Why Fedora ?

[Bill Perkins]

Vikram Goyal wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Franz <snowhare at nihongo.org>
> Sent: Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 02:23:28PM -0800
> To For users of Fedora Core releases
> Subject: Re: Why Fedora ?
> 
> 
> 
>>On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Mike McCarty wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I disagree with this statement entirely. Fedora Core is not a
>>>>stable release.
>>>
>>>What exactly does that mean?
>>>
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>You want stable, either buy RHEL or migrate to a different distribution 
>>like CentOS, SUSE or Ubuntu.  I *am* a reasonable expert in administering 
>>Linux boxes (I've been running Linux systems since the kernels had 0.9x 
>>versions), and Fedora still bites me hard from time to time.
>>
> 
> 
> I second that. I have been using redhat linux since maybe ver 4 or
> something. At ver 8 redhat distribution had matured to the point that I
> had thought, Ok, now it'll take off in a grand manner. Most of the
> general and mundane creases had been removed, the applications'
> integration was at its best and the whole system had become smooth and a
> good experience.
> 
> Then came fedora with its bag of problems. Most of the users like me
> thought , ok, maybe in one or two release it will also reach the same
> level of comfort as redhat 8, 9. But that never happened. Rather the
> most inoovative applications integrations were done away with odd
> desktop user interface.
> 
> One good example is file browser. In 8,9 ver one could do almost all
> acts in the same browser window. There was preferences tab with all the
> nitty-gritty settings which a user might want to tweak. The comfort
> level was great. Then came nautilus. File browser was put in the
> system-tools. Its preferences tab removed. Now for each setting one has
> to click Desktop -> Preferences -> the particular preference, which in
> my opinion sucks. This is only one example, and there are numerous. Old
> users know and can pin point such things. But I think they just took the
> whole thing in their stride and since were more proficient in using
> linux, ithey just side stepped these problems with changes in their
> usage habits.
> 
> The point I want to make is that we have gone into a cycle of some level
> of applications integration, then some quirk destroys that integration
> and a new interface is introduces, some new policies render quite few
> applications unfit for the next release and we are back to some earlier
> point of integration where apps don't interact well with each other or
> new quirks render them almost useless
> The users unlearn and then try to relearn the system usage which sucks
> the interest and resources of people.
> 
> 

Wow, I didn't realize there were all these issues; I've been using FC4 
since September, maybe I've gotten lucky with my 1GHz Pentium III. 
Anyway, my understanding is that Fedora is more of a "bleeding edge" 
distro, a developer's distro, as opposed to a "production" distro, like 
Slackware, RH Enterprise, or any of the *BSDs (yes, I've used them all 
at one time or another.) Point being, if Fedora works on your system(s), 
by all means, use it. If you can take the time to fix what breaks, more 
power to you. Linux is about _choice_- you don't have to do all the 
upgrades all the time, staying on the bleeding edge; you can "freeze" 
the system, except for security updates, you can use a file manager 
other than Nautilus, and you can use a desktop different than Gnome 
(which I happen to like well enough, I also like Windowmaker.) Just my 
$0.02...

-- 
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"The two most common things in the	| Bill Perkins
  universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity."	| perk at iag.net
					| programmer-at-large
		F. Zappa		| ALL assembly languages done here.
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