My Linux Journey: Testing Fedora Linux and the New Cosmic Desktop

Welcome back to my ongoing quest to find the ultimate Linux operating system! My goal is simple: test different Linux distributions, find the right one as my daily driver, and eventually ditch Windows for good.

While I still need a dual-boot setup for a few Windows-exclusive games and apps, Linux desktop usability has improved dramatically over the years. In fact, for day-to-day work and media creation, it often feels smoother and faster than Windows.

In this chapter of my journey, I put Fedora Linux to the test—a distribution everyone seems to be talking about right now. Here is how my experiment went!

Wrapping Up Anduin OS (Rating: 7/10)

Before jumping into Fedora, I had been daily-driving Anduin OS (an Ubuntu-based distro) for over a week.

• The Good: Scrubbing through 4K video timelines in DaVinci Resolve felt noticeably smoother than on Windows. VMware Workstation also handled single-drive virtual machine read/write speeds smoothly out of the box.

• The Bad: It struggled with integrated GPU (iGPU) management out of the box, requiring me to disable the iGPU to make DaVinci Resolve work properly.

• Verdict: It’s a solid alternative to Ubuntu if you want to avoid Snap packages, but the initial GPU glitch earned it a 7/10.

Attempt 1: Fedora with the COSMIC Desktop (A Bit Too Fresh)

Since many Arch Linux users and community members recommended trying Fedora, I decided to give it a spin. But instead of going straight to the default version, I wanted to try something new: Fedora with the COSMIC Desktop Environment.

COSMIC is a brand-new desktop built from the ground up by System76 (the creators of Pop!_OS).

The Good:

• Blazing Fast Installer: The installation process was astonishingly quick—faster than almost any other distro I've tested.

• Sleek Theming: It comes with gorgeous built-in dark and light themes right out of the box (like Nebula Dark and Mocha Dark).

The Catch:

While COSMIC looks promising, its young age showed quickly. I encountered minor bugs, such as file copy progress bars freezing at 99% when writing to a Ventoy USB drive. Because I need stability for my daily work, I decided to fall back to the tried-and-true default release.

Attempt 2: Fedora Workstation (GNOME) – The Sweet Spot

Switching over to the official Fedora Workstation (which uses the GNOME desktop environment) felt like night and day. GNOME is rock-solid and polished, though I added a few desktop extensions to bring back minimize/maximize buttons and an always-visible dock.

Here is how Fedora handled my heavy daily workloads:

1. Video Editing in DaVinci Resolve Studio

With the latest Linux kernel and updated Nvidia drivers, video editing performance was top-tier:

• 4K Timeline Playback: Effortless. Scrubbing through 4K video clips was smoother than in Windows.

• The Fix: Installing proprietary software like DaVinci Resolve requires a few extra dependencies (libcat), and routing audio correctly required connecting an input device/mic, but once configured, it performed flawlessly.

2. Replacing standard tools with better alternatives

Linux gives you total control over your system components. I uninstalled the basic default system monitor and replaced it with Mission Center.

• Why Mission Center? It looks similar to the Windows Task Manager but provides far richer system insights, including direct readouts for CPU, GPU, and disk temperatures.

3. Virtualization & Android Apps

• VMware Workstation: Installed smoothly via the terminal and performed excellently for virtual machine testing.

• WayDroid (Android Container): WayDroid runs Android (LineageOS) directly on the host Linux kernel rather than through heavy hardware emulation. Apps and menus launched instantly with minimal overhead.

4. Gaming Test: Minecraft Bedrock Edition

Running Windows or Android games on Linux can sometimes produce window glitches or white borders. Testing Minecraft Bedrock on Fedora was a pleasant surprise:

• Fullscreen mode worked without any weird window borders.

• Gameplay and mouse responsiveness were smooth and fluid.

Why Is Everyone Switching to Fedora?

After testing it on real hardware, I finally understand why so many Linux enthusiasts—including former Arch users—are making the switch to Fedora:

1. Bleeding-Edge Yet Stable: You get access to the latest Linux kernels and hardware optimizations (similar to Arch) without having to manually assemble your OS from scratch.

2. Modern Standards: Wayland and modern display server integrations work seamlessly out of the box.

3. Performance: Heavy creative applications and video editors run with noticeable responsiveness.

Final Thoughts

Fedora Workstation has proven to be one of the most capable, performant, and stable distributions I have tested so far. I will be using it as my main driver for the next week to see how it holds up over time before moving on to the next distro test.

I’ve also made a video on this topic — you can watch it below.

https://youtu.be/M1Z2wT3y2Nk

Check out my other posts, I post useful tutorials and tech tips, maybe you will find something useful 😉.