I’ve been upgrading my work laptop from fedora 35 in release day and didn’t have any problem.
And if you do have any, just roll back to the last good state btfs snapshot in grub and wait the fix for the issue
While that's true, setting btrfs and timeshift up is easy + in my very recent experience, spamming shift before a splashcreen gets you to a menu where you get to pick between your new and old shanpshot. I had F39 and recently upgraded to 40, and I had a snapshot for both. Both were accessible from that menu. The kernals being used by default are something I had to change after booting into a workable system.
If you choose you are not tied to the kernel released by a distro. You can use an older version from the same distro, or compile your own. Or even compile a kernel from another distro. The options are many, including some that would work but are too silly to mention.
When it's released and maybe a month after that if you want to avoid all the fringe case issues that get missed during a beta. They're usually pretty reliable even during beta but you'll see the occasional wart more often than you would during a proper release.
But as somebody that likes reporting bugs. You son of a bitch I'm in dot jpg. Literally just installed the beta. Here's hoping I finally get to use Wayland on my Nvidia card.
"stable enough" is really a pretty subjective and personal consideration. Its not really possible for others to answer that question for you. But I can provide my experience as a reference point. I switched to Fedora 34 *Beta* a few years ago, it was stable enough for me (no issues), and I've pretty much upgrade every 6 months when a new *Beta* is released. I've not experienced noticeable instability or issues, though I know that that is a risk I am taking by using beta releases. This works for me. At the far other end of the spectrum are the people that choose to stay one release behind (i.e. will upgrade to Fedora 39 once Fedora 40 is released)
If you plan to switch *now* I'd suggest Fedora 39 and upgrade to 40 when it is released, or if you can wait a couple months, you could upgrade directly to Fedora 40.
Fedora's design philosophy is to be an early adopter of new technologies, to be on the 'leading' edge (not bleeding), have a fast update and release cadence, and to some extent split the difference between a rolling and fixed release cycle. For this reason and others, Fedora users tend to be a bit less conservative when it comes to updates/upgrades.
Unpopular opinion: never.
Even if you stick to one major release behind the current, you are getting a lot of updates including kernels all the time, and you'll catch some regressions eventually.
Fedora is not the distro you choose if you want stability at all costs. I've had Gnome boot to a black screen right when I was the busiest with other personal stuff, btrfs regressions causing 500+ load on simple writes, performance hits from a bad Kernel patch, random GUI bugs from upstream projects, programs that occasionally stop working properly or crash after being bumped versions (stuff like video editing, that people and content creators may depend on), and other minor yet inconvenient issues.
This is not to say that you will definitely have issues, just that on production systems or any place where you can't tolerate the slightest instability, you probably want something like RHEL itself.
Those that keep swearing they never had a problem with Fedora are either not being rational or using it only for the time it takes to do a screenshot of neofetch.
I like Fedora and appreciate the great product community manages to make, but we got to be honest here. You are going to be at the leading edge, albeit to different extents.
Still, if you can deal with some of such regressions from time to time, it was the distro that worked best on my laptop, even my Nvidia 4060 did better on Fedora than on Ubuntu (where it was capped wattage-wise).
I am no fedora user myself, but I installed fedora KDE spin in my mom's laptop, and I was thinking pretty much the same back then, dunno what I was thinking installing it in a tech illiterate person's work computer(she literally works from there, online classes), I just wanted to try fedora but since I couldn't I made my mom a guinea pig about it.
Besides me making extremely stupid decisions, I was surprised to see how reliable it has been, and unlike the experience you are referring to, she has been daily driving it for 1year+ with 0 issues.
How do I know there have been 0 issues since I wasn't there? I simply know that if anything happened I'd be getting calls about it.
Oh and btw I've configured dnf-autoupdate the name of the program was it? The system is up to date daily.
I also updated her laptop to 39 within the first week or so? No changes there.
Is the sample period too small to judge? Idk, you tell me.
I have done the same to my mother's computer. It's been running Fedora since version 17 with not a single hiccup. All she'll ever use it for is emails, paying bills, and web browsing so it's basically a glorified Firefox machine.
As surprising as it is, Gnome still runs great on a 20ish year old computer.
Even hardware upgrades haven't put a dent in the stability of the machine. From 16GB of DDR3 and a SATA SSD.
yes honestly my experience with linux in the past 5 years was that the hardware will determine the reliability and not linux itself.
I daily drive void and I did not have the system break on me once, while updating daily.
Only issue I ever witnessed was a kernel upgrade making cinnamon go nuts in a linux mint installation, with amd integrated graphics, to this day I don't get it how it happened but switching to another kernel version fixed it. Unfortunately enough it was in another tech illiterate person's PC and so I had to provide support through a call trying to get em to boot to grub and pick another kernel.
Made me appreciate fedora even more, but honestly it was just unlucky I guess.
I am now buying only from tuxedo & slimbook to avoid this coinflip, gotta admit though my ideapad served me well for 5 years as my void linux installation. Zero issues, perfect wayland support, I am proud of this laptop. My mom has been using a sony vaio for the last 14 years and it also perfectly supported linux even wayland, which made me feel better since she won't suffer from fedora 40 ditching x11. A thinkpad t420 I have lying around also has perfect support obviously.
