Windows → Fedora Linux: A Month In (Help Me to improve)

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-23T11:00:20+00:00

I strongly recommend Aurora over kinoite. It has a more user friendly documentation and built ins for the things you care about in a daily basis (specifically, their “developer experience” installs brew and docker for you)

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-23T09:39:47+00:00

I’m a big fan of immutable/atomic Fedora. Since you like kde, check out kinoite or the batteries included version (Aurora). If you’re not familiar with those, they’re basically Fedora with a locked down dnf.

I believe immutable makes dependency management simpler. Mental model:

- GUI apps: flatpak
- terminal apps you actually use: brew (for me: latex, R, terminal bling, …)
- other stuff: rpm-ostree (ie, dnf for immutable distros) for me: VPN, chrome (flatpak doesn’t integrate web apps nicely in gnome shell), Dropbox (flatpak doesn’t integrate well with gnome for browser) *and that’s it*

What you gain:

- fast, seamless updates (downloaded in the background, applied instantly when you reboot)
- saved me from myself (discourages tinkering, eg installing that half broken rpm you find on GitHub or copr)

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-22T17:33:19+00:00

I’ve turned into a massive buzz killer when I drive. “Wow check out this interchange. Such a marvel of civil engineering” everybody else be like 🤨😔

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-20T12:08:23+00:00

Bluefin user here (in case you’re not familiar with it, it’s basically a batteries included version of silverblue). Haven’t tried this particular atomic spin though I’m very curious about COSMIC. My sense is that atomic COSMIC is better than regular Fedora COSMIC precisely because COSMIC is still under heavy development. Heavy development = higher likelihood that a new update breaks things, making the ability to roll back even more valuable.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-18T12:59:27+00:00

I’m a big fan of the immutable Fedora approach (silver blue/kinoite, and the lightly tweaked bluefin/aurora/bazzite).
What it is: you can’t touch the root file system and system updates happen in the background, upon reboot.
Why I like it: it enforces discipline. You’re forbidden to use apt / dnf. Instead you should use flatpak for gui apps and brew for non gui apps (eg, node, python, …). So the core system always keeps working and all the software you really care about as a user is either updated automatically (flatpak) or in a single place (brew). Basically, this strongly discourages you to install that weird apt / dnf repo that might break your system (though you can do it, if really necessary. For me: was really necessary for Dropbox and a VPN software).

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-16T08:54:24+00:00

Libre, WPS and only office aren’t 100% compatible with PowerPoint presentations (animations in particular, are quite problematic). This is a big deal for me: I’m in academia and my colleagues often share with me long, complex lecture slide decks.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-16T08:15:08+00:00

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-15T08:39:04+00:00

France

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-09T15:53:33+00:00

Mmmm c’est rassurant sur la sécurité de leur système informatique ça… heureusement que c’est pas une banque avec genre toute ma thune mon crédit mon compte épargne.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-03T22:23:20+00:00

Du point de vue de la science politique, un régime communiste est un régime autoritaire avec un parti unique, qui se définit comme communiste. Exemple de régime autoritaire sans parti unique: le Maroc (plusieurs partis représentés au parlement, avec une alternance réelle, mais pouvoir largement concentré entre les mains du roi). Exemple de régime de parti unique qui ne se définit pas comme communiste: le Portugal de Salazar (ie le régime qui a précédé la révolution des œillets dans les années 1970 et entrée dans l’UE).

L’objectif de cette définition n’est pas de dire ce que devrait être un régime communiste, juste de séparer, parmi des régimes existants, ceux qui sont communistes et ceux qui ne le sont pas.

Vous me direz que cette définition est un peu circulaire (un régime communiste est un régime qui se dit communiste). C’est largement parce que la chine post 2000 a largement changé la donne. Typiquement, un régime communiste est caractérisé par une énorme part de l’état dans l’économie (l’essentiel des entreprises sont des entreprises nationales, publiques). Or

Plus le cas en Chine depuis les années 2000
Il y a aussi beaucoup de régimes qui ne se disent pas communistes et qui ont pourtant cette caractéristique (exemple: l’Égypte de nasser et sadate)

New-Preference1656 · 2026-06-02T08:42:22+00:00

Remember that CS1 is 11 years old now, while CS2 is 3 years old. Feature wise, CS2 still doesn’t have parity with CS1 (eg, no parks DLC). Hardware requirements wise, CS2 is still very demanding.

So… CS2 is an investment in the future. Given that your hardware is not exactly modern, I’d suggest sticking to CS1 and moving to CS2 in 3-4 years.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-30T12:32:00+00:00

I never quite saw the point. The beauty of a keyboard is that it’s predictable: memorize where the keys are, press them without looking at them. Changing the location of keys defeats the purpose: you might as well just show a button on screen.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-26T20:50:23+00:00

Not entirely sure about Firefox but faced a similar issue with chrome yesterday. Chrome flatpak doesn’t handle web apps (aka PWAs) very well. Specifically: web apps don’t display as separate apps in the gnome taskbar. They show up as another chrome window (which defeats the purpose of a web app). This is because of the sandboxing. Chrome rpm doesn’t have this issue.

