I probably should stay out of this... But...
On Tue, 2008-11-04 at 11:17 -0800, Alex Makhlin wrote:
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Armin Moradi wrote:
Is this turning into a religious war?
Nope - just trying to point out that there is no correct answer to
the OPs question. It depends on too many factors for the answer to
be the same in all situations. The OP has not given us enough
information to even take a guess on what would be best for him.
Mikkel
My original question was based on the fact that Ubuntu is used on
either pre installed Linux systems and on what they call "Linux
friendly" computers which Ubuntu is recommended for. So my question is
why did they choose Ubuntu? What makes it so special? I personally
like Fedora far better for my own personal reasons. I don't even touch
my Vista Ultimate 64 partition any more. But again, why is the
mainstream market choosing Ubuntu?
IMHO (take it for what it's worth)...
Fedora has been accused of being "Beta", which is very wrong. It's not
beta at all but it is EA. But it's not EA in the sense of "Early
Availability", which you see from a lot of commercial outfits like Sun.
It's more EA as in "Early Adopters" where we get more of the newest
toots and whistles, whether they're fully baked and prime time or not.
It's really for people who are not afraid to climb under the hood (to
get back to the auto analogy) and tinker and tune, if you have to or if
you want to (as oppose to some distributions where you don't have a
choice).
Ubuntu, OTOH, is really geared for the "non-gearheads". You might not
see as many toots and whistles (but I'm really impressed with what I do
see) but it will have a lot more than RHEL (which is more server
oriented) and it will be pretty darn stable and supported over a much
longer life cycle (big support pluses).
Fedora is stable but does still pop enough surprises on me that I would
not recommend it to my non-techie friends (and only some of my
techie-friends, depending on their talent and predisposition to pester
me). I would (and do) recommend Ubuntu in a heartbeat. I have an old
high school friend who is a school bus driver who was given some old
machines. Would I plague her with Fedora and have her figure out what
went wrong when something goes bump and I don't know what hardware she
has in the bucket? I don't think so. I'm installing Ubuntu on a
machine right now for my daughter and wouldn't hesitate to do the same
for either of my grandsons. I don't think I would give them Fedora.
Certainly not F10 or F9. I'm a little less hesitant about F8, but
that's already nearing its end of life with F10 coming out. That's not
the cycle I want any of them on, upgrading their machines every 6-12
months or be SOL on updates. Nope, wrong answer. Right answer for me,
wrong answer for them. My son on the other hand is just as proficient
as I am and keeps a stable of various Fedora systems and servers
running.
I work on Fedora, I use Fedora, I debug Fedora and I develop for
Fedora. But I would not recommended for others who are not into the
same level or interest of techie and geeky stuff that I'm into.
Oh, and there are a LOT more distributions I use. I found another
threat about a forensic Fedora distribution amusing when we have already
NST (Network Security TookKit) which is a forensic toolkit CD based on
(now) Fedora 8. I use that extensively and have forensic CD's
preinstalled in all my remote servers with serial consoles. Different
distribution, different purpose, different target audience. I've also
used Knoppix and Slackware where they fit the job. One size does NOT
fit all.
A hammer will drive a screwdriver but it doesn't make you a carpenter
(usually expressed "when all you have is a hammer, all problems start
looking like nails"). When ever someone asks "is this better or is that
better" the answer is generally "yes" and then "no" and then "it depends
on what you want to use it for - define your conditions". And I will
stand on that for this as well. Which is better? Both and neither.
Depending upon purpose and conditions or circumstances one can argue
each is better and one can argue that neither are appropriate (I would
use neither in the forensic case).
Mike
Hi and thank you for your clear answer,