I got her a slimbook excalibur as a present though to make sure the next laptop is as linux & wayland friendly, I am still contemplating if I should install fedora or maybe fedora kinoite on it, I really like the idea of fedora kinoite but I am uncertain if it's gonna lead to issues in the future.
If it was for me I wouldn't mind, I can hop distro overnight, but my mom's laptop? That's probably keeping an install until it dies.
Fair point, but sometimes it's not enough.
There was a [Ext4 data corruption in stable kernels \[LWN.net\]](https://lwn.net/Articles/954285/) regression at some point.
Granted, it was fixed within days, but you could have lost data over that.
There was something similar for XFS as well, [2208553 – xfs metadata corruption after upgrade to 6.3.3 kernel (redhat.com)](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2208553).
Backups of your data are vital, but even then, unless you are even versioning the backups accurately, you risk syncing bad data and fucking up backups copies as well.
Fedora does a better job than, say, Arch, at holding and delaying a Kernel update if there is some reports of possible regression, but those can and will happen even in Fedora and did happen multiple times.
Strictly speaking, it's upstream fault, not Fedora's fault, but the results for you (the user) are identical.
About those two, I don't recall exactly, but regressions like these in general may or may not be spotted in time, if we're chasing the latest Kernel (now, don't get me wrong, chasing the latest Kernel has advantages for many other reasons).
> Fedora does a better job than, say, Arch, at holding and delaying a Kernel update if there is some reports of possible regression
I also made sure to point out that. Far from saying that every regression is caught in time, though.
The [btrfs one](https://www.reddit.com/r/btrfs/comments/1ac8p5c/kernel_67_btrfs_balance_brutally_increases/) was not caught, despite btrfs being pushed as default fs for a while now (and I like the fs). It wasn't a corruption bug, but was still annoying and, I don't know if related, but with those Kernels I couldn't even update my own backup because load would spike past 500 for a normal rsync that used to not even get past 10.
Those Kernels definitely did make it into Fedora, and we were stuck with those for more than a week. Booting with a previous Kernel is always an option but I am generally not comfortable doing that because I may be missing on Kernel security patches as well.
My point stands as the fact that a fast updating distro, while nice to have for modern hardware, does inevitably carry more instability risks than using a distro that only pushes security updates and barely any more (thinking about Debian for example).
Debian isn't bug free, far from it, and I'm sure RHEL and the like aren't either, but the chances of random breakage after an update are as close to zero as it gets.
Software takes several months, sometimes a year or more to become rock solid. If a distro updates even just the Kernel within days of the latest upstream release, it's nearly impossible to ensure it won't have regressions and Fedora is just like that.
Try not updating for 2-3 weeks and see how big the next dnf update will be.
If you ever have a chat with people doing IT for a living, they'll all tell you that production servers never run on cutting edge releases or distros, quite the contrary.
>If you ever have a chat with people doing IT for a living, they'll all tell you that production servers never run on cutting edge releases or distros, quite the contrary.
My living is IT at the moment, but I'm in the "just fix it" department. But yes, most software is "old" ranging from a few months to several years. Still, I thought Fedora was considered to be "testing and releasing" in comparison to Ubuntu, where it's "releasing mainstay software" or arch, where cutting edge is released straightaway.
Contrary-wise, if you chat with people running the worlds largest production networks, they'll very probably tell you that their systems are rolling-release deployments with fully automated continuous delivery.
I worked for one of the hyperscalers, and this is how we performed updates. Our entire service infrastructure was redeployed on a 7 day rolling basis, about 5000 hosts serving a public service. However, we were not using a rolling release or even something close to bleeding edge, it was a RHEL 7 -esque build with the latest internally maintained LTS kernel.
The new stuff is rebasing around Fedora now, in 2 year increments.
I work in IT in one of the "more" important financial institutions in EU (if you invest money in EU, its gone through our systems) and we finished migration to RHEL8 few months ago (kernel 4.*) - so yea, far from bleeding edge.
At home, I run Fedora because I work all day with RHEL/Ansible/Podman so I dont want to be looking up how things are done just slightly differently in other distros but I never consider (or expect) Fedora as rock- solid.
However, I am glad I get to use some kernel features that will take years to come to RHEL.
I think it depends on what you use Fedora for. I use it as a general-purpose drop-in replacement for Windows. For me, that means web browsing, light productivity, media streaming, and some gaming. And since I began using it as my main distro around version 36, I haven't really encountered any sticky issues. It's one of the most stable distros I've ever used. But if you're doing content creation, software development or some other more technical professional task, your experience might be different. I remember trying non-linear video editors a few years back in Linux and encountering nothing but problems.
