Chapeau 24
Alexander Tolstoy investigates a Fedora-based spin off with a composed, smooth and refined feel that we’re inclined to tip our hats to.
Look, a distro that’s not based on Ubuntu or Debian but is built from Fedora, looks amazing and is bundled with all the essential desktop tools you’d want.
Chapeau is a remixed version of Fedora, the iconic Linux distribution (distro) made under Red Hat patronage. We decided to take a closer look at Chapeau 24, the latest release. As the name suggests, this system has been derived from Fedora 24 and feature full software compatibility with its parent. The codename of the new Chapeau release is ‘Cancellara’, after the Swiss road bike racer Fabian Cancellara.
Chapeau can be found in the list of recognised Fedora respins, where each participant struggles to develop its own identity but retain the desired compatibility with Fedora repositories (repos). Chapeau isn’t an exception here, and for many users who are just going to glance over it, Chapeau will probably feel like a tweaked, customised and enriched version of Fedora with extra applications. But it gave us a very positive impression and a much better out-of-the-box experience. Chapeau has a more relaxed licensing policy and already includes some proprietary codecs, Gstreamer plug-ins and extra software, such as PlayOnLinux, AdobeFlashPlayer and the Dropbox desktop client. If you’ve been following our distro reviews and read the Korora 25 [see Reviews, p19 LXF220], you may have noticed that Chapeau and Korora, which are both Fedora respins, are very similar. But here’s what makes Chapeau different. First, instead of offering a bunch of desktops (replicating the Fedora spins), Chapeau focuses solely on the Gnome version adding a beautiful Moka icon set on top. There are several other tweaks here and there, like the Caffeine shell extension for manually triggering the screensaver, the list view in Nautilus by default or a tighter font scaling factor that makes the UI feel more like macOS.
Chapeau is minimalist; there are virtually no over-customised features that force you to spend extra time disabling various design settings or bloated Gnome Shell extensions. Chapeau is also light, very fast and really good-looking with sensible defaults and a wide selection of software. From the very first boot to the installed system you can fire up YumexDNF and add extra applications from the already enabled Rpmfusion repo. It’s a pleasant and smooth experience, with no hiccups.
Questionable parts
Although we were very happy with the level of comfort and usability that Chapeau offers for immediate use, there were a few odd things that revealed themselves after a few days of real-life usage. The main complaint is that weren’t sure that the Chapeau developer actually controlled their own distro. This became apparent when GnomeSoftware offered the upgrade path to the latest and greatest Fedora 25. Yes, we know that Fedora’s default software manager has become capable of release upgrades, but Chapeau devs could have missed it. The upgrade process went fine and after rebooting we got the shiny new Gnome 3.22 instead of 3.20 and the Details section in Settings told us that we were now running Fedora 25.
This doesn’t change the fact that in all other situations Chapeau performed very well and passed all of our common tests, including MTP support (connecting a phone) and working with a rare Realtek-based Wi-Fi dongle. Despite the fact that the Chapeau sticks to the previous Fedora release, it has many vital updates, including kernel 4.9 and modern versions of many productivity applications. But again, it would be good to know, if or when the official Chapeau 25 will be out.