My Fedora diary

[Zdravko]

Hi!
I just installed Fedora on my laptop... It is awesome! No, it is great! It is just fantastic!
I am so happy with it! And I use it for 5 minutes! It dual-boots well with Vista!
Now it is time to tweak and do some updates! I have 180+ updates to download...
So far issues are: no sound. Hmm, what else... Ah, yeah - the default partitioning did a swap of ~2GB. Leaving to / 9 GB or so. After installation I have ~5 GB free. I'd like to shrink the swap to let say ~512MB. I doubt that I will ever need it. Or do I need more?
Also, I will have to remove certain applications, that were initially installed by default, Evolution etc.
I am so happy, that I found what I was looking for! Finally superb fonts! Crystal clear! Bye bye U*.

[LaRoza]

512 MB of Swap is enough, and large swaps are often made by automatic partitioners.

Glad you found something you like (hope you continue to like it)

[PriceChild]

I would suggest you spend more than 5 minutes before committing to it. You cannot make a reasonable, well informed decision after just 5 minutes. You need to look at more than what's included on the install cd(s), whether that be extra software or, (what i think will be more important to you:) the community around the software.

[Zdravko]

Hmm. I didn't thought of these things. You are right. Let's see what has Fedora to offer...

[Cew27]

in what way is it better than ubuntu ??
out of curiosity

[eljoeb]

in what way is it better than ubuntu ??
out of curiosity

You could always check out the bazzilion other threads about Fedora. The main points you'll pull out are that Fedora is more "cutting edge" , meaning you get more than just security updates, you need to add the livna repos to get access to a lot of stuff you thought was normal in the Ubuntu repos (apparently difficult for ex-ubuntuers if these forums are an indication), and yum is not as good as apt.

The dumber stuff you end up hearing is about not having sudo (you can still get it, its just not on as default.)

Its a tiny bit more of a pain to set up, but in the end you get a slightly more cutting edge system (at the cost of some stability). It makes less of an effort to babysit you like Ubuntu does, so it's a matter of preference.

[Kingsley]

I use Fedora but find Ubuntu's community more informative and fulfilling. I don't think people should switch to another forum just because of the distribution being used.

There are many updated guides of Fedora floating around the web these days, so don't be intimidated by any problems or questions you run into.

[angryfirelord]

I use Fedora but find Ubuntu's community more informative and fulfilling. I don't think people should switch to another forum just because of the distribution being used.
True, but the Fedora Forums are the only place where you can talk about linux and beer at the same time. :D

[igknighted]

True, but the Fedora Forums are the only place where you can talk about linux and beer at the same time. :D

SO TRUE! Linux & Beer > Linux & Coffee

[Zdravko]

in what way is it better than ubuntu ??
out of curiosity

It uses a true GNOME, and not a modified one.
It works.

[eljoeb]

It uses a true GNOME, and not a modified one.
It works.

Most Linux distros work. Some just require some work to get there.

[Zdravko]

Sure, you are also right ;)

[samwyse]

Fedora repos are smaller than Ubuntu. SMPlayer and qtcurve engine are missing for example. I don't really like searching for packages or compiling outside the repos after I jumped from Fedora to Kubuntu 2.5 years ago. Of course you might not miss any specific packages.

[PriceChild]

It uses a true GNOME, and not a modified one.
It works.That is extremely unfair.

I assume you mean that "It works for me."

If you find a bug in Ubuntu or any of its derivatives, please file a bug report at: http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu

[igknighted]

That is extremely unfair.

I assume you mean that "It works for me."

If you find a bug in Ubuntu or any of its derivatives, please file a bug report at: http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu

Good point PriceChild.

Look, I use Fedora because I like it best. I like Yum, I like the repository system, I like the fact that they try to stay more cutting edge and keep updating packages through out the release... and I really enjoy the community there. I don't currently have an Ubuntu install, although I do try most every release and test release they come out with. It just isn't for me.

However, I would never try to claim the Fedora or any other distro is "clearly superior" to Ubuntu. Nor if I were an Ubuntu user (or did I when I was an Ubuntu user) claim that Ubuntu was "clearly superior" to others. There simply is no right answer here. Ubuntu does great work for linux, as do Mandriva, Fedora, Suse and many others. All these distro's are excellent, and all cater to a slightly different user. That's why having so many is a wonderful thing.