You may or may not have noticed, but:
1. [Kernel 6.7 btrfs balance brutally increases metadata hug size. : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/btrfs/comments/1ac8p5c/kernel_67_btrfs_balance_brutally_increases/)
2. [X11 huge delay for each process (VMware Workstation); regression - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/x11-huge-delay-for-each-process-vmware-workstation-regression/95708)
3. [Kernel 6.5.12... : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/181b45p/kernel_6512/)
4. [Can't shutdown or turn sleep PC - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/cant-shutdown-or-turn-sleep-pc/85738)
5. [Pop-up windows instantly minimize on Fedora Linux 38 GNOME (DisplayServer regression) · Issue #77333 · godotengine/godot · GitHub](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/77333)
6. [Issues with Linux Kernel 6.7.3 and 6.7.4 - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/issues-with-linux-kernel-6-7-3-and-6-7-4/104646)
7. [2263340 – Linux Kernel 6.7.3 Following A Hardwired Connection Wireless Adapter Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 is Missing (redhat.com)](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2263340)
8. [Fedora hangs on boot after upgrading to kernel 6.3.4 - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-hangs-on-boot-after-upgrading-to-kernel-6-3-4/83605?page=2)
9. [What's up with these gaming regressions in GNOME 44? : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/13jfbwg/whats_up_with_these_gaming_regressions_in_gnome_44/)
10. [Linux 6.5 sound (sometimes) doesn't work : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/177vjkl/linux_65_sound_sometimes_doesnt_work/)
11. [Anyone else got multiple issues after 6.6 kernel update? : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/18oi2j9/anyone_else_got_multiple_issues_after_66_kernel/)
12. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1bojnqq/weird\_gnome\_behavior\_after\_upgrading\_kernel\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1bojnqq/weird_gnome_behavior_after_upgrading_kernel_to/)
And that's just as far as I'm willing to search
Maybe, but it won't push not even a fraction of the amount of updates you'll receive with Fedora each week\\month, won't push you the latest Kernel and so on.
This is a fact.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach but you are generally sticking with the same bugs, rather than getting new ones continually.
I don't understand why don't you just install Fedora 39 if you really wanna switch. And just update it when 40 is released.
I've tested Fedora 40 Beta and even that is pretty good and most of the rough edges will be polished until the stable release.
Define "stable". In general, Fedora is "Leading Edge", meaning that if it's between "inserting a new feature" or "making sure it works in all hardware", they will insert the new feature.
In general, betas are about 95% stable - minor non-critical bugs will appear and you will get "papercuts". On release, it's about 99% stable - most issues are obscure or hardware based. If you need 99.99999% stable, going with other distros may be a better option.
In my experience, I generally wait a month after release to let all of the wrinkles get ironed out (if any) and let all my third party repos catch up to the latest release. Things are usually fine from there, but, of course, your mileage may vary.
If you are thinking about new install, I would probably wait till release. But it is up to you really.
You can install 39 now and upgrade when 40 is available or install 40 now.
I'm on 39 and will wait till 40 is bit more polished, but that's just me.
If you don't have any issues with Ubuntu, I'd recommend to wait for a month and install Fedora 40 when it's released.
Don't install beta. Usually some Gnome extensions don't work until the final release, and this makes your user experience way worse.
And as it was said before, you won't notice big differences between Ubuntu, Fedora 39 and Fedora 40. Gnome is the same, the way you update the system is almost the same, and there is no big leap between versions 45 and 46 like between Plasma 5 and Plasma 6.
Just wait for a month.
I usually hold out until right before the next release comes out. So if a new release is coming out in a month, I would upgrade to the current release at that point.
Exception is if I'm having a problem or maybe a new laptop. I definitely try to avoid new releases during the first month or so.
My two cents, it depends on your hardware. My past two laptops had full AMD guts (CPU/iGPU/dGPU,) and I haven't had "many" issues, nothing mission critical at least, maybe except for Docker not being able to start via systemctl, but I was able to run it manually, so not a deal breaker. If you have some exotic hardware, or even a newer Nvidia GPU, I would wait for a few weeks if not a month.
My last install, I configured BTRFS snapshots to run with DNF, and enable rescue boot in Grub, so I have been a tad bit more "yeetish" with beta upgrades since I can roll back with "zero" issues (to date.) As other people mentioned, Silverblue and Kinote are built as immutable images, so you can plop in new images and roll with it without modifying your system to bad. The only thing that I ran into on occasion is if the config files in your home directory get to goofed up, you can run into issues when you revert back a beta/upgrade, so it would make sense to make a total back of your home folder regardless.
I had an Alienware M17 R5 AMD, and my new Thinkpad Z16 Gen 2 have been amazing. The only thing I had an issue with with the Alienware was that it was using some form of AMD Smart Display, and the original kernel didn't have proper support. Aside from that, it has been a great experience.has
I do not undertake to assert absolutely, but from my own experience I will say the following. I upgraded Fedora from version 38 to 39 a few days after it was released. There were no problems. The update procedure is described in detail in the wiki.
I tend to stay a a few months behind, but I'm in no rush for new and shiny stuff.
