Fedora 42 Beta

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Release highlights & desktop options

  • Many commenters are enthusiastic about Fedora 42 overall, especially:
    • Official WSL tarballs that avoid third‑party tooling and manual rootfs cobbling.
    • GNOME 48 with HDR support; early experiences are positive but HDR in games and browsers is still hit‑or‑miss.
  • Fedora KDE/Plasma is widely praised as one of the best KDE experiences, with appreciation for up‑to‑date dependencies and good tooling (mock, fedpkg).
  • The new COSMIC spin and existing Atomic desktops (Silverblue, Kinoite, Bluefin, Universal Blue) draw interest:
    • Seen as modern, more secure defaults (immutable base + Flatpak sandboxing).
    • COSMIC is still alpha; touchscreen support is currently poor.

Installer, Anaconda, and partitioning

  • The move to a web‑based installer UI is noted as emblematic of how much installers have evolved.
  • There is an extended digression on the name “Anaconda”:
    • Initial criticism for name collision with the Python distribution.
    • Others point out the installer predates the Python Anaconda by over a decade, so blame is placed on the latter.
  • The reworked partitioning is welcomed; several users say the old disk layout/LVM flow was confusing even for long‑time Fedora users.

Wayland status

  • Wayland as default is flagged as a major behavioral change for newcomers.
  • Reported pain points:
    • Remote desktop/screen sharing (especially compared to legacy VNC setups).
    • Slack screensharing and screen capture reliability.
    • Certain gaming/controller issues.
  • Fractional scaling is seen as Wayland’s standout benefit, but still imperfect.

Fedora vs Ubuntu/Debian and migration tips

  • Multiple users describe moving from Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS, or Debian to Fedora (or Fedora Silverblue):
    • Perceived gains: newer kernels and Mesa, better hardware support (e.g., Framework, newer Intel/AMD), fewer GNOME crashes, no forced Snaps, “more professional” ecosystem.
    • Downsides: extra steps for codecs/NVIDIA/CUDA (RPM Fusion, Flathub, or using Universal Blue images that pre‑configure this), longer reboots for updates, and faster kernel churn that occasionally breaks laptops.
  • General migration advice:
    • Keep user data on separate partitions/drives.
    • Rely on Flatpaks/containers and backup home plus key /etc and /var data.
    • Expect to swap apt for dnf and occasionally use COPR (akin to PPAs).

Servers, lifecycle, and CentOS/RHEL

  • Some prefer Debian on servers due to Fedora’s fast pace and RHEL’s lack of simple in‑place major upgrades.
  • Others report success running Fedora in production with strict staging, automated tests, and a 6–8 week delay before major upgrades.
  • CentOS Stream is mentioned as a 5‑year, RHEL‑adjacent option, though not truly rolling; RHEL live‑patching is noted as subscription‑tied.

Asahi Remix and hardware choices

  • Fedora Asahi Remix 42 Beta with FEX (x86 emulation) impresses users considering Apple silicon, but:
    • Concerns exist about Asahi’s funding and slow M4 support.
    • Lack of integrated disk‑encryption/verified‑boot is a blocker for some; manual /home encryption is possible but doesn’t solve evil‑maid threats.
  • Extensive side discussion compares Macs, Framework, and various ThinkPads/Grams:
    • Framework gets both strong praise (repairability, modularity) and harsh criticism (reliability, support, battery life, speakers).
    • ThinkPads and LG Gram are suggested as solid Linux laptops.

Atomic desktops, containers, and tooling

  • Silverblue, Bluefin, Universal Blue, and related images are highlighted as compelling immutable setups:
    • Atomic upgrades/rollbacks, container‑first workflows, and use of distrobox/toolbox are popular.
  • Fedora’s integration with Podman, rootless containers, and image‑building tooling is cited as a strength, especially for developers targeting RHEL/Rocky.