FC3 vs. Ubuntu

[Stiganator]

I am nix noob, but I can get by in a unix environment. There seems to be a lot of hype with Ubuntu. IIRC, FC2 sucked. FC3 looks to be a better. But if I want to do a little of everything (productivity, gaming possibly native only games, surfing, email etc) maybe some 3d apps like 3dsmax. Pros and cons of each, which is "better"?

 

[Stiganator]

no one has an opinion on this?

 

[Nothinman]

Ubuntu is Debian based so it automaticaly wins in my book. I've never been a fan of RH or derivatives, Debian just makes everything so much easier.

 

[drag]

FC2 was ok, FC3 is the best thing so far to come out of Redhat for Desktop usage...

However Ubuntu has Debian's packages to back it up, so it's pretty much won.

I like both. To the end user they are actually very close, Both have 2.6 series kernels, both use Gnome 2.8. The big differences is in Fedora's GUI configuration tools vs Ubuntu's Debian packaging. But command line is easy once you get the hang of it and places like dag's rpms

My suggestion is to try out Ubuntu first... I use Fedora Core 3 on my laptop becuase it uses X.org's X server over the XFree86 in Ubuntu's which has much more stable video drivers then what is aviable from Debian/Ubuntu. Plus I want to be familar with Redhat's stuff. Also FC3 incorporates features like a default use of SELinux and LVM for the filing system, both which are big plusses.

It's a toss up, both are nice Distros.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Ubuntu is Debian based so it automaticaly wins in my book. I've never been a fan of RH or derivatives, Debian just makes everything so much easier.

Debian is easier to upgrade, but Fedora is easier to install.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian's installer isn't that hard, it's just not GTK, and the sarge installer is even easier.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Debian's installer isn't that hard, it's just not GTK, and the sarge installer is even easier.

I've been using Linux since before there were graphical installers, so it doesn't bother me, but I also teach Linux to novices and they not only prefer GUI installers but they also find the kinds of hardware questions that the Sarge installer asked me the last time I used it quite confusing and scary.

 

[Nothinman]

So? Debian wasn't designed for someone who won't take the time to learn how the system works. And I've only really done 1 sarge install and I don't remember any hardware questions at all, but it was a while ago and I didn't install X.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
So? Debian wasn't designed for someone who won't take the time to learn how the system works.

True, which is why, as I pointed out, it isn't as easy to install.

And I've only really done 1 sarge install and I don't remember any hardware questions at all, but it was a while ago and I didn't install X.

X is almost always the hardest part to configure. I had to use Anaconda to get a good X configuration for the last system I installed sarge on.

 

[Nothinman]

X is almost always the hardest part to configure

I've never had any trouble with XFree 4.3, XFree86 -configure seems to pick most things well enough with the only major changes being for the binary nvidia driver.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

X is almost always the hardest part to configure

I've never had any trouble with XFree 4.3, XFree86 -configure seems to pick most things well enough with the only major changes being for the binary nvidia driver.

You must be lucky. I've never found XFree86 or X.org to figure out the correct settings for my monitor, and there are plenty of other video cards that it has trouble with. You can almost always get 640x480, but higher resolutions are another matter, though it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Nothinman

X is almost always the hardest part to configure

I've never had any trouble with XFree 4.3, XFree86 -configure seems to pick most things well enough with the only major changes being for the binary nvidia driver.

You must be lucky. I've never found XFree86 or X.org to figure out the correct settings for my monitor, and there are plenty of other video cards that it has trouble with. You can almost always get 640x480, but higher resolutions are another matter, though it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago.

It's probably your monitor then. In the newer VESA specifications one of the channels in the VGA analog cable is used as a data channel so that the video card and the monitor can communicate with each other. Thru this channel is how X finds out automaticly the refresh rates that your monitor can handle.

I think it may be used for power management things, too.

Or something like that, I don't remember the names for this stuff. Well not all monitors support it properly since it's not something that usually matters to the functionality of the monitor. Its not something that crops up and most people are used to looking at refresh rates and such.

 

[KB]

I have just started using Ubuntu after using Fedora Core 1,2 and 3. Fedora Core is a good linux and is extremely easy to install, but I was tired of downloading 4 CDs and getting 3 text editors, 3 cd-burning programs and 3 desktop environments when I only needed one.

I really like the look and feel of ubuntu as it sticks with Gnome and uses all of gnome strengths. (If you are a KDE fanboy use MEPIS linux) Fedora Core feels like it is patched together with duct tape as it uses KDE, Gnome and custom Redhat built utilities. For example, the Gnome System Tools used by ubuntu look much more ingrained into the Gnome experience because they are GTK 2.4 based, while the System-Config tools used by fedora are old and ugly (pyGTK 1.2 based I think). I also find ubuntu loads faster and uses less memory, but that could be my imagination.

In comparing APT vs. RPM, both are good package systems; however Synaptic for APT is slightly better than what Fedora offers in their "Add/Remove packages" and yum.

The only complaints I have about ubuntu are: it didn't detect some of my hardware so I had to find and add (modprobe) the drivers into the running kernel myself and it didn't detect my windows partitions so I had to add those to grub myself.

 

[Nothinman]

You can almost always get 640x480, but higher resolutions are another matter, though it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago.

My desktop and laptop both run 1600x1200 and 1600x1050 and the amount of fiddling was minimal, even if it doesn't pick them up right off the bat there's no modelines or anything to mess with anymore, just put in the the resolutions you want on the Modes line and you're done.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

You can almost always get 640x480, but higher resolutions are another matter, though it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago.

My desktop and laptop both run 1600x1200 and 1600x1050 and the amount of fiddling was minimal, even if it doesn't pick them up right off the bat there's no modelines or anything to mess with anymore, just put in the the resolutions you want on the Modes line and you're done.

No, adding Modes won't help when X doesn't have your monitor properly configured. It'll ignore all the modes other than the low resolution ones in that case.

A few home installs can't expose you to all the types of hardware recognition problems you're likely to encounter in configuring X. Redhat's done a much better job of coping with all of those possibiities than Debian has, which is to be expected given their market.

 

[Nothinman]

No, adding Modes won't help when X doesn't have your monitor properly configured. It'll ignore all the modes other than the low resolution ones in that case.

I understand that, but even so as long as the monitor does DDC (i.e. anything fairly recent) it works with almost no problems. I've helped people at work on many occasions with different distributions and the only one that caused real problems was an older Compaq Laptop but that was a bad interaction between the kernel fb driver and the X driver.