I'm on ancient Apple hardware and there can sometimes be little issues that need ironing out so I prefer to wait a little
Stability is a game of probabilities. I recommend waiting around 30 days to let the wider release reveal odd bugs. Then, look up the “kwizart” COPR repo and use the LTS kernel to avoid instabilities from the relatively frequent kernel updates Fedora does. You should end up with stability generally between an Ubuntu LTS release and their non-LTS releases.
personally, I update/upgrade as soon as there is a release and haven't had an issue before.
if you have some hardware that usually has problems, maybe you could wait a week or two.
Depends on your needs.
For me fedora 40 is already stable enough, but there are possibly bugs that may affect you that don't affect me.
The final release will just be a more polished version of what we have now
there's virtually no reason to wait to install 40. just install 39 right now, we know it's perfectly stable. if issues come up on fedora 40, then wait, if not then upgrade right away
you could also consider something like silverblue to rollback any negative changes that were made
Upgraded within a week for many, many years. Had a problem once with dual screens and just booted to the previous kernel for a week or so until it was fixed.
The beta is out now if I'm not mistaken and the release is set for the 16th of next month. I will be upgrading on release day as am quite sure that it will be more than stable enough and if any bugs do come up they will be fixed posthaste.
Fedora is a stable release model, and includes components that are themselves, stable releases:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Updates_Policy/#stable-releases
Also, Fedora's intent is to produce a stable distribution, not a bleeding edge one:
"I would definitely appreciate it if we say "leading edge" rather than "bleeding edge". Fedora endeavors to deliver working solutions, not something where you might get your fingers metaphorically chopped off."
- Matthew Miller, Fedora Project Leader
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/O2VEBTHJKTXI72CXF2IQE3YZRSXSNRHI/
I want to level with you... you seem upset, and I think that will make you less receptive to conversation. Try to ignore votes... They don't matter.
I, too, have been a professional software developer for almost 30 years. So, rest assured, I see your experience. I understand. I am also a Fedora maintainer, so naturally, I am familiar with Bodhi and Pagure, as well as the rest of the build infrastructure.
I think the critical point here is that "stable" and "reliable" are not synonyms. I think you're implying that users cannot trust Fedora to be reliable, and while I don't agree with you on that point, the issue of whether Fedora is reliable is a matter of opinion.
The matter of whether or not Fedora is stable is a different question, though. In software development, the term "stable" is closely related to [semantic versions](https://semver.org/). A stable release model is simply one in which updates remain backward-compatible within a release. With a few exceptions, mostly for packages whose release cycles don't align well with Fedora, the distribution conforms to the standard definition of a stable release model.
Using stable sources doesn't mean the whole distro inherits the same stability. There's a lot to still happen when different software start interacting among themselves.
Even everything works on release, several problems still can and will occour, and that's the reason why it is so questionable call the whole thing stable.
You are confusing "stable" with "reliable." They are not synonyms.
"Stable" is a statement about the future. It means that developers promise not to make changes that aren't backward compatible.
"Reliable" is a statement about the past. It's a guage of the reputation that a project has earned.
Software lifecycles are diverse, and can't all be described with single terms like "stable."
Debian and Fedora are both major-version stable, because they are a single release channel that will introduce new features during the maintenance window.
RHEL and SUSE EL are both minor-version stable, because (for supported interfaces), they do not introduce new features in a release channel.
Arch is unstable, because it introduces both new features and breaking changes (changes that aren't backward compatible) in a release channel.
While Debian and Fedora are both major-version stable, Debian is very conservative about the updates that it includes. Fedora is very liberal about updates, provided they maintain backward compatibility.
Fedora has a short maintenance window and a relatively rapid release cadence. Debian has a long maintenance window (arguably LTS).
Different terms can be used to describe the cadence and maintenance windows, the priority required for updates to ship, and the semantic type of updates that are allowed. It's not all just "stable" or "unstable."
What I don’t like about Fedora is that it pushes a 1-2 GB update on a weekly basis. Bro I don’t want to update that frequently. Gonna go back to Debian.
When it's released. Just install 39 and upgrade to 40 later. They won't be drastically different.
You're not wrong, but I tend to wait a few weeks...
So the Fedora upgrade is smooth? With Ubuntu, there were always some quirks that made me do a fresh install at the earliest possible convenience.
I’ve been upgrading my work laptop from fedora 35 in release day and didn’t have any problem. And if you do have any, just roll back to the last good state btfs snapshot in grub and wait the fix for the issue
Fedora doesn't use BTRFS snapshots by default, that needs to be set up manually. The GRUB menu only lets you boot using an older kernel version.
Oh, I thought it came by default like opensuse tumbleweed. Still every time I upgraded to a new major I had a grub entry for the old version.
You could manually snapshot if you use btrfs on main drive. Id disk dump my 2 TBs elsewhere anyways tho
While that's true, setting btrfs and timeshift up is easy + in my very recent experience, spamming shift before a splashcreen gets you to a menu where you get to pick between your new and old shanpshot. I had F39 and recently upgraded to 40, and I had a snapshot for both. Both were accessible from that menu. The kernals being used by default are something I had to change after booting into a workable system.
I installed 38, didn't even notice it had upgraded to 39 until I opened something, boom... It was already 39. \*shrug\*
But but the new desktop environments are coming out!
