evertpot.com/switching-to-fedora/
toprerules 2y ago
Fedora uses more stock and Red Hat is a far, far bigger contributor to Linux and OS as a whole (especially the kernel and systemd). Fedora stays more true to the only OSS ethos. IMO Fedora is the better pick. If I had to use Ubuntu I would fight to use Debian instead.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  exactly same sentiment here
- zifpanachr23 2y ago
  I agree very strongly with your take. Fedora (and RHEL of course) ooze professionalism in a way that no other distro ecosystem does to me. It's rock solid AND comes with relatively new packages, AND they are close to stock. I also appreciate their willingness to put themselves forward and show leadership when it comes to adopting (or creating) new technologies that can make the platform better. I think most professionals can agree at this point that despite little qualms and some early hiccups here and there, technologies like systemd and wayland (and others) were probably good ideas in the long run, and Fedora was consistently way out ahead in promoting and adopting them. I also tend to trust Red Hat (and yes even IBM) more than I do Canonical for a number of reasons.
  - akdor1154 2y ago
    > Canonical gives off some weird vibes and those in the know will understand what I'm talking about. You're probably trying to write fairly and without throwing shade, but the result is this gives off vibes of FUD. Can you be a bit more specific about your issues with Canonical?
    - zifpanachr23 2y ago
      You're right and I apologize for that and don't want to discourage anybody from doing business with or working with or for Canonical. All I'll say is that the recruitment process alone, if it's still as bad as it used to be, is a major red flag and deal breaker w.r.t what it says about the overall culture. Maybe things have changed and so people should really take my opinions about them with a grain of salt.
lreeves 2y ago
I moved my AMD Framework laptop from Ubuntu to Fedora, no real complaints. Having the newest kernel and Mesa stuff is pretty useful if you're doing any gaming on it.
ndiddy 2y ago
One thing to note is that you have to set up codecs/video acceleration stuff manually on Fedora because of legal reasons. Here's a pretty good guide for that, it also has some suggested configuration tweaks for GNOME that make it a bit nicer to use. https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2024/10/14/fedora-starter-pack/ https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2024/10/14/fedora-starter-pack/
- tapoxi 2y ago
  For those interested in the atomic versions, the Universal Blue team has variants that do all of this for you: https://universal-blue.org/ https://universal-blue.org/ It's not really a separate distro, more like a different configuration. The regular atomic release is the "base image" with the universal blue stuff overlayed on top. You can rebase to or from a universal blue image and a stock atomic one.
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  You can use video players from Flathub which support patent-protected codecs. It's much easier than having to try and gather packages from RPMFusion.
runjake 2y ago
I prefer apt, but on my particular PC, Fedora is noticeably faster and more stable than Ubuntu. Not that I have system crashes, but I have smoother performance and gaming, and random GNOME apps crash much less on Fedora, so I use it. And there's no Snap -- unless you want it. YMMV.
ustad 2y ago
I switched from Ubuntu to Debian about two months ago after my system crashed while trying to update. Since then, Debian has been rock-solid, running much smoother and more efficiently. No more dealing with Snap packages and similar annoyances. If you’re disciplined about not messing with the OS, keeping your files organized and backed up, and using containers, switching between distros and operating systems becomes pretty seamless.
microtonal 2y ago
FWIW, slightly less relevant to coming from Ubuntu specifically, I would use Fedora if I wasn't using NixOS. It has so many things going for it: - A strong focus on security, one of the few distributions to use SELinux. They were very active in pushing verified boot. Early adoption of Flatpak, which has seen better and better sandboxing over time. - Very fresh. So you get the latest & greatest GNOME, etc. and even after a release a lot of packages are actively maintained and updated. I have generally found that this leads to a more stable system, since bugs get fixed more quickly. - Since Fedora is very up-to-date, hardware support is also very good. - Their immutable/atomic distributions (e.g. Silverblue) are awesome. Immutable boot, atomic upgrades/rollbacks, etc.
