news
Fedora Workstation 42 review - Strangely good and bad
Quoting: Fedora Workstation 42 review - Strangely good and bad —
Okay. So, Fedora Workstation 42 is both better and worse than what I expected. On the plus side, the desktop is quite pretty, slick, way more consistent than before, the dark theme is better, the ergonomics are better, the new installer is quite good, you can fine-tune software management quite well. All of these are nice improvements. Fedora 42 was also reasonably stable for me, apart from the first installation attempt. But better does not mean good. It simple means ... better than what you had before. On its own, not an endorsement of quality or success.
Now, on the negative side, the ergonomics aren't stellar on their own, and you need extra tools to improve the everyday usability and efficiency. Even then, you're rather limited. The performance and speed were rather average, even disappointing. There were also a lot of small visual bugs everywhere. The worst thing is the Wayland-only session, which to me feels like: here comes big corpo to make all your decisions for ya. This is an anti-user, anti-freedom choice really. It's not that I have anything personal against Wayland. I simply dislike inferior software solutions, especially when they're hailed as the "new and modern" replacement. Nope.
All in all, Fedora 42 comes with a strange duality. It surprised me, both ways. But at the end of the day, with a super-short support cycle, I don't see myself using it. Obviously, if I did, I'd choose a non-Gnome edition, Plasma to be more precise. Gnome simply isn't flexible enough. And it severely lacks in numerous areas of common desktop usage. In some ways, it feels like Gnome and Wayland go hand in hand, in that they offer a solution that's limiting by design, and can only do 60% of its rivals, counterparts or predecessors. An offering of mediocrity.