Fedora Core vs Ubuntu for desktop use

[VinDSL]

Nice thread! Nobody has taken pot shots (yet). LoL! Let's keep it that way... :biggrin:

It's largely personal choice. [...] Ubuntu and the other Debian-based distros are a good starting choice, but many users, as they get more savvy in the ways of linux, quickly "outgrow" them [...]

Heh! I h-a-t-e-d Ubu, when it first came out, but l-o-v-e 9.10!

That's what I'm using on my primary workstation/desktop box - what I'm using right now, as I type.

I can't stand FC or CentOS [...]

Agreed (with qualifications)!

I "can't stand FC" on the desktop either. However, I tolerate CentOS on my production server.

For web apps, CentOS is excellent, but I would never use it on my desktop!

Newbie and others that really like a restricted choice in software tend to pick Ubuntu. There are much more software packages available for Fedora, SuSE, RedHat (but it is slower to moving to new stuff),

Sorry! I'm calling BS on that statement!

Restricted choice? If you enable the universe and multiverse repositories there's somewhere around 30,000 packages available. How is that restricted?

Exactly! Thank you! :sneaky:

I prefer Mint, its like ubuntu with all the multimedia codecs installed already and has most of the stuff [...]

I used Ubuntu for 2 years, then recently switched to Mint. It's so much nicer - more integrated, works out of the box, and feels designed rather that Frankenstein'd together.

I'm V happy with Mint, but have relegated it to use on my lappy and netbook.

Mint scales down nicely on small screens (if you know how to tweak it :twisted!

To my way of thinking, nothing (I've tried) beats Mint on a portable, but I still prefer Ubu 9.10 on the desktop.

I have used both fedora and ubuntu. And ubuntu is miles above [...]

That's the way I see it, too!

 

[VinDSL]

Oh... And, BTW...

OP, if you decide to try Ubuntu, make sure to install Ubuntu Tweak!!!

http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

If been using this utility since it came out, and the author has done a GREAT job of maintaining/developing it!

Ubuntu Tweak, alone, is worth installing Ubu 9.10!

 

[Nothinman]

Agreed (with qualifications)!

I "can't stand FC" on the desktop either. However, I tolerate CentOS on my production server.

For web apps, CentOS is excellent, but I would never use it on my desktop!

To me the only differentiation between a desktop and server is the set of installed packages and the only advantage CentOS has as a server is compatibility with RHEL, otherwise it's just as crappy. I can't stand yum.

 

[Red Squirrel]

To me the only differentiation between a desktop and server is the set of installed packages and the only advantage CentOS has as a server is compatibility with RHEL, otherwise it's just as crappy. I can't stand yum.

I prefer RH based distros just because of the chkconfig and service commands. Saves lot of time.

"chkconfig httpd on" and "service httpd start" is way faster then dealing with the init folders.

 

[Nothinman]

I prefer RH based distros just because of the chkconfig and service commands. Saves lot of time.

"chkconfig httpd on" and "service httpd start" is way faster then dealing with the init folders.

dpkg -S /usr/sbin/service
sysvinit-utils: /usr/sbin/service

And there's a chkconfig package for that one too. But I never really use either, tab completion for /etc/init.d/blah works fine for me and I almost never touch the runlevels something starts in since they all start by default and if I installed it I want it to start.

 

[VinDSL]

I prefer RH based distros just because of the chkconfig and service commands. Saves lot of time.

"chkconfig httpd on" and "service httpd start" is way faster then dealing with the init folders.

Hallelujah! ()

 

[sourceninja]

I have no problems with the init system. sudo /etc/init.d/apache restart I have to type 20 characters. It's fast enough.

 

[VinDSL]

To me the only differentiation between a desktop and server is the set of installed packages and the only advantage CentOS has as a server is compatibility with RHEL, otherwise it's just as crappy. [...]

Yeah, in concept.

I know we're talking Linux distros here, but...

If I had my 'druthers', I druther be running FreeBSD on all of my servers, desktops, and portables, et cetera. That's impossible in reality, due to (unsupported) hardware limitations on my various machines. As a consequence, I don't run FreeBSD on anything... :awe:

Slackware seems to work best on my (ancient) home box, e.g. server at the abode. CentOS works best on the SOTA remote server, Ubu and/or Mint on the desktop and portables... and Puppy on doorstops.

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah, in concept.

I know we're talking Linux distros here, but...

If I had my 'druthers', I druther be running FreeBSD on my all my servers, desktop, and portables, et cetera. That's impossible in reality, due to (unsupported) hardware limitations on my various machines. As a consequence, I don't run FreeBSD on anything... :awe:

Slackware seems to work best on my home box (server at the abode), CentOS on the colo, Ubu and/or Mint on my desktop, portables, and Puppy on my doorstops.

