Fedora is a distribution that improves with each new version. As a result, it is becoming a more attractive choice for developing new ones based on it.
The fact that Fedora comes with a vanilla GNOME opens up many possibilities for developers to build on. This is the case with a relatively new distribution that attempts to make GNOME more user-friendly for novice Linux users, particularly those who enjoy gaming. Please, meet Nobara.
Nobara Linux
Nobara Linux is a new growing distribution on the Linux horizon, primarily due to Thomas Crider’s efforts, a.k.a. Glorious Eggroll, Software Maintenance Engineer at Red Hat.
The projects on his GitHub page (proton-ge-custom, wine-ge-custom, amdgpu-pro-amf-fedora) show his primary focus on gaming. As a result, it’s not surprising that the distribution he created is mainly oriented at Linux gamers, but more on that later.
Crider stresses on the project’s website that Nobara should not be viewed as a Fedora spin. Instead, it is a fully independent distro, and no Fedora devs are involved. But because Nobara uses Fedora’s package base, it should be considered more as an extension of Fedora.
Now, let’s get back to the main topic. First, Nobara’s primary goal is to give the most simple point-and-click user experience possible. But, as we all know, the concept of user interface and interacting with it in GNOME is not easy to understand if you haven’t used it before.
However, as seen in the screenshot above, the user interface in Nobara Linux has significantly improved. But if we look behind the scenes, we can find that this was achieved by combining many GNOME extensions. In any case, the result is quite pleasing and will appeal to users.
Let’s now move on to the gaming side of the disto, where a lot has been done. First and foremost, Nobara Linux comes pre-installed with impressive support for a complete gaming experience. The goal is simple – install the OS, install your games, and have them run out of the box.
Here you will find the Steam and Lutris gaming platforms pre-reinstalled and ready to use. Of course, Wine is also included by default in Nobara Linux.
Furthermore, the distribution supports automatic detection of NVIDIA GPUs and automatic installation of the relevant NVIDIA driver. Something that will undoubtedly be welcomed by users and will make life much easier for them.
We can’t forget to highlight that hardware compatibility has also been considered. So, just plug in your game controllers and have them work out of the box. A dream come true for any Linux gaming enthusiast.
Apart from those mentioned above, some additional changes should also be noted here. First, Nobara Linux has a set of multimedia and graphics apps ready to use. OBS Studio, Kdenlive, Blender, and Inkscape are only a few examples.
Nobara Linux, being entirely based on Fedora, closely matches Fedora’s release numbers. As a result, just as Fedora 36 is the most recent version, Nobara Linux 36 is the most recent release of the distribution. It comes with GNOME 42, Firefox 102, LibreOffice 7.3.4, VLC 3.0.17, etc.
Under the hood, the recent Nobara Linux 36 release is powered by the latest and greatest Linux kernel 5.18. Furthermore, Flatpak, as well as Flathub repositories, are available and enabled by default.
The distribution is available for download from the project website in three variants. In addition to the official one, there are also GNOME and KDE editions. So if you’re a Linux gaming enthusiast, you must try Nobara.
For detailed information about Nobara Linux, you can refer to the project website.