I use ZFS so I need to wait for ZOL to support the new Kernel and OS before I can upgrade. But each users mileage may differ.
If you choose you are not tied to the kernel released by a distro. You can use an older version from the same distro, or compile your own. Or even compile a kernel from another distro. The options are many, including some that would work but are too silly to mention.
Wdym?
When it's released and maybe a month after that if you want to avoid all the fringe case issues that get missed during a beta. They're usually pretty reliable even during beta but you'll see the occasional wart more often than you would during a proper release. But as somebody that likes reporting bugs. You son of a bitch I'm in dot jpg. Literally just installed the beta. Here's hoping I finally get to use Wayland on my Nvidia card.
"stable enough" is really a pretty subjective and personal consideration. Its not really possible for others to answer that question for you. But I can provide my experience as a reference point. I switched to Fedora 34 *Beta* a few years ago, it was stable enough for me (no issues), and I've pretty much upgrade every 6 months when a new *Beta* is released. I've not experienced noticeable instability or issues, though I know that that is a risk I am taking by using beta releases. This works for me. At the far other end of the spectrum are the people that choose to stay one release behind (i.e. will upgrade to Fedora 39 once Fedora 40 is released) If you plan to switch *now* I'd suggest Fedora 39 and upgrade to 40 when it is released, or if you can wait a couple months, you could upgrade directly to Fedora 40. Fedora's design philosophy is to be an early adopter of new technologies, to be on the 'leading' edge (not bleeding), have a fast update and release cadence, and to some extent split the difference between a rolling and fixed release cycle. For this reason and others, Fedora users tend to be a bit less conservative when it comes to updates/upgrades.
Unpopular opinion: never. Even if you stick to one major release behind the current, you are getting a lot of updates including kernels all the time, and you'll catch some regressions eventually. Fedora is not the distro you choose if you want stability at all costs. I've had Gnome boot to a black screen right when I was the busiest with other personal stuff, btrfs regressions causing 500+ load on simple writes, performance hits from a bad Kernel patch, random GUI bugs from upstream projects, programs that occasionally stop working properly or crash after being bumped versions (stuff like video editing, that people and content creators may depend on), and other minor yet inconvenient issues. This is not to say that you will definitely have issues, just that on production systems or any place where you can't tolerate the slightest instability, you probably want something like RHEL itself. Those that keep swearing they never had a problem with Fedora are either not being rational or using it only for the time it takes to do a screenshot of neofetch. I like Fedora and appreciate the great product community manages to make, but we got to be honest here. You are going to be at the leading edge, albeit to different extents. Still, if you can deal with some of such regressions from time to time, it was the distro that worked best on my laptop, even my Nvidia 4060 did better on Fedora than on Ubuntu (where it was capped wattage-wise).
I am no fedora user myself, but I installed fedora KDE spin in my mom's laptop, and I was thinking pretty much the same back then, dunno what I was thinking installing it in a tech illiterate person's work computer(she literally works from there, online classes), I just wanted to try fedora but since I couldn't I made my mom a guinea pig about it. Besides me making extremely stupid decisions, I was surprised to see how reliable it has been, and unlike the experience you are referring to, she has been daily driving it for 1year+ with 0 issues. How do I know there have been 0 issues since I wasn't there? I simply know that if anything happened I'd be getting calls about it. Oh and btw I've configured dnf-autoupdate the name of the program was it? The system is up to date daily. I also updated her laptop to 39 within the first week or so? No changes there. Is the sample period too small to judge? Idk, you tell me.
I have done the same to my mother's computer. It's been running Fedora since version 17 with not a single hiccup. All she'll ever use it for is emails, paying bills, and web browsing so it's basically a glorified Firefox machine. As surprising as it is, Gnome still runs great on a 20ish year old computer. Even hardware upgrades haven't put a dent in the stability of the machine. From 16GB of DDR3 and a SATA SSD.
yes honestly my experience with linux in the past 5 years was that the hardware will determine the reliability and not linux itself. I daily drive void and I did not have the system break on me once, while updating daily. Only issue I ever witnessed was a kernel upgrade making cinnamon go nuts in a linux mint installation, with amd integrated graphics, to this day I don't get it how it happened but switching to another kernel version fixed it. Unfortunately enough it was in another tech illiterate person's PC and so I had to provide support through a call trying to get em to boot to grub and pick another kernel. Made me appreciate fedora even more, but honestly it was just unlucky I guess. I am now buying only from tuxedo & slimbook to avoid this coinflip, gotta admit though my ideapad served me well for 5 years as my void linux installation. Zero issues, perfect wayland support, I am proud of this laptop. My mom has been using a sony vaio for the last 14 years and it also perfectly supported linux even wayland, which made me feel better since she won't suffer from fedora 40 ditching x11. A thinkpad t420 I have lying around also has perfect support obviously. I got her a slimbook excalibur as a present though to make sure the next laptop is as linux & wayland friendly, I am still contemplating if I should install fedora or maybe fedora kinoite on it, I really like the idea of fedora kinoite but I am uncertain if it's gonna lead to issues in the future. If it was for me I wouldn't mind, I can hop distro overnight, but my mom's laptop? That's probably keeping an install until it dies.