seabrookmx 2y ago
I run Ubuntu everywhere except my Framework, because at the time Fedora was shipping a newer kernel that had better 12th Gen Intel support. I formatted ext4 with LUKS because it's what I'm used to, but honestly Fedora has been great. Add flathub, a few gnome extensions (same ones I'd use in Ubuntu) and it's basically the same experience. Without knowing what you're migrating I can't really speak to that. I use a pretty light toolset and heavily lean on remote dev (VS Code SSH extension).
ddxv 2y ago
I migrated and noticed nothing. About all I can think of is I type 'sudo apt xxx' all the time.
zamalek 2y ago
I did tons of distro hopping a year or two ago, I landed on both Ubuntu and Fedora. One thing that I absolutely did not like about Fedora is that updates take a non-trivial time on reboot (this generally isn't a problem with Ubuntu). On the other hand, Fedora has packages newer than the last ice age. You'll probably have to use a COPR or two (the equivalent of PPAs). Other than that, you'll just be using dnf instead of apt. Articles/answers for RHEL usually work on Fedora. You should really feel right at home. It's also worth having a look at Fedora Silverblue or Kinoite (or universal blue, which is newer than what I've used). Installing packages at a system level is more involved (they really want you to use Flatpak and containers), but it is possible. I had a CI server spitting out my system image weekly at one point. If NixOS didn't exist I would be using this. I don't have much respect for Ubuntu. They did a lot for bringing Linux on the desktop from zero, but I feel as though it's being held back by Ubuntu these days (especially with snaps). At least consider Debian instead.
rurban 2y ago
I'm using both for several years. Fedora is lightyears ahead in quality and ease of use, but you need to install a lot of missing packages by yourself. No big deal though. Ubuntu became a huge clusterfuck
paride5745 2y ago
I recently switched from Fedora to Linux Mint Debian Edition (I work mostly with Debian servers so I am more comfortable with apt than dnf), and the switch has been smooth for me. I keep my home directory organized and backed up on my NAS, so for me reinstalling is straightforward. Also I use Flatpaks whenever possible, so reinstall them is just looking at ~/.var/app and reinstalling what is there. Other files to back up might be custom /etc confs, and maybe lists of packages you need (dpkg -l or rpm -qa are your friends). I also use Linux brew for some more up to date software (e.g. golang) and just brew list is your command to get what you have installed. In general, keep a backup of your home folder (I suggest skipping backing up ~/.cache to save some time and space) and you are mostly good to go.
- PhilippGille 2y ago
  - `brew list` doesn't include apps you install from 3rd party taps, or casks, so `brew list --full-name` + `brew list --full-name --cask` is better - Many apps store their config and user data outside of the home dir. I always find it dishonest when people say backing up home is enough on Linux. You did say "mostly ready to go", but that's exactly the tricky and important part that most people pretend doesn't exist E.g. Docker volumes are in /var/lib/docker So /etc/... and /var/lib are generally worth checking as well, but that probably still doesn't cover everything, as not all apps behave as maybe XDG specifies.
  - paride5745 2y ago
    Ideally you shouldn't have to backup /var/lib/docker, as your docker configs should live in your docker-compose.yaml or whatever you use to start your docker containers. Also I have included backing up /etc confs in my original post. I agree on the brew list being incomplete, totally forgot about casks. Not even sure if they work correctly under Linux to be honest. I literally just use brew for golang and awscli :P
    - PhilippGille 2y ago
      Re Docker I said volumes, not config. Some volumes you might have mapped to the host and maybe picked a home subdirectory, but others maybe not. For example the Ollama 3rd party UI `open-web-ui` suggests to run it like this in their documentation: `docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v open-webui:/app/backend/data --name open-webui --restart always ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main` Then "open-webui" will be in `/var/lib/docker/volumes/open-webui/`. Sure you can change it, but what I mean is that a lot of software by itself, or by you following documentation, puts data that you usually want to back up outside of your home.

