I am currently running Xubuntu on all my systems but there are so many things that feel rather unstable/buggy - I am sure it is not all Xubuntus/Xfce’s fault, but my knowledge is limited so I just attribute it to that.
Therefore, I am currently considering switching to Fedora. I feel like it is time trying out a new desktop (KDE) and a more up to date kernel. I am not entirely sure what I am hoping from this post, but maybe a “yea, it is worth it” would ease my mind a bit.
Also, I am a bit unsure how to easily move between them (programs and data).
To name a few of the bugs I encountered in the past:
- When connecting screens, quite often the created profile is ignored, screens get disabled, overlapped, … By applying the profile multiple times eventually you can overcome this issue
- Dell specific: Webcam does not work, system sometimes freezes after closing the laptop lid even if sleep mode is deactivated
- Certain shortcuts are bugged (WIN+Left works, WIN+Right doesn’t. When you reset WIN+Right, it works until the next restart)
I’ve been using Fedora in my gaming desktop with a nvidia GPU - which not that long ago, would be a recipe for a disaster since nvidia + wayland = problems. But so far, the experience has been very stable, despite me being an update addict that updates the OS almost daily.
From my experience, it’s been more stable than EndeavourOS (which is basically Arch), Ubuntu and Mint. YMMV and all that. Edit: I’ve been using it for 5-6 months now
PS: you will want to give this a go, if you go Fedora: https://nattdf.streamlit.app/
It’s a tool created to get your Fedora up and running in one go. You can use it to configure flathub, install codecs, etc.
If you want stable and can deal with the downsides honestly I suggest immutable distros. Otherwise Fedora is pretty reasonably stable for a pretty up to date distro and also has decent community support which is underrated. If your drive(s) are setup for it it’s pretty easy to distro hop anyways so it’s worth a shot
All I have are Fedora based machines running Bazzite & Aurora. That’s been the case since the distros were originally released about 2+ years or so. Same install. No issues ever. A whole family of 4 running perfectly working Fedora based PCs with no issues and no maintenance whatsoever. I don’t do crap and they just keep working perfectly. No complaints, all praise. My family doesn’t even know it’s not
butterWindows, I mean I told them, they just don’t care… it works and it gets the job done.If that’s not stable, then I don’t know the meaning of the word.
/home should have all your stuff, just copy that to the new installation and you’re set.
I’ve been using Fedora for over 10 years. I used to have Nvidia issues, but those are all solved now.
Using it seems to be fine, but I would advise being wary and not giving Fedora/Red Hat any code or financial support. They do a lot of work for the US DoW, helping enable war crimes like murdering hundreds of school girls.
If you just want to switch to kde you can install it on your current system:
apt install kde-full
Or
apt install kde-standard
No need to reinstall an entirely new distro.
Also, I am a bit unsure how to easily move between them (programs and data).
I simply use rsync to move files to a temporary machine and wipe the disk. But I don’t store that much data locally in the first place. Code and important configs are synchronized using git, firefox sync preserves bookmarks and extensions. Programs are easy to install using a package manager.
I think Fedora offers a good balance between freshness and stability. The installation process is easy; you get btrfs, zram, and disk encryption too.
Idk if a newer kernel and plasma will solve these problems, but Fedora is a good distro regardless. I definitely cannot recommend Debian as Plasma doesn’t get any bugfixes there and the kernel might be too old to fix your problem with the web camera.
Try it and see how it works for you. There’s really no telling what it will be like because each system is different and will respond to the different distros of Linux and their kernel versions in different ways. For a time Fedora worked better on my laptop but Kubuntu caught up and hardware support was improved in their newest kernel so now I’m back on that xD
But yeah, for my 2025 laptop Fedora was extremely stable and I never ran into a problem. I just missed the big repos of the Debian/Ubuntu family.
I don’t know, but I can tell you that I use Bluefin - Fedora Silverblue. I have it for 7 months now and had 0 stability issues.
I’ve been using Fedora for years across several devices. I’ve only seen my device compatibility improve over the last few releases. For example, my HP Victus laptop’s camera would work but not the mic, this has been fixed. My desktop runs several monitors with no issues and keyboard shortcuts have never done anything goofy. It is my preferred distro so I am biased but I’ve used a lot of others and I think Fedora is one of the more consistently good distros.
I’ve been using Fedora (gnome) as my main distro for over 5 years and have zero issues with stability. Webcam, etc., all work by default with no problems. Would definitely recommend!
You want slow updates/upgrades like Ubuntu and stability then OpenSUSE slowroll is better option or even OpenSUSE kalpa. Even Debian + KDE will work for you.
Only downside is Debian 13 will likely forever be stuck with KDE 6.3.6, which has some noticeable bugs on my hardware that won’t be fixed until Debian 14.
KDE really benefits from distros that keep it more up to date, to the point where even the KDE devs suggest avoiding KDE on Debian.
He even hints to it being the case for any LTS distribution. This could be problematic for companies that might want to use LTS for their machines.
Btw I use KDE on Debian Stable
i found fedora hard to work with because of its hard “no non-open source” stand. e.g. i had trouble playing a x265 HEVC file with vlc where as i never encountered anything like that on any other distro and solving this was not trivial.
i am on kubuntu rn but if i were to switch i’d go back to cachyos with KDE.RPM Fusion exists to address some of these points. It’s a set of RPM repos based in Europe that provide software that the Fedora Project itself will not.
if you are aware of it and its solutions it surely is a non-issue but for me as a linux noob it was reason enough against fedora. getting into linux is already complicated enough without extra obstacles.
you’re right, it was also one of the reasons I avoided fedora originally. Company of Heroes for example would work OOTB in any other distro, but on fedora it would crash as soon the game opened - unless I skipped the intro movies with the steam command. My guess it was the codecs, even though I supposedly had installed them.
But just you know, if someday you give it another shot, you can use this link: https://nattdf.streamlit.app/
It’s basically a script builder that helps you get fedora up and running with everything you want. Codecs was never an issue since I used it
it’s a lot of work to switch distributions, and I don’t recommend unless you have a really good reason!
kde is supported on Ubuntu… id suggest installing it and trying it out first. the bugs u state sound like desktop environment issues and not distribution bugs …
I’ve been running Fedora for about six months now and haven’t run into an issue where the system failed or refused to boot. However, I have a single screen and no web cam, and only use it for web browsing and mild app development and deployment. On the Fedora side, do expect that you will see regular package updates as Fedora likes to move fast. (It’s already on the new KDE 6.7.)
You’re looking for stability and KDE Plasma. Fedora doesn’t seem to be the right candidate.
Arch Linux (or Endeavour / Manjaro), or OpenSUSE are better candidate.