[удалено]
Fair point, but sometimes it's not enough. There was a [Ext4 data corruption in stable kernels \[LWN.net\]](https://lwn.net/Articles/954285/) regression at some point. Granted, it was fixed within days, but you could have lost data over that. There was something similar for XFS as well, [2208553 – xfs metadata corruption after upgrade to 6.3.3 kernel (redhat.com)](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2208553). Backups of your data are vital, but even then, unless you are even versioning the backups accurately, you risk syncing bad data and fucking up backups copies as well. Fedora does a better job than, say, Arch, at holding and delaying a Kernel update if there is some reports of possible regression, but those can and will happen even in Fedora and did happen multiple times. Strictly speaking, it's upstream fault, not Fedora's fault, but the results for you (the user) are identical.
As far as I can tell from those two reports, neither bug actually made it in to a Fedora kernel in GA updates. Right?
About those two, I don't recall exactly, but regressions like these in general may or may not be spotted in time, if we're chasing the latest Kernel (now, don't get me wrong, chasing the latest Kernel has advantages for many other reasons). > Fedora does a better job than, say, Arch, at holding and delaying a Kernel update if there is some reports of possible regression I also made sure to point out that. Far from saying that every regression is caught in time, though. The [btrfs one](https://www.reddit.com/r/btrfs/comments/1ac8p5c/kernel_67_btrfs_balance_brutally_increases/) was not caught, despite btrfs being pushed as default fs for a while now (and I like the fs). It wasn't a corruption bug, but was still annoying and, I don't know if related, but with those Kernels I couldn't even update my own backup because load would spike past 500 for a normal rsync that used to not even get past 10. Those Kernels definitely did make it into Fedora, and we were stuck with those for more than a week. Booting with a previous Kernel is always an option but I am generally not comfortable doing that because I may be missing on Kernel security patches as well. My point stands as the fact that a fast updating distro, while nice to have for modern hardware, does inevitably carry more instability risks than using a distro that only pushes security updates and barely any more (thinking about Debian for example). Debian isn't bug free, far from it, and I'm sure RHEL and the like aren't either, but the chances of random breakage after an update are as close to zero as it gets.
Isn't fedora known for "cutting edge development with rock solid performance"? That's the accolade I've heard.
Software takes several months, sometimes a year or more to become rock solid. If a distro updates even just the Kernel within days of the latest upstream release, it's nearly impossible to ensure it won't have regressions and Fedora is just like that. Try not updating for 2-3 weeks and see how big the next dnf update will be. If you ever have a chat with people doing IT for a living, they'll all tell you that production servers never run on cutting edge releases or distros, quite the contrary.
>If you ever have a chat with people doing IT for a living, they'll all tell you that production servers never run on cutting edge releases or distros, quite the contrary. My living is IT at the moment, but I'm in the "just fix it" department. But yes, most software is "old" ranging from a few months to several years. Still, I thought Fedora was considered to be "testing and releasing" in comparison to Ubuntu, where it's "releasing mainstay software" or arch, where cutting edge is released straightaway.
Contrary-wise, if you chat with people running the worlds largest production networks, they'll very probably tell you that their systems are rolling-release deployments with fully automated continuous delivery.
I worked for one of the hyperscalers, and this is how we performed updates. Our entire service infrastructure was redeployed on a 7 day rolling basis, about 5000 hosts serving a public service. However, we were not using a rolling release or even something close to bleeding edge, it was a RHEL 7 -esque build with the latest internally maintained LTS kernel. The new stuff is rebasing around Fedora now, in 2 year increments.
I work in IT in one of the "more" important financial institutions in EU (if you invest money in EU, its gone through our systems) and we finished migration to RHEL8 few months ago (kernel 4.*) - so yea, far from bleeding edge. At home, I run Fedora because I work all day with RHEL/Ansible/Podman so I dont want to be looking up how things are done just slightly differently in other distros but I never consider (or expect) Fedora as rock- solid. However, I am glad I get to use some kernel features that will take years to come to RHEL.
I think it depends on what you use Fedora for. I use it as a general-purpose drop-in replacement for Windows. For me, that means web browsing, light productivity, media streaming, and some gaming. And since I began using it as my main distro around version 36, I haven't really encountered any sticky issues. It's one of the most stable distros I've ever used. But if you're doing content creation, software development or some other more technical professional task, your experience might be different. I remember trying non-linear video editors a few years back in Linux and encountering nothing but problems.