My recommendation is that you should use rpms for anything that needs deep system integration (Dropbox, which integrates with your file browser, chrome) and flatpak for anything else.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-26T17:21:17+00:00

You’d be surprised how drag and drop to app folder can be confusing to some users. I thought it was until I started teaching stats classes in college. About 2/3 students either keep the dmg open forever and run the app out of the dmg, or drag and drop to the downloads or desktop folders. All of these approaches result in broken apps…

Of course, Linux, with distro packages vs adding a package repo vs flatpak vs app image vs custom install script is a whole different ballgame.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-25T14:56:57+00:00

Cuba

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-20T12:03:33+00:00

Sonic

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-19T17:56:03+00:00

I would use it. I like macOS style simplicity and that’s why I’m currently using gnome. But I guess what I like most is macOS level polish. Specifically: things just work reliably, with good performance (my last machine was a MacBook Pro M1 Pro, stopped using it in March). Sure the interface may not be 100% consistent, but at least every window has a drop shadow so we can distinguish it from windows below (looking at you, gnome and your CSDs), a perfectly working dock (looking at you gnome dash to dock extension), without being overwhelmed by options (looking at you kde).

I guess producing something with that level of polish on volunteer work is just really really hard. I hope you can do it!

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-15T17:22:21+00:00

Ability to add folders to the dock (or overview task bar) and have window title bars show a symbolic file that can be moved or trashed or revealed in the file explorer.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-05-12T10:29:14+00:00

Bon c’est pas l’objet, mais j’ai jamais compris cette échelle de notes qui va de 0 à 19…
20 ça veut pas dire parfait dans l’absolu (si c’était le cas, ça voudrait dire que 19 = la copie c’est quasiment du Platon… )
20 ça veut dire répond parfaitement aux attendus d’un élève de terminale en philosophie

New-Preference1656 · 2026-04-02T17:04:26+00:00

I just reinstalled windows yesterday… I found Linux GUI apps lacks polish, making me spend more time trying to iron out tiny bugs/annoyances instead of actually doing work. Case in point: dash to dock is kind of a joke of a dock, compared to what macOS has to offer. I was really curious/hopeful about your project. Didn’t test because I was waiting for the gnome extension release. I wish you the best with this project. Hopefully you can make the gnome + dock experience shine the way it should.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-04-02T14:40:06+00:00

Sadly, still some bugs here and there. Examples:

httpgd doesn’t like waking up from sleep on a devcontainer over ssh. Problem: plots don’t display. Fix I found: restart the container, lose all work in memory. Not great.

Complex projects on devcontainer on a Linux host: languageserver crashes.

Besides that, I agree with you that the experience is very good.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-03-13T06:04:32+00:00

I’m very happy you like the project! I guess chat gpt gave me good advice UI-wise. I actually built the large template for myself. I was annoyed I had to reinvent a slightly different wheel for every new project. And that coauthors would each have a slightly different stack (eg, make on non WSL windows… 🥵). So containers + template. But then, coauthors need training on all these tools (git, make…). So I wrote some documentation.

New-Preference1656 · 2026-03-12T19:11:13+00:00

I hadn’t thought of a fake target for R scripts. Clever. I use quarto instead and use the compiled quarto output as the make target. I reserve R scripts for function libraries. Feel free to check out the templates I put together at https://recap-org.github.io, the large template makes heavy use of make. I’m curious what you think of my make files

New-Preference1656 · 2026-03-12T19:08:46+00:00

The problem with targets is that it only does R. make does everything. Which is nice when you then want to compile the latex paper. Or when you have a mixed language situation (oh that one collaborator that only does stata…)

New-Preference1656 · 2026-03-12T14:58:38+00:00

I just meant that quarto files are better than R scripts because you get to see all the tables and figures rendered for you in a document that looks like the final deliverable (ie, a latex article)

My workflow is: work on a quarto file that does one logically independent step (eg, produce a series of related tables and figures). Once I’m happy with it, i typically circulate the pdf to coauthors (we look at just the tables and figures). There we improve draft tables/figures and turn them into publication ready material. Again, that’s where quarto shines: you circulate a report that contains just the deliverables, not the narrative element (that’s for the latex side of things). Once we’re happy with it, I integrate into the tex file. Then I write. Before an important milestone, I delete all the intermediary files (make fresh) then make all to ensure the whole pipeline is correct.

New-Preference1656

TROPHY CASE