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June 21, 2019 04:23 pm GMT

Is Ubuntu Or Fedora A Better Distro For Programmers?

A whole lot of thinking goes into what distro you should use as a dev. Its not just about your preference or what you like in terms of the Desktop GUI, packaging system or any other aspects of the workflow but there are a lot of other things too. For example, the larger ecosystem of that distro and the kind of support you get matter a lot.

Personally, I use Ubuntu as a daily driver, so I'm a bit biased here! The best thing that I like about Ubuntu is that it simply works. Perhaps the Red Hat and openSUSE have also improved a lot these days but there was a time at least as late as the 2010-2014s when Ubuntu had an upper hand in hardware support and desktop finesse. If you had a laptop with a special kind of touchpad or a WiFi/graphic card manufactured by a "linux unfriendly" actor like NVidia or Broadcom, chances are that it'd simply give up on you with any other distro than Ubuntu.

And even in cases where they did work, they left a lot to be desired. With Debian, for instance, many default settings are simply unusable on a desktop. For example, font anti-aliasing is usually set to off (at least on Debian-XFCE when I last tried) giving your desktop fonts a weird look. Secondly, they don't even provide a GUI to control your touchpad settings, they expect you to Google about the issue and fiddle with the byzantine /etc/* config files yourself!

Not that I can't do that, but why should I when Ubuntu gives me a configured and polished desktop by default?

Coming to Fedora, the desktop never had any issues (especially in the GNOME version), but I somehow didn't much like their packaging system (yum/dnf). Ubuntu's apt install works seamlessly and comes with special tools like synaptic and aptitude to take care of advanced scenarios. To be fair, I didn't put much effort to learn dnf but I don't see the point of it unless I'm getting any long-term benefit out of it.

Another advantage of Fedora which is often touted is that they provide a "bleeding edge" distro which means the apps are all supposed to be the latest versions. But frankly, I've never felt the need for a super-latest package anyway and in a few weeks time, the new release will trickle down to all the distros eventually. Running a stable and secure version of an app is far more important to me than having the latest one.

Finally, what I don't like about Ubuntu is their support! The official bug tracker at bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu is atrocious when it comes to getting a problem solved. The maintainers' attitude there is like that of govt. employees! But thankfully, there are some other places like [askubuntu](https://askubuntu.com] and ubuntuforums where you can find sane voices.

What distro do you use as a daily driver for programming? What are its pros and cons, and are you happy with it?


Original Link: https://dev.to/prahladyeri/is-ubuntu-or-fedora-a-better-distro-for-programmers-4lao

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