I never understood the love for FreeBSD, or any of the BSDs for that matter. 90% of the software is the same (i.e. Xorg, Gnome, Apache, etc) so the only real difference is the kernel and package management and ports absolutely sucks compared to apt and even yum.

 

[Khyron320]

I never understood the love for FreeBSD, or any of the BSDs for that matter. 90% of the software is the same (i.e. Xorg, Gnome, Apache, etc) so the only real difference is the kernel and package management and ports absolutely sucks compared to apt and even yum.

Correct me if im wrong but with BSD there are entities in control and dictate how things are going to be done. Whereas with the linux kernel everybody is slapping things in there. I know sometimes things get rejected like the android kernel code that was just recently rejected due to it not really being of use to anybody but google.

I can certainly understand the appeal of BSD if you're a sysadmin over linux but i agree the for the desktop.. who cares if my kernel was audited. Im going to surf the web and watch movies on hulu not file serv to 1,000 coworkers.

 

[VinDSL]

I never understood the love for FreeBSD, or any of the BSDs for that matter. [...]

Well, if you'll pardon the pun, in my case...

My first web server (well into the last century) was powered by FreeBSD. Back then, FreeBSD ruled, and everything else drooled!

That's the first reason for my affinity! Secondly...

If you've checked out the Netcraft Uptime stats, you'll notice that FreeBSD has been in the Top 10 for years (and still is).

Example: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2...le_hosting_company_sites_in_january_2010.html

Anyway, you're right. These days, the distinction has become blurred, but FreeBSD stills sends a tingly feeling up my leg! :biggrin:

 

[Nothinman]

Correct me if im wrong but with BSD there are entities in control and dictate how things are going to be done. Whereas with the linux kernel everybody is slapping things in there. I know sometimes things get rejected like the android kernel code that was just recently rejected due to it not really being of use to anybody but google.

I can certainly understand the appeal of BSD if you're a sysadmin over linux but i agree the for the desktop.. who cares if my kernel was audited. Im going to surf the web and watch movies on hulu not file serv to 1,000 coworkers.

I think the only person with write access to the Linux kernel official git repository is Linus, I don't think even his top "lieutenants" can do that. Everyone just sends "git pull" requests to him/lkml via email. He then looks at and potentially merges their changes. Random people don't get to just slap code in there.

And as a Linux user on the desktop and server side I want my kernel to be secure. The tax information and such on my computer is more important to me than most of the spreadsheets we have at work.

 

[VinDSL]

Correct me if im wrong but [...]

(W)ith BSD there are entities in control and dictate how things are going to be done. Whereas with the linux kernel everybody is slapping things in there. I know sometimes things get rejected like the android kernel code that was just recently rejected due to it not really being of use to anybody but google. [...]

My understanding is... it's a fork'ing issue.

Google refuses to integrate it's code properly, so security updates, and so forth, cannot be universally applied to the kernel (with respect to Android)... and 'they' finally told Google to go pound sand.

EDIT: Here's some good articles, if you like this kinda stuff...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/03/android_driver_code_deleted_from_linux_kernel/ (The Register - "Google's Android code deleted from Linux kernel 'Go fork yourself!")

http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/android-kernel-problems.html?seemore=y (Official Kroah-Hartman Blog Apologia)

Okay, back on topic...

 

[Nothinman]

If you've checked out the Netcraft Uptime stats, you'll notice that FreeBSD has been in the Top 10 for years (and still is).

So? Hell, your own link shows Windows and Linux ranked above FreeBSD.

 

[iGas]

IMHO, deb base distro is the way to go if you want to try something new. IMHO, Debian is the best server distro bar none, and Mint is the deb base desktop choice.

In the past I have worked/supports yum, zypp, urpmi, slackpkg, slapt-get, pacman, portage, packages/ports, and IMHO apt still is the strongest out of the bunch.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm just curious what makes apt better, is it that it has more packages available in the standard repos, works more reliably, has more features? Just wondering. I don't have too much experience with it, but from my little experience it's basically the same as yum but I could be missing something.

 

[Fox5]

I'm just curious what makes apt better, is it that it has more packages available in the standard repos, works more reliably, has more features? Just wondering. I don't have too much experience with it, but from my little experience it's basically the same as yum but I could be missing something.

I found deb distros to generally have more available packages.
Deb seemed to handle dependency issues better.
And deb resolved way faster for some reason.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm just curious what makes apt better, is it that it has more packages available in the standard repos, works more reliably, has more features? Just wondering. I don't have too much experience with it, but from my little experience it's basically the same as yum but I could be missing something.

