Yeah Ubuntu sucks compared to what it was around 2012-2016. Problem is Fedora is even worse. If you don't believe me, check it out yourself. For example, Fedora's (unaltered upstream?) gnome desktop requires routinely twice as many mouse clicks to accomplish anything: say you want to search something, then you need to click on the odd "workspaces" thing (a vertical bar without text description in the upper left corner) first, then you can select the app/workspace where you can enter your search, and the same with other apps. Also, Fedora's gnome has no windows minimize/maximize buttons if you can believe it! And a Fedora is only maintained for like 8 month or so compared to Ubuntu LTS' 5 years.

So why not install an alternative desktop instead? Yeah then you can as well use another distro altogether, the point of Ubuntu being within a large group that can be targeted by third party software and integrators.

The idea with gnome 3+ seems to be a tablet-like experience. Ok now I actually do own a tablet (a Surface Go) so I tried Ubuntu and Fedora on it in a dual boot config with Windows. It's not half-bad with device recognition but unpolished; eg. the virtual keyboard isn't localized, gnome's own setting dialogs on actual tablet 3:2 aspect ratios are cut off, can't rely on touch and still need mouse/keyboard, etc. What was tempting with Fedora is that they put some effort into webcam support lately - but then the apps I wanted to use it with (MS Teams or Google Meet on FF) still couldn't use it because pipewire or codecs or whatever, and those web apps officially support Ubuntu only anyway. Ubuntu's current LTS didn't even find it, and if it would find it, FF in a fscking snap or other pointless container dreck would need extra permissions plus AppArmor config nobody is able to figure out. A poor impression considering this is already the .2 iteration of an LTS release (but hopefully the upcoming 24.04.3 update can help).

I thought those problems were a thing of the pre-CoVid past, but unfortunately they aren't, and the Surface Go is ages old. The Linux desktop experience is beginning to feel like an effort of inexperienced developers who put too much refactoring on the plate that they then can't pull off (aka second system effect) with Wayland, containers, and whatnot.