How many of you have tried rpm Linux distros? What did you think?

[kevdog]

I've never experimented with an rpm-based linux distro (ie red hat, fedora, centos). Just trying to gather some opinions on the topic from others who may have done so!

[sujoy]

i used fedora6 for a couple of weeks, seemed bloated to me, since then i haven't got back to it. also tried centOS but couldn't get the disc to boot and didn't bother with much, so not much experience with rpms either.

[SuperSonic4]

I'm using Mandriva 2009.0 and it's ok, much the same as using deb files just usually with more dependency problems. It is still best to use the package manager IMO

[SunnyRabbiera]

I have, I have used PClinux OS, Fedora, Suse and Mandriva.
Out of those I have tried I would say PClinux and Mandriva are the best ones I have used.
PClinux uses apt and synaptic, tools that make a debian system so great and for the longest while i think it was the best RPM distro out there.
But Mandriva in its current state has left PClinux in the dust.
The latest builds of mandriva totally kick some serious butt, urpmi right now is a great contender for apt and Mandrivas new package managers seem to know what they are doing.

[mrgnash]

I have tried Fedora, OpenSuSe, and PCLInuxOS. Out of those, I only liked Fedora, but it didn't have the Texlive support I needed so I went back to Ubuntu.

[BigSilly]

Mandriva is excellent and just as easy as Ubuntu imho. Well worth a look. Not tried the latest one yet though.

[smoker]

i'm using PCLOS right now and it is no different in operation than ubuntu, just as efficient to me anyway!

[Denestria]

I used Red Hat for years starting I think with 6 up through Red Hat 9 when they stopped supporting non-enterprise and became Fedora Core. It was a dependency nightmare. I used SUSE 9.3 and 10.2 and hated the clunky YaST. After that I went .deb.

[kevdog]

It seems the apt package management system used by Debian based distros are a key selling point. Any of thoughts on this matter?

[CorvisRex]

I've tested alot of them in general, and used Fedora as my desktop for long periods (I REALLY suffer from Distro ADD)

IMO, the dependency hell which did plague the RPM style is not an issue with Fedora these days, though still a bit of a problem in Redhat and CentOS to a point. Package managers: apt-get is faster and I have had less problems with it, but for pkg GUIs, I like yumex better than synaptic. but it's slower.

Other than that, as far as fedora/ubuntu goes, 6 vs 1/2 dozen. Fedora had better suport out of the box for my graphics card than Ubuntu, but poor, almost paranoid lack of support for anything it thinks is "non-free" like codecs et al. Fedora has better support with LVM management...and on and on. Most of the downsides of each distro are easily fixed though. Really, for me, I use both.

Of course, I still have about 6-7 more distros to play around with. So who knows, my preference might change.

[cardinals_fan]

I've used every release of Fedora since it dropped the "Core" from it's name. I always wanted to like it, but configuring the proprietary NVIDIA drivers is usually painful.

I tried openSUSE 10 & 11. Both felt very bloated and unremarkable.

Mandriva has been solid but bloated in all my tests.

I really want to try PLD and CentOS.

As for APT, I've never really understood all the hype. Sure, it's functional, but pacman, slackpkg, yum, and netpkg have always been better for me.

[SomeGuyDude]

SuSe is bloated but a good system. If you want to go RPM, that's my vote.

[kevdog]

Just to throw it out there -- what is your measure of bloat? I think Ubuntu is quite bloated, however am I wrong here? I need a measuring stick!

[cardinals_fan]

Just to throw it out there -- what is your measure of bloat? I think Ubuntu is quite bloated, however am I wrong here? I need a measuring stick!
Anything with GNOME or KDE 4 qualifies as bloated. Many KDE 3.5 systems do as well, but some (such as Slackware) do not.

[kevdog]

Anything with GNOME or KDE 4 qualifies as bloated. Many KDE 3.5 systems do as well, but some (such as Slackware) do not.

Hmm, that certainly wasn't the answer I was expecting.

[namegame]

The Computer Science work stations/servers at my College are all CentOS. I've found them to be very stable and reliable.

I just SSH'd into one and checked the uptime...right now 28 days. Unfortunately, the whole campus lost power about a month ago, so this number is "low."

I've never had a problem with any of the RPM based distributions, but I particularly enjoy the ones based on Red Hat and including Red Hat, namely Fedora and CentOS.

