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Fedora 10 regains Linux fans

blogs.computerworld.com — Red Hat's Fedora is regaining its reputation as being a top Linux distribution. Here's how it happened.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 26, 2009

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  • alexchuck, on 02/26/2009, -5/+42first time I read "Fedora regains 10 Linux fans"
  • Diggnoramus, on 02/26/2009, -2/+28The sex. You're doing it wrong.
  • cheeseron, on 02/26/2009, -1/+23red hat was the first linux i ever used. good to see they're still finding ways to rock
  • L0t3k, on 02/26/2009, -1/+23That depends on what someone means by "average computer user". If it's your grandmother, she doesn't know any other OS, and just needs to do web, email, photos, etc... she's probably better off with a system that will probably never have a problem. That could be what you call "average".

    If you're the average 16 year old that plays PC video games and wants to use very specific software, windows is much better because the things they want to use, specifically, will run on windows. That could be what you call "average".

    If you're the average office drone, you're probably used to the MS Office suite and Outlook against exchange. Some software tries, but nothing replicates this environment exactly (for better or worse). In that case, windows is better. Yet again, that could be what you call "average".

    If you're the IT guy at work, you're probably NOT average, but it wouldn't matter because you can make anything work. In that case, linux is undoubtedly better than windows. You can always run windows inside linux if you have to. Better to use the stable and safe platform as the host and put the ***** one in the guest env.


  • drjones78, on 02/26/2009, -5/+26"RPM hell" hasnt been a problem for 6 or 7 years now (for fedora or RHL).... at least.
  • jlimon, on 02/26/2009, -5/+23Have things changed since the old days of RPM hell?
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -4/+21Damn ***** right it changed. Yum is better than sex now.
  • macewan, on 02/26/2009, -1/+16I remember those days. They were still better than dicking around with tarballs and finding missing dependences after compiling. Geez I hated that.
  • spookyttws, on 02/26/2009, -2/+16People have really stopped wearing Red Hats and especially Red Fedoras. Glad to see this Linux person in bring it back.
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -2/+15Both Fedora and Ubuntu seem pretty good to me.
  • Khast, on 02/26/2009, -2/+15An OS is completely what you make of it, and what you need it to do. All 3 major OSes out there have their pros and cons, and can be better used for certain applications.
  • xylo36, on 02/26/2009, -1/+12I wouldn't say enterprise.That's more redhat or centos. Fedora is bleeding edge.
  • rmflagg, on 02/26/2009, -1/+12"...Fedora is regaining its reputation as being a top Linux distribution." This seems kind of strange to me. When did Fedora stop being a top distribution? As far as I can tell, it never stopped being one of the top 5 distros since it came out!
  • lendrick, on 02/26/2009, -3/+13My mom loves it, and she's about as non-technical is they get. That said, there's no way she could have ever installed it herself, and I'd never recommend that she buy a machine with Linux pre-installed, seeing as official distributions never come with the patent-violating stuff that's necessary to function, like mplayer, and the closed-source stuff that's necessary to function, like Flash and video drivers.

    So, in answer to your question: If the "average user" has a linux expert to set the machine up for them, and they can dual-boot Windows when Linux absolutely can't get the job done, then Linux can be the better OS. But that's a lot of if's. Realistically, most people are better off with Windows or MacOS.
  • Nickolassc, on 02/26/2009, -0/+9You mean the pretty GUI overlayed over a BSD?

    You do know you can get several different BSDs for free right?
  • bjornski, on 02/26/2009, -1/+10Enterprise
  • Nickolassc, on 02/26/2009, -1/+9Professional Use along with Open Suse
  • fuzzybad, on 02/26/2009, -1/+8Same here, started with Red Hat 7 because it came with a book on Linux I bought back in 1999. I used Fedora 1, 2, & 3 but have since moved on to Ubuntu. I can't believe FC is already up to version 10!
  • plr4ever, on 02/26/2009, -5/+12Then what does that make apt-get?
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -1/+8OS X is the best for some people (eg. small children, retards, elderly etc).
  • Swivelstick, on 02/26/2009, -1/+8Yeah it's kinda like going to the car dealers they have to many choices should only be the one hey or beer why so many it's all to confusing so best just to quit and take whatever is handed to me.
  • mineforlife, on 02/26/2009, -1/+7yep, I just use yum and it works great. I think theres only one or two apps that needed RPM so I'm not all that fussed.

    I switched over from Ubuntu to Fedora and no regrets so far!
  • mozert, on 02/26/2009, -3/+9average computer user?
  • fuzzybad, on 02/26/2009, -1/+7Maybe if you enjoy paying $100 to upgrade your OS every year. I'll stick with Ubuntu, thanks.
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -9/+14First time linux user, all these digg posts got to me. I now dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.1. Now I use ubuntu most of the time. In 6 months or so I will ditch XP entirely I think. Ubuntu is so wonderful to look at and use, very elegant and easy to install a duel boot.
  • Otto, on 02/26/2009, -0/+5Package management with Fedora 10 is trivially simple. The Fedora repositories have all the free software you could want, and RPMFusion has combined all the "extra" repositories into one place, so there's no need to deal with the old problems. Just install Fedora, install the RPMFusion rpm (to enable the repo), and install the Livna repository (for libdvdcss, which RPMFusion won't distribute because of its questionable legality in some places), and voila. Virtually every package you need can be installed via yum, with no dependency issues.
  • karikature, on 02/26/2009, -2/+7Is Linux a better OS than Windows for an average computer user?
  • Heywoodj, on 02/26/2009, -1/+6@LOt you hit every bit of the nail on that one.
  • MrViklund, on 02/26/2009, -0/+5ROFL.
    As I always say. Ubuntu - It's all about the hype. Fedora on the other hand, it's real Linux!
  • LiquidSpark, on 02/26/2009, -0/+5Same here. I was on XP till I started using Digg and read a bunch of articles about Linux. I'm still using W7 sometimes though.
  • Heywoodj, on 02/26/2009, -1/+5Dependency Hell....A battle fought and won (mostly).
    The major distros are getting way to good to be ignored by the masses and the hardware manufactures.
    I am hopeful.
  • javaroast, on 02/26/2009, -0/+4Elranzer your information is not correct. I have yum upgraded a box from Fedora 3 up to about Fedora 8. Fedora now includes preupgrade which makes the process even easier. For the yum upgrades it was pretty much downloading a couple small files, running the upgrade and letting yum do the work. There was some cleanup involved after the yum upgrades. But then again take a quick search for Ubuntu upgrade problems and you'll see that isn't necessarily unique to Fedora.

