Fedora 26 Xfce spin review

Background

I jump between Linux distros now and again, and earlier this year switched to Fedora, after experiencing issues with Antergos and Nvidia drivers, and having trouble with getting my Xbox 360 controller to work. Fedora in particular struck me for its recent software packages, and supposed stability in more recent releases. So now I've been using Fedora 26 Xfce spin for some months, on both my laptop and desktop. Time to write a short review, how exciting!

I will given an open disclaimer that I'm mostly reviewing the platform, not the default software - though there will be a couple of notable exceptions. I'm also regarding the OS from the standpoint of an intermediate user, but not a technical user. There won't be heavy amounts of command line and configuration mucking here, apart from package management. Lastly, I'll note that I installed Fedora 25 on the laptop first, later to upgrade it to Fedora 26. This does have some bearing in the review. The desktop, meanwhile, is a newer computer with considerably less runtime.

Hardware specifications

Laptop

Lenovo ThinkPad X220
CPU: Intel Core i5-2540M
Memory: 5 GB (1+4) DDR3-1333
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000
Storage: 120 GB SanDisk SSD Plus

Desktop

Custom build (ASRock AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
Memory: 8 GB (4+4) DDR4-2400 (overclocked to 2933)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti (EVGA SuperClocked)
Storage: 120 GB SanDisk SSD Plus

Installation

I opted to use Fedora's Xfce spin because for me, Xfce strikes the best balance of light weight and usability in a desktop environment. I did use Fedora Workstation with GNOME on another system, but it's not my main computer, and I'm not fond of using GNOME's tablet-like UI on a traditional computer. Though I'll live with it if I have to.

Fedora's Anaconda installer is... okay. Most Linux installers these days are okay. Getting rid of existing partitions is a bit spoopy; I ended up doing it all manually in Gparted instead of going through Anaconda. The rest of the installer is fine, mostly just clicking options and filling out fields. There's an option to set up encryption automatically, which I went through with on the desktop. On the laptop, I kept my old partitions from Antergos, including the old /home partition. This caused an issue that was easily worked around (more on that in a bit).

Post-install

Laptop

Booted up fine, but refused to log in. Turns out that this is an SELinux thing. I don't have much experience with this stuff, so I decided to look around on the interwebs for answers. The solution I found was to Ctrl+Alt+F2 to a tty, log in as root, and run restorecon -R /home. Some would argue that this is awful for beginners, and I agree, but most beginners probably won't reuse their home partitions in this manner. So I don't see it as a major issue, but I've noted it here regardless.

Bluetooth didn't want to work properly either, and blueman spat out an error on every login. I'm going to just chalk this up to some reused configuration in the home folder and call it a day, because I don't use Bluetooth for anything, so I just uninstalled it. I realize that this isn't really fixing the problem, but hey, that's my use case.

Desktop

Due to licensing issues and official policy, Fedora does not ship with Nvidia proprietary drivers, so the desktop ran on the nouveau drivers out of the box. This is acceptable for basic performance, but the more savvy users will know that nouveau produces substandard performance in applications such as games.

I opted to install Negativo17's Nvidia drivers, as I've found them to be more dependable than the RPM Fusion packages. For an absolute beginner, setting up the repository might be a bit spoopy, but it's not hard, and if you follow the directions, everything should be OK.

Both systems

I added the RPM Fusion repositories to both systems for codec support and Steam. Because Fedora has strict standards on what to allow in their repositories, some people may find the default software selection to be limiting. Thus, RPM Fusion is basically a must if you want to use Fedora as a desktop OS, and it goes a long way in making it more usable. Installing it is quite easy, though, which is nice.

Of note, Steam requires the 32-bit Nvidia libraries if using the Nvidia proprietary drivers, or it will die miserably and never start. These are available in the Negativo17 repos. If you want to do Steam streaming, you'll also have to allow the steam service under public in the firewall configuration. This is as easy as opening up the application from the menu. I also installed Discord and Firefox Nightly via Copr on both systems, and it's been working fine for me.

Package management

Graphical

Fedora Xfce comes with YUM Extender for its default graphical package manager, which I've found to be slow and unreliable, sometimes failing to update the package lists correctly. Occasionally, it even messes up the underlying dnf package lock. This is a massive downer, and from what I've found, it's not even actively maintained anymore. Time to find an alternative.

dnfdragora seems to be the leading alternative to YUM Extender. It seems more reliable, but unfortunately, my experience has been that it's still very sluggish. There's also GNOME Software, of course, but it only allows you to install GUI applications. This is adequate for a typical user, but it doesn't ship out of the box with Fedora Xfce, and it's unsatisfactory for power users. So graphical package management is a somewhat sore spot for Fedora. Hopefully, that situation improves in the future.

Command line

By stark contrast, command line package management is superb - in my opinion, the best that I've seen in a Linux distro. Debian has apt, Arch has pacman, and Fedora has dnf. When I first used Fedora, it used yum, which was user-friendly but very slow. dnf is much faster - my experience has been that it compares favorably to pacman in speed, and handily beats out apt. It's a known variable by now that dnf speeds up updates by computing for and downloading packages that contain only altered files (called delta RPMs), which can easily save over 50% on download sizes. Command syntax is also simple - dnf update, dnf search, dnf install, etc. which makes it easier to use than pacman. If you're coming from Ubuntu or another Debian derivative, then dnf will be painless for you.

Months later

I mentioned earlier that I'm not really reviewing the default software, and true to that, I haven't even tested all of it. For example, I don't use local storage much for music, so I never fiddled around much with Pragha, the stock music player. But I did install Audacious on the laptop, and that works fine. Fedora Xfce also ships with Abiword, but I prefer LibreOffice, which works as expected.

What might be surprising is that basically everything I tested does work. You'd think that with its reputation for newness and bleeding edge software, Fedora would've caused me more problems. I'm pleased to report that it's been a very boring ride, and I mean that in a good way. In my view, an operating system should be unobtrusive and dependable, and so far Fedora has fulfilled those criteria. A package install here, an update there, no breakages to speak of. Steam works, and the games mostly work, though a couple of visual novels are dead as of this writing. It's probably something minor, and I'll eventually get around to seeing if I fix it. Game breakages are really just a thing that occasionally happens with Steam, regardless of OS.

The laptop was upgraded to Fedora 26 using dnf-plugin-system-upgrade, which was the most painless Linux upgrade I've done in quite a while, and the RPM Fusion repos even automatically pointed to Fedora 26 afterwards. The only minor issue I have is that Fedora locks itself down and becomes completely unusable during the upgrade, but it's designed this way so that nothing gets mucked up, and I can't argue with the outcome.

Conclusion

Fedora Xfce wouldn't be the first distro I'd recommend to an absolute Linux beginner, unless they're willing to get their hands a bit dirty. This is mainly due to the wonky Anaconda partitioner, the iffy graphical package management, and the fact that you need to set up third-party repos to make it really shine as a desktop OS. With a distro like Ubuntu, on the other hand, you don't need to deal with those hoops so much.

However, as a Linux user who's a bit more comfortable with messing around, my experience over these months has been nothing short of solid. Fedora has proven itself to be dependable and mature, in contrast to the scary reputation it's gained over the years. So for my two cents, I'll say that I'm happy with it, and I'll most likely keep using it for some time.