[cardinals_fan]

Hmm, that certainly wasn't the answer I was expecting.
I also consider any distro that includes a bunch of services autostarted bloated.

[SomeGuyDude]

Hmm, that certainly wasn't the answer I was expecting.

To me, "bloat" is coming with a bunch of things that I'll never use. KDE is the ultimate in my bloat by my estimate, because it comes with a whole gigantic suite of K- named applications that I never use. Additionally, the applications they pick tend to be memory hogs, GNOME falls victim to this to an extent.

Distros which are 'bloated' are those that throw everything at it possible so whatever hardware you put it on is compatible. I've never had a single hardware issue with Ubuntu aside from my LED light, but the flipside of that is there's a bunch of things running and going that I have no need for.

Now, the definition of "need" is really subjective, I readily admit. What I consider unnecessary, you might not. So admittedly a lot of that can be up to the user. I really like GNOME, and I liked OpenSUSE's KDE release despite all the extra stuff I wished I could have trimmed from it.

[sir_cheats_a_lot]

Fedora Core 4 - it was very nice, and i had little problem with it, the biggest pain was just getting and installing the ati drivers. had used it for about 6 months, and then FC 5 came out so i "upgraded"

Fedora Core 5 - i had a major problem with.. well not a major one, just one that caused a huge inconvenience. for whatever reason it wouldn't load from grub, i had to manually mount the image and kernel to get it booted. once it was up and going it was fine.

After about a month of putting up with having to manually mount and boot i moved on and found Ubuntu "breezy" and have been using Ubuntu pretty much ever since. i took a break and looked at PCLinuxOS for a couple weeks.

PCLinuxOS - the repository speeds are capped, so if you have a cable connection or better you'll be frustrated at the much slower download speeds. If you are on dial-up like me, you wouldn't notice. also i had some audio issues with it. while playing music, and watching movies it just didn't sound quite right, so i ended up coming back to Ubuntu.
i always got my updates from a friend's house because 200+MB updates take forever on dial-up connections. there was also a few things i needed that weren't available in the repositories that would normally be in the other distribution's. so i ended up back at Ubuntu "dapper" at the time.

OpenSuSe 10.2(the 64 bit edition on my mom's computer) - I personally found it a pain to find my way around in. Mom was always asking where something was, and i'd have to search for it in its seemingly infinite number of menus. even after adding in the repository locations on their site, it couldn't even find it's own repositories, so it was removed within the first couple days.

well.. that's the extent of my rpm experience. don't know anything about this dependency hell everyone else seems to have experienced...guess i've been lucky. All in all, running an RPM distribution isn't much different then running a DEB one. just varies from one distribution to another and what each include at install, and in the repositories. stability wise each i've used has been pretty stable, never anything major..that wasn't my fault of course ;)

[Spaceman9]

I've tried Fedora, PCLOS, Mandriva and CentOS and the best was PCLOS. The only problem I have with RPM based distros is they don't have as much in their repos as Debian based distros.

I do tons of stuff with my computer from microbiology and physics to graphic design and writing. And of course on the weekends I do what I can to help save the world from evil. So, it's nice to have a Debian based distro with it's repos chocker-block with seemingly endless binary goodies just waiting to be installed.

Linus Torvalds on Linux Distributions http://news.oreilly.com/2008/07/linux-torvalds-on-linux-distri.html

“So I like the ones that have a name of being easy to use. I've never used plain Debian, for example, but I like Ubuntu. And before Debian people attack me - yeah, I know, I know, it's supposedly much simpler and easier to install these days. But it certainly didn't use to be, so I never had any reason to go for it.” - Linux creator Linus Torvalds

[Antman]

I've never experimented with an rpm-based linux distro (ie red hat, fedora, centos). Just trying to gather some opinions on the topic from others who may have done so!
I have used openSUSE, Fedora 8 and 9, Mandriva, and PCLinuxOS. All without issues. I currently am using Mandriva 2009.0 on my main PC and laptop.

[Aearenda]

I came to Ubuntu by way of Fedora, and it was dependency problems and competing RPM repositories that made me move. I expect it's all fixed up now, but here I stay!

