I’ve been a long time user of Red Hat, then subsequently Fedora (Core) when Red Hat decided to fork out the distribution. It’s no different at work because I got to choose which Linux distribution. More recently, we started to move to CentOS, which still has Red Hat in its roots (it’s the open source version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux). I’ve had my share of problems with Red Hat/Fedora, and I have my complaints. So, how about something new? That something that came to my mind was Ubuntu. It has received good reviews, and a friend has shared his happy experience with it.
So the big research began. It’s a difficult choice. My short conclusion is that Ubuntu is for average computer users, possibly new to Linux, is easy to setup, easy to use, and fits well for typical end-user needs. Fedora is a venerable long-tested Linux distribution, full of power stuffs, will appeal to power users. Hmm. I want both. Problem.
Ok, so in the end, my not so scientific basis of selection reasoned that:
- The Ubuntu 9.10 distribution fits in one CDROM. Fedora 12 requires 3.3GB of a DVD. Surely Fedora must pack a lot more things in the installation media. I don’t want to install a brand new Linux on my system and then find myself having to download the Internet to get all the packages I need/want.
- I’m familiar with Fedora. Maybe all the end-user niceties of Ubuntu aren’t terribly important to me after all.
Thus, Fedora won, and I went on to install Fedora 12.
It’s sad, but my Fedora installation still met with various problems. The first-boot failed to boot. The Software Update program crashed while trying to update the system with 520 new packages. I’ve already ranted about it.
A nice little thing that I noticed was that during installation, there was no longer a “time remaining” indicator. I say it’s “nice” because in the past when there was such a timer, it greatly misled everyone about truly how much time was remaining. What happens is that when the install starts, it might say 30 minutes remaining, then as the install progresses, it might change to 50 minutes remaining, then maybe 120 minutes remaining, etc. Hey, it is like a “time elapsed” counter rather than a “time remaining” counter. Sometimes I wonder if the label was a bug.
So if anyone came here wondering, Fedora or Ubuntu… I thought to share my experience, but still I don’t think this post helps a lot anyway.
While researching about Ubuntu, I was a little annoyed at having to choose between Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server. Hey, what if I want features of both? But never mind that, I did learn find something interesting with Ubuntu Server – the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. It’s a cloud computing thing that is “compatible” with Amazon Web Services. Sounds cool. I’m now thinking about trying it out.