ext4 certainly has its place, it’s a fine default file system, there’s really no problems with it.
But others, like ZFS and BTRFS, have features that you may want to use, but ext4 doesn’t do: fs snapshots, data compression, built in encryption (to a degree, usually only happening for data and some of the metadata, so LUKS is often better IMHO), checking for bitrot and restoring it when possible (whether it is depends on your config), quotas per user group or project, spanning multiple disks like with RAID but safer (to a degree), and others.
You can use distrobox to run ubuntu on fedora and fedora on ubuntu.
Imo the difference isn’t too big. If you know what you do, your system will look roughly the same on ubuntu and fedora. Same packages, same workflow etc.
If you keep the base packages constant, i.e. with a immutable distro, you can compare it much better, imo. The experience on Fedora silverblue and opensuse microos will be almost the same for the usual end user. Both are immutable systems, you install packages via flatpack, command line tools via distrobox. System keeps itself up to date. One is standard release, one is rolling.
Flatpak and distrobox offer sandboxing and reproducibility. Imo you want both on a regular install as well which almost make a traditional install like an immutable system, yet you are not as discouraged from installing packages onto the base layer.
If I’d be asked what the difference between fedora and ubuntu is, then I’d say the company behind it from which you get tech support. That’s mostly it.
Would it be enough to be able to run .deb packages on fedora?
Unpacking a .deb on Fedora, or unpacking an .rpm on Ubuntu isn’t a big deal. The files inside are often actually identical.
But would not be useful because the files inside usually rely on shared libraries, which may or may not already be installed. Those shared libraries are installed in different places on each Linux distro. Figuring out which ones to ask for (and making sure the program can find them) is the real work that the .Deb or .RPM installers do.
A fun way to try this out is with Portable Apps. Anything called a “portable app” either doesn’t use additional libraries, or carries the libraries it needs with it.
If you find a portable app for Ubunutu, there’s a good chance the Fedora version is an identical file, and works fine on Ubuntu. There’s lots of reasons it might not work, but it can be fun to try.
For the most part, the only reason any Linux program is unavailable on a different version of Linux is that no one has bothered to build the necessary installer for that combination of program and OS.
.RPM was supposed to solve this by being universal, since any other OS can implement it to match .Deb was supposed to solve this by being universal, since any other OS can implement it to match (about 60% actually do). I think Flatpacks and Snaps might solve this by being universal, at some point…
Source: I’ve built installer packages for various operating systems.
This is what I use for switching: pastebin.com/J5VT03eq
It uses pactl (should work with both Pulse and pipewire-pulse) and KDialog to list available sinks.
fedora is usually more updated(newer packages and newer kernel) and it uses zram, ubuntu use swap from default, and ubuntu push snap, fedora, like others, come with flatpak pre-installed
Just wondering if there could be a way to “simulate”, lets say ubuntu on fedora.
I know I’m not making a helpful contribution here, but I’ve been wondering about this stuff for a while myself and this thread has some great answers. Thanks for asking this OP.
Okay the extension I have is called “Sound Input & Output Device Chooser.” I think that if you install this and the Other extension above your problem will be solved.
Debian testing. Seriously. That is reasonably easy to install and configure unlike Arch or Gentoo, but doesn’t come with “user friendly” corporate crap like Ubuntu and its derivatives.
I used Debian testing on my production servers for a long time. They say not to use it in production, but even as a “testing” release it’s still more stable than some other distros.
I use Debian stable on all my servers now, though (except for my home server which runs Unraid). I don’t have time to keep a rolling build up-to-date like I used to.
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