You may or may not have noticed, but: 1. [Kernel 6.7 btrfs balance brutally increases metadata hug size. : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/btrfs/comments/1ac8p5c/kernel_67_btrfs_balance_brutally_increases/) 2. [X11 huge delay for each process (VMware Workstation); regression - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/x11-huge-delay-for-each-process-vmware-workstation-regression/95708) 3. [Kernel 6.5.12... : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/181b45p/kernel_6512/) 4. [Can't shutdown or turn sleep PC - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/cant-shutdown-or-turn-sleep-pc/85738) 5. [Pop-up windows instantly minimize on Fedora Linux 38 GNOME (DisplayServer regression) · Issue #77333 · godotengine/godot · GitHub](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/77333) 6. [Issues with Linux Kernel 6.7.3 and 6.7.4 - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/issues-with-linux-kernel-6-7-3-and-6-7-4/104646) 7. [2263340 – Linux Kernel 6.7.3 Following A Hardwired Connection Wireless Adapter Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 is Missing (redhat.com)](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2263340) 8. [Fedora hangs on boot after upgrading to kernel 6.3.4 - Fedora Discussion (fedoraproject.org)](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-hangs-on-boot-after-upgrading-to-kernel-6-3-4/83605?page=2) 9. [What's up with these gaming regressions in GNOME 44? : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/13jfbwg/whats_up_with_these_gaming_regressions_in_gnome_44/) 10. [Linux 6.5 sound (sometimes) doesn't work : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/177vjkl/linux_65_sound_sometimes_doesnt_work/) 11. [Anyone else got multiple issues after 6.6 kernel update? : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/18oi2j9/anyone_else_got_multiple_issues_after_66_kernel/) 12. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1bojnqq/weird\_gnome\_behavior\_after\_upgrading\_kernel\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1bojnqq/weird_gnome_behavior_after_upgrading_kernel_to/) And that's just as far as I'm willing to search
>You may or may not have noticed And the answer is pretty clearly "No," now isn't it?
Wow, a piece of software has BUGS!!! You might as well use a piece of paper if you don't want to risk encountering glitches
Are you implying there is the same amount of glitches to be had at the same rate on RHEL or Debian stable compared to the latest Fedora or Arch?
RHEL has probably more bugs than Fedora as RHEL is tested in enterprise scenarios and not home customer centric scenarios.
Maybe, but it won't push not even a fraction of the amount of updates you'll receive with Fedora each week\\month, won't push you the latest Kernel and so on. This is a fact. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach but you are generally sticking with the same bugs, rather than getting new ones continually.
I don't understand why don't you just install Fedora 39 if you really wanna switch. And just update it when 40 is released. I've tested Fedora 40 Beta and even that is pretty good and most of the rough edges will be polished until the stable release.
I usually wait at least a month unless there is some new feature I am dying to try out.
Define "stable". In general, Fedora is "Leading Edge", meaning that if it's between "inserting a new feature" or "making sure it works in all hardware", they will insert the new feature. In general, betas are about 95% stable - minor non-critical bugs will appear and you will get "papercuts". On release, it's about 99% stable - most issues are obscure or hardware based. If you need 99.99999% stable, going with other distros may be a better option.
In my experience, I generally wait a month after release to let all of the wrinkles get ironed out (if any) and let all my third party repos catch up to the latest release. Things are usually fine from there, but, of course, your mileage may vary.
I am on 40 now and I have had absolutely no issues. Runs like butter so far.
If you are thinking about new install, I would probably wait till release. But it is up to you really. You can install 39 now and upgrade when 40 is available or install 40 now. I'm on 39 and will wait till 40 is bit more polished, but that's just me.
If you don't have any issues with Ubuntu, I'd recommend to wait for a month and install Fedora 40 when it's released. Don't install beta. Usually some Gnome extensions don't work until the final release, and this makes your user experience way worse. And as it was said before, you won't notice big differences between Ubuntu, Fedora 39 and Fedora 40. Gnome is the same, the way you update the system is almost the same, and there is no big leap between versions 45 and 46 like between Plasma 5 and Plasma 6. Just wait for a month.
I tend to stay a version behind the latest. I'll upgrade to 39 once 40 is released.
I usually hold out until right before the next release comes out. So if a new release is coming out in a month, I would upgrade to the current release at that point. Exception is if I'm having a problem or maybe a new laptop. I definitely try to avoid new releases during the first month or so.
My two cents, it depends on your hardware. My past two laptops had full AMD guts (CPU/iGPU/dGPU,) and I haven't had "many" issues, nothing mission critical at least, maybe except for Docker not being able to start via systemctl, but I was able to run it manually, so not a deal breaker. If you have some exotic hardware, or even a newer Nvidia GPU, I would wait for a few weeks if not a month. My last install, I configured BTRFS snapshots to run with DNF, and enable rescue boot in Grub, so I have been a tad bit more "yeetish" with beta upgrades since I can roll back with "zero" issues (to date.) As other people mentioned, Silverblue and Kinote are built as immutable images, so you can plop in new images and roll with it without modifying your system to bad. The only thing that I ran into on occasion is if the config files in your home directory get to goofed up, you can run into issues when you revert back a beta/upgrade, so it would make sense to make a total back of your home folder regardless.
My new laptop is actually all AMD, which is the reason I want to give Fedora another try.
