0 A.D. on Fedora 35 / 36

[Graham1]

I'm thinking of switching from Ubuntu 20.04 to Fedora 36 next week. Just wanted to check whether I may come across any issues with Fedora. I'm using an NVidia card, which seems to be problematic with Fedora. How well does 0 A.D. run using the default (non-proprietary) driver? My system is an i5 7g with 16GB ram and ran fine with 20.04. Anything else to be aware of?

[Yekaterina]

Hi, from my experiences with Fedora 34 and 35:

• Installing nvidia drivers is difficult but do-able, link to guide here: https://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2015/fedora-nvidia-guide/
• Once the correct drivers have been installed, the performance of 0AD is on par with other distributions. 
• Fedora's dnf is deficient in packages compared to other distributions' such as Debian's apt and Arch's pacman and AUR. However, you can overcome this issue by using Flatpak packages and docker. 
• Fedora is one of the most stable distributions I have used and its packages are up to date with decent performance. 
• dnf may execute slightly slower than pacman and I feel that booting process is slightly slow (between Debian and Arch)

Edited April 16, 2022 by Yekaterina

[Graham1]

6 hours ago, Sevda said:

Hi, from my experiences with Fedora 34 and 35:

• Installing nvidia drivers is difficult but do-able, link to guide here: https://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2015/fedora-nvidia-guide/
• Once the correct drivers have been installed, the performance of 0AD is on par with other distributions. 
• Fedora's dnf is deficient in packages compared to other distributions' such as Debian's apt and Arch's pacman and AUR. However, you can overcome this issue by using Flatpak packages and docker. 
• Fedora is one of the most stable distributions I have used and its packages are up to date with decent performance. 
• dnf may execute slightly slower than pacman and I feel that booting process is slightly slow (between Debian and Arch)

Hi Sevda. Thanks for the link . Given that the Nvidia drivers "could" cause an issue and the work involved to get them working (compared to Ubuntu), I may stick with Ubuntu this time. Also, having 3 disks to deal with (Windows (ssd) inc. efi, Ubuntu (ssd) and Data (hdd), I've heard things could be problematic there too. Shame, as Fedora is a nice distro and as you say, has the latest packages, kernel, etc.

[Yekaterina]

If you are not sure about any distro, you can try it out in a virtual machine (using virtualbox or kvm) first.

Having 2 disks in your system is not really a problem as disk management on Linux is quite reliable in my opinion, the only risk is making a mistake while installing.I have 3 disks in my system and all is in good order. 

With that being said, you can try OpenSUSE (YAST graphical settings manager, good security and community repository, quite stable) and Arch-based distributions (AUR is the largest linux repo, being able to choose kernels, very fast booting times) as well, considering they have much larger software repository than Fedora and out-of-the-box GPU support. 

[Graham1]

18 minutes ago, Sevda said:

If you are not sure about any distro, you can try it out in a virtual machine (using virtualbox or kvm) first.

Having 2 disks in your system is not really a problem as disk management on Linux is quite reliable in my opinion, the only risk is making a mistake while installing.I have 3 disks in my system and all is in good order. 

With that being said, you can try OpenSUSE (YAST graphical settings manager, good security and community repository, quite stable) and Arch-based distributions (AUR is the largest linux repo, being able to choose kernels, very fast booting times) as well, considering they have much larger software repository than Fedora and out-of-the-box GPU support. 

Having run Ubuntu for quite some time now, I tend to run Boxes (kvm) with daily builds of Ubuntu and Fedora and watch them develop from first daily release through to final. 

I've never found disk management in Ubuntu an issue but Fedora has always seemed a bit awkward to me. You are right though, the installation is the worrying part as a fear I may mess up the Windows side of things (even though I hardly use Windows now).

Haven't used openSUSE in ages. In fact, openSUSE was one of the first distro's I used in the Linux world. Switched to Ubuntu after and although tried other distro's, always came back to Ubuntu (everything just seemed to work for me). Linux Mint (xfce) is another distro I tend to use (mainly on older hardware). Never really got into Arch-based distro's like Manjaro or EndeavourOS.

Just fancied a change from Ubuntu as it doesn't seem to be the distro it used to be (with pushing new stuff) and I've always liked Fedora in that it tends to have the latest stuff (gnome, kernel, packages, etc) and a limited set of installed apps. Pop!OS is another contender. For me, being able to run 0 A.D., RetroArch and Mame are the main reasons and Timeshift is a must (on btrfs).

You've now got me thinking about Fedora again . Should I get the video drivers installed and working on Fedora, is that it for any further configuration regarding any future kernel updates?

 

  

[Yekaterina]

10 hours ago, Graham1 said:

Should I get the video drivers installed and working on Fedora, is that it for any further configuration regarding any future kernel updates?

I recommend just trying out Fedora with the video drivers in that case. I don't think you will need any further configuration for kernel updates, just update your systen with sudo dnf update regularly. 

I have never used timeshift before so I don't know how well it copes with Fedora. I am not sure about RetroArch and Mame but I did find them in flatpak, which means you can readily install them with sudo flatpak install. 

[Graham1]

9 minutes ago, Sevda said:

I recommend just trying out Fedora with the video drivers in that case. I don't think you will need any further configuration for kernel updates, just update your systen with sudo dnf update regularly. 

I have never used timeshift before so I don't know how well it copes with Fedora. I am not sure about RetroArch and Mame but I did find them in flatpak, which means you can readily install them with sudo flatpak install. 

I'll give it a try. At least with Timeshift I will be able to revert back to the default install should anything go wrong when installing the drivers. I have tested within Boxes (restoring), so this should be a good test but I'm hoping everything will just work. We'll see tomorrow.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Graham1