One of the main reasons I hate yum is because it's slow as shit and that's probably because it's written in python which I'm also not a fan of. Aptitude is done in C++ so it runs at native speeds and with reasonable memory usage.

The main advantage I see is quality of packages. I haven't really used Ubuntu so I can't comment too much on them, but the package quality in Debian is extremely high. Even in sid there's very little breakage and the majority of that by far is just mirror sync delays, so when a big group of packages like Gnome gets updated there may be a day or so where there's missing dependencies while the mirrors sync. Knowing that coupled with apt-listbugs will help you avoid any major bugs even while running sid.

I'm also a big fan of using aptitude over apt-get. It's actually kind of bad that apt-get became so popular because it's really supposed to just be a tool for the apt developers, users are supposed to use the friendlier front-ends like aptitude and synaptic. Aptitude is nice because it lets you pick the solution to any questions, so if there ends up being a conflict it'll complain and you can resolve it on your own by deciding which package you'd rather have. Or if a package depends on a pseudo-package like mail-transport-agent you can go in and change the MTA to postfix or sendmail instead of the default which is (used to be?) exim.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Good to know. I have seen yum fail at certain occasions to resolve dependencies, so I'm guessing apt wont do this as much?

Think once I'm ready to do the switch I will in fact go with Ubuntu. I'm happy with my current XP setup so no point in changing, but once I hit a point where it's time for a change, then Linux it is. I've thought of win7 as it looks nice too, but if I'm learning a new OS may as well learn Linux which I'm still familiar enough with already, 7 is completely new to me. I'll still have to learn it so I can support it, but that will happen once we start testing it at work and such.

 

[Platypus]

One of the main reasons I hate yum is because it's slow as shit and that's probably because it's written in python which I'm also not a fan of. Aptitude is done in C++ so it runs at native speeds and with reasonable memory usage.

The main advantage I see is quality of packages. I haven't really used Ubuntu so I can't comment too much on them, but the package quality in Debian is extremely high. Even in sid there's very little breakage and the majority of that by far is just mirror sync delays, so when a big group of packages like Gnome gets updated there may be a day or so where there's missing dependencies while the mirrors sync. Knowing that coupled with apt-listbugs will help you avoid any major bugs even while running sid.

I'm also a big fan of using aptitude over apt-get. It's actually kind of bad that apt-get became so popular because it's really supposed to just be a tool for the apt developers, users are supposed to use the friendlier front-ends like aptitude and synaptic. Aptitude is nice because it lets you pick the solution to any questions, so if there ends up being a conflict it'll complain and you can resolve it on your own by deciding which package you'd rather have. Or if a package depends on a pseudo-package like mail-transport-agent you can go in and change the MTA to postfix or sendmail instead of the default which is (used to be?) exim.

This for sure.

In addition to what nothinman said, it's much easier to recover from nasty package fuckups with apt than it is with yum. Ubuntu is decently solid as a desktop but their update procedure used to be (and still is given the outcry I saw when 9.10 came out) atrocious, causing all sorts of fuckups when trying to do a distribution upgrade live from within the OS. I've fixed some pretty severely broken Ubuntu machines using apt's recovery mechanisms.

Fedora has a VERY nasty habit of slipping in major changes in point releases and then conveniently forgetting to document said changes in their changelogs. Not specifically for package updates but with their products in general. Case in point, their knockoff of RH's directory server program, Fedora Directory Server was an absolute fucking nightmare to build because of completely undocumented and broken functions within the code. They eventually ported it over to be a more complete copy of RH's code but for awhile there were components of the program that if you enabled or disabled certain options would completely fuck up the program to the point you had to uninstall and reinstall it. I actually wrote scripts during my testing of the product (it offered multi-master node replication which at the time was something other products did not) to remove and reinstall it because it became such a hassle to get working. It was some of the sloppiest code I've ever had the misfortune to work with. I really don't think I'm doing justice to how awful this program was. One such case as I mention is that in a X.X.1 release they completely changed the way password changes were applied by forcing SSL to change a password without bothering to put a warning in the changelog for that release. That kind of bullshit is unacceptable. I realize Fedora is the more bleeding edge counterpart to RH's code and that sort of thing can and definitely does happen.. but to put something that game changing out without even documenting it is a paramount failure and patently irresponsible. That caused so much hassle for me I can't even begin to tell you.

They changed the name of the product to 389 directory server, most likely because of how much of a fucking disaster the project was and they wanted a different name. I actually wrote this document (http://directory.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Howto:WalkthroughMultimasterSSL) which I received dozens of emails about thanking me for it because I documented all the pitfalls I encountered.

Anyway, rant mode off. Fedora is my least favorite distribution out there and I would recommend against it to anyone who values their time.

 

[Platypus]

Good to know. I have seen yum fail at certain occasions to resolve dependencies, so I'm guessing apt wont do this as much?