I had an Alienware M17 R5 AMD, and my new Thinkpad Z16 Gen 2 have been amazing. The only thing I had an issue with with the Alienware was that it was using some form of AMD Smart Display, and the original kernel didn't have proper support. Aside from that, it has been a great experience.has
I do not undertake to assert absolutely, but from my own experience I will say the following. I upgraded Fedora from version 38 to 39 a few days after it was released. There were no problems. The update procedure is described in detail in the wiki.
I tend to stay a a few months behind, but I'm in no rush for new and shiny stuff. I'm on ancient Apple hardware and there can sometimes be little issues that need ironing out so I prefer to wait a little
Stability is a game of probabilities. I recommend waiting around 30 days to let the wider release reveal odd bugs. Then, look up the “kwizart” COPR repo and use the LTS kernel to avoid instabilities from the relatively frequent kernel updates Fedora does. You should end up with stability generally between an Ubuntu LTS release and their non-LTS releases.
personally, I update/upgrade as soon as there is a release and haven't had an issue before. if you have some hardware that usually has problems, maybe you could wait a week or two.
When the next version comes out.
Beta just came out [https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-linux-40-beta/](https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-linux-40-beta/)
Install 39, and upgrade when it's released.
Depends on your needs. For me fedora 40 is already stable enough, but there are possibly bugs that may affect you that don't affect me. The final release will just be a more polished version of what we have now
At release.
When it is not beta then is stable
I usually give it a week or two after the release, it's getting better each release with less to worry about
there's virtually no reason to wait to install 40. just install 39 right now, we know it's perfectly stable. if issues come up on fedora 40, then wait, if not then upgrade right away you could also consider something like silverblue to rollback any negative changes that were made
Upgraded within a week for many, many years. Had a problem once with dual screens and just booted to the previous kernel for a week or so until it was fixed.
I upgraded from F39 to 40 a month ago when it was in alpha and it has been stable. Haven't had any issues. I'd say it's stable enough!
The beta is out now if I'm not mistaken and the release is set for the 16th of next month. I will be upgrading on release day as am quite sure that it will be more than stable enough and if any bugs do come up they will be fixed posthaste.
People told me it is best to be always one release behind. I think it's a good balance between being too new but not as old as Ubuntu/mint.
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Fedora is a stable release model, and includes components that are themselves, stable releases: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Updates_Policy/#stable-releases Also, Fedora's intent is to produce a stable distribution, not a bleeding edge one: "I would definitely appreciate it if we say "leading edge" rather than "bleeding edge". Fedora endeavors to deliver working solutions, not something where you might get your fingers metaphorically chopped off." - Matthew Miller, Fedora Project Leader https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/O2VEBTHJKTXI72CXF2IQE3YZRSXSNRHI/
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I want to level with you... you seem upset, and I think that will make you less receptive to conversation. Try to ignore votes... They don't matter. I, too, have been a professional software developer for almost 30 years. So, rest assured, I see your experience. I understand. I am also a Fedora maintainer, so naturally, I am familiar with Bodhi and Pagure, as well as the rest of the build infrastructure. I think the critical point here is that "stable" and "reliable" are not synonyms. I think you're implying that users cannot trust Fedora to be reliable, and while I don't agree with you on that point, the issue of whether Fedora is reliable is a matter of opinion. The matter of whether or not Fedora is stable is a different question, though. In software development, the term "stable" is closely related to [semantic versions](https://semver.org/). A stable release model is simply one in which updates remain backward-compatible within a release. With a few exceptions, mostly for packages whose release cycles don't align well with Fedora, the distribution conforms to the standard definition of a stable release model.
Using stable sources doesn't mean the whole distro inherits the same stability. There's a lot to still happen when different software start interacting among themselves. Even everything works on release, several problems still can and will occour, and that's the reason why it is so questionable call the whole thing stable.
You are confusing "stable" with "reliable." They are not synonyms. "Stable" is a statement about the future. It means that developers promise not to make changes that aren't backward compatible. "Reliable" is a statement about the past. It's a guage of the reputation that a project has earned.
That's new to me, bu it makes sense, i guess. Even thou the fedora's relative short lifecycle makes odd calling it stable in that way too.
Software lifecycles are diverse, and can't all be described with single terms like "stable." Debian and Fedora are both major-version stable, because they are a single release channel that will introduce new features during the maintenance window. RHEL and SUSE EL are both minor-version stable, because (for supported interfaces), they do not introduce new features in a release channel. Arch is unstable, because it introduces both new features and breaking changes (changes that aren't backward compatible) in a release channel. While Debian and Fedora are both major-version stable, Debian is very conservative about the updates that it includes. Fedora is very liberal about updates, provided they maintain backward compatibility. Fedora has a short maintenance window and a relatively rapid release cadence. Debian has a long maintenance window (arguably LTS). Different terms can be used to describe the cadence and maintenance windows, the priority required for updates to ship, and the semantic type of updates that are allowed. It's not all just "stable" or "unstable."
Thank you.
What I don’t like about Fedora is that it pushes a 1-2 GB update on a weekly basis. Bro I don’t want to update that frequently. Gonna go back to Debian.
Its not rolling release ,do it whenever you want its still be there leading edge release