[keeler1]

I was playing around with Mandriva 2009 and I have to admit I was fairly disappointed. I have been spoiled by apt and synaptic. Crossing over was a terrible experience. It took me nearly 20 mins to find python qt libraries. Things are not organized as well and the interfaces are no where near as good as synaptic.

I really only tried it to go with a stable distribution of KDE4.1 that I thought would do pretty well. But turns out I am still waiting for the final release of kubuntu 8.10

I previous post says that Mandrivas interface for their package manager was pretty good. But in comparison with synaptic it is terrible. It did me no more good than the stripped down add/remove software in ubuntu.

[SomeGuyDude]

I hate to become one of "those guys", but honest injun if it's KDE4.1 you're after Arch's KDEmod is stellar.

Or, if we're talking RPM distros, OpenSUSE is damn nice for all its extra fluff.

[Twitch6000]

I have used OpenSuse and PclinuxOS and well PClinuxOs blew me away and got me to tri boot with it :p.

I find rpm's barley different from .debs only thing I found hard is just getting use to the distro itself.

PClinuxOS though is easy to get use to since it uses apt and sypmantic manager(sorry forgot how to spell that).

It is also a rolling release which for me makes things alot better.

However I did dislike how it is a bit harder to find files for PClinuxOS :(.

[iwc5893]

I came to Ubuntu by way of Fedora, and it was dependency problems and competing RPM repositories that made me move. I expect it's all fixed up now, but here I stay!

I followed a similar path. I've used Fedora and CentOS, and came to Ubuntu for three reasons.

1) Dependency/package issues
2) It was difficult to get a screen resolution above 800x600 with either one
3) Ubuntu is the only distro that I've been able to get my wifi card working flawlessly in.

Not to mention the support forum here is top notch and if the people here don't know the answer, then it's not important.

[Vince4Amy]

Being an SuSE/OpenSUSE User since version 9.1 I actually prefer RPMs to Debs and the still seem to be more widely supported by commercial products. I also prefer the way that OpenSUSE manages packages in a way such as.

Download Package 1
Install Package 1
Download Package 2
Install Package 2

Where as apt does this:

Download Package 1
Download Package 2
Install Package 1
Install Package 2

I've also found rpms to be a bit less flaky than Debian based OS's with dependencies but that is probably entirely based on the software I use.

[Thelasko]

SUSE 9.2 was my first try at Linux. Most of my frustrations were likely due to my lack of understanding of how the RPM system works. I tried to install things that are found in the restricted repositories in Ubuntu (DVD, CD, MP3 playback, etc.) and ended up in dependency hell. Since those features weren't included on the DVD, I had to go on the internet to get them and completely messed up my installation. The real deal breaker was not getting my wireless card to work.

Apparently, SUSE has added a repository system similar to Ubuntu's. Hopefully that solves most of the problems I had.

[Sorivenul]

I've used many, and actually am growing to prefer some of the tools used in RPM distros over DEB distros. CentOS, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Mandriva are all on my list of used or in use RPM distros. The move of OpenSUSE to LZMA compressed RPMs was great, and the tools available in Mandriva are hard to beat. Just my two cents.

[seanc7]

I used Fedora 8 at my old work for some vmware servers and it was good. Since I didn't have internet access for the servers I had to download RPMs manually for the stuff that wasn't on the install DVD and that led to dependency frustrations - try to install xyz.rpm and it says you need a huge laundry list of dependencies.

But the one time I was able to use it on an internet-connected system it was quite good. Yum handled all the dependencies automatically.

Compared to Debian's apt-get, yum is slower but not so much that you need to go mow the lawn during every install.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I've used every release of Fedora since it dropped the "Core" from it's name. I always wanted to like it, but configuring the proprietary NVIDIA drivers is usually painful.

I tried openSUSE 10 & 11. Both felt very bloated and unremarkable.

Mandriva has been solid but bloated in all my tests.

I really want to try PLD and CentOS.

As for APT, I've never really understood all the hype. Sure, it's functional, but pacman, slackpkg, yum, and netpkg have always been better for me.

Apt for me is essential as unlike the others you mentioned it actually has decent graphical frontends and I find apt very east to fix when concerning dependencies.

