linux@programming.dev
I use Fedora KDE as my homeserver, because it is my media center too. That’s the reason for the desktop.
Cons for me:
First I struggled with firewalld, it is more challenging than UFW. I removed it, because my router does the job.
Second SELinux is very annoying at the beginning. You install samba and vsftp and it will not work until you set permissions for SELinux.
SELinux is complicated for the start. Documentation is not very helpful for this imo. It works now. If you want to have an easy way, you can set it to permissive mode. I kept it running.
Pros for Fedora has actual software and I really love DNF 🥰
Can’t you just turn off SELinux?
Yes you can but you don’t learn a thing from this. A good choice would be permissive mode. You get the warnings, but it works anyway
People use Linux for things other than learning.
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Thanks for sharing.
I run Fedora Server on a blade server in a colo.
Pros:
- Cockpit is the GOAT 🐐
- Descended from RHEL so everything is supported
- Podman is the GOAT 🐐
Cons:
- Podman is getting worse, for instance they recently deprecated systemd generate and tell you to use Quadlet, for running pods, you need to use Kubernetes. This greatly complicates my workflow.
- SELinux, while secure, and easy to troubleshoot with Cockpit, is a major pain in the ass that prevents most containers from accessing their data directories. It can be corrected but is extremely frustrating.
- Quadlet is extremely inconsistent, I can copy the working unit file for a container and it works, change the name and variables for another container, and one launches but the other won’t start. One will have the wrong name. Stupid things, like putting the name in quotes, reloading, removing the quotes fixes it. I have harsh words for the idiot who deprecated systemd generate.
- something like Tiddlywiki, their documentation will put you in /var/www but Fedora uses /usr/www or something. You get used to the Fedora things but you can end up on a goose chase sometimes.
Those cons are starting to hit hard, and when I reimage this server next I’m probably going to Proxmox or Debian. Server 37 was good but I probably won’t bother with 39.
Thanks for sharing it in details. Very helpful.
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Don’t use Fedora in prod. Dixi.
Prod?
Production. Live environment. Actually using it to provide some service for paying customers.
Can I ask why?
Fedora releases newer software versions regularly, and this can be a problem for third party software.
Isn’t Fedora’s support window a bit over a year per release? Would you want to deal with upgrades every year?
Yes, the support window is only 13 months after release, which can be annoying. I’d rather go with Debian or CentOS, unless software needs a more recent library.
Depends on what you’re using it for. Fedora’s release ver upgrades are fairly seamless. Just a big dnf update really.
Meanwhile I have a bunch of servers stuck on CentOS 7 that are going to need to be completely rebuilt by next summer. I’m also limited by them because the pdf generator I use requires a version of libpango that was released in 2019 and EL7 is stuck on the 2018 version.
I switched from Rocky to Fedora Server because I was sick of running into compatibility issues with dependencies that exist in the Fedora repo and not EL.
Specifically postgres. One of the projects requires postgis and gdal, which are in the Fedora community repo, but I have to use the official postgres repo on Rocky and the people that maintain those repos are literally incompetent. They have an automated script that generates all of the packages and they can’t even be bothered to double check that the packages are built against the correct version of postgres, so your install will fail because a PG14 package is looking for a dependency that only exists in the PG11, PG12, and PG15 repo.
Yes. In place upgrades are pretty easy at this point though.
Well I have experiences with Arch and Debian testing for servers, depending on your needs ane desires, it has some benefits, despite all the hassls.
Selinux policy’s. Its weakness, also its strenght.
I’m a selfhoster, I setup a home assistant VM and Cosmos Cloud running a bunch of Docker containers, all setup using Cockpit.
Easier, and better looking UI than Proxmox. Also this setup enabled me to use Docker instead of LXD and save on one virtualization layer, which as a beginner every layer adds complexity.
It has been rock solid, it has better hardware support than Debian due to the faster release cycle, only drawback is the lack of documentation or tutorials in comparison to Debian which has a colossal community.
I really like the web based management panel. Make it really quick and easy to add/change firewall rules, look at logs, etc.
You mean Cockpit?
*cockpit
Yes, looks like that is the official name for it. Thanks.
You can install it on any distro. That’s not unique to Fedora
I’m using it myself for my vps and it’s fine. I don’t think it’s anything spectacular, but my use case is really basic.
We used to run firewalls running Fedora at work, works fine. Issue is you’re only getting 6 months of updates, best to look at Rocky Linux for something that doesn’t change much if you do anything beyond a single program.
anedotally: it works fine if it’s from a vendor who provides support for it. eg cumulus switches running fedora 9 but still getting updates from cumulus engineers.
I wouldn’t. If you must use Fedora use it in a podman container on top off something more stable like debian
Just… DON’T!!!
But why?
Because Fedora is a distro for multimedia desktops (being nice to Fedora); not for a server…