    For preupgrade the process involves launching preupgrade and letting it do the upgrade.
  • 4sak3n0ne, on 02/26/2009, -0/+4I've been using Fedora since 6 as my primary OS. I've tried Ubuntu (which fails, because I have soft-raid), and several other distros to no avail. I always find myself coming back to Fedora? Why? The quality of the product (as others have stated 8 was meh, but we all make mistakes) is great, the look and feel has always suited my tastes (The DNA and Sulpher theme especially), and most importantly the subtle differences compared to Debian-based distros. Red-Hat-based distros seem to match me better. So, before yelling out Fedora sucks, try to take into account that some people have different tastes. Ubuntu is not better than Fedora, nor is Fedora better than Ubuntu...
  • lemur, on 02/26/2009, -3/+7I started using Fedora since Fedora Core 5, and I've managed to stick to it after all these years even after trying several other distros and operating systems. Thanks to Red Hat, Fedora is a well organized and professional system.

    I can say that one of the most difficult things about the system is that since almost everything the system does is managed, if the default configuration doesn't work for you then you have to hack through a jungle of software just to get the system customized for your needs. This is a blessing as well as a curse, since it entails many benefits but can put many users off at the same time. Thankfully, through each progressive release things keep getting better and better, and with maturity the system has gracefully managed to fulfill all of my personal desktop and server needs.
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -0/+3So big...bandwidth...limited....Australia! Sux!
  • hymneforthedead, on 02/26/2009, -0/+3as long as its linux, I personally wouldn't mind slackware.
  • ethana2, on 02/26/2009, -0/+3That's very interesting... Yeah, I dual booted Ubuntu and XP SP2 for a while until I realized that I never actually booted into Windows, so I just wiped it. ..then I bought an Inspiron 1420n from Dell.. and an Inspiron 1525n for my mom.. my sister's laptop is a dual boot where she only uses Ubuntu, and I got a G4 eMac for my grandma and installed Tiger on it..

    If you think it's wonderful to look at now, just wait until kernel mode setting arrives with Karmic.
  • drjones78, on 02/26/2009, -0/+3To install nvidia drivers all you need is the rpmfusion repo enabled... and then use yum to install them. It takes care of the rest.

    Installing the actual drivers as packaged by nvidia is a sure fire way to bork any linux install.
  • Otto, on 02/26/2009, -0/+3You know, I don't see that at all. I tried switching a box to Ubuntu when 8.10 came out, and virtually nothing worked on it. I couldn't get any of the video drivers to work, they didn't have OpenOffice 3.0 yet, lots of missing pieces. I installed Fedora on the same machine, and everything worked and had all the latest up-to-date software.

    Ubuntu lags behind the curve by a few months. It's also hard to find things in for the person who already knows Linux pretty well. Fedora is extreme bleeding edge, has everything, and is simple to use and find stuff in for anybody familiar with server environments. Fedora > Ubuntu for a certain class of user.
  • drjones78, on 02/26/2009, -1/+4akmod packages are what you want... theyve been around for a long time.
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -1/+4I switched to Fedora after Kubuntu updated the menu from KDE 3.5 to 4.1 I run Fedora 10 at work any way for embedded target development and now my home machine echoes my work machine.
    Fedora 10 is WAY nicer than Red Hat 9.0 was.
    I especially like the YUM package manager better.
  • phybere, on 02/26/2009, -1/+4I'm not sure, but I used Gentoo for years before switching to Fedora.
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -1/+4I don't know, either one is better than sex I guess. Except apt-get is not part of Fedora by default if I'm not mistaken.
  • yenster, on 02/26/2009, -0/+2Fedora is considered bleeding edge and is particularly popular with media content producers, thanks to special-interest repositories like Stanford's Planet CCRMA that mesh with Fedora and CentOS:

    http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

    I run my advertising agency on Fedora 9 and 10. We do a lot of graphic design and audio production on Fedora.
  • Elranzer, on 02/26/2009, -0/+2Gentoo is for ricers?
  • inactive, on 02/26/2009, -1/+3Yeah Fedora is still the best for me in a car.
  • Otto, on 02/26/2009, -0/+2Yes, several versions back. Use the preupgrade program. yum install preupgrade; preupgrade.
  • MrViklund, on 02/26/2009, -0/+2Then you should try out Zenwalk Linux. It's a great simple distro, formerly Minislack. Actually my distro of choice right now.
  • ostracize, on 02/26/2009, -1/+3...so I've heard
  • drjones78, on 02/26/2009, -1/+3It's just as easy to get yourself into ".Deb hell" that way as it is RPM.

    If your installing things that arent a packaged by the distribution, you need to learn to do it in ways that don't clobber other things.... putting things /usr/local or /opt is a start...
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