Ubuntu 5.04 or Fedora Core 4?

[thepingofdeath]

I've downloaded them both but am debating which to put onto my new DualCore AMD64 PC. Which is better in your opinion?

 

[PSUstoekl]

hmm....depends on what you're planning on using them for, and whether you prefer KDE or GNOME, etc...

 

[imported_Kensai]

Haven't used Ubuntu, I'm a Gentoo, FC4, Knoppix and DSL person.

 

[KoolDrew]

Ubuntu :thumbsup:

I hate Fedora.

 

[santaliqueur]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Ubuntu :thumbsup:

I hate Fedora.

i just switched back to fedora from ubuntu

CJ

 

[thepingofdeath]

um.... some reasons as to WHY you use what you use would be a little more helpful heh.

I'm a linux newbie and am wanting a distro that will run quickly and supports Ndiswrapper out of the box without hacking or recompiling or anything. I'm hoping to learn to become a power Linux user with one of these distros. I've used enough other distros to know that these two are what I like. Suse is good too, but I've had a few too many bad experiences to go back to 9.3. 10 final is another story, tho.

 

[kamper]

For a newb, it might largely be a choice between kde and gnome (assuming you want to use one of those two and kubuntu isn't in the picture). But at least with fedora you can switch easily. Of course there are lots of other distros that you can this with and you can install kde on ubuntu (so I hear) but it's not out of box.

If you're looking to become a power-user, maybe (k)ubuntu isn't the right platform because it's geared towards newbs and does stuff like not having a real root user. Maybe somebody who actually uses it can comment on whether or not that really makes a difference...

 

[thepingofdeath]

yea i read about the root account being locked. i prefer gnome because it's cleaner, although KDE seems to be the future.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: kamper
For a newb, it might largely be a choice between kde and gnome (assuming you want to use one of those two and kubuntu isn't in the picture). But at least with fedora you can switch easily. Of course there are lots of other distros that you can this with and you can install kde on ubuntu (so I hear) but it's not out of box.

If you're looking to become a power-user, maybe (k)ubuntu isn't the right platform because it's geared towards newbs and does stuff like not having a real root user. Maybe somebody who actually uses it can comment on whether or not that really makes a difference...

They have root, it's just has it's password disabled.

If you want to access root on Ubuntu it's pretty simple.

Just go:
sudo su -

viola!

Or if you want to log in a root this should work:
sudo passwd

and it'll prompt you for a password.

 

[thepingofdeath]

yea, but that's still stupid.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: thepingofdeath
yea, but that's still stupid.

No it's not.

There is a root account and you use it everytime you use sudo. Ubuntu did nothing to change it.


What is stupid is allowing free sudo access to every new user by default, which is what I think Ubuntu does.

Personally I disabled root account login thru the console and root account login thru SSH on my Debian laptop just for convience. It's just another password that I don't have to worr y about. The only way to get root is thru my user account, which since it's a single-user system is what the ideal is.

Now on multiuser system you'd defiantely want to disable sudo use except for specific tasks by specific user accounts. For instance you could give a person the ability to edit the config and restart the apache server on any of your systems if you wanted to, like if you had one guy incharge just web servers. Otherwise without sudo you'd have to run the server under his account or give him unfettered root access, which is a big unnessicary risk.

You shouldn't be using root for anything anyways except for updating your system, installing software, configuring hardware, and editing the odd configuration file time to time. And giving yourself, the main user, sudo access is great for doing that.

One of the big security problems with Linux today is people having the default ssh server setup and using weak passwords. Most people won't know right away on how to disable root logins, or even know that root logins are possible over the internet and they'll use weak passwords figuring that it's not important because they are the only user that has access to the system, which is incorrect assumption. It's quite common for script kiddies to troll around looking for weak user and root account passwords with automated scripts using brute password cracking technics.

 

[FP]

I decided to download Fedora Core 4 but can't figure out which file to download from http://torrent.dulug.duke.edu/.

What is the difference between these?

Fedora Core 4 Release binary iso images for i386.
Fedora Core 4 Release source iso images for i386.

I want to install from CDs after I have burned the ISOs. I understand the difference between binary files and source files but don't understand the difference between these files. Thanks!

 

[doornail]

You want the binary. The source CD's contain the source code for the packages in the binary ISO's. The bulk of the Linux software is licensed under the General Public License, which requires making the source code available. I amost never use SRPM's, but having access to the source code for your entire platform is pretty incredible.

 

[doornail]

IMHO,

Ubuntu = excellent desktop.
Fedora = excellent workstation.

 

[sourceninja]

I perfer Ubuntu because of how huge and awesome its packagemanagment is. But if I had to use a rpm based distro, I would probably choose Suse ( www.opensuse.org ) over fedora.

 

[thepingofdeath]

what's the advantage of debian based packages over RPMs?

well, let me rephrase that.

as a windows user and a firm believer that windows-like installation systems are better than packages (no thought required!!), which one would suit my not-wanting-to-mess-with-installation needs better?

 

[KoolDrew]

With Ubuntu and other debian-based distros you get apt-get.
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/system/apt-get-intro.html

 

[thepingofdeath]

i understand that it has great dependency resoultion, but i also understand that yum fixed a lot of those issues with RPMs.

i guess what i want to know is which is easier, as well as which is more customizable.

does ubuntu or fedora have support for ndiswrapper out of the box? i want to be able to hack my broadcom into linux with no effort. i tried it in suse but i'd have to recompile it, and after tooling around with it for a good 30 minutes i gave up and just put windows back on my laptop.

how's ubuntu's security vs fedora?

and can somebody help me understand this whole ubuntu root issue thing?

 

[TGS]

Originally posted by: thepingofdeath
i understand that it has great dependency resoultion, but i also understand that yum fixed a lot of those issues with RPMs.

i guess what i want to know is which is easier, as well as which is more customizable.

I found apt-get and synaptic (at the time) to be a bit more intuitive to find packages. Though for resolving dependancies, I've found them to both be pretty much on par.

does ubuntu or fedora have support for ndiswrapper out of the box? i want to be able to hack my broadcom into linux with no effort. i tried it in suse but i'd have to recompile it, and after tooling around with it for a good 30 minutes i gave up and just put windows back on my laptop.

I believe this would depend on what chipset you are using for wifi access.

how's ubuntu's security vs fedora?

Again I think this would depending on your overall system settings, kernels used, patches applied, etc. check here for some more info

and can somebody help me understand this whole ubuntu root issue thing?

The root account cannot be logged into be default. It requires the use of the sudo command before running a root level statement.

Think about it this way, you log in as userA, you run a normal command via command line or the gui. The process is run under your credentials. If you run a root level process, IE something that could effect the system you will be forced to run a sudo prior to the command string. IE (like drag said) sudo "command". This way you will be prompted for a root level password before doing anything that could compromise the stability of your machine.

It's a very minor inconvience if you think about how it as a new linux user should give some thought into proceeding with whatever operations you run into, that will require the use of the root password.

For me I'm fairly lazy, and my root password is the same as my user password. Though my passwords and really just a random sample of alpha-numeric with special characters, so it should be fairly secure.

What this does though, is forces me to at least once per session, use the root password to gain higher level(or lower depending on how you look at it) access. At that point I tend to become extra cautious about what I'm doing and to what impact I can have on the system.

Typically I only use it while making xorg.conf or in synaptic for package installation. So it's not a huge inconvience. Other than that, I'm happily chugging along with my normal user account.