I really wanted Fedora to work for me, but I am struggling

Ask Fedora
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1

Hi everyone,

I hope this does not come across as Fedora-bashing. That is not my intention. I am not angry, but I am honestly quite disappointed, because I really wanted this to work.

I have used Windows since Windows 3.11, so I am not new to computers. But over the years, especially after Windows 7, I have become increasingly frustrated with the direction Windows has taken. Windows 11 in particular is something I strongly dislike, and that was one of the main reasons I wanted to make a serious attempt at moving to Linux.

I recently built a powerful new workstation with a Ryzen 9950X and an AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 GPU, and I chose Fedora because it seemed modern, up to date, well suited for recent hardware, and had a polished KDE desktop. The built-in clipboard history was also one of the things that attracted me.

There are many things I genuinely like about Linux. The command line is powerful, and as an electronics engineer I really appreciate that level of control. Over the last four days I have used Claude, Codex in the CLI, and a lot of terminal work to solve problem after problem. Several times I thought: “OK, now this is finally coming together.”

My most important lab instrument is PicoScope. It initially seemed to work on Linux, but during troubleshooting I even tried the latency-performance profile, and today PicoScope stopped working properly both natively in Fedora and inside a Windows VM. That is unfortunately a dealbreaker for me.

I also tested my QuantAsylum QA403 audio analyzer, which as far as I understand can be run on Linux using Mono. That gave me some hope that this could become a usable engineering workstation.

Another reason I chose Fedora was the clipboard history, but I have found it unreliable. Some clipboard entries seem to disappear. I had planned to test Qlipper or another clipboard manager, but at this point I am too exhausted to keep fighting the setup.

So after four long days, I am close to giving up. I still like many parts of Fedora and Linux, but I have a job to do, and I need my tools to work reliably.

My questions are:

  1. Is Fedora the wrong choice for someone who depends on lab instruments like PicoScope and QA403?
  2. Are USB instruments and Windows VMs known pain points on Fedora?
  3. Would Ubuntu or openSUSE be a more realistic choice for this kind of engineering workstation?
  4. Are there known clipboard reliability issues in Fedora KDE/Plasma?

Any advice from people using Fedora for electronics, lab instruments, or Windows VMs would be very welcome.

2

Hi there :slightly_smiling_face:

I am not able to answer all your questions.

But I do want to say this; one of the things I have learned over many years of using Linux is that manual configuration is part and parcel of the whole journey.

Some things will just work, others require much head scratching and fiddling around.

Some may see that as a deal breaker, others as a challenge to overcome by digging deeper.

Regarding PicoScope, I found this:

https://www.picotech.com/support/viewtopic.php?t=43356

I hope this helps you get another step down the road.

I think it is also important to try and break down each issue and deal with them one at a time rather than all at once. It will make the task seem less daunting.

In the long run, it is worth it if you persevere.

3

It looks like the Picoscope driver is proprietary software that officially supports Ubuntu and openSUSE.

So if you’re new to Linux and using this software is your #1 requirement, it probably does make sense to use one of those distributions instead of Fedora.

Undoubtedly there will be ways to make the software work on Fedora - like the thread that @rubirod1200 linked to above - but it’s going to be more frustrating than on one of the officially supported distros.

It would be a shame if you were driven back to Windows because your Linux experience was more frustrating than it needed to be!

5

I’m not an expert, just a thought - I wonder if PicoScope SW could run in a container based off Ubuntu.

6

Hi Armand,

I’m also a former ms dos 3.30 user and have finally migrated from windows to linux 3 years ago for the exact reasons you have mentioned. After trying many distros fedora KDE seemed the best choice and it’s currently my main system, which I enjoy way more than Windows. Hope this suits as an empowering example.

When you switch from windows ecosystem to linux, there are some things to get accustomed to, and a certain learning curve. In my first year a lot of things did break up, now it’s stable and enjoyable. Use ai tools carefully as they can ruin some things instead of fixing them. Usually if something does not work, it requires minor configuration effort.

What do you mean exactly by “unstable clipboard” and “not working properly”?

Which virtualization solution do you use to run Windows? I hope it’s built-in KVM? If you pass-through devices into it it should work as usual.

If you provide more details, I’m sure the community will help you get the devices working natively.

7

In addition to the advantage of PicoScope support on LTS versions of those distros, you will benefit from larger PicoScope user communities on those platforms. As others have mentioned, VM’s allow you to a vendor-supported OS for PicoScope with Fedora as the main OS. You may find a VM can provide a safety net while using the PicoScope software in Fedora most of the time.

8

Update!
Thank you for your feedback everyone. Nice to have an active community.

I had to get back to Windows to get some work done, and I have to admit that things are easy. Everything just works, and after spending some time de-bloating and optimizing, it is in fact not that bad. And for an old Win user like me it feels like getting back into a car you have driven for years. You just know where every knob is :grin:

BUT!
The first problem I encountered when installing Windows was that Picoscope was freezeing there as well!!
I tracked down the problem to a bad port on a new 40Gbps USB hub. Now it has been running stable here in Fedora for 20 minutes also. :partying_face:
Note to self: Don’t jump to conclusions!

I kind of like it here and will not delete the Fedora partition, and will be back for more playing around here when time allows.

See you around.