Since the future of Ubuntu is uncertain, and Pop!_OS is still an Ubuntu base, should we have a beginner’s guide to Fedora?
There have been videos on Fedora in the context of VFIO, but I feel a beginner’s guide is needed if choices are going to be limited soon with Ubuntu out of the picture with the added frustration of the complete removal of 32bit support.
What are you talking about?
Im all for fedora shilling but it’s not really that hard to get into. Workstation is a breeze to install and get running. It’s the fixing of broken things down the road that gets me every time. Hard to write a beginners guide to that.
Especially on Nvidia and Blackmagic card owners.
That’s what this should cover as part of the introduction, because this is a heck of a lot simpler to fix than trying to fix Manjaro when it breaks.
I have yet to have any real problems with Nvidia on fedora. Both rpmfusion and negativo17 just work™ for me.
My beginners guide is:
@Adubs i agree with mostly - but things like steam games, gog games, etc. all assume ubuntu and are often either a minor annoyance or really awkward to make work. due to library differences. But unless you really do need/crave more recent software for whatever reason there are other easier ways to get by. Like… plain debian probably.
edit:
i do say this as someone running fedora 30 on 3 machines at the moment…
It burns the skin with it’s insane defaults.
Hisses
Its probably frowned upon but I just use the flatpak for steam and gg no re.
Just works™
I will have to check this out.
I’m just getting back into linux after some time away, and flatpak never used to exist.
Imagine you could download an installer like windows… But also it adds a repo for updates. It’s probably not the ideal solution but I’m a simple man with simple needs.
Take your pick on documentation: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/
Quick docs are useful for common topics, though I wish there was a search function on the page: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/
For proprietary nvidia drivers, you have the RPM Fusion option or negativo17.
If you have questions, they now have a community forum based on Discourse (though you might find more help here 
) https://ask.fedoraproject.org/
I’ve been using Fedora for over a year, and the transition from Ubuntu wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be.
I’ve got a Blackmagic card on my fedora machine. It’s stupid simple. Install the rpm, and dkms install every time the kernel upgrades.
Nvidia? As mentioned, the negativo 17 repo works perfectly.
But, what is uncertain about Ubuntu, I’m curious.
If this is about the 32 bit library end of life… Its about god damn time and if its true the future of ubuntu is brighter than ever. 32 bit needs to die. To often to many times is it going to be the cause of security issues. Any good programmers knows why this is such. It has to do with maintain compatibility to software thats so antiquated and vulnerable it should have died ages ago. So if its about that I would say its not uncertain but rather certainly bright… Also they did have some interesting package and version mismatches circa 1-2 months ago but something that big occurs every now and then and its nothing to fret over the future of a distribution. If its none of these then:
what are you even talking about?
As for a beginners guide to fedora. The fedora docs are a bang up beginners guide. I feel it would be generally redundant but if you want to write one id be interested in looking at it. Both Black Magic and NVIDIA are simple add repo/install rpm dkms build… reap the benefits installs… super easy so I dont know what you mean by tricky
However if you are speaking about the RPMfusion repos… they are slightly more difficult but fedoras documentation is phenomenal and any even a beginner linux user can follow the steps and not have issues 
For Nvidia drivers you can just go to the gnome software centre and click ‘install’ for Nvidia drivers.
Specific versions of drivers in a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” stance simply doesn’t work with constant Kernel and GCC updates. This is why I wanted a Kernel selector like Manjaro’s Kernel selector with support for GCC version locking too because sometimes you want it to remain stable at a certain combination of drivers.
Of course if you’re rolling release, that doesn’t matter at all.
See here
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/Third_Party_Software_Repositories
This is the official tested way of doing it as for fedora 28+. Also the easiest.
My experience on Fedora is like:
Good to know for those using gnome software.
The official DE of Fedora Workstation… like I said its an easy 1,2,3 IDK why people are saying its hard… It was hard back in the heisenbug days… its not hard anymore to my knowledge (which is up to date with fedora 30)
Which not everyone uses.
The “uncertainty” of Ubuntu still isn’t clarified, but if it is in reference to phasing out 32 bit, isn’t that to be expected everywhere? OpenMandriva has also announced the end of 32 bit support https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OpenMandriva-Dropping-32-Plans
On the other hand what do you do for old devices without 64 bit hardware? They still exist!
Maybe if you have very specific dependency issues… but one main reason I went with Fedora is for frequent kernel updates. Over a year in and no breakage issues, while enjoying new kernel features.
As for GCC (eg. CUDA’s GGC version dependency) it might be better to install that specific dependency version separately (as negativo does) rather than hold back the entire system.
We would all like a clarification on this statement.
However yes 32 bit phasing out is expected everywhere ubuntu is just the first to do it so people jump on the hate bangwagon where as the last to do it gets the praise bandwagon. This is what ive seen on all forums I sit on… IDK why it has to happen.
Ive thought about that long and hard and Ive come to the realization debian has support for it still and they have a long term release for security updates but almost all communities have said “its time to move on from insecure antiquated platforms” even if they have sentimental value this needs to happen imho. Heres the thing if its sentimental just dont use it as a daily computer. Stash it somewhere for nostalgia and move onto good and supported hardware.
They have fricken nailed that. In fact nvidia drivers dont even break on kernel updates… its trully amazing how easy fedora has come. Coming from someone who remembers FC and later Heisenbug (oh dear) lol…
Its not to say fedora is the most amazing distro but its a testament to how far it has come.