[cardinals_fan]

Apt for me is essential as unlike the others you mentioned it actually has decent graphical frontends and I find apt very east to fix when concerning dependencies.
If you like it, enjoy it. I have no use for graphical frontends (although the new GUI for Tazpkg is actually quite good), so I care much more about the CLI interface. Apt-get and aptitude have CLI interfaces that are much harder for me to use than the others I listed.

[SunnyRabbiera]

If you like it, enjoy it. I have no use for graphical frontends (although the new GUI for Tazpkg is actually quite good), so I care much more about the CLI interface. Apt-get and aptitude have CLI interfaces that are much harder for me to use than the others I listed.

I never had a problem with apt's command line either, I mean whats so hard about commands like sudo apt-get install package?

[cardinals_fan]

I never had a problem with apt's command line either, I mean whats so hard about commands like sudo apt-get install package?
The command names are not the same as the whole interface. Watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rHdRwqQvsY&feature=related) of APT. I find the method of laying out information as the package manager works confusing compared to systems like pacman, yum, or tazpkg.

[Nxion]

I've never experimented with an rpm-based linux distro (ie red hat, fedora, centos). Just trying to gather some opinions on the topic from others who may have done so!


I have used Fedora, Redhat Enterprise Linux and Cent OS. I have a buddy that swears by Cent OS. I tried it for a bit and hateded it. I missed my Ubuntu lol.

[wolfen69]

But Mandriva in its current state has left PClinux in the dust.
The latest builds of mandriva totally kick some serious butt, urpmi right now is a great contender for apt and Mandrivas new package managers seem to know what they are doing.

i agree. i'm using mandriva now, and have to say i'm impressed. package management is excellent. plus, mandriva seems a tad bit quicker than ubuntu.

[wolfen69]

I tried openSUSE 10 & 11. Both felt very bloated and unremarkable.

Mandriva has been solid but bloated in all my tests.



you really like to throw the word "bloat" around, don't you? i still don't know what that means. mandriva runs like greased lightning on my machine. how is that bloated? run vista on a 2ghz/512mb ram pc, and you'll realize what true bloat is.

then again, a minimal openbox install is probably bloated in your eyes. geez already. not everyone is concerned about shaving off a few milliseconds.

[cardinals_fan]

you really like to throw the word "bloat" around, don't you? i still don't know what that means. mandriva runs like greased lightning on my machine. how is that bloated? run vista on a 2ghz/512mb ram pc, and you'll realize what true bloat is.

then again, a minimal openbox install is probably bloated in your eyes. geez already. not everyone is concerned about shaving off a few milliseconds. give it a rest.
If you enjoy using GNOME on Mandriva, you certainly have that right. Likewise, I have the right to not enjoy using GNOME on Mandriva, and to find it bloated. The OP asked for opinions, and, in my opinion, the default Mandriva setup is very bloated. If you feel differently, that's fine, but please don't assume that my opinion isn't valid in my case.

[SomeGuyDude]

you really like to throw the word "bloat" around, don't you? i still don't know what that means. mandriva runs like greased lightning on my machine. how is that bloated? run vista on a 2ghz/512mb ram pc, and you'll realize what true bloat is.

then again, a minimal openbox install is probably bloated in your eyes. geez already. not everyone is concerned about shaving off a few milliseconds.

Bloat, at least to me, is the idea of a system having lots of unnecessary things floating around on it. This may or may not affect performance, mind, but at the very least it will eat up hard drive space and probably RAM.

Ubuntu with GNOME, on startup with absolutely nothing open, used somewhere in the area of 400-500MB of RAM. That, to me, is way too much. It came with a whole boatload of stuff I didn't need. For many people, this isn't bad. You have a lot of options and you know the system will run. For others, they like the idea of deciding what they want, so there's nothing unwanted on there.

Still others are less interested with the real-world effect of shaving memory use and are just striving to see how much performance they can squeeze out of the system, so anything that adds nothing noticeable to productivity. It isn't that my system runs amazingly better when it uses 400MB of RAM versus 650MB doing the same things, it's just the principle.

Y'know?

[handy]

Back in the 90's I tried Red Hat more than once, & Mandrake more than once in its early versions (boy it sure was better than Red Hat for a total beginner), Suse was tough. I bought Caldera Linux, though it was not rpm.

I wasn't ready for any Linux distro' that was available in those days & using .rpm had nothing to do with it they were much more user unfriendly especially for someone coming from Amiga & DOS/windows.