@ the OP... I am glad you have found Fedora to your liking. I hope that a few rounds of major upgrades don't break your system and change your mind. I hope the lack of support for many proprietary bits doesn't bother you. And I hope that you will respect Ubuntu and other distributions for the excellent product they produce, and simply politely say "no thanks" rather than take parting shots. Because you represent the Fedora community when you advocate the distribution, and the Fedora community by and large has great respect for Ubuntu and other distributions, and we don't want people to get the wrong idea.

[igknighted]

Fedora repos are smaller than Ubuntu. SMPlayer and qtcurve engine are missing for example. I don't really like searching for packages or compiling outside the repos after I jumped from Fedora to Kubuntu 2.5 years ago. Of course you might not miss any specific packages.

The repository size is partly due to a complete lack of any proprietary bits in the Fedora repo's. Those are left completely to 3rd party repo's like livna, freshrpms and others. It's a philosophical choice. The major repo's are fully trustworthy and maintained by Fedora devs, so they might as well be considered part of the repo system (at least as much as the non-free repo's in Ubuntu are).

Also, specific packages will always differ. qtcurve and smplayer are not in Fedora's repo, but AWN is not in Ubuntu's. I happen to use AWN and not either of those other packages. Sure you can add trevino's repo for AWN, but isn't that almost the same as getting qtcurve or smplayer yourself in Fedora? It's a give and take, both have their pluses and minuses. You like Ubuntu, great. It's an excellent distro. I happen to like Fedora, it has what I need. While your statement was correct about repo size, it is misleading... almost any package you want/need can be found for either distribution if you look around.

[Zdravko]

I miss the Ubuntu's community :(

[samwyse]

You like Ubuntu, great. It's an excellent distro. I happen to like Fedora, it has what I need. While your statement was correct about repo size, it is misleading... almost any package you want/need can be found for either distribution if you look around.

I tend to nitpick about stuff. The reason why I'm testing Fedora again is because I'm a bit bored with Kubuntu and I don't really care for Ubuntu's image and hype.

[samwyse]

So I replaced Kubuntu with Fedora (KDE). Downloading 195 updates currently. I couldn't log in using my old homedir (I did chown it). I decided to move the whole dir to another location and copy only some of the important stuff to the new home.

edit: I decided to reinstall Kubuntu.

[jespdj]

I installed Fedora 8 (64-bit) on my desktop PC a few days ago. At first sight, apart from the theme, there's only very little difference between Ubuntu 7.10 and Fedora 8. Some differences that I noted:

Fedora 8 contains newer versions of the Linux kernel and of ALSA (the sound system).
The graphical boot screen looks very nice, and I like the blue theme of Fedora better than Ubuntu's brown theme.
It has PulseAudio (http://www.pulseaudio.org/) (which is to be included in Ubuntu 8.04).
You don't use sudo for administrative tasks; instead, at installation you have to set a password for the root user, and you login as root to do administrative tasks.
Fedora is by default configured with LVM (http://www.redhat.com/magazine/009jul05/features/lvm2/).

[pbpersson]

I still have Fedora running here on one of my machines. I think it looks nice and seems rock solid, but I don't like the package management.

I think Kubuntu is so much easier - if I tell it to install something, it says "I am upgrading these packages for you and also installing these other things you need" and I say sure.....whatever

In Fedora it gives me a whole screen of things to do: YOU need to update these packages and install these other ones

I'm like......if you know what needs to be done, JUST DO IT

I think I put all these package names into a text file, then used Synaptic to find them and install them to get Fedora happy.

I was going to install Fedora on another machine but decided it was way too much work.

My Kubuntu machine here can play Quicktime, WMV, AVI, MP3, Realvideo...it does everything I want it to do. Getting that all working in Fedora I think would be a nightmare.

Now I compare everything against Ubuntu/Kubuntu and Fedora is too difficult, IMO.

[RebounD11]

Synaptic never worked well with Fedora for me... Yumex is better... And Fedora never told me I had to install sth unless it wasn't in the repos.. which I think Ubuntu does too.

I find Fedora a little ahead of Ubuntu, but also a little stricter about non-open-source stuff... for that there is the livna repo (and then it becomes a lot easier to get codecs and drivers). It's a little faster and for me a little easier to maintain, although I enjoy RPM based distros more then Debian-based ones.

[igknighted]

I still have Fedora running here on one of my machines. I think it looks nice and seems rock solid, but I don't like the package management.

