So I’ve been using Fedora since 2023, and honestly I was binge-looking the differences between Fedora and Tumbleweed, to try something else, but they have their decent pros that make me go completely undecided.
I’d like to choose a distro that can give me some regular security, the type of release model as Tumbleweed, minimalism (where I don’t have to manually uninstall a lot of stuff and comfortably use my beloved tiling manager) and relative ease of use.
Both options are decent, and I still use Fedora, but I lowkey have a FOMO feeling what could be the experience of using TW but I want to look for more info before making the switch (because I still use Intel Celeron in 2026, so running a VM is not an option, and dual-booting could get inconvenient if I wanted to access files between installations.), so I want to make sure I take a proper decision.
I’d say the main advantage of OpenSUSE Tumbleweed over “normal” (not Atomic) Fedora is that you can roll back bad updates with snapper instead of having to fix a broken system.
The main disadvantage is that it’s “bloated” by default and zypper (the package manager) will install all recommended (not just the required) dependencies and there are package “patterns” which might re-install previously uninstalled packages because they’re part of some pattern you have installed and after you remove packages there’s no “autoremove” function like with dnf or apt to get rid of no longer needed packages. All three things can be solved but the default behaviour of OpenSUSE is to become fat and bloated.
Both also have immutable systems that are very minimal (just the desktop and browser, basically) and expect you to install most of your apps as Flatpaks. But that’s not everyone’s taste.
For me, these distros share enough in common that they feel like ‘close cousins.’ I’ve used both (Fedora Workstation, and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, as well as both atomic variants).
In my opinion if you are happy with one, you will be happy with the other also. Last time I needed to pick a new distro, TW and Fedora Workstation were my two final candidates. I tested both for a few months each, and enjoyed both. I ended up going with Fedora and don’t regret that decision, but I think if I had gone with TW I wouldn’t have regretted that either.
The main advantage TW has in my eyes is what @Regime6045 mentioned. OpenSUSE has snapper which is a great tool, that makes snapshots and rollbacks easy, and gets full advantage from the BTRFS filesystem. Fedora doesn’t come with anything like this unfortunately, but snapper can be manually installed, setting it up takes a bit of research and effort though. What I like about Fedora is that it has slightly better support from the broader ecosystem of software (particularly non-linux-first software) a larger community, and the connection to Red Hat, Red Hat’s community, and related projects is a positive in my eyes. What I like about OpenSUSE as a community is, they are friendly helpful, welcoming, and more technically focused. I was also really interested in and hopeful for the vision that was outlined here (though it’s been a few years, and I’m not sure how much progress has been made)
I recently tried TW to test its integration with Nvidia drivers to enable Secure Boot. I had it installed for two days and eventually ended up going back to Fedora. For the record, I’m quite a beginner in the Linux world, but I find TW much harder to configure than Fedora.
Additionally, I wasn’t able to use some .rpm packages that worked on Fedora, so I had to look for compatibility workarounds.
I wish I had had the time to learn how to use TW, being a German alternative.
Hmm, I’m actually thinking about the ‘fat and bloated’ experience you mention. That’s kinda bad because I don’t wanna have unnecessary packages that may affect my attack surface. Maybe I’ll keep an eye on that.
Qubes OS has support for minimal templates, which are heavily stripped down versions of the Debian, Fedora, and Gentoo templates, but they are intended for advanced users:
Here is an important note associated with the feature:
Minimal templates become valuable once a user understands how to compartmentalize their various identities, threat models, use cases, and workflows, but the tradeoff is high complexity.
If you want an unbloated Tumbleweed (I’ve been there…) these are my notes from a while ago.
In the installer*, on the final screen before installation starts, click on “Software”, which will bring up a package selection screen
Untick “KDE Applications” pattern (assuming you chose the KDE desktop when the installer asked previously, but it should be the same logic if you chose GNOME or Xfce)
Re-tick “KDE Base” pattern (this gets unselected in the step above)
Then click on “Details” and install a few more packages, I would suggest “spectacle” for the KDE screenshot program, “konsole” for the KDE terminal (otherwise you just get xterm) and “discover-notifier” which pulls in Discover, Flatpak etc.
Install
Then, after the installation finishes set up Flatpak/Flathub: flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
In Discover → Settings → “Make Default” for Flathub
Now you have a very minimal base system with just KDE and can install all your apps as Flatpak, if available.
