I am currently trialing the Nobara (Gnome) distro which to me is a lot like Fedora with the mods installed that I have to install myself. But not to be confused with a Fedora spin, as the documentation states.
But one doesnt have to look to hard to find an official Fedora readme on the Nobara site.
I am a bit confused by this. It sure seems feels like I am using Fedora?
Gâday mate.
Welcome to ask.fedora @jethrot
I might have to ask first, how it looks like? Do you still use the official Fedora Repos on Nobara?
sudo dnf repolist
Fedora is an opensource project. If you use dnf info appname/packagenameyou see the repo name and itâs origin. As fedora it selves also uses other opensource software you have to consider whether it makes sense to ask here or direct there from where the software comes (like gnome.org / kde.org for example).
Reading the FAQ states that Nobara uses own kernel versions based on Fedoras, means fedora would be upstream.
FAQ â Nobara Linux | The Nobara Project
- Just how modified is nobara aside from what I can see? A recent glibc update broke eac on many games, does gloriouseggroll have the capacity to delay this should it come to fedora? (Same with other things that may introduce new bugs/breakage). Essentially how close to base fedora is it and how much control does gloriouseggroll have?
â Heavily. All of the packages we modify can be see in the fedora.repo package exclude list. We ship our own version of the fedora-repos package with a large exclude list of every package that both we and fedora provide so that they do not conflict. This allows us to keep our own packages version controlled while also letting Fedoraâs packages automatically update as needed. If dependency discrepancies come up they are usually resolved within a day or two and/or documented in the Nobara docs section of the website -if- they need user intervention.
It makes sense, to make yourself known about the apps in fedora.repo package exclude list.
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I think the answer here is ânoâ. Nobara is, as noted, a downstream remix of Fedora. The Fedora community does not develop it, nor do we have a say in Nobaraâs development/policies. So itâs best to contact them for queries, and for clarifications.
The guidelines note that Fedora trademarks etc. should not be used without permission, so if you see this happening, please let us know:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines#Usage_That_Requires_Permission
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines
Can you link to this please?
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fyi, there is already a some support for the Nobara distribution going on, see Search results for 'nobara' - Fedora Discussion
Iâd suggest we stop supporting distributions that are not released by the Fedora Project.
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Yes, meaning that questions related to downstream projects and remixes should be addressed to the related support channels (i.e. does Nobara has a forum, a mailing list or an issue tracker? Go there).
But I hope that your statement doesnât mean: remixes and downstream project based on Fedora are not welcome 
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Hrm, I guess if folks think itâs a Fedora based system, they will look for the Fedora channels to begin with. There will be issues that arenât Nobara specific, so we can perhaps help with those. But there will certainly be issues related to the changes Nobara makes that we wonât be aware of.
No harm looking into them initially I guess, and if they do turn out to be downstream specific bugs, we let the posters know.
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That is what i tried to signalize with my answer. Reading the FAQ shows that the changes are made within copr and everyone is able to check with dnf info app/package where the package comes from.
I propose we do create tags as ânobara specificâ and or ânobara relatedâ that we do have some metrics and it is simpler to sort out what belongs where.
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Not sure this in line with Fedora policy, Nobara is harvesting the ressources Fedora provides for free, and then the community of a free project is asked to provide support for a non-free distro⌠feels weird to me.
I would note that the great majority of the Nobara distro is purely fedora. Yes it is tweaked but unless dealing with specifically tweaked details everything is fedora under the hood. As such it probably can be handled as fedora: But I feel that when it is noted that one of the tweaked details is identified at the issue then a handoff to the Nobara site should be done. From what I see at their site most of what may be an issue is something that is directly kernel related. They do say that they do significant kernel patching and their official version has significant gnome tweaks as well.
Just an aside.
We do not differentiate when a user installs software from a 3rd party non-affiliated repo but still provide assistance. I am not sure that this is any different from what I see so far. I do however agree that there should be tags created for issues related to ânobaraâ.
I will do a test install soon and see if there are any logos or other issues that tie directly back to fedora/redhat with that distro.
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While it is Fedora under the hood, their tweaks are optimized for a very niche usecase and not most users. The creator of Nobara does have a Discord where all bug reports should go, they have Github issues disabled for this reason. I donât think Nobara should have specific support from Fedora (though Iâm not against the idea of there being a separate tag for it):
- SELinux is set to permissive mode by default, this would make troubleshooting SELinux issues difficult for users and package maintainers because it doesnât match Fedoraâs default configuration
- They have a heavily patched kernel, would make troubleshooting kernel issues difficult because itâs not validated by Fedora and may contain obscure bugs
- They have WIP patches merged for GNOME (upstream developers do not recommend doing this)
- They have their own third party repos, which may have vendor changes/conflicts that would be difficult to debug unless you know Nobara well
In other words, the best place to seek support for Nobara is their discord.
AFAIK RPM Fusion is the only third party repository âsupportedâ by Fedora.
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People really think Nobara is a Fedora spin, even if
the Licensing says something different.
