What are the main differences between Fedora and Ubuntu? [Please keep it civil!]

[igknighted]

How long have you been using redhat? I was using it way back before the days of yum and halfway decent package management. Back in those days debian was already much more mature with dselect and so on. RPMs just sucked and you were better off to compile from source most of the time. To this day I still prefer dpkg/apt to yum

When was the last time you really used Fedora? Yum is such a vastly different beast than it was even a year ago that I honestly don't care what your experience was many years ago... it simply has no relevance today. Today, right now, apt is almost the same as it was the first time I used Ubuntu with 6.06, while Yum is light years better.

Call it philosophy or whatever you choose, I call it legal. Of course each distro has difference stances on open/closed source and copyrighted material, I never meant to imply otherwise. I'm just saying I like ubuntu's stance on copyrighted material and open source better. There's plenty of comparisons if you google it, I'm not going to. An easy to follow example about opensource and copyrighter standards is the classic with debain and firefox when they had to re-brand the firefox logo because it violates debian's license agreements. Each distro takes a legal stand on what they will and wont do, granted you can proceed to 'do it' yourself and they'd have no say. I believe that this will become increasingly important in the future and prevent certain distros from getting into lawsuits with large software vendors, like microsoft.

Wouldn't it if one day you're distro is just no longer supported because they lost a court case and got shut down? Truthfully I think both ubuntu and fedora would get thrown in the fire.

Fedora's philosophy/legal policies are at least as stringent as Debian's, and so are OpenSuse's. Nothing non-free or of questionable legality is even packaged in Fedora (or OpenSuse), which in many ways makes them even more safe (Debian packages much this stuff)

You had mentioned before that you had a fundamental difference between debian packages and rpm's that made you feel debian packages were superior. I have not found one in my research, what is that fundamental flaw?

[doobiest]

1) If you read carefully you'd see I'm talking about from the origin of redhats package management up until today. And you would read that I use Yum on production servers. But you should know the Yum on an enterprise server is the same a Yum on Fedora. At least I hope you're aware of that before you reply. Same as how dselect on debian is the same as on ubuntu.

And to note I only use Fedora when my friends at work need help doing something on it. So You'd think I'd know a bit about it since I use it enough to know I don't want to use it.

2) If you read carefully you'd see I'm talking about deb packages and the maturity of deselect compared to the maturity of rpm's. Debain's package management has had for a long time the functionality that yum and rpm's have finally achieved

3) Debians policies are not the same as Fedoras. I would like to point out I prefer Ubuntu's choice to package non-free software the way that it does.

4) If you want me to install something over apt and then something over yum and paste the output of both onto this page I guess I can. As stated this is opinion based on what I have to provide as input and the output I get back from both systems.



** Good point because this is very relevant to this thread's topic. How is Yum lightyears better?

[doobiest]

Last note if you google rpm vs dev you will find pages of debate which end in stale mates. So we don't need to continue this on here. It really is personal preference I guess. I think you'll find that most long time users that have spent a lot of time on both sides of the fence will back Debs.

Secondly apt vs. yum. You can use yum on ubuntu. if it's so great why isn't it the default? I wouldn't mind a discussion continuing on about this because I really don't see what's so great about yum and why you say it's better.

[Sorivenul]

I wouldn't mind a discussion continuing on about this because I really don't see what's so great about yum and why you say it's better.

If we're not careful we'll get this thread moved to Recurring Discussions.

In short, and IMO, three words:
command line output

This is the kicker for me when it comes to yum, and a large part of why I prefer it to the dpkg/apt-get/aptitude system. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

Lucky for all of us Linux is about choice.

[igknighted]

1) If you read carefully you'd see I'm talking about from the origin of redhats package management up until today. And you would read that I use Yum on production servers. But you should know the Yum on an enterprise server is the same a Yum on Fedora. At least I hope you're aware of that before you reply. Same as how dselect on debian is the same as on ubuntu.

Ok, Yum from RHEL5/Centos5 (I've used both) is very old. Compared to fedora it has very slow dependency resolution and not as many plugins to expand its functionality.

2) If you read carefully you'd see I'm talking about deb packages and the maturity of deselect compared to the maturity of rpm's. Debain's package management has had for a long time the functionality that yum and rpm's have finally achieved

So since 5 years ago deb's were better, that means they are better now? I fail to see this logic...

3) Debians policies are not the same as Fedoras. I would like to point out I prefer Ubuntu's choice to package non-free software the way that it does.

I honestly don't care if they are packaged by the distro, or in respected community repo's (RPM Fusion, etc.). I can see how Ubuntu's way is easier for new users who don't want to add a repo, and I can see how Fedora's is safer for protecting packages and protecting the distro from legal threats. My point before was that you claimed Fedora's policies were a legal threat, while I feel that Fedora's policies are legally _more_ bulletproof than Debian or Ubuntu.

4) If you want me to install something over apt and then something over yum and paste the output of both onto this page I guess I can. As stated this is opinion based on what I have to provide as input and the output I get back from both systems.

Install the latest fedora, configure Yum with a few proper plugins and try installing some stuff. Then come tell me with a straight face that it isn't _at least_ as good as apt, especially for someone who is CLI oriented and apt has such, ahem, readable output.

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You clearly haven't used a modern (rhel/centos are NOT modern versions of Yum) version of Yum. Give that a shot, and read up on configuring Yum with plugins (presto, fastestmirror, protectbase, etc.) to get it firing on all cylinders... then come back and let us know if it is still as you remember.

[djhyland]

In short, and IMO, three words:
command line output

Oh god, yes. I enjoy being able to read the output from my yum commands. I can't say the same for running apt...I can decipher it, but on first glance, it's illegible gibberish.

[doobiest]

Man I'm done with this thread, I'm talking about preference and what makes me happy. I do use yum on fedora as I've explained i've used it on both fedora, rhel and suse.

Why doesn't Ubuntu use Yum by default instead of apt if it's so awesome? It is an option.

And the for 'logic' behind backing debs.. I'm not sure why you fail to see it. If a company makes a product.. any product. and it's tried and tested, good quality and been solid for ages. Then another company produces a similar product which sucks *** at first, but eventually steps up to speed. Even if that company starts to get an edge on the original one, I'm not going to switch, I'm still going to back the 'O.G.' product.

It's like comparing a good car company to Kia. Sure these days they actually do make some good quality cars with all the features.. but I'm not going to buy one.. No offense to kia owners

Anyway I'm unsubscribing from this thread, you sound angry, I'm not and I don't care anymore.

[igknighted]

Why doesn't Ubuntu use Yum by default instead of apt if it's so awesome? It is an option.

Fedora could use apt as well, if it is so awesome, why don't they?

[koperry]

I've been using fedora since it was fedora core 5 and have alternated to the ubuntu releases as well.

I think I'm more of a fedora fan but ubuntu seems to be more polished right out of the box where it does take a little tweaking to get fedora where you want it.

I have learned quite a bit about using Linux by configuring fedora. I usually add the flash repository and rpm fusion.
Java is set up using the command line and the self extracting rpm.

Yum is a lot better than it was a while back with some nice plugins such as yum-fastestmirror, akmod-nvidia, etc. I do like the one click package add from yumex, no second click necessary to confirm dependencies.

Fedora will send an update through from time to time that will mess things up for you but most of the fedora crowd enjoys getting under the hood to fix it.

I really enjoy the differences in both, even the color.

I think it's a toss up depending on what you want and how much you want to tinker.