I think Kubuntu is so much easier - if I tell it to install something, it says "I am upgrading these packages for you and also installing these other things you need" and I say sure.....whatever

In Fedora it gives me a whole screen of things to do: YOU need to update these packages and install these other ones

I'm like......if you know what needs to be done, JUST DO IT

I think I put all these package names into a text file, then used Synaptic to find them and install them to get Fedora happy.

I was going to install Fedora on another machine but decided it was way too much work.

My Kubuntu machine here can play Quicktime, WMV, AVI, MP3, Realvideo...it does everything I want it to do. Getting that all working in Fedora I think would be a nightmare.

Now I compare everything against Ubuntu/Kubuntu and Fedora is too difficult, IMO.

The default in Fedora is to tell you what is being done. It's a philosophy thing that I'll get to later. If you don't want to get asked, use "yum -y update" or "yum -y install" to say yes to every prompt.

Getting quicktime, wmv, etc. in Fedora is a piece of cake, no text files or anything. You don't need to leave the GUI. Just download and double click the Livna rpm (rpm.livna.org) for your version of Fedora, then open your package manager (yumex is preferable) and install away (same packages as Ubuntu... gstreamer-plugins-bad/ugly, libdvdcss, etc.). The only one that is mildly tricky is the win32-codecs, but there are great how-to's out there.

Fedora is in some ways "more difficult", but as I said before it is a philosophy thing. The distro is more comparable to Debian than Ubuntu is their free software only stance (you wont see non-free stuff like madwifi ever included), and is aimed at being on the forefront of new technology. It is not a distro for people new to linux, but if you know your way around then it is by no means difficult or more time consuming. In fact, for those that know their way around it is probably quicker because the OS doesn't try to do everything for you.

If you don't believe me, go to fedoraforums.org and say you are new to linux... many will probably point you here because it is simply not a distribution aimed at new users, and we don't pretend to be. So if your comparison is how hard it is to install non-free codecs, then yeah, fedora is probably harder. But if you want to customize your init scripts to quicken boot time, I can almost assure you that the system-config-services tool in Fedora is going to save you a ton of time instead of fighting the way Ubuntu wants to do it.

[Marc Hoffman]

I actually found fedora easier for multimedia and is the only distro I have been able to listen to BBC Radio 2 on via their web player

[explemonk]

Thought I'd bump this thread with my thoughts:

I began my switch to Linux almost exactly a year ago. My first install was Ubuntu Feisty Alpha 5 (which seems funny to me now, a total desktop Linux newbie installing an alpha. I think it's because I couldn't get Edgy to boot on my laptop). I've checked out the live CDs of several distros (Fedora, sidux, Zenwalk, some others), and installed a few (Ubuntu Feisty/Gutsy, Fedora 7, openSUSE 10.2, Arch).

I run Kubuntu Gutsy at home. I ran Ubuntu Feisty and Fedora 7 for a couple of months before I decided to switch from Gnome to KDE, and while I liked Ubuntu, I really liked Fedora. If I still used Gnome, I would absolutely be using Fedora right now. I think that Ubuntu's KDE packaging is a lot better than Fedora's, and I really like the Ubuntu community, and thus the choice for Kubuntu. Also, Kubuntu 8.04 will still give me the option to use KDE 3.5; Fedora 9 will use KDE 4, which I have been testing on an Arch install on a box at work, and I am not ready to use it yet. I hope that KDE 4.1 will be the one for me. My wife's machine runs Ubuntu Gutsy.

However, the thing I really miss about Windows is the ability to grab the latest version of a program I run and install it immediately, without having to either wait for it to be included in the distribution repos, waiting for someone else to make a package (and hope that the package works), or compile it myself. I really like to live on the bleeding edge, I guess.

I found Arch, tried it, thought it was too hard to get set up initially, and left it alone. A few months later I tried it again, and got it working to the point where I now triple-boot on my work laptop, primarily using Arch and also occasionally using Kubuntu and Vista. The two things that I absolutely love about Arch are the rolling release system and KDEmod. The Arch User Repository is really cool, too. Arch has some downsides, but overall it seems to be the best distro for me right now.

