Post #3122175

2026-03-02 16:30 UTC

I’ve been a Linux user for ~27 years now. I started in ~1999 with Red Hat 7 (not RHEL, RHL) and it was my *full time* desktop OS for 2+ years with Mandrake Linux around 2003. I’ve tried dozens of distros, I know my way around. Eventually I moved to macOS and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve used Linux consistently since then, but mostly just on servers, no desktop, no GUI - Debian-based the whole time. I’ve run Ubuntu in some form since literally 4.04. Here’s my question: I just picked up a refurb laptop to run desktop Linux again. I considered: Ubuntu, Mint, KDE Neon, Omarchy, Pop_OS, Elementary, Fedora Silverblue But I def want Wayland, a solid package manager, and a good library of available software. Not married to flatpack, deb, or snap. But I think I’m going to go with plain ol Fedora Workstation. I love Ubuntu and apt, but think Fedora just looks awesome and it’s Wayland first. Thoughts? @thomholwerda @latenightlinux

Replies (2)

@lproven@social.vivaldi.net 2026-03-02 16:37

@sethadam1@shakedown.social @thomholwerda@exquisite.social @latenightlinux@mastodon.social Fedors is not "Wayland first" any more than anything else. _Desktops_ may be, distros are not. Also, personal opinion of someone who's been using desktop Linux for several years longer than you: Wayland ain't all that. Don't believe the hype. Mostly it is still a pain. IMHO the best desktops still do not support Wayland. Obvs what that is is subjective but I've tried them all, to an approximation, and for me the best is Xfce.

Open ##3245102
@thomholwerda@exquisite.social 2026-03-02 16:54

@sethadam1@shakedown.social @latenightlinux@mastodon.social I'm definitely a Fedora fan, because it fits my personal preferences. I specifically like that it is bleeding edge, but not so much so it breaks all the time, thanks to the excellent release QA Fedora has. Downside is that you do need to go to rpmfusion.net to enable nonfree repos with closed drivers/codecs. I use the KDE variant, but the GNOME one is just as solid. I'm personally not yet ready to switch to the immutable variants, but I did test them and they rock too. Also an excellent choice, and rpmfusion.net supports them just as well. Using Fedora also means pretty much every developer will have a package or repo for it, and online help from forums and such is usually excellent and detailed. Fedora people are also all over Fedi, so they're easy to talk to.

Open ##3245108