This post was made with an older stylesheet

Are you still trying to discover the perfect GNOME distro? You are just loosing your time! There is no such thing.. However what seems to make a difference is Arch Linux. Huge super active community, pure rolling release, native GNOME experience, unlimited packages, the very best documentation.

Arch is excellent choice for enthusiasts, excellent choice for veterans but not really good for people that they just want a free box to serf on Internet. Believe it or not, Fedora 19 comes to close that gap, despite some issues with installing proprietary software, which is *necessary* evil.

My personal backflash in Fedora releases with GNOME 3.

Fedora 15

The first release of Fedora with GNOME 3. I switched to that from Ubuntu, when they adopted Unity as their primary (and only) desktop. It proved to be crap, and I switched back to Ubuntu almost immediately with GNOME 3 PPAs Release: 2011-05-24

GNOME: 3.0

3.0 Features: wiki/Releases/15/FeatureList

Fedora 16

One of the same. Used it a bit and I again forced to switch to Ubuntu with PPAs due to bugs I couldn’t solve or work with. Release: 2011-11-08

GNOME: 3.2

3.2 Features: wiki/Releases/16/FeatureList

Fedora 17

Fedora 17 was an amazing improvement over their previous version. Sadly 3-4 months after the initial release problems came up. It was like an abandoned distro, with obvious bugs that were taking too long to close. I got that feeling that Fedora Team was focus in the upcoming 18 release, and they just had forgotten 17. Again I switched to Ubuntu. Release: 2012-05-29

2012-05-29 GNOME: 3.4

3.4 Features: wiki/Releases/17/FeatureList

Fedora 18

Wow! Hard to believe that the same guys that did all the previous versions came with that one! F18 was a huge huge improvement over 17, and overall a very good distro. It was the first time I installed something but Ubuntu to my friend’s machines.Also Fedora 18 was quite stable (with Anaconda exception) from their Alpha. Release: 2013-01-15

2013-01-15 GNOME: 3.6

3.6 Features: wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList

Fedora 19

Double Wow! Yes I’m in Rawhide (the development version, Fedora 20) and when things should brake everyday, nothing bad happens. Boosted with GNOME 3.8, it just made me to switch to it as my main desktop even if there are a few crashes, but nothing really annoying -it’s pre-alpha anyway. Alpha Release: 2013-04-16

2013-04-16 Beta Release: 2013-05-21

2013-05-21 Final Release: 2013-06-25

2013-06-25 GNOME: 3.8

3.8 Features: wiki/Releases/19/FeatureList

That was my personal experience but not exactly my personal opinion about Fedora. I know that many people have troubles with it, but everything run smooth on me. Personally experience? Fantastic! Personal opinion, good enough!. My biggest complain in Fedora always was their distro upgrading method. I never ever made that work. Fedorians have now a new upgrade tool (FedUp), which promises to put my complains away.

What’s really important is that Fedora seems to becoming a serious mainstream solution and an alternative option to the very popular Ubuntu’s. Fedora right now is nowhere near to the Arch community, they haven’t the momentum of Ubuntu, but is definitely one of the fastest improving distros! Also they run a nice infrastructure with Koji building system, which is very very helpful if you get any package dependencies issues.

In Fedora 19 release we also get the GNOME Initial Experience with new first boot and of course GNOME’s Initial Setup. Yes, Fedora is the one release that is very tight with GNOME development.

If for any reason you’re looking to change distro, don’t miss to try Fedora 19. However if you are happy with your current one, just stick to it ;)

Don’t want to wait for alpha release? You can get a nightly build!

http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/

Alpha is coming in 6 days, so is better to wait and check for potential block bugs on their release notes.