by jjice 2y ago

wirybeige 2y ago

Moving between distros I usually just have files I care about like documents and music on their own drive so I don't need to worry about moving them. As for moving from Ubuntu to Fedora, there are more steps to getting non-free software/codecs/drivers working on Fedora, you will need RPM Fusion for that. There are relevant How-Tos provided by RPM Fusion and other sources for installing NVIDIA drivers, ffmpeg (non-free), and more.

jjice 2y ago
Having all my actual files separately stored from my system files just makes so much sense. Good call. Right now they're mostly relegated to a few directories, but I'm not positive, which is part of the headache I'm worried about with a switch. Having them completely separate and symlinked is a great call.
fanatic2pope 2y ago
I believe these days the "extra steps" amount to just clicking an option box to allow third party repositories during install. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/workstation-working-group/third-party-repos/ https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/workstation-working-gro...
- wirybeige 2y ago
  It enables only a small selection of RPM Fusion as your link shows, ofc flathub gets around some of the need for RPM Fusion, like video codecs, as long as everything else your using is a flatpak (and uses the applicable runtimes).

oaththrowaway 2y ago

I floated between Mint and Pop_OS for years, and now I'll probably never leave Fedora Silverblue. It's awesome. I just use different toolbox/distrobox for different things I need. Most of my dev work is in a Ubuntu distrobox and I use mostly Flatpaks for everything else.

bsimpson 2y ago
For those who have heard of Bazzite, the frontrunner in gaming/home theater Linux distros, it's based on Silverblue.
- oaththrowaway 2y ago
  I'm actually using a customized version of Universal Blue that Bazzite is also based on. Very slick setup

nurettin 2y ago

I was pleasantly surprised to find official cuda repositories for fedora 41 for compiling llama.cpp. If you need such specific repos, make sure fedora supports them before switching.

treve 2y ago

I switched about 2 years ago using my Dell XPS 13. No hardware issues and everything is just a bit less buggy. I wrote about it back then: https://evertpot.com/switching-to-fedora/ https://evertpot.com/switching-to-fedora/

toprerules 2y ago

Fedora uses more stock and Red Hat is a far, far bigger contributor to Linux and OS as a whole (especially the kernel and systemd). Fedora stays more true to the only OSS ethos. IMO Fedora is the better pick. If I had to use Ubuntu I would fight to use Debian instead.

jjtheblunt 2y ago
exactly same sentiment here
zifpanachr23 2y ago
I agree very strongly with your take. Fedora (and RHEL of course) ooze professionalism in a way that no other distro ecosystem does to me. It's rock solid AND comes with relatively new packages, AND they are close to stock. I also appreciate their willingness to put themselves forward and show leadership when it comes to adopting (or creating) new technologies that can make the platform better. I think most professionals can agree at this point that despite little qualms and some early hiccups here and there, technologies like systemd and wayland (and others) were probably good ideas in the long run, and Fedora was consistently way out ahead in promoting and adopting them. I also tend to trust Red Hat (and yes even IBM) more than I do Canonical for a number of reasons.
- akdor1154 2y ago
  > Canonical gives off some weird vibes and those in the know will understand what I'm talking about. You're probably trying to write fairly and without throwing shade, but the result is this gives off vibes of FUD. Can you be a bit more specific about your issues with Canonical?
  - zifpanachr23 2y ago
    You're right and I apologize for that and don't want to discourage anybody from doing business with or working with or for Canonical. All I'll say is that the recruitment process alone, if it's still as bad as it used to be, is a major red flag and deal breaker w.r.t what it says about the overall culture. Maybe things have changed and so people should really take my opinions about them with a grain of salt.

lreeves 2y ago

I moved my AMD Framework laptop from Ubuntu to Fedora, no real complaints. Having the newest kernel and Mesa stuff is pretty useful if you're doing any gaming on it.

ndiddy 2y ago

One thing to note is that you have to set up codecs/video acceleration stuff manually on Fedora because of legal reasons. Here's a pretty good guide for that, it also has some suggested configuration tweaks for GNOME that make it a bit nicer to use. https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2024/10/14/fedora-starter-pack/ https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2024/10/14/fedora-starter-pack/

tapoxi 2y ago
For those interested in the atomic versions, the Universal Blue team has variants that do all of this for you: https://universal-blue.org/ https://universal-blue.org/ It's not really a separate distro, more like a different configuration. The regular atomic release is the "base image" with the universal blue stuff overlayed on top. You can rebase to or from a universal blue image and a stock atomic one.
ChocolateGod 2y ago
You can use video players from Flathub which support patent-protected codecs. It's much easier than having to try and gather packages from RPMFusion.

runjake 2y ago

I prefer apt, but on my particular PC, Fedora is noticeably faster and more stable than Ubuntu. Not that I have system crashes, but I have smoother performance and gaming, and random GNOME apps crash much less on Fedora, so I use it. And there's no Snap -- unless you want it. YMMV.

ustad 2y ago

I switched from Ubuntu to Debian about two months ago after my system crashed while trying to update. Since then, Debian has been rock-solid, running much smoother and more efficiently. No more dealing with Snap packages and similar annoyances. If you’re disciplined about not messing with the OS, keeping your files organized and backed up, and using containers, switching between distros and operating systems becomes pretty seamless.

