ooagentbender
04-29-2006, 10:08 PM
First and foremost, you may be looking for different things in a linux distribution but heres my take on the two distributions.
Installation:
Fedora wins for the niceness of their installer, anaconda, but the Ubuntu installer was just as easy to use and worked just as well. If I had to choose one I would go with Fedora's installer, especially if I were new to Linux.
It seems a little odd to me, considering how polished Dapper is otherwise, that they are still using an ncurses installer, but it made little difference to me.
Post Install Configuration:
After using Fedora for about 3 weeks I was still trying to iron out problems with dependencies using yum and rpm's, and long before that I had to tool around with SELinux to let me use nvidia's driver for my video card. In my opinion this is good from a security standpoint, disallowing binary only drivers by default, but at the same time the installer should see that I have an card requiring such a driver and disable that feature of SELinux automatically.
Furthermore trying to get the MPICH libraries set up was a huge pain, where as with Dapper I simply installed the package and mpirun was there and ready to go. Though I have to say I still don't understand why you have to install basic building components after the install with Ubuntu (oh well it took me 3 seconds anyway).
Both distros required work, but after installing Dapper last night it took me all of an hour to get EVERYTHING I need for work and play installed and running. And It all works flawlessly. That to me is amazing. Fedora runs just as well once you get it setup properly but that process can be long and arduous.
Look and Feel:
I would say that they are both on equal footing here. I really liked Fedora's new theme with the bubbles and whatnot (though I know many people don't agree), but Ubuntu's icon set and better theme integration make up for that with ease.
One thing I will point out is that I HATE brown, but I am leaving Ubuntu's default theme. Why? Because its so damn pretty and all the widgets are integrated so nicely and work so well together I don't want to disturb them. Its like those deserts you get at 50 dollar a plate restaurants, you don't want to eat it because its so well organized and it took so much work.
Overall Usability:
Fedora loses horribly, nice try with yum and your hardware detection.
Ubuntu, better than windows and mac with Dapper and it's beta.
Final Conclusion:
I was going to start this thread as a way to simply point out how much I like Ubuntu but I wanted people to understand just how much better it is than what people are using right now, and like I said its still beta. I really get the feeling that this is the best distro out there for anything you want to do (mind you I haven't used virtualization, so Fedora may win on that account) and it JUST WORKS.
The people at Ubuntu are doing something truly amazing.
God Bless
Installation:
Fedora wins for the niceness of their installer, anaconda, but the Ubuntu installer was just as easy to use and worked just as well. If I had to choose one I would go with Fedora's installer, especially if I were new to Linux.
It seems a little odd to me, considering how polished Dapper is otherwise, that they are still using an ncurses installer, but it made little difference to me.
Post Install Configuration:
After using Fedora for about 3 weeks I was still trying to iron out problems with dependencies using yum and rpm's, and long before that I had to tool around with SELinux to let me use nvidia's driver for my video card. In my opinion this is good from a security standpoint, disallowing binary only drivers by default, but at the same time the installer should see that I have an card requiring such a driver and disable that feature of SELinux automatically.
Furthermore trying to get the MPICH libraries set up was a huge pain, where as with Dapper I simply installed the package and mpirun was there and ready to go. Though I have to say I still don't understand why you have to install basic building components after the install with Ubuntu (oh well it took me 3 seconds anyway).
Both distros required work, but after installing Dapper last night it took me all of an hour to get EVERYTHING I need for work and play installed and running. And It all works flawlessly. That to me is amazing. Fedora runs just as well once you get it setup properly but that process can be long and arduous.
Look and Feel:
I would say that they are both on equal footing here. I really liked Fedora's new theme with the bubbles and whatnot (though I know many people don't agree), but Ubuntu's icon set and better theme integration make up for that with ease.
One thing I will point out is that I HATE brown, but I am leaving Ubuntu's default theme. Why? Because its so damn pretty and all the widgets are integrated so nicely and work so well together I don't want to disturb them. Its like those deserts you get at 50 dollar a plate restaurants, you don't want to eat it because its so well organized and it took so much work.
Overall Usability:
Fedora loses horribly, nice try with yum and your hardware detection.
Ubuntu, better than windows and mac with Dapper and it's beta.
Final Conclusion:
I was going to start this thread as a way to simply point out how much I like Ubuntu but I wanted people to understand just how much better it is than what people are using right now, and like I said its still beta. I really get the feeling that this is the best distro out there for anything you want to do (mind you I haven't used virtualization, so Fedora may win on that account) and it JUST WORKS.
The people at Ubuntu are doing something truly amazing.
God Bless