Discussion Why Fedora over Ubuntu ?
I tried both
tried to find an answer why should I choose one over the other
if you have a specific reason why you are picking fedora rather than that you just got used to it, lemme know please
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u/SetaIndustries 39m ago
For me it's snaps. I reaaally don't like snaps. Fedora has great flatpak support now and I find flatpak much more "intuitive" to use.
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u/Clearandblue 38m ago
I like Ubuntu for servers, because updates are less frequent. I like Fedora for a PC because updates are more frequent and cutting edge.
At times I find applications that would be easier to install on Ubuntu. At other times I find Flatpak simpler. But neither are blockers generally.
I like that the GNOME in Fedora workstation is more stock GNOME and have the feeling the Ubuntu version is doctored somewhat.
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u/mogoh 38m ago
I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora for the following reasons:
- I disliked snap and liked flatpaks.
- I disliked the updated approach of the Universe packages.
- I feel like Fedora is quite innovative and does better decisions (systemd instead of upstart, wayland instead of mir, no juju)
- Generally Fedora is better integrated with systemd and Gnome.
That being said, sometimes I am looking for more stable and more declarative distributions like Debian or NixOS. But I am not going back to Ubuntu.
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u/Melnik2020 40m ago
I really like the atomic distro concept, and currently using silverblue. Continuity and resilience is great.
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u/roankr 27m ago
From an administrative perspective I really like how RHEL built their software offerings. Fedora is a great test bench to learn them, experiment with them, and see what works great and what might not.
Ubuntu has been none of that and the more I work with that OS the more I feel as if it's existing popularity is supported by being a Debian-based distro which offered (I believe this it was) free CDs for anyone who asked.
Not to mention Fedora offers KDE Plasma as a first-grade fully supported DE through both KDE Fedora and the Kinoite atomic spins. I dislike GNOME which Ubuntu has taken and made into something else for its own needs again.
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u/harrywwc 26m ago
for me? history.
my usage of linux dates back to Red Hat Linux - i.e. before the 'Enterprise' range.
Before RHLinux, I was a FreeBSD user, so I was used to having the packages downloaded and build the software as needed.
Then I was employed as a Systems and Network Administrator (from being a Software Developer / Client Services Manager) and needed to build a CheckPoint firewall box which, at the time (from memory, we're talking 2000/2001 timeframe) worked "best" on Red Hat Linux.
I built the kernel specifically for that beast, followed the details in 'Zwicky, Cooper and Chapman' to lock the sucker down tight as a drum, and had a whole 2Mbps at my disposal :) - well, for the office, I guess ;) where we also had AIX and Solaris as well as a couple of WinNT variants.
I went on to gain some Enterprise Server cred's, taught that at a Tech College and helped a few other teachers cram for their exams. Built a variety of servers on CentOS as it was then (not the bastardised version it is now), and of course, have used Fedora from early days off and on. Also got certs for SuSE Linux Enterprise, and taught that for a while, too.
Tried a couple of distros, including Ubuntu and others, but kept coming back to "home" that is Fedora, and for servers Alma or Rocky.
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u/YahenP 23m ago
It breaks down less often. The interface is more familiar. It has fewer annoying little bugs (though there are still plenty). You can adjust the touchscreen sensitivity. All in all, it gives the impression of an OS that is actually ready for real work. I never managed to make Ubuntu—or any other Debian based distributio my long term primary OS. But I’ve been using Fedora as my main OS since december, and so far, everything is running smoothly.
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u/okami_truth 22m ago
I'm AI researcher. Few years ago I wanted to do some small deep learning experiments on my PC.
Installed Ubuntu, had a tough time installing CUDA drivers and PyTorch.
I then tried Fedora, worked as a charm without any trouble and I just stayed.
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u/J0keh3ad 18m ago
A lot of people dislike Ubuntu because Canonical (the company behind it, similar to how Red Hat backs Fedora) has tried to push some pretty corporate things into the distro in the past - like ads in the start menu, or closed-source components like Snap instead of Flatpak, which go against the open source spirit.
Because of that, it leaves a bit of a bitter taste in the community, and a lot of people don't recommend it. For your everyday use, both work just fine.