microtonal 2y ago

FWIW, slightly less relevant to coming from Ubuntu specifically, I would use Fedora if I wasn't using NixOS. It has so many things going for it: - A strong focus on security, one of the few distributions to use SELinux. They were very active in pushing verified boot. Early adoption of Flatpak, which has seen better and better sandboxing over time. - Very fresh. So you get the latest & greatest GNOME, etc. and even after a release a lot of packages are actively maintained and updated. I have generally found that this leads to a more stable system, since bugs get fixed more quickly. - Since Fedora is very up-to-date, hardware support is also very good. - Their immutable/atomic distributions (e.g. Silverblue) are awesome. Immutable boot, atomic upgrades/rollbacks, etc.

seabrookmx 2y ago

I run Ubuntu everywhere except my Framework, because at the time Fedora was shipping a newer kernel that had better 12th Gen Intel support. I formatted ext4 with LUKS because it's what I'm used to, but honestly Fedora has been great. Add flathub, a few gnome extensions (same ones I'd use in Ubuntu) and it's basically the same experience. Without knowing what you're migrating I can't really speak to that. I use a pretty light toolset and heavily lean on remote dev (VS Code SSH extension).

ddxv 2y ago

I migrated and noticed nothing. About all I can think of is I type 'sudo apt xxx' all the time.

zamalek 2y ago

I did tons of distro hopping a year or two ago, I landed on both Ubuntu and Fedora. One thing that I absolutely did not like about Fedora is that updates take a non-trivial time on reboot (this generally isn't a problem with Ubuntu). On the other hand, Fedora has packages newer than the last ice age. You'll probably have to use a COPR or two (the equivalent of PPAs). Other than that, you'll just be using dnf instead of apt. Articles/answers for RHEL usually work on Fedora. You should really feel right at home. It's also worth having a look at Fedora Silverblue or Kinoite (or universal blue, which is newer than what I've used). Installing packages at a system level is more involved (they really want you to use Flatpak and containers), but it is possible. I had a CI server spitting out my system image weekly at one point. If NixOS didn't exist I would be using this. I don't have much respect for Ubuntu. They did a lot for bringing Linux on the desktop from zero, but I feel as though it's being held back by Ubuntu these days (especially with snaps). At least consider Debian instead.

rurban 2y ago

I'm using both for several years. Fedora is lightyears ahead in quality and ease of use, but you need to install a lot of missing packages by yourself. No big deal though. Ubuntu became a huge clusterfuck

paride5745 2y ago

I recently switched from Fedora to Linux Mint Debian Edition (I work mostly with Debian servers so I am more comfortable with apt than dnf), and the switch has been smooth for me. I keep my home directory organized and backed up on my NAS, so for me reinstalling is straightforward. Also I use Flatpaks whenever possible, so reinstall them is just looking at ~/.var/app and reinstalling what is there. Other files to back up might be custom /etc confs, and maybe lists of packages you need (dpkg -l or rpm -qa are your friends). I also use Linux brew for some more up to date software (e.g. golang) and just brew list is your command to get what you have installed. In general, keep a backup of your home folder (I suggest skipping backing up ~/.cache to save some time and space) and you are mostly good to go.

PhilippGille 2y ago
- `brew list` doesn't include apps you install from 3rd party taps, or casks, so `brew list --full-name` + `brew list --full-name --cask` is better - Many apps store their config and user data outside of the home dir. I always find it dishonest when people say backing up home is enough on Linux. You did say "mostly ready to go", but that's exactly the tricky and important part that most people pretend doesn't exist E.g. Docker volumes are in /var/lib/docker So /etc/... and /var/lib are generally worth checking as well, but that probably still doesn't cover everything, as not all apps behave as maybe XDG specifies.
- paride5745 2y ago
  Ideally you shouldn't have to backup /var/lib/docker, as your docker configs should live in your docker-compose.yaml or whatever you use to start your docker containers. Also I have included backing up /etc confs in my original post. I agree on the brew list being incomplete, totally forgot about casks. Not even sure if they work correctly under Linux to be honest. I literally just use brew for golang and awscli :P
  - PhilippGille 2y ago
    Re Docker I said volumes, not config. Some volumes you might have mapped to the host and maybe picked a home subdirectory, but others maybe not. For example the Ollama 3rd party UI `open-web-ui` suggests to run it like this in their documentation: `docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v open-webui:/app/backend/data --name open-webui --restart always ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main` Then "open-webui" will be in `/var/lib/docker/volumes/open-webui/`. Sure you can change it, but what I mean is that a lot of software by itself, or by you following documentation, puts data that you usually want to back up outside of your home.