Think once I'm ready to do the switch I will in fact go with Ubuntu. I'm happy with my current XP setup so no point in changing, but once I hit a point where it's time for a change, then Linux it is. I've thought of win7 as it looks nice too, but if I'm learning a new OS may as well learn Linux which I'm still familiar enough with already, 7 is completely new to me. I'll still have to learn it so I can support it, but that will happen once we start testing it at work and such.

You need to ask yourself what your goals are and go from there. Windows 7 is easy enough to figure out but how useful will that be to you? This is not a put-down but judging from what I've seen you still have a lot to learn about Linux. I've been using UNIX-like operating systems for upwards of 14 years now and I'm still learning.

If you want an operating system to fuck around with as a desktop/workstation then my recommendations would be something like Ubuntu or Gentoo or Debian or SuSE (or any of their variants). You can learn enough about the basics of Linux using either of those. If you want to get into doing heavy duty administration and engineering of Linux then you really need to step up to an enterprise Linux solution and you need access to server class hardware. The absolute vast majority of UNIX-like operating systems I've seen in production in my experience will almost always be RHEL/CentOS followed by Solaris (this used to be opposite with Solaris outweighing Linux but that tide has certainly changed in my opinion) or AIX and less common HP-UX and *-BSD. It really depends on the field you are working in. Once you know enough about UNIX-like operating systems you can figure out the little niche things each of those above OS's do differently.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, learning a desktop Linux and using package managers is all well and good, but to what end? If it's a stepping stone to other things then that's absolutely great.. if you think figuring out an Ubuntu specific way to trick out Gnome will be useful outside of your own amusement/edification then it's probably not going to be very useful if you ever start to administer server class hardware.

 

[Platypus]

I never understood the love for FreeBSD, or any of the BSDs for that matter. 90% of the software is the same (i.e. Xorg, Gnome, Apache, etc) so the only real difference is the kernel and package management and ports absolutely sucks compared to apt and even yum.

Pre 2.6 kernel BSD's network stack absolutely rocked and at the time I wouldn't have used anything else but OpenBSD as a router or firewall. BSD, in my opinion just got absolutely left in the dust years ago and still hasn't really recovered... mainly because it has such a small user base. I do a lot of speed/kernel hacking because my line of work requires absolute performance at ANY cost (OS stability anyone? heh) and a vanilla install of Enterprise Linux is faster and more robust in the networking department than any of the BSDs. I was doing one static test so I'm not about to make that claim for everything but 10 years ago that would have been reversed.

I still run OpenBSD as a router/firewall to this day and if I need an operating system to run on the shittiest hardware I can find, I'll still reach for NetBSD, but only because I choose to, not because they're fundamentally better than Linux anymore. Linux just exploded and became better.

 

[Nothinman]

but their update procedure used to be (and still is given the outcry I saw when 9.10 came out) atrocious, causing all sorts of fuckups when trying to do a distribution upgrade live from within the OS.

Which I find incredible since Debian handles it so well and across much bigger differences since the length between upgrades is longer. Of course I still prefer just to run sid and just get the newest packages as they trickle into the repo.

Anyway, rant mode off. Fedora is my least favorite distribution out there and I would recommend against it to anyone who values their time.

Agreed. I'll never understand why some people claim to love it.

 

[Platypus]

Which I find incredible since Debian handles it so well and across much bigger differences since the length between upgrades is longer. Of course I still prefer just to run sid and just get the newest packages as they trickle into the repo.



Agreed. I'll never understand why some people claim to love it.

I should get back into Debian. I loved it and used it for a long time until it just stopped getting updated for awhile. I've met Ian Murdoc a few times as we share an alma mater and had drinks with him a few times. Really nice guy, very open about computers. He had some somewhat not great things to say about the direction they took after he departed to go work with Progeny but it appears to have improved greatly since then (2002?) and as they say the proof is in the pudding... Debian is still alive and well and Progeny.. not so much

 

[Nothinman]

I should get back into Debian. I loved it and used it for a long time until it just stopped getting updated for awhile. I've met Ian Murdoc a few times as we share an alma mater and had drinks with him a few times. Really nice guy, very open about computers. He had some somewhat not great things to say about the direction they took after he departed to go work with Progeny but it appears to have improved greatly since then (2002?) and as they say the proof is in the pudding... Debian is still alive and well and Progeny.. not so much

Yea, I thought the Progeny thing had potential at first but it still didn't work out. Although I think the new installer was one of the things they did get finished which is a good thing. =)

As much as people bitch about and make fun of the flame wars, debian-legal, strict free software and portability adherence, etc Debian still manages to survive and produce one of best distributions out there, if not the best.