Why doesn't Fedora spins allow system upgrade with GUI?

Dear all,

I’m currently using Fedora 30 Workstation (Gnome 3.32) and I love the Fedora release cycle which is really close to Mac OSX or Windows 10. A semi rolling release is perfect to stay up to date without sacrifying stability.

Thus, when you try Fedora spins, for example Fedora 30 MATE, dnfdragora doesn’t allow you to upgrade your system to the next version, you are forced to use the command line.

So my question is, why doesn’t Fedora spins allow a GUI system upgrade ? Because it would be really nice for users who want a lighter DE.

Best Regards

Probably because no one wrote a tool for it yet on these lighters D.E, i imagine it’s because of it, but I’m not sure.

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That is basically correct. Free/Open source software relies on volunteers writing tools and software that they find useful. The GNOME/KDE teams wrote Gnome-software and Diskover etc. because they provide a tightly integrated set of tools that work well together, and they have the resources to create these new tools.

Other DEs also have thriving communities, but probably think that there resources are better used elsewhere.

This is why the dnf system-upgrade path exists—it does not rely on the choice of desktop.

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Hi Francisco !

Yep I agree with you but the fact is I personnally find Fedora suitable as a daily use workstation for both experimented and new users.

Fedora just respects the semi-rolling release model, so it is the perfect match between stability and softwares which are up to date for daily use.

The thing is, dnf system-upgrade may be a great tool for experiemented users but for newbies (your family / friends), it is just so confortable to just press the button “Fedora XY is here ! Upgrade”.

A tool like that either implemented to dnfdragora or developped apart would make Fedora even better (that’s my point of view). This same graphical tool would be usable on every Fedora spins (like dnfdragora is).

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I completely agree with you, but the reality as always is that someone has to do the work to include this feature in other graphical tools.

Fedora is downstream for a majority of software that we ship, i.e., we dont develop it, we take what developers make and put it together for users (like all linux distributions). Yes, we maintainers try to send fixes and patches back to the developers, but it all depends on how much free time we have. The community mostly focuses on developing software for use by the community to do so—infrastructure. So, it really is up to upstream developers like the GNOME and KDE communities.

I dont use dnfdragora myself, but it may be worth looking at the project homepage to see if this has been discussed etc.

Could not Fedora Silverblue be a solution? AFAIK there are no spins of it, but you can likely just install a different desktop environment once and then use it.

Updates should be done automatically AFAIK. (Flatpaks at least, as for system, i.e. rpm-ostree, updates I am not sure)

I think Red Hat money is more on GNOME universe, outside of it, things will come more slowly, and in a more DYI way. If you need something more, you will need to write your own tool.

But I’m not again people say their needs btw… so, that’s all fine.

If I understand it correctly, if I use the official Fedora Workstation version with Gnome, I will have the most reliable system, compared to the Fedora Spins?

I have used Ubuntu based distro’s, Solus and even Antergos, every time Gnome turns out to be the best as far as every program just working is concerned.

KDE or XFCE was light but some programs didn’t work at all.

Welcome to Fedora @lekkerfedora! Please take a minute to go through the introductory posts in the #start-here category if you’ve not had a chance to do so yet.

No, that should not be the case. All packages are tested in Fedora. Because there are limited QA resources, and the Council wanted to be able to market one product instead of multiple, the Gnome based Workstation was decided as the primary “blocker” deliverable.

I’m going to close this topic, since it’s so old. Please open new topics for specific questions.

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