Ever since Fedora 18 you can use the same install and upgrade to the next Fedora release (or alpha/beta) using fedup: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp http

Ever since Fedora 18 you can use the same install and upgrade to the next Fedora release (or alpha/beta) using fedup: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp My Thinkpad X220/X230 (hard drive swapped a lot) has the same "install" for years now. As for community and resources I feel Fedora has come a long way since you used it. I disagree with your statement that they are not as active. There are tons of active Fedora users. IRC on freenode is very active and online resources are getting better to figure out your problems. RPM fusion and EPEL repositories have pretty much everything I have needed that isn't supplied by Fedora out of the box. Also, if you sign up for a redhat bugzilla.redhat.com account and use ABR to submit crashes and issues, things actually get fixed. At least in my experience. Fedora 21 Beta has been great for me. Maybe give it a try. :)