* (assuming this is still Yast Installer on Tumbleweed, which is much more powerful and configurable than the new dumbed-down Agama installer that Leap and SLE are using now)
Tumbleweed has better compatibility IMO. It also is a more no-nonsense distro, while Fedora often makes controversial decisions. I also like it that it is tied to a German company, compared to Fedora tied to an american company.
They switched to Wayland when it wasn’t really ready for example. Or they also discussed removing all 32 bit dependencies, something which would have broken Steam. They also have no or poor support for Microsoft Surface, something they don’t seem to give a damn.
Also, they often hide info (such as when booting), which can be annoying for debugging purposes.
They also don’t support some standard commands that other do, like ifconfig (I think).
Fedora has a better package names (Just one example Fedora - base-devel , OpenSuse aaa_base).
For me DNF is better compared to Zypper (zypper is slow, also I missing some DNF functionality, like history undo, redo etc.. )
I don’t like that OpenSuse is coming with a lot of GUI apps for software management, like Yast, Myrlyn, Packagekit, Gnome, Kde Software and the most strange for me is that every Gui app sometimes shows different results if you check for updates as example .
In OpenSuse If you want to remove some stuff , is need to lock packages because of patters I think . Just example, you remove VLC, next snapshot with updates you have a VLC installed back in your system . To prevent this, VLC need to be locked.
I’m not Opensuse expert I just test it five weeks because like some things but is a bit confusing and not for me .
Yeah, I’m giving it a try and it’s package management kinda sucks, especially its patterns feature, because I wanted to remove Alacritty that came preinstalled with the Sway pattern and deleted the whole tiling manager. I had to reinstall Sway and use Yast (which only worked on Sudo, not with Run0) to “break the dependency with Sway” so to speak and finally remove Alacritty from the system. Kinda weird…
It’s still kinda cool not gonna lie, Yast it’s pretty cool but, I just need to get the hang of it, but DNF in Fedora just goes straight to the point without the initial tinkering on TW. I’ll stick with Fedora while I test TW in the meantime.
This is one of the primary things that brought me to Fedora in the first place. For me it was a selling point, not a flaw.
On a separate note, if/when this vision is realized, I’ll be moving to OpenSUSE as quick as I can.
My next daily driver distro of choice will probably depend on who can realize a vision similar to that first. OpenSUSE, and aspirational GnomeOS, and Fedora (in a more incremental way), and Lennart Poettering (creator of systemd), and Ubuntu all seem to be workings towards somewhat similar approaches.
So I never experienced the last issue. If you delete the correct way (with zypper rm).
Zypper isn’t as slow as it once was, it now support downloading packages simultaneously. For packages name, I actually find that Fedora has weird naming scheme. So very personal.
Yast is being depreciated anyway and the only real way for software update is KDE Software or CLI zypper. I do acknowledged that using Software doesn’t always work, but at least the error code is clear.
I think both are fine, but I personally hate GNOME. I feel it’s so minimalistic you have to use the terminal much more.
I don’t wish to make life any harder, but have you tried Garuda’s Sway edition ( Garuda Linux )? As far as I can see Garuda is a lot like Fedora (e.g. using BTFS and Snapper), but following a rolling release strategy.
None of these. If you want to stay with a Fedora-ish distro, which works ootb, use Secureblue. If you want to level up your Linux skills, switch to Arch to really learn Linux.
My recommendation is also Qubes OS. The security concept is well thought out and can be adapted to your own threat model, since Qubes is essentially modular in its design.
If you like, you can use so-called “minimal templates,” which were already discussed above.
What I like is that I can very easily define “qubes,” meaning VMs without network access, for example to store my user data or my secrets in a so-called “vault.” Data exchange between the individual VMs happens through the supervisor domain, dom0, and the proven Xen software.
Since I started using Qubes as my daily driver, I’ve learned to think and design more in terms of processes and risks rather than relying on rigid “security mechanisms.”
I forgot to mention that the standard software for the individual qubes is Fedora, but Debian can also be used. Whonix is included out of the box.
Development platform. Fedora is the TemplateVM for the service/system qubes (sys-firewall, sys-net and sys-usb), Kicksecure is for my public identity, and Whonix is for my private identity. Debian is also somewhat interchangeable with ParrotOS.