While not as immediately up-to-date as Arch, for me Fedora provides a good balance of being up-to-date and stable, and usually provides updated versions of the packages I care about relatively quickly. For me, the one huge con of Ubuntu is that generally only security updates are released between major versions. The backports repo gets some of the packages I use, but not enough. I understand the reasoning for the way Ubuntu does things, and I think it's great; it's just not my preferred way.

If a KDEmod existed for Fedora, I would be all over it, while still using (K)ubuntu now and again. I don't know what the point of my post is but to say that I really like Fedora and hope that it continues to be an awesome distro.

[Zdravko]

I throw away Fedora. Hardy heron is here soon...

[Antman]

I throw away Fedora. Hardy heron is here soon...

I actually like both distros, but prefer Fedora. Once they are both final and I can fully test the ATI & Nvidia drivers on my desktop and laptops, I will have a better idea about which one I will stick with.

[PriceChild]

Didn't see that one coming 8-)

[dca]

Fedora kernels are pre-compiled w/ 4k stacks which causes nightmares (either kernel comp or install new one) for wireless devices requiring certain MadWifi packages or ndiswrapper/Windows drivers... I'm not (IMHO) much for distro(s) that increase the chance of breakage w/ their updates: kernel updates, newer beta vers of known-working apps, etc. I love the project as a whole (dollars to donuts they are the people who have introduced newer and better technology) but the update thing is merely a way for RH to differentiate themselves even further from Fedora. Let's face it, if that was the case just run Fedora on your enterprise systems versus paying for the RH vers.

[igknighted]

Fedora kernels are pre-compiled w/ 4k stacks which causes nightmares (either kernel comp or install new one) for wireless devices requiring certain MadWifi packages or ndiswrapper/Windows drivers... I'm not (IMHO) much for distro(s) that increase the chance of breakage w/ their updates: kernel updates, newer beta vers of known-working apps, etc. I love the project as a whole (dollars to donuts they are the people who have introduced newer and better technology) but the update thing is merely a way for RH to differentiate themselves even further from Fedora. Let's face it, if that was the case just run Fedora on your enterprise systems versus paying for the RH vers.

I MIGHT buy this argument... if it wasn't for CentOS. With CentOS you get (essentially) identical binaries to RHEL, compiled from the SRPMs. Fedora is a way for Red Hat to push out new technology. Think of it more like Debian Testing, which more users seem to use than the current stable release. Personally, I use Fedora because I like getting updates from upstream in mid release. Is it right for everyone? Nope. Clearly there are users (like yourself) who are looking for something else. There is no way one distro could ever satisfy everyone, though, so each has it's own niche. And Fedora fills its well.

[karellen]

I really like Fedora, it's hard to say exactly why, but that's the whole beauty. there is little reason in that, it's much more like a feeling. I'm aware that certain things are not as easy as in Ubuntu (enabling restricted formats, for example) but this doesn't change my liking. Fedora Core 4 was my first contact with Gnome (I've previously used suse 9.2 for quite some time before trying other distros) and since then I fell in love and I sticked with Gnome :). I've used FC5, 7 and 8, skipping 6. so - choosing a distro it's not a very rational thing for me, but I guess I'm ok with that

[dca]

I MIGHT buy this argument... if it wasn't for CentOS. With CentOS you get (essentially) identical binaries to RHEL, compiled from the SRPMs. Fedora is a way for Red Hat to push out new technology. Think of it more like Debian Testing, which more users seem to use than the current stable release. Personally, I use Fedora because I like getting updates from upstream in mid release. Is it right for everyone? Nope. Clearly there are users (like yourself) who are looking for something else. There is no way one distro could ever satisfy everyone, though, so each has it's own niche. And Fedora fills its well.

Indeed, I apologize, I never try and criticize or troll a distro because let's face it, I don't care which one it is it still takes a heck of a lot of work to release it. The thing that gets me is this seems to be the norm for companies pushing an enterprise product (RH & Novell). They might as well put disclaimers on each project site indicating that this distro is not suitable to run on anything but a suitcase, toaster, or clothes hamper when simply that's not the case. Too much effort is going into pusing the 'for fee' offerings. I hope down the road, they'll realize that putting out the best product is what's important, and perhaps if the ENTIRE community is actually doing the beta testing and bug reporting perhaps the nicer thing to do is release the enterprise or hardened version w/ the same philosophy as Canonical/Ubuntu. Although, I'm thinking Mandriva is the one to watch, I see them hopefully being purchased by a larger organization that can really move them up to (or back to) the next level...