Comparison of Fedora 34 and Ubuntu 21.04

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Two great operating systems released April 2021, they are, Ubuntu Hirsute Hippo and Fedora 34. This article helps you comparing between both from the basics, technologies, and conveniences they offer to us. You will see here their interesting stuffs among the others like GNOME 40, Anaconda & Ubiquity, Spins & Flavors, as well as Wayland and Active Directory. This includes where to download & how to install them to your computer. 

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Download Fedora and Ubuntu

To grab Fedora 34, click here. To grab Ubuntu 21.04, click here. It is very recommended to download using BitTorrent (learn here) for faster speed and more reliable transfer. 

 

Download Fedora and Ubuntu

To install Fedora, learn here. To install Ubuntu, learn here. These tutorials are included with instructions for UEFI and Dualboot in which most computer users would want.

Desktop Comparison

Fedora Workstation is comparable to Ubuntu Desktop -- the original, flagship edition of both OS products. Their technologies are the same, called GNOME, which is the whole appearance. The difference is that F34 already uses version 40 the latest and greatest one (review here) while U21 still stays at version 3.38. This will differ both user's experiences as F34 now works horizontally and U21 is vertically. A little secret here, Forty is really much more faster!

Apps Comparison

Fedora built-in apps are generally the same with Ubuntu's ones (because both are basically GNOME distros) such as Files, Rhythmbox, Videos, and Terminal. The basic difference is, to remind you again dear readers, Fedora original application file format is RPM while Ubuntu's one is DEB. The ultimate difference is their Software Store apps where Fedora Software offers their applications from original source with Flatpak support, while Ubuntu Software offers their applications from original source plus Snap source. Regarding the sources, user should setup a Flathub if they wish to try Flatpaks on Fedora Software while user does not need to setup anything as Snapcraft Store is already integrated in Ubuntu Software. However, Fedora 34 brings several more GNOME applications built-in we perhaps are not familiar with at Ubuntu such as Boxes, Maps and Weather.

IoT Comparison

We are now invited to the new world, Internet Of Things, by these two operating systems! They support ARM32 as well as ARM64 power-efficient computer technologies. It goes without saying that both Fedora and Ubuntu now can be used with Raspberry Pi computers and alike. That means they can be the free, enterprise-grade operating system for your next smart home and drones.

Flavors Comparison

Speaking about variants to dear readers, Ubuntu is not the only one operating system with multiple variants. Because, Fedora does have many many variants as well! If we Ubuntu users call variants Flavors, Fedora users call them Spins. As an example, because I love Kubuntu, so if I want to try out Fedora's equivalent it should be Fedora KDE.

Fedora KDE - Kubuntu
Fedora MATE-Compiz - Ubuntu MATE
Fedora Xfce - Xubuntu
Fedora LXDE - Lubuntu
Fedora LXQt - Lubuntu

 

Technology

Finally, here's several key features can be compared between Fedora 34 and Ubuntu 21.04.

System setup: 

Fedora makes use of Anaconda while Ubuntu makes use of Ubiquity, two different technologies of system setup. While user sets up Fedora to their computer, they face Anaconda, the installer where we click this and that to prepare disk partition and make Fedora working for us. Likewise, Ubuntu user faces the installer called Ubiquity. Both technologies made the OSes ready to be used on UEFI computers (standard of these days) with GPT disk drives with or without full disk encryption.

Wayland:

Both are based on Wayland technology today, the special program that is responsible for our screens. Ubuntu and Fedora agreed that Wayland is a more secure choice compared to the old technology, we call it X11, so hence the result. As an addition, at the same time there is a good news that the free, professional broadcasting program OBS is now already rebuilt to work with Wayland so now both Fedora and Ubuntu users can perform live streaming just fine.

Btrfs: 

Fedora 34 defaults its disk filesystem choice to be Btrfs, a new technology that helps computer user to store files with safety, 'checkpoints' and compressions. However, Ubuntu offers Btrfs choice too but the default filesystem is the long living standard technology EXT4 instead.

    
Active Directory: 

Ubuntu offers Active Directory support built-in at the installation time for corporate users who work with Microsoft technology at their companies. However, Fedora 34 does not integrate this feature out of the box in the Anaconda.

Summary

Fedora and Ubuntu in this latest release bring their latest and greatest technology from Free Libre Open Source Software. Being fellow GNOME+Wayland distros, they come with tens of thousands of applications, where out of the box Ubuntu includes Active Directory (AD) while Fedora defaults to Btrfs. All in all, both can be tried fully without installation so you can just grab and try them just fine. Finally, happy computing with latest Fedora and Ubuntu!

Further Information

Details about the two can be found in webpage links below. 

Announcement: F34 | Ubuntu 21.04

Release notes: F34 | Ubuntu 21.04

Documentation: F34 | Ubuntu 21.04

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