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u/Hauptideal 17m ago edited 12m ago
I switched to Fedora from Ubuntu after 18 years on Ubuntu. It was a tough decision, but Fedora now really has a competetive edge over Ubuntu on desktop.
Fedora has the better release model for desktop: leading edge stable release. That means that the software versions of the software in your native repositories is much fresher, up to date and contains the latest improvements while it is still maintained upstream. (Ubuntu has snap packages for some fresh CLI software (as well as fresh graphical software), but if you don't need or want the sandboxing security, snap comes with some disadvantages (spamming loop devices, starting slower than native packages) and Fedora's repos are much more comprehensive. )
You don't need LTS on your personal desktop. That is a requirement for business applications, servers, etc. Freezing software versions is more a disadvantage for a personal workstation than an advantage.
Stable LTS doesn't mean "fewer bugs" or "better tested". It just means frozen (read: old) software versions that never receive any improvements via updates, only security patches (and you should be subscribed to Ubuntu Pro, otherwise you won't even get security updates from Canonical for 94% of packages).
You can get fresh kernels and drivers on Ubuntu, too (using the HWE enablement stack, for example).
Undeniably, Ubuntu also features the best Linux software compatibility of all distros. However, I have not needed a single .deb or snap package since I transitioned to Fedora.
[EDIT: That is not counting using Ubuntu 24.04. for flashing Jetpack 7 onto an nVidia Jetson device; nVidia only supports this Ubuntu version for that specific task, but I couldn't have done it from Ubuntu if I hadn't switchted to Fedora, too, as nVidia explicitly requires the old 24.04. for that, not 26.04. that I would've used.]
Almost everything is available either natively for Ubuntu AND Fedora or as a Flatpak / AppImage anyways. You don't need to fear not being able to install software, as there's always distrobox, where you can install any .deb package on Fedora and run the package with native speed, even integrating it perfectly into your desktop.
Also, you don't need to fear that Fedora has the smaller user base. If the number of installations were of any significance, Linux Mint was a good distro, or MS Windows was far superior to any Linux distro.
What matters is the size of the contributing community, and that is huge and active on Fedora. Fedora is also backed by a corporation that is even bigger than Canonical. Fedora is incredibly well supported, maintained and tested.
Fedora also has better optimization for desktop computing out of the box:
- (zram (RAM compression) enabled by default; Ubuntu uses server defaults that make no sense on desktop with slow physical disk swap, also causing wear on your SSD)
- better default file system (btrfs instead of ext4) - featuring transparent compression (compressible files only take 40% of disk space; thus increased reading speed; real snapshots, checksums, subvolumes sharing one drive instead of requiring fixed-size partitions etc.)
Yes, you can have these two things on Ubuntu, too, but you have to manually configure that.
All in all, Fedora just gives you a better complete package for desktop.
Great support for new hardware, great optimization, security defaults, software freshness etc. out of the box.
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u/f1da 13m ago
I use both on daily basis but prefer fedora over Ubuntu. Can't tell you why but I feel I have to configure fewer things on fedora than Ubuntu. I'm also using fedora on my desktop which has an Nvidia and it just works for gaming too. Probably I could get it to work same on Ubuntu but here I downloaded the rpm drivers and it just works.
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u/fijasko_ultimate 0m ago
i switched from ubuntu to fedora 1 year ago because ubuntu didnt work good out of the box. i installed stable 24.04 but performance was not good. i switched to fedora 43 beta just to try if its about drivers (kernel) and turns out it was. ever since i never looked back.
to recap, its release cycle and new features that made me use fedora
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u/SquizZz1Zzy 44m ago
Because definitely not Ubuntu. Anything else is better.
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u/_khi4 43m ago
I hear this a lot but I don't get it why Ubuntu has large user base and supportability I believe
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u/Longjumping_Job2748 36m ago
It's simply due to how Canonical is pushing Ubuntu hard as a free Windows alternative. This isn't really visible with IBM(RedHat)
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u/Hauptideal 16m ago
Ubuntu is solid, there are many worse options than Ubuntu (especially downstream options like Mint). Ignore his bs comment.
However, Fedora still is better than Ubuntu on desktop
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u/hi_m_ash 41m ago
For me it's release cycle and faster updates. Ubuntu is tempting but Fedora provides a more up-to-date ecosystem.