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
---------------------------------------------------------
(1) You understand this is a hobby distribution; it is not to be used in production environments. By downloading, installing and using this distribution you agree that you understand you are not entitled to receive any kind of formal support.
(2) You understand all Nobara-specific packages and code modifications have been created by end-user individuals. There are no companies officially involved.
(3) You understand that this distribution is -NOT- to be considered a âFedora Spinâ. It is completely independent project from Fedora, and there are no Fedora developers or parties involved. Nobara uses Fedora packages, code and repositories. That is the extent of the relation.
(4) By downloading, installing and using this distribution you agree that Nobara, Fedora, Red Hat, RPMFusion, and COPR related developers are -NOT- responsible for any kind of damages, data loss, or theft incurred during usage of this distribution and you will not attempt to pursue any legal actions against any of these parties or individuals related to these parties.
(5) This distribution provides third-party repositories and packages which are already enabled and installed for functionality. It does -NOT- conform to Fedora's 3rd party policies, found here:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Third_Party_Repository_Policy/
By downloading, installing and using this distribution you agree that you understand these 3rd party repositories are installed and enabled, and that this distribution ships with some of these packages installed. You also agree that you understand the following information surrounding the inclusion of these packages and repositories:
Per the following:
https://rpmfusion.org/FAQ#Free_repository
Free repository
Software that uses a free license, but is not accepted in Fedora for various reasons.
Example: video players
Nonfree repository
Software that uses a nonfree license, but is otherwise redistributable.
Example: Nvidia binary drivers
Can I use RPM Fusion packages during the installation of Fedora?
Yes, Anaconda (the Fedora installer) supports using external repositories during installation.
Why doesn't the Fedora project ship the Software that RPM Fusion offers?
As Fedora is officially affiliated with Red Hat, Inc. in the Fedora Project, Fedora is effectively bound by the same legal restrictions as Red Hat, as a US company, is bound by. This means in particular that software encumbered with US patents cannot be included in Fedora.
Fedora further only wants to ship software that is covered by Free and Open-Source-Software licenses; see Fedora's Licensing Guidelines and its List of Good Licenses for details.
* Nobara is not associated with Red Hat or Fedora, and only includes the RPMFusion Free and Nonfree repositories, which as noted only contain packages which are legally re-distributable and/or contain free licensing.
Does RPM Fusion distribute illegal software?
No. RPM Fusion only distributes packages which can be legally re-distributed.
(6) You understand the nobara-appstream repository contains packages which would otherwise be available in RPMFusion Free or Nonfree repositories, but have been patched or modified by us:
blender
obs-studio
obs-studio-gstreamer-vaapi
Discord
telegram
mpv
(7) You understand the xone driver utilizes the 'lpf' tool and does not directly package or distribute any copyrighted firmware or other related data. Additional steps must be manually performed in order to install the firmware on the user end, documented here: https://nobaraproject.org/docs/xbox-controllers/known-issues/
---------------------------------------------------------
I had to ask for a inxi -Fzx before realize it.
I guess with that you mean a distro with non-free (proprietary) software included.
But wouldnât it be the same then if a Fedora user installs proprietary software and asks for help here?
But wouldnât it be the same then if a Fedora user installs proprietary software and asks for help here?
Fedora does not ship non-free software, however, thatâs basically what RPM Fusion is for. RPM Fusion aims to not replace base packages while shipping packages that otherwise cannot land in the base repos. So itâs the closest thing you can get to an âofficialâ non-free repository.
These third-party repos/forks however make no such guarantees. It is basically the wild west in terms of configuration/changes, so if something breaks, really only the developer is the best person to ask for support.
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As it turns out, the project lives on Gitlab with issues enabled: Thomas Crider / Nobara Images ¡ GitLab
My assumption was based on their other projects which does disable issues and redirects to the Discord. However I took a look at their kickstart and it deviates from the Fedora kickstarts in a number of ways:
# SELinux configuration
selinux --permissive
# Disk partitioning information
part / --fstype="ext4" --size=25600
part / --size=25600
# Remove root password lock
passwd -d root > /dev/null
cat > /etc/gdm/custom.conf << FOE
[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=True
AutomaticLogin=liveuser
WaylandEnable=false
DefaultSession=gnome-xorg.desktop
FOE
Iâm unclear why they disable the root password lock and why they use ext4 over btrfs (which has been the default for a while). They also make Wayland not the default. I havenât really combed through it comprehensively, but IMO SELinux should be enforcing and I canât see why you would keep the root account unlocked.
I tried installing nobara into a qemu (libvirt) VM in both legacy and uefi bios mode, using both the âOfficialâ and âGNOMEâ isos and was totally unable to do the install. It would not even boot to the installer no matter how I tried it. I only got to the point where it opened the boot manager screen.
It is apparent that something they have done prevents it, though at that stage of the install the messages do not say much about what is happening. It could be that their booting which requires secure boot to be disabled prevents booting on my fedora 36 host which uses secure boot. It is my understanding that the VM bios is independent